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Holy SHAT! Iggy wins the MVP. LMAO.

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To be fair, he kept LeBron to only a near triple double at 35 ppg, 13 rpg, and 9 apg.

Stopper.

It is amazing that someone with such a terrible free throw who was such a liability they had to bench him at the end of games would be MVP. But he was very valuable to the Warriors.

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Holy SHAT! Iggy wins the MVP. LMAO.

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To be fair, he kept LeBron to only a near triple double at 35 ppg, 13 rpg, and 9 apg.

Stopper.

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Yea. He kept his efficiency down I guess. James probably would have averaged 45/13/9 if not for Iggy.

Still a pretty weak sauce Finals MVP.

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Winning the East isn't impressive.

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This.

Iguodala is the main reason for the low FG% though. He's the only guy who didn't get backed down all the way under the basket every time and could still challenge the fadeaway. Forced a lot of tough shots without requiring a hard double, which is all you can do. Replace Iguodala with anyone but Kawhi Leonard and Lebron's FG% increases dramatically.

35/13/9

****

The MVP was stopping this guy.

http://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/610897149581094912/photo/1

...and people are going to talk about this series for a long time. Earlier in the thread I made a comment that this was arguably the greatest finals performance ever. I just went and found a list of the greatest finals performances. You can argue about the order, but the top five are definitely in there.

1. Jordan 1998 - 34/4/2
2. Duncan 2003 - 24/17/5 and 5 blocks
3. Shaq 2000 - 38/17 and 3 blocks
4. Olajuwon 1994 - 27/9 and 4 blocks
5. Jordan 1993 - 41/9/6
6. Magic 1987 - 26/8/13
7. Jordan 1997 - 32/7/6
8. Bryant 2009 - 32/6/7
9. Bird 1984 - 27/14/4
10. Wade 2006 - 35/8/4

James's 35/13/9 clearly belongs, and I would say it belongs somewhere near the top of the list.

Interesting stat I saw. LeBron averaged 13 makes off of 33 shots for the finals. That sounds worse than I thought when I heard he was shooting 39%.

I'd be curious to see a fg% by quarter thing. Because it seemed like watching the games that he just trailed off at the end of games due to fatigue.

This series is why MVP awards are a farce. LeBron not getting it is simply retarded just because he wasn't on the winning team.

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If it's not Lebron, I agree with the Iguodala selection... and even more than that, I love the fact that people are starting to appreciate defense again. It's half the game and most fans and media still treat it like it barely matters.

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Yeah, I'd take Iggy over Steph if that's the choice, but I still say it should have been LeBron by a good margin. I think both the recency effect, with Iggy having one of his best games in the clincher, and LeBron having one of his worst of the series, and the refusal by some to vote for someone on the losing team, are what did it.

Take Iggy off the Warriors and they may still have won the series, and they dang sure would have been very competitive. Take LeBron off the Cavs and its four straight blowout losses for them.

Little bit of a disappointing finale with LeBron not being able to hit from outside, even when he was pretty open, but he probably would have had 25 assists with a better supporting cast.

My main takeaways from the Finals are that LeBron elevated his game to a level which only a select few have approached for most of the series, that Cleveland's scrubby team played extremely hard, and that the Warriors, while a good and deep team, struggled more than they should to put away a clearly inferior team.

I think a few teams in the west (led by the Spurs, since they have the best 'Bron-stopper of the bunch) would have had an easier time putting away the Cavs.

I think Finals MVPs should at least shoot 40% from the field. Given that, Iggy was a good choice at 52%.

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I'd be curious to see a fg% by quarter thing. Because it seemed like watching the games that he just trailed off at the end of games due to fatigue.

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Last night 5-14. Not that different than the rest of the game. It is simply more noticeable when he misses during crunch time.

Game 5 he was 6-13, close to his game percentage.

Game 4 he was 0-1. Not very MVP-like. Cavs scored only 12 points in 4th quarter.

Game 3 he was 3-8 in a win in 4th quarter. Down the stretch he only shot FTs due to Cle protecting a lead.

Game 2 he was 2-10 in 4th quarter and OT in a win.

Game 1 he was 5-9 in a loss.

Warriors went 3-0 after Iggy was inserted into the starting lineup. I'm not sure they win this series if Bogut continued to start.

I liked that the voting was Iggy 7, Lebron 4, Steph 0.

I agree that you can't give Bron the MVP unless it went 7. And I also agree that the difference in the outcome of the series was the play of Iguodala. Therefore, he's a worth winner for the Warriors. The cop out would have been to give it to Steph.

it was tweeted by a basketball writer David Vertsberger.

Doubt it's fake. We already know the vote was 7 to 4. No need to "fake" a list like this.

Then rename the award. It's an individual award and it's very name highlights who the most valuable player was. Cleveland would have been swept without LeBron. He was the MVP on the floor regardless of team.

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Then rename the award. It's an individual award and it's very name highlights who the most valuable player was. Cleveland would have been swept without LeBron. He was the MVP on the floor regardless of team.

