Who is the Lakers’ real MVP?
One of the biggest questions of this summer was about LeBron James and whether he would leave Cleveland or not. When his decision to join LA Lakers was made public, the media exploded and everybody started to analyze Lakers’ chances of winning the championship. A lot of specialists thought that Magic Johnson’s team would indeed be better than in recent years, but just a few believed that it can fight with the top organizations from the West.
Now, after 23 games, LA Lakers has 14 wins, 9 losses and is currently on the fifth place in the Western Conference. This comes as a big surprise because the Lakers are above 6 teams that were in the playoffs last year: Portland Trail Blazers, New Orleans Pelicans, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves and Utah Jazz. So we have to ask ourselves: Who has been the most important player so far for the Californian team?
Of course, LeBron James is one of the greatest athletes that have ever played the game of basketball so he is certainly the best player on the roster. Actually, LeBron James is leading the Lakers in 10 different categories: points, points/game, field goals, 3-point percentage, free throws, rebounds, rebounds/game, assists, assists/game, and steals. As the stats show, the Ohio-born superstar is having an amazing season and he is averaging 27.8 PPG, 7.7 RPG, and 6.7 APG.
In the meantime, another player that has been a huge factor for the Lakers is Tyson Chandler. Since he arrived at the team, the Lakers have won 10 matches, while losing only 3. The American center doesn’t score so much but he helps the team in a lot of other aspects. The defense has become much better with Chandler on the court, and as I wrote in a previous article: defense is the key to a good offense.
But LeBron James and Tyson Chandler are both in the last years of their careers so Magic, Pelinka, and Walton need to make sure that the torch is passed to the next generation. They started to work in this direction and the results are seen in the improvement of Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and Lonzo Ball. These four players have been working really hard in the last year and they showed a lot of eagerness to learn from the veterans.
These being said, we can conclude that LeBron James is indeed the Lakers’ MVP but only by himself, he couldn’t have done what Lakers did in this season. The unity and the effort of all players has been the most important aspect of their game and the fans from Los Angeles have a lot of reasons to be happy.
David Istrate, info@brainbasketball.net
