NBA MVP 2012: Kevin Durant Will Swipe Award from LeBron James' Grasp
Miami Heat star LeBron James and Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant are in as close of a battle for the NBA’s MVP award that we’ve seen in sometime.
While every other player and coach in the NBA has their eyes set on the postseason, James and Durant still have a chance to put an exclamation point on what has certainly been an MVP season from both superstars.
Who’s the rightful MVP?
There’s no wrong answer in this debate as either guy is worthy, but the vote promises to be close and in the end Durant could ultimately end up snatching the award away from LeBron.
For all the LeBron lovers, that’s no knock on James, but simply the opinion that Durant will win the award when it’s all said and done.
Their numbers are certainly comparable:
James
26.9 PPG
8.0 RPG
6.0 APG
.528 field goal percentage
Durant
27.8 PPG
7.9 RPG
3.5 APG
.503 field goal percentage
You can pick either guy based on their stats and be correct, but this is a what have you done for me lately type of league and Durant has the advantage in that aspect.
Despite the fantastic season from James, the Heat are a mere 15-10 since the All-Star break, proving to be nothing more than an average team since the beginning of March. LeBron has been fantastic in April, but didn’t close March very well, averaging only 19.6 PPG while shooting only 43 percent from the floor during a seven game stretch.
While that doesn’t mean much, James doesn’t have anything to play for the rest of the season. The Heat are pretty much locked into the No. 2 seed and nothing he does the rest of the way will impact anything on the Miami season.
Durant, on the other hand, hasn’t experienced any shooting slumps throughout the season, scoring under 20 points in a game only five times on the year—James has done it 12 times.
He’s also been a guy that’s had more MVP-type moments throughout the season. Fair or not fair, the criticism of LeBron’s play late in games could impact the voting. Durant doesn’t have to worry about that as he’s been able to put the Thunder on his back in tight games on several occasions this season and come up big.
Quite frankly Durant’s just made more of an impact throughout the course of the season.
He also has the opportunity to make an impact down the stretch as Oklahoma City will play meaningful games the rest of the way, as they are still trying to hold off the San Antonio Spurs for the top seed in the Western Conference.
If the Thunder do so and Durant is a major part of that, he has to have the edge in the MVP race, because he's come through in bigger games way more often than James has all season long.
These last six games for the Thunder aren’t meaningless and if Oklahoma City and Durant come away as the top seed in the west and Durant continues to perform at the level he has all season, Durant will snatch this season’s MVP award away from James.
