NBA Finals 2017: Power ranking Finals MVP possibilities
By Luke Norris
Here’s a look at seven possible candidates for NBA Finals MVP.
The NBA Finals MVP, now officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award, was first handed out nearly 50 years ago in 1969 and the list of winners is a who’s who of legends.
Jerry West won the first one — and is still the only player from the losing team to win the award — and since then, the stars of each generation have been well-represented on the list. The 70s saw players like Willis Reed, Lew Alcindor, Wilt Chamberlain, John Havlicek and Bill Walton walk away with the trophy. Magic Johnson won the first NBA Finals MVP of the 80s and would later be joined by the likes of Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and Isiah Thomas.
Michael Jordan won six NBA Finals MVP trophies in the 90s, but his little hiatus allowed Hakeem Olajuwon to sneak a couple in there and Tim Duncan won the first of his three trophies to finish the decade before making way for three-time winner Shaquille O’Neal, who won from 2000-2002. He was joined in the 2000s by teammates Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant. Tony Parker became the first European-born player to win Finals MVP and Paul Pierce snuck one in there as well.
Kobe began the 2010s by winning his second straight and would later be joined by Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James, who’s won three of the last five. Kawhi Leonard won in 2014 and two years ago, Andre Iguodala became the first player in history to win NBA Finals MVP without starting every game. And while Iguodala is back in the NBA Finals as we prepare for Warriors/Cavs III, he did not actually make the cut for this list. With this series obviously having the potential to go seven games, I’ve locked in on seven candidates — a pretty easy thing to do given the rosters of Golden State and Cleveland — that could possibly walk away with the NBA Finals MVP.
Draymond Green
2017 NBA Playoffs: 13.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 7.2 assists
It’s highly unlikely that Draymond Green actually wins NBA Finals MVP given the roster of the Warriors, but the fifth-year power forward out of Michigan State has been doing it all for Golden State. His averages in points, rebounds and assists are all up from the regular season and he’s been shooting the ball extremely well throughout the postseason, going 50 percent (53-106) from the floor and a very impressive 47.2 percent (25-53) from the 3-point line.
Beyond Green’s production on offense, his biggest contribution during these NBA Finals might come on the defensive end. We all saw how valuable he really is to the Warriors when he was suspended for Game 5 of last year’s Finals and he may just be the factor that gives Golden State the redemption they’re looking for. He’s likely to win Defensive Player of the Year honors but given his history with Cleveland and LeBron James, he will need to be careful. He’s a very intense guy, which is just a part of who he is and it does help him for the most part, but he will need to keep it in check to be the factor the Warriors need him to be.
In the two regular-season matchups with the Cavaliers this year, which the two teams split, Draymond Green was rock solid. In the Warriors’ 109-108 loss on Christmas Day, he went 7-for-9 from the field, his only two misses coming from beyond the arc, grabbed four rebounds and dished out four assists in 31 minutes after getting into a bit of foul trouble. He had a triple-double in their next encounter with 11 points, 11 assists and 13 rebounds in Golden State’s 126-91 blowout win on Jan. 16. Don’t be surprised if we see at least one triple-double in this series.