The Point Four-ward: MVP! MVP?

First, if you haven’t read David’s excellent recap of last night’s win over the Celtics, do that first. Then, continue on to—

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) All of the MVP talk that sprouted up around James following the Cavs brilliant performance against the Golden State Warriors last Thursday got me to thinking: what is the most number of games a player has missed in a season and still won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award?

In two games this past week, James came out with guns blazing against the current MVP front-runners, James Harden of the Houston Rockets and Stephen Curry of the Warriors. Against the Warriors, James was magnificent, scoring 42 points on 15-25 shooting in what turned into a relatively easy victory against the team with (at the time) the league’s best record. Against Houston, James shot poorly (15-25 from the floor, 3-11 from the free throw line) but played as spirited and springy on defense as he has in a very long time. Regardless of how it ended, put his team in the position to win a game on the road against one of the league’s best teams without the help of the team’s all-star point guard.

Did James do enough in those two games to convince me that he’s still the game’s best player?

Absolutely. But, between the two, he took off a much more likely win (had he played) against the Pacers to rest his back, which was reportedly giving him problems even before Thursday’s game against Golden State.

In fact, several times this season, James has taken games off to rest one ailment or another. He spoke, even before the season began, about playing fewer minutes and the national media joined that call when it looked like head coach David Blatt was leaning too heavily on a banged-up James early in the season. There was always the assumption that Blatt would strive for a Popovichian model where James and some of the other veteran players would take games off, with respect to how many minutes James has already logged in his basketball career and how many more it might take in trying to bring an elusive championship to Cleveland.

But, in striving to lessen his load during the regular season, was James, in fact, taking himself out of the running for such laurels as a fifth MVP award?

2.) In the past 10 years, the MVP winner has missed an average of just 3.3 games that season. Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett were a perfect 82, while Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant and James (once) missed just a single game. The most games any player missed in his MVP season was seven by Steve Nash in 2004-05.

So far this season, Harden and Curry have both missed one game, while James has missed 11 and Anthony Davis has missed 12. All of those totals will tick up some, even if everyone remains (or, in Davis’ case, gets) healthy. James will likely continue to try to keep his body as fresh as he can for the playoffs and beyond, while Harden and Curry will keep the heat on each other in a much more closely contested Western Conference.

If James ends the season with upwards of 15 games missed, it’s very difficult to see him in the running for a fifth MVP trophy, no matter how deserving he might be.

3.) The return of Kyrie Irving means that the brief stint of Matthew Dellavedova playing a starters minutes (plus) is mercifully at an end.

When news broke that the Cavs would be without Irving for a couple of games, there was some speculation that Blatt would move Iman Shumpert into the starting line-up. That would have made some sense, particularly with a long, quick Houston team slated for Sunday. Instead, Blatt kept Shumpert on the bench to start and opted for Dellavedova, a favorite of the Cavs coaching staff and front office. Over his two starts, Delly played 80 minutes (!!!) and scored 8.5 points per game on 25.9% shooting from the floor (6-22 overall and 3-9 from three). He also chipped in 4.5 assists per game and did manage 10 boards in Friday’s loss to the Pacers.

This is not to bury Dellavedova — though not really to praise him, either. Cavs fans (well, Cols aside) recognize why it is that Blatt went to Dellavedova. Dellavedova plays hard… all the time. He is a pretty good rebounder from that position (I noticed it on Sunday too). There was a time when he would can open threes with something more closely resembling regularity. And the Cavs can win a championship with him as their back-up point guard.

But, that doesn’t mean he is the ideal back-up point guard for a championship team. For a team whose 6-10 players feature only one player who could be considered a consistent offensive option (James Jones), along with one who is a good defender and can score a little (Shumpert), two whose offense you don’t have to think too much about (Dellavedova and Tristan Thompson) and one complete non-factor (Kendrick Perkins), there will be times when the ISO-hungry starters will get fed because… well, what else are they going to do?

Blatt has many specialists on his bench. Players like Thompson, Shumpert and, yes, even Dellavedova can make plays that will help win you some playoff basketball games. There just isn’t much offense there.

4.) It was also curious to see Timofey Mozgov only log 18 minutes against the Rockets. Yes, the Rockets were having success stretching the floor with Donatas Motiejunas (16 points, 2-4 from three), but as the game ground down in OT and James went strictly ISO, you think you’d want to, at least, try out a nimble 7-1 target as your roll man over the 6-9ish Thompson (or, maybe, next to him).

I get it, these are some of the tough choices Blatt has to make. Thompson was playing great, Love was out as a stretch threat, while Mozgov was a team worst -13 for the game. But the Cavs had success early working the ball down low to Mozgov and Love and it would have been nice, with James (deservedly) occupying so much of the defense’s attention, to see the team work for some of those shots late, as well.