LeBron James' Celebrity Status Shadows Kevin Durant's MVP Caliber Season

Turn on ESPN and watch any analyst talk about the NBA MVP race for more than 30 seconds and you're likely to hear LeBron James' name mentioned about 74 times. 

Better yet, ask any casual basketball fan who the MVP should be and odds are you'll hear people gushing over King James and his talents; you may be lucky enough to encounter one of those special fans who believes that James has already surpassed the great Michael Jordan.

LeBron's praise is well deserved.  He currently leads the NBA in scoring and averages over seven rebounds and eight assists per game on a team that has the best record in the entire league. The problem is, while he will likely win the award with a nearly unanimous vote, he is not this year's NBA MVP.

The person who deserves this title is a kid who is barely old enough to drink and who has been dubbed "Durantula" by the sporting world, Kevin Durant.  The 6' 9" forward for the Oklahoma City Thunder has been electric all season long.  

Trailing LeBron by less than half of a point in points per game, Durant has averaged better from behind the three-point stripe than LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony. He has also shot a much higher percentage from the foul line than any of these players. 

Durant does get the job done on offense alone but he has also out-rebounded each one of the aforementioned opposing MVP candidates.  Durant averages one block per game, the same as James, just one tenth of a point lower than Wade's average and more than Bryant and Anthony.

The only place that his game really lacks statistically when compared to the others is in assists.

However, the most outstanding statistic does not come from a stat-sheet.  Durant's Thunder finished the 2008-2009 NBA season with the forth worst record in league, 23-59; making him the only current MVP candidate to finish last season out of the playoff race. 

Every other MVP candidate entered the season with a playoff-caliber team around them and championship aspirations.

Durant picked the Thunder up on his shoulders and made them a playoff team with a streak of 29 consecutive games with 25 points or more.

This marked the longest such streak since Michael Jordan’s 40 consecutive 25 point games in the 1986-1987 season and passed Allen Iverson’s 2001 streak by one game, no active player has a longer streak.

With everything Durant has accomplished this season, the biggest thing holding him back in the MVP race is the celebrity of LeBron James.  Durant trails James in endorsements more than he does in any other area of his game.

With James’ puppet commercials for Nike and his high profile friendships with people like and Jay-Z, James finds a way to stay in the public eye as much as he can; case in point is his appearance with Dr. Dre in ESPN’s pre-game coverage of the Boston Red Sox season opener against the New York Yankees.

Kevin Durant has a few games left to win the NBA’s scoring title over LeBron James with whom he has played a season-long game of leap frog for the points lead.  Whether or not he wins that title, his successful season will give him the notoriety to have a legitimate run at next season’s MVP award, the award that he deserves this season