{"id":90510,"date":"2024-08-15T02:09:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T06:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=90510"},"modified":"2024-08-15T02:10:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T06:10:12","slug":"paris-olympics-nobody-wrong-lebron-james-stephen-curry-mvp-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/15\/paris-olympics-nobody-wrong-lebron-james-stephen-curry-mvp-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Nobody Is Wrong In Olympic MVP Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Team USA left Paris, the group was in high spirits. Why not, after defeating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wembavi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Victor Wembanyama<\/a> and Team France in the Olympic gold medal game? Having taken everyone\u2019s best shot heading into the final round of the men\u2019s tournament, it was now time for the Olympians to rest on their laurels. At least for a little while.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, while they posed for photos featuring the reward for their hard work, basketball fans gathered on the digital concourse to question one player\u2019s award.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Nobody Is Wrong In Olympic MVP Debate<\/h2>\n<p>Upon winning his third Olympic gold medal, Los Angeles Lakers forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> was named <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/12\/lebron-james-opens-up-after-beating-out-superstars-for-mvp\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">the 2024 Olympic MVP<\/a>. As it\u2019s an award that isn\u2019t always handed out after Olympics, this was an incredibly rare feat. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/13\/the-enigma-of-the-fiba-mens-olympics-mvp-award\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">only three players<\/a> have ever won the award.<\/p>\n<p>James, the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer, is no stranger to making history. However, he may feel out of place being criticized for winning an MVP award at this stage of his career. While he still faces a steady stream of backlash, James has become a media darling. In fact, he\u2019s all but a universal fan favorite. The <em>King<\/em> not quite as beloved as NBA icon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jordami01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Jordan<\/a> is, but he\u2019s entered <em>His Airness\u2019s<\/em> stratosphere.<\/p>\n<p>None of that seems to matter much right now though. To many, Golden State Warriors guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/curryst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Curry<\/a> is the rightful owner of his newest piece of hardware. James\u2019s longtime detractors \u2014Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless \u2014believe it. Outspoken former NBA players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/perkike01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kendrick Perkins<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/marbust01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephon Marbury<\/a> have said as much. For their evidence, they all point to Curry\u2019s flamethrower performances against Serbia and France.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"tr\">sdsfdf <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dGN44BKebW\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dGN44BKebW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Vito Corleonie (@VCorleonie) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VCorleonie\/status\/1823798895521993024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 14, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>From that perspective, who could argue? Curry was a lights-out shooter in both games, scoring 60 total points. Frankly, Team USA might not have won gold if he hadn\u2019t caught fire. Yet, James was their leader; the de facto captain. He was their most consistent and versatile player. Without him, Team USA might not have made it through the Group Phase.<\/p>\n<h3>Co-MVPs?<\/h3>\n<p>Statistically, the argument leans towards James.<\/p>\n<p>Curry averaged 14.8 points per game in the Paris Olympics to James\u2019s 14.2 points per game. The two-time NBA MVP\u2019s shooting splits (.500-.478-.1000) were stellar. However, James posted 8.5 assists per game to Curry\u2019s 2.5 assists per game. He averaged nearly twice as many steals per game (1.3) as Curry (0.7). He crashed the glass, averaging 6.8 rebounds per game. For comparison, Curry pulled down 3.2 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n<p>Both made plays that saved their team. Both made plays that inspired their team. Yet, of the two, James is the only one who never disappeared for a whole game. To that point, Curry had three games with fewer than 10 points in the Paris Olympics. James didn\u2019t have any. Curry had three games with fewer than three assists. Again, James didn\u2019t have any.<\/p>\n<p>Given their respective impacts, perhaps James and Curry being named co-MVPs would\u2019ve been best. Nonetheless, it\u2019s ridiculous to suggest that James isn\u2019t deserving of the award.<\/p>\n<h3>But Then Again\u2026<\/h3>\n<p>If voting for the Olympic MVP award opened up before the gold medal game, as ESPN\u2019s Brian Windhorst suggests, it may have affected who ultimately won.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"in\">ertghtuigi <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PLOhhD7Kyc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PLOhhD7Kyc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CyrusTheVirus (@CyrusTheVirusP) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CyrusTheVirusP\/status\/1823887598491980040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>With that being said, the fact that they were already voting for James to win an award that they\u2019d only handed out twice before speaks volumes about his play up to that point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Team USA left Paris, the group was in high spirits. Why not, after defeating Victor Wembanyama and Team France in the Olympic gold medal game? Having taken everyone\u2019s best shot heading into the final round of the men\u2019s tournament, it was now time for the Olympians to rest on their laurels. At least for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":90587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,1608,25,26,62],"tags":[38,1052,48],"class_list":["post-90510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-olympics","category-basketball","category-warriors","category-lakers","category-nba","tag-lebron-james","tag-olympics","tag-stephen-curry"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}