The San Antonio Spurs are your 2013-14 NBA Champions, and no one should take that away from them just yet. This summer will quickly become about where a slew of free agents are going, who’s trading who where, and where everyone was picked in the NBA Draft. Our collective attention spans are unfortunately not built in a way that will allow us to sit and relish in the fact that we just watched one of the best teams in NBA history put a full-circle stamp on their amazing dynasty.
In fact, I’m willing to bet that we’ll hear more about the losing team - the Miami Heat – these next few weeks than we will about the Spurs. With the opt-out date of the Big Three looming large and the Spurs having just exposed all of Miami’s major weaknesses, how the Heat react, retool, and rebound (in both senses of the word) will be on a lot of people’s minds, lips, and fingertips.
That being said, I’ve got one final thing to say about these Finals before we move on. And sadly, it’s regarding the Miami Heat. I’m fully aware of how hypocritical this makes me look after all I just said, but there’s one thing I can’t shake. I know that it won’t be a popular opinion, so go ahead and bring on the hate mail.
basketball-reference.com has a stat called “game score†(explained here) that should set the record straight. It essentially serves as a rough measure of a player’s productivity by weighting various stats like points, shot attempts, fouls, turnovers, and various other counting stats. Here’s the list of the top 10 average game scores over the five NBA Finals games.
| Player | Team | Game Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LeBron James | Heat | 22.5 |
| 2 | Kawhi Leonard | Spurs | 15.8 |
| 3 | Tim Duncan | Spurs | 12.9 |
| 4 | Tony Parker | Spurs | 11.6 |
| 5 | Manu Ginobili | Spurs | 10.9 |
| 6 | Chris Bosh | Heat | 10.6 |
| 7 | Boris Diaw | Spurs | 8.5 |
| 8 | Patty Mills | Spurs | 8.2 |
| 9 | Dwyane Wade | Heat | 7.9 |
| 10 | Danny Green | Spurs | 7.6 |
Right away, you can see that LeBron led the way, and did so by a considerable margin. Kawhi Leonard had the second-highest game score, so it’s hard to deny him getting it as the best player on the winning team. The true question is, was he really more valuable than LeBron?
In that top 10, each of the Heat’s Big Three makes an appearance, but not where you would’ve expected when this trio was first constructed. LeBron is the only Heat player in the top five, and the top 10 is littered with seven Spurs (all much closer to their highest scorer, Kawhi, than anyone on the Heat is to LeBron). Without looking at the scores of any of the games, I would find it impossible to look at that table and conclude anyone other than LeBron James was the Finals MVP.
I Thought Winning Wasn’t Everything?
Which brings us to the most important question in this whole debate: Is winning the series the most important criterion for choosing the Finals MVP? The inaugural award went to Jerry West in 1969, despite the fact that his Lakers lost to Bill Russell’s Celtics (the man never did win the award that now bears his name, funny enough). The precedent was set for this distinction to go to a player on the losing team before it even ever went to its first champion. Why has that never been repeated?
Doesn’t naming an NBA Finals MVP on this Spurs team go against what made them so special? Just about every player on their roster had a positive contribution to this championship at some point along the way. Their ball movement, next-man-up mentality, and team cohesiveness are all among the best we’ve ever seen. Naming Kawhi the MVP, while a great way to pass the torch to a budding young superstar, is almost unfair to him. There might always be the following asterisks on this one:
*Was great for three games, not so great for the other two.
*Was on a team full of valuable people and viable candidates.
*Was not the best player in the series, at least not according to the numbers.
Kawhi has a bright future ahead of him, and we’re bound to see him be the most valuable and best player on the floor someday. For now, that title still belongs to LeBron James. If we continue to berate the man in the media, whether national or social, we’re going to miss out on some of the best parts of what has been a very impressive career by one of the best players of our generation, if not ever.
At the very least, for all the awards and accolades that the public has tried to take from him for creating the Big Three, doesn’t he deserve to be given this one despite them?