When it was announced that Stephen Curry had become the first unanimous Most Valuable Player award winner, LeBron James was quick to give credit towards the Golden State Warriors guard.
However, semantics came into play and James took to the word “valuable”, igniting conversations all throughout. He has a valid argument. Take Curry and James out of the equation for their respective teams and what do they got?
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The Warriors have fared considerably better than the Cavaliers in this condition, which only magnifies the importance of James to the Cavs. Beyond the numbers, the four-time Most Valuable Player’s value to goes beyond what Curry offers to the Warriors.
In an appearance at the Jim Rome Show, Cavs GM David Griffin harped about the value of LeBron James to their team.
I would have said that Michael Jordan was the MVP every year of his prime, and I would tell you that LeBron is as well. If ‘V’ is valuable, I don’t see any way that there’s a player that means more to our league or to his individual team than LeBron does or than Michael did. But I certainly think the seasons that Steph has put together are historically good. He’s a player that has taken a team to an unprecedented record and a championship, and he deserves all the accolades he gets, but in terms of value to a league, I think LeBron is the face of this league just as Michael Jordan was.
I think so just in terms of the word ‘value,’ and again, we can get into a semantics question there, but I think if we’re really talking about who’s carrying a franchise and a league, I think LeBron does that, and our record without LeBron on the floor is not terribly good. He’s a guy who transcends every analytic metric you could ever use.
Again, there is no need to discredit Stephen Curry’s historical season. The stats, wins, and overall impact speak for his case. But on the other hand, LeBron James’ value to the Cavs holds much more weight than anyone else’s, not just Curry, in the league.
