LeBron James was playing his best basketball of the season when the coronavirus pandemic put the NBA schedule on hold and the Los Angeles Lakers still had 19 games to play.
With the NBA restarting in Orlando, Florida, next week with 22 teams instead of the 30, the league determined that voters for its season awards should consider only games played until March 11 to choose the winners.
In other words: pencils down, test time is up. James won’t have a chance to continue defending what would be his fifth MVP trophy, if he wins it for 2019-20.
The Lakers star said Monday that he agrees with that.
“I am not disappointed that things happen,” said James. “You control what you can control, and I cannot control that. As for the MVP career, I think I have shown what I am capable of doing. Not only individually but from a team perspective, we are No. 1 in the West “.
The Lakers’ place in the Western Conference standings is a particular pride for James. He spent the first 15 seasons of his career playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat – Eastern Conference teams – before coming to LA
“There was a lot of talk about ‘LeBron can do those things in the East, but if he ever came to the West, what could he do?'” James said with a satisfied smile. “So I heard all of that. Being able to have our team at the top of the Western Conference and play the way we played at the time and the way I played, is definitely a good feeling.”
James averaged 25.7 points and 10.6 assists per game in the league at the time of the NBA layoff, making him the sixth player in NBA history to average at least 25 points and 10 assists per game in the same season. .
He is also the oldest player in history, at 35, to lead the league in assists for the first time in his career, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. And his scoring average is the second-highest for a player in his seventeenth season, behind only Kobe Bryant’s 27.3 points per game in 2012-13.
James said he was not aware of the voting provision until a journalist asked him about it on Monday. On Saturday, Lakers coach Frank Vogel backed James to win the MVP, citing his pre-hiatus performance.
In the 10 Los Angeles games after the All-Star break, James averaged 30 points on 55% shooting (37% of 3) to go with 9.4 assists and 8.2 rebounds per game. The Lakers went 8-2, including wins over the Boston Celtics, LA Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks, led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, the reigning MVP in the league and the favorite to win it again this year.
Antetokounmpo, 25, averaged 29.6 points on 54.7% shooting (30.6% of 3), 13.7 rebounds and 5.8 assists before the season was suspended. Milwaukee also beat the Lakers for the best record in the league, with a record of 53-12, while LA was 49-14.
“I think those awards are always great this time of year, to recognize people who have had great years,” said James. “Not only from a player’s perspective but also from a coach’s perspective. So we’ll see what happens.”
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