LeBron James, Player of the Month Again in East, Leads NBA's Fab Five

LeBron James, continuing an unprecedented run of NBA player honors, was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month for January.

It was his third consecutive selection this season—he’s the only player in the East to win the award in 2009-2010—and his fifth straight nod dating back to last year.

It’s an impressive string of accolades for King James, who put together a dazzling month while leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a NBA-best 12-3 mark in January and the league’s top record.

James averaged 30.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8.5 assists in 39.1 minutes per game to kick off 2010. It was perhaps the finest monthly performance of his career, considering that he now essentially runs the offense with Mo Williams and Delonte West both nursing injuries.

Coming off of his first MVP season in 2008-09, James is the early frontrunner to repeat, with his season averages of 29.3 points, 7.1 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game. But there are several other worthy candidates nipping at his heels. Put together, they help form what I’ll call the current “Fab Five”—the NBA’s first team all-stars for the season thus far.

Accompanying James at forward is Kevin Durant, who is emerging as LeBron’s top challenger for the MVP award during the coming decade. The Oklahoma City forward is averaging 29.7 points and 7.3 rebounds a game. More important, he is the leader—at age 21, in just his second season—of the Thunder, who are in the playoff hunt as the current seventh seed in the West.

Other leading contenders at the forward spot are Denver’s Carmelo Anthony and Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki. Anthony has led the league in scoring for most of the season and Nowitzki is just two years removed from an MVP honor of his own, but James and Durant have taken their games to another level.

Dwight Howard remains the premier center in a league bereft of stars at the position. His season averages of 17.8 points and 13.3 rebounds a game have become standard.

However, unchallenged as he is in the pivot, Howard’s statistics simply don’t rival the overall numbers put up by players like Shaquille O’Neal (29 ppg/13 rpg) or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (34/16) in their primes. His modest offensive output is a mystery, considering his unmatched physical gifts, but he’s nonetheless the NBA’s best in the paint.

At guard, Kobe Bryant of the Lakers is a no-brainer, and we give Miami’s Dwayne Wade a slight—albeit ever so slight—edge for the moment over New Orleans’ Chris Paul (the Western Conference Player of the Month for January).

Bryant is clearly in the middle of the league MVP race, hampered though he is by the finger injury. He’s averaging 28.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists for the best team in the league (a distinction that remains the Lakers’ until someone takes it away). Bryant’s outside shot is still a thing of beauty, and largely thanks to him L.A. continues to jostle with Cleveland on a nightly basis for the NBA’s best record.

Wade is compiling another exceptional season, and it’s clear that Miami would be nowhere without him. Even though the Heat continue to hover around the .500 mark, they’re in the playoff picture in the East, and Wade is the reason. He’s averaging 27 points a game while dishing more than six assists. With him, they have 24 wins; without him, they might be lucky to have 10.

Paul is incredible, without question, and his Hornets have a better overall record than the Heat. It’s a judgment call at the moment. The view here is that Wade is called on to carry the greater burden in Miami and has responded with a Herculean performance.

So there you have it, one man’s Fab Five: James, Durant, Howard, Bryant and Wade.

As it stands now, James is the odds-on favorite to repeat as Most Valuable Player, but the other four—as well as Anthony and Nowitzki, and probably Paul before his knee injury—are right on his heels, ready to assume the mantle in the unlikely event that LeBron slows his incredible pace down the stretch.