AP Source: LeBron wins 4th MVP award

LeBron James is getting his fourth Most
Valuable Player award - and the only mystery
left is whether the vote was unanimous.

The Miami Heat star will be introduced Sunday
as the award winner, according to a person
familiar with the results and who spoke to The
Associated Press on condition of anonymity
because the league has not publicly announced
this year's recipient. James will become the
fifth player with at least four MVP awards,
joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan,
Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.
No one has ever swept every first-place vote in
the NBA's MVP balloting. After the season he
had, James could be the first.
''I don't know who else you'd vote for,'' Heat
forward Chris Bosh said Friday. ''No offense to
everybody else, but that's just how good he
has played this year.''
James averaged 26.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and
7.3 assists this season, shooting a career-best
56 percent. It was absolutely no surprise that
he won the award, and given the timetable for
Miami's next game - the Heat don't open
Eastern Conference semifinal play until Monday
night against Brooklyn or Chicago - it had been
widely assumed for several days that Sunday
would be the day.
If tradition holds, NBA Commissioner David
Stern will then present James with the trophy
again Monday night in front of the Miami fans.
''I absolutely have not even thought about it,''
James said earlier this week when asked if he
considered the weight of winning the award
four times in five years. ''I have not thought
about it, until you just brought it up. I know
the history. It would be a unique, unbelievable
class I would be a part of, so we'll see.''
Only Russell had won four MVPs in five years,
and only Abdul-Jabbar had gone back-to-back
on the award twice. Abdul-Jabbar has six MVPs
in all, Jordan and Russell have five apiece and
Chamberlain won four.
James won the award in 2009 and 2010, only
got four first-place votes in 2011 - his first
season with the Heat - then reclaimed the
award last season.
''The other day I was sitting there with him, a
week or two ago and it dawned on me,'' Heat
guard Dwyane Wade told the AP. ''I said to
him, 'Do you know you're about to get four
MVPs in five years?' And he's like, 'Man, I'm
just a kid from Akron.' He could have gotten
five in five. You know how crazy that is? This is
crazy.''
The ''kid from Akron'' is truly entering rarefied
air now.
It's certain that stars like New York's Carmelo
Anthony, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant and the
Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant will be listed
on ballots - the league will unveil the full
results Sunday - though the only drama left is
seeing if any voter thought someone had a
better season than James. A panel of writers
and broadcasters from the United States and
Canada vote for NBA awards. There also is one
combined vote from fans who chose an MVP
through online balloting or social media.
There have been instances of people coming
close to sweeping the first-place votes.
Shaquille O'Neal got 120 of the 121 top votes
cast after the 1999-2000 season, with Allen
Iverson getting the lone other one that year.
And after the 2003-04 season, Kevin Garnett -
then with Minnesota - got 120 of 123 votes,
with two going to Jermaine O'Neal and the
other to Peja Stojakovic.
''Do the right thing,'' was Heat forward Shane
Battier's suggestion to voters, just before the
ballots were due.
James finally got his first NBA championship
last season, followed that up by helping the
U.S. win a gold medal at the London Olympics,
and then vowed to come back this season even
better.
The Heat say he did absolutely that. With nary
a sign of a championship hangover, Miami
went 66-16 in the regular season, including a
27-game winning streak, the second-best in
NBA history. And since Feb. 3, when James
plays, Miami is 36-1.
''We're all in unison: We think he has earned
it,'' Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. ''He has
had an even more historic season than last
year. The beauty of that, if he does in fact earn
it, is the fact that probably most people didn't
necessarily think he could go to a different
level, a higher level, after last season. Yet he
reinvented himself and showed that he could.''
Forget that it's rare in the NBA to win the MVP
award four times. It's rare in major sports,
period.
In baseball, Barry Bonds is the lone member
of the four-or-more-MVP club, winning seven.
In hockey, it's Wayne Gretzky with nine, Gordie
Howe with six and Eddie Shore with four. In
the NFL, only Peyton Manning has four MVPs.
''We never take him for granted,'' Spoelstra is
fond of saying about James.
When comparing James' per-game averages this
season against the best years in NBA history,
only Jordan, Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird and
John Havlicek had ever averaged so much in
points, rebounds and assists per game as the
reigning NBA Finals MVP did in each of those
categories this season, according to STATS LLC.
And none had ever done so while shooting
such a high percentage - Jordan did it while
shooting 54 percent, coming closest.
James' effective field goal percentage (a metric
that takes into account 3-pointers being worth
more than 2-point shots) this season was a
career-best 60.3 percent, and he shot just over
40 percent from 3-point range, another career
mark. The league handed out six Eastern
Conference player-of-the-month awards this
season, and James won five of them.
''I can see why he loves to play the game,''
Wade said. ''He can do anything he wants.''
Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers said near the
end of the regular season James - who also
finished second in voting for this season's
defensive player of the year award - might win
this award many, many more times.
''There's not a better player in the NBA than
LeBron and he should win every year,'' Rivers
said. ''He should win in a landslide. There are
guys who had great years. Carmelo's had an
amazing year and so has Durant. But there's no
one that's had the year that LeBron has when
you figuring in rebounding, defense,
everything, passing. And we're going to be
saying that until someone else comes along and
takes the mantle. I don't see that happening.''
--- AP Sports Writer Steven Wine in Miami
contributed to this report.