WaPo: "LeBron James is the clear MVP of the playoffs"

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“My only job is to try to be the MVP for this team every night, put my teammates, put our franchise in position to be successful and ultimately compete for a championship,” James told reporters on Saturday night. Mission accomplished. James might have been left off MVP ballots during the regular season but there is no denying he has been the MVP of the 2017 NBA playoffs.

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James is averaging 32.2 points, seven assists and 8.3 rebounds per game in the playoffs — and that’s with a clunker during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals (11 points on 4-of-13 shooting). With him on the court, the Cavaliers are outscoring opponents by 18.6 net points per 100 possessions. With him on the bench, they are outscored by 11.4 net points per 100 possessions — a 30-point swing. The Golden State Warriors, by comparison, have a net rating of plus-24.3 with Curry on the court and a minus-3.9 when he is on the bench in these playoffs. With and without Durant the difference is plus-20.8 and plus-11.3, respectively. James’s overall Game Score (27.5), a metric created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game, is higher than any of his regular season performances and higher than any of his playoff runs save the 2008-09 season (29.9).

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