Stephen Curry might be the only ‘Unanimous MVP’ in NBA history, but LeBron James came extremely close on 3 occasions

The Most Valuable Player award is arguably the most coveted individual honour available to an NBA player and Stephen Curry has a unanimous one.

The award is given to the player selected as the best performer of the regular season every year. Performance in MVP voting is widely considered a metric to evaluate a player’s performance and career.

The award winner is selected by a distinguished panel of sportswriters and broadcasters from USA and Canada. Therefore, there is often much discussion about whether the media narrative surrounding a player is crucial in the determination of the winner.

MVP voting shares are used to determine how dominant a player’s season was, among the MVP candidates. MVP voting shares essentially represent the percentage of first-place MVP votes a candidate got from the total set of voters.

Also read: Penny Hardaway robbed Michael Jordan of accomplishing Stephen’s Curry MVP milestone before him

Therefore a 100% or a unanimous vote, also considered the 1.000 MVP share, is the highest possible individual accolade for a basketball player. And, the list of players to attain the honor are Stephen Curry, and no one else.

However, it isn’t that no one has come close to attaining the feat. In fact, someone did on multiple instances – The King – LeBron James.

Stephen Curry might have won the Unanimous MVP once but LeBron James was close to winning it thrice

The average NBA MVP gets around 80% of first-place MVP votes in a particular year. This suggests that in almost all seasons, there is most likely a standout candidate in the eyes of the voters.

Shaquille O’Neal had a very public unanimous MVP snub where he was short by one vote. However, what not a lot of people know, is that James has also been on the receiving end of such treatment.

In his 2013 MVP season, LeBron James got 120/121 first-place votes. A la Shaq, Bron too fell short of being the first unanimous MVP by a singular voter’s digression from the norm.

What is more surprising is how Bron was close to attaining the unanimous MVP honour on two other occasions. 2009 saw LeBron claim his first MVP title. In his first instance of getting his hands on the silverware itself, LeBron almost wrote history. Bron amassed 96.9% of first-place MVP votes on his first attempt.

The immediate next season, Bron one-upped himself. This time, LeBron James took home 98% of first-place MVP votes along with the Maurice Podoloff trophy. Again a nearly, yet not quite campaign.

Regardless, there is still only one unanimous MVP in NBA history. And he did it in lesser attempts. While it is no metric of overall careers, it is tough to deny Steph the flowers for his epic 2016 MVP run.

Thrice unlucky, can LeBron make another go at 38?

Also read: “LeBron James would be dumb not to pick me”: Stephen Curry on $1 billion LBJ wanting to team up