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Toronto Raptors: Five Things That Must Happen For Kawhi To Win MVP

By Vimal Sivakumar

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 16: San Antonio Spurs small forward Kawhi Leonard (2) rests during the Los Angeles Clippers 115-92 victory over the San Antonio Spurs at the Staples Center at the Staples Center on December 16, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Chris Elise/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 16: San Antonio Spurs small forward Kawhi Leonard (2) rests during the Los Angeles Clippers 115-92 victory over the San Antonio Spurs at the Staples Center at the Staples Center on December 16, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Chris Elise/Getty Images) /
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Kawhi Rebound
SAN ANTONIO,TX – APRIL 2: Kawhi Leonard #2 of the San Antonio Spurs grabs a rebound between Cory Joseph #6 of the Toronto Raptors and Tim Duncan #21 of the San Antonio Spurs at AT&T Center on April 2, 2016 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that , by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images) /

4. An Underwhelming Team Season For LeBron

Note: The other players above Kawhi in Bovada’s odds will be discussed later.

Looking back at Bovada’s odds for the 2018-19 MVP, the biggest competition for Kawhi is LeBron James, who comes in as the betting favourite at 10/3 odds. Accordingly, for Kawhi to win MVP next season, LeBron James must have a down year in terms of team success, which would mean only earning a seventh or eighth seed playoff berth.

In a lot of ways, many would argue that LeBron James deserves the NBA’s MVP award every season. He is consistently one of the most important players in the league with respect to how his teams fare when he is on versus off the court. Take Kevin Durant off Golden State and they are still an amazing team. Take LeBron off his teams and the entire dynamic changes, as evidenced by the Cleveland Cavaliers’ transformation from a 61 win team to a 19 win team after his 2010 departure but back to a 53 win team upon his return.

Effectively, coupled with his career averages of 27.2 points, 7.4 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.6 steals, LeBron is clearly always going to be one of the NBA’s most important individual players and he has shown that he will continually put up eyebrow-raising numbers. In other words, his individual production is unstoppable. Team success, however, is a completely different discussion.

As pointed out previously, team success has seemingly been a very crucial part of several past MVP seasons. Particularly in the cases of Stephen Curry (2014-15) and James Harden (2017-18), it is clear that they narrowly edged out LeBron (in the top three vote-getters both years) thanks largely to team success in their winning seasons.

Appropriately, in a time where so many star players achieve great numbers, team success will likely again be a significant differentiator in MVP voting next year. In other words, let’s say LeBron averages 30 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists next year. Even if he did, his stats would likely take a backseat during MVP voting to his lack of team success if Los Angeles only makes the playoffs as just a seventh or eighth seed, especially considering that Las Vegas projects for LA to win enough games to be the West’s 4th seed.

If this happens to LeBron and the Lakers, as Kawhi conversely enjoys great individual production while playing in a good number of regular season games and leading the Raptors to the top of the East, Leonard should ultimately have a great shot at winning the NBA MVP because LeBron would be taken out of the running for poor team performance.

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