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This. The idea that this series would have been drastically different for the Warriors if Andre Iguodala didn't suit up is a joke. The Cavs without LeBron don't win a single game. Win or lose, the most valuable player in this series is quite obvious, and you don't have to be a basketball expert to realize that

LeBron deserved the Finals MVP and if you don't think so then you just don't like LeBron, simple as that. But from now on, debate doesn't even matter. The MVP of the regular season will 99% of the time go to the team with the best record and the Finals MVP will go to the winning team.

Turn the tables here on the Lebron MVP stuff.

I'm a pretty well documented Lebron supporter too so let me preface with that.

That said, consider this: would anyone be ok with the regular season MVP going to the best player on a sub-.500 team? Think we all know there would be lots of pants ****ting on this board of that happened. 'Great stats bad team!' Would be the predictable battle cry.

Another lense to look at it is like this: Lebron was hands down and no doubt the best player in the series. Nobody will debate that. But how valuable can you quantify a player's worth if their team ultimately wasn't victorious? I mean it's cool that he probably singlehandedly made it go 6 games vs. 4... But team result matters here because ultimately it is the first thing you look at when quantifying a player's value.

Was it Lebron's fault that the Cavs lost? No way... He was incredible in the series... But no win in the series automatically disqualifies a player as MVP of the series.

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Turn the tables here on the Lebron MVP stuff.

I'm a pretty well documented Lebron supporter too so let me preface with that.

That said, consider this: would anyone be ok with the regular season MVP going to the best player on a sub-.500 team? Think we all know there would be lots of pants ****ting on this board of that happened. 'Great stats bad team!' Would be the predictable battle cry.

Another lense to look at it is like this: How valuable can you quantify a player's worth if their team ultimately wasn't victorious? I mean it's cool that he probably singlehandedly made it go 6 games vs. 4... But team result matters here because ultimately it is the first thing you look at when quantifying a player's value.

Was it Lebron's fault that the Cavs lost? No way... He was incredible in the series... But no win in the series automatically disqualifies a player as MVP of the series.

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Could not agree more.

Why the **** would Bleacher Report have a vote over Sports Illustrated?

this may be dumb...but just look at the 3 candidates(lbj, steph, iggy) and see how their play elevated in the finals compared to the regular season.

Steph:
Season: 23.8ppg, / 4.3rpg / 7.7apg
Finals: 26ppg, / 6rpg / 6.3apg

Iggy
Season: 7.8 ppg, / 3.3rpg / 3.0apg
Finals: 16.3ppg / 5.83rpg / 4.0 apg

LBJ:
Season: 25.3 ppg / 6 rpg / 7.4 apg
Finals: 35.8 ppg / 13.3 rbp / 8.8 apg

Obviously certain outliers are there in that iggy played fewer minutes as a 6th man this season, etc...but when you look at who rose up and played out of their shoes during the finals compared to the regular season, it's interesting to see just how high the numbers rose in different areas.

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Why the **** would Bleacher Report have a vote over Sports Illustrated?

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Exactly what I thought when I saw it.

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this may be dumb...but just look at the 3 candidates(lbj, steph, iggy) and see how their play elevated in the finals compared to the regular season.

Steph:
Season: 23.8ppg, / 4.3rpg / 7.7apg
Finals: 26ppg, / 6rpg / 6.3apg

Iggy
Season: 7.8 ppg, / 3.3rpg / 3.0apg
Finals: 16.3ppg / 5.83rpg / 4.0 apg

LBJ:
Season: 25.3 ppg / 6 rpg / 7.4 apg
Finals: 35.8 ppg / 13.3 rbp / 8.8 apg

Obviously certain outliers are there in that iggy played fewer minutes as a 6th man this season, etc...but when you look at who rose up and played out of their shoes during the finals compared to the regular season, it's interesting to see just how high the numbers rose in different areas.

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When you consider that James increased his shot totals from 18.5 in the regular season to 32.7 in the Finals, but his shooting percentage dropped from 48.8% in the regular season to 39.9% in the Finals, I think it is debatable whether he increased his game. He merely increased his shots to replace Kyrie Irving's 16.5 shots per game.

Clearly, not following the crowd and anointing James the GOAT just because he hogged the ball for 6 games makes me a hater, but I can live with that label.

His shot percentage went down, but that likely had a lot to do with him getting keyed in on defense so much.

His rebounds went from 6.0 to 13.3 and his assists went from 7.4 to 8.8. Despite being the only person to really handle the ball, his turnovers actually decreased from 3.9 to 3.5.

Don't the great players score in spite of attracting the other team's best defender? Michael Jordan averaged 33.4 ppg on 48.7% shooting over his entire career in the playoffs. And he did it while taking 10 fewer shots per game. James had big numbers, but he did so because, for better or worse, he never let a teammate touch the ball.

EDIT: A stat was either shown or talked about last night that James shot 25% when he was defended, versus over 50% when he was wide open. The NBA is full of no-name players who could drain a wide open shot, but couldn't score when guarded. James can still score when he is guarded, but he is not nearly as efficient at doing so as some would have us believe.