With the NBA announcing on Friday that Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo is this year's MVP, the 25-year-old became just the third player to win MVP and the Defensive Player of the Year award in the same year He joined Chicago's Michael Jordan and Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon in this historic feat. If you ask LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers, though, he believes that he should have also made that list.
LeBron went into detail as to why he thinks he should have also won DPOY during his MVP year in 2013. According to LeBron, he does not understand how Marc Gasol won that award, while being voted into the All-Defensive second team:
“The voting scale is a little weird to me sometimes,” James said, via Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints. “I mean if you take 2012 — if you just stick with me here — 2012-13, I had a chance to be Defensive Player of the Year and also MVP on the same season. And that year Marc Gasol was rewarded as Defensive Player of the Year. But he made second-team All-Defense.”
LeBron gives more examples on questionable NBA Award voting and adds he’s not sure if voting has become more narrative based – “Did you see the votes that Devonte Graham got [for Most Improved]? He averaged 4 points last year compared to 17.5. If that’s not improving, what is?” pic.twitter.com/nar5R6tndR
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) September 19, 2020
For the record, it was actually Tyson Chandler and Joakim Noah who were voted into the first team that year. They tied for the top votes at the center position, which means that Gasol only came in third.
James admitted that that development pretty much had him jaded since:
“That's when I really started to look at things a little bit differently,” he said. “I was like, ‘how does that even make any sense?'”
He did not stop there. LeBron went on to suggest how the voting seems to put so much more emphasis on the narrative, as opposed to what a player is actually doing on the basketball court:
“It's a weird thing sometimes. I don't know how much we are really watching the game of basketball or we're just in the,” he said, pausing for a few seconds to carefully choose his words, “narration mode — the narrative.”
That's some very strong words from LeBron James, who is clearly unhappy about the manner by which Giannis was awarded the MVP in a landslide vote.
Follow Us
Subscribe