Individual accolades in the NBA and their voting criteria have been a bone of contention for several players. In his recent interaction on ‘The Shop’ podcast, LeBron James delved into this and revealed his honest opinion on the NBA awards and the voting process built around it. For him, the biggest flaw in the system is voters who don’t watch the game.
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James stated that voters, usually consisting of sportswriters and broadcasters, often don’t interact with athletes, even missing out on peers’ perspectives on a particular player. Talking about the situation further, LBJ said,
“Why you voting if you’re not watching the game? You not studying the game. You’re not listening to the peers of the game..”
James’ comments raised further questions for the King, as guests on the show wanted to know what he thought about the 65-game minimum requirement for the MVP award. While he didn’t seem to agree with the current criteria of the award, he was candid about the realities of being a star in the NBA, telling the co-host Maverick Carter,
“We for sure know that the guy that played 64 games and maybe got injured and didn’t meet the 65 game criteria, he loses it cause he got hurt.”
For LeBron, the current system breathes inauthenticity, as fans can often tell when a player is actually deserving of an award. In his view, the current system seeks to outsmart its viewers, a strategy he doesn’t find wise. James even likened the situation of voters deciding the awards to a rap artist winning a Grammy.
Travis Scott, who was also the guest on the podcast, agreed that these awards, much like Grammy, don’t hold importance for someone who is there to create an impact. Not just LeBron, but Gilbert Arenas also did not seem happy about the voters’ deciding the MVP winner.
Gilbert Arenas calls out voters for handing Jokic two MVPs
The criteria for winning the coveted MVP award still remain a mystery. While some claim to have it down to a science, others claim that voters often follow trends, voting for whoever the media pushes for. While we might never know the truth, Gilbert Arenas is sure that the voters have been getting it wrong for a long time now.
Taking to the show, ‘Night Cap’, Arenas told his co-host, NFL legend Shannon Sharpe that the voters are completely responsible for the faulty system, even questioning their decision of handing Nikola Jokic two MVPs. As per him, Jokic should never have won the award,
“Jokic is probably, statistically, when it comes to the overall game, the worst MVP winner. He’s the worst MVP winner in the last 40 years,”
While Arenas’s take is a little extreme, his take has some validity. Team success is a key factor in winning the award, something Arenas found missing in both of Jokic’s MVP campaigns. Though he was hard on the Joker, the former All-Star did admit that the Nuggets Center deserved to get the MVP award last year, choosing the Joker over Embiid.
