LeBron James Left off 9 MVP Ballots: Is There Any Valid Reasoning for That?

In the NBA's MVP voting, there were 121 ballots. Two-time winner LeBron James was listed on 112 of those. So why was he left off of nine ballots? Arguably the single most dominant basketball force in the world, he has to be considered one of the top five—right?

First, let me make something clear. I'm not defending this reasoning, I'm just saying I could think of a reason what it might be, and it has nothing to do with hating on him for "The Decision." 

There is a near parallel number for his teammate, Dwyane Wade, who received 10 votes.  

Down the stretch, Wade became the go-to guy in the fourth quarter as Miami started to resolve its issues with close contests against winning teams. Some may have seen that as an argument to place Wade over James in the "value" department. 

There is no small percentage who argue that Wade is more valuable to the Heat right now than James. Certainly that's not to say they wouldn't argue that James doesn't have value—just that he has less value. 

Then they probably extended that logic to conclude that, if a player is not the most valuable player on their own team, how can they be the Most Valuable Player in the NBA?

In fact, Wade and James are the only pair of teammates that received more than one vote each. The only other pair of teammates to receive any votes were Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

Other players who offer tremendous value for their teams—and could arguably have received votes were they not playing with even bigger stars—did not receive any votes. For instance, neither Russell Westbrook nor Pau Gasol received a single vote.

In all likelihood, it's not so much that they didn't put LeBron James on their ballot as it was that they put Dwyane Wade on it. If they had voted for LeBron, we'd probably be talking about how ridiculous it is that Wade only received one vote.