The Whiteboard: LeBron James, not Anthony Davis, is Finals MVP frontrunner

The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning.

Through two dominant Los Angeles Lakers wins to start the 2020 NBA Finals, Anthony Davis was the slight frontrunner for Finals MVP honors. He was averaging 33.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.5 blocks per game, shooting 63.4 percent from the floor and was a massive, team-leading plus-33 in his 78 minutes on the floor.

In the two games since, however, it’s become clear who the real Finals MVP should be — and probably will be — whenever the Lakers decide to mercifully wrap this series up.

Surprise! It’s LeBron James.

This might not be earth-shattering information for those who have been intently watching this mostly boring series as it careens towards its inevitable outcome of “Lakers in 5.” But in a league where the only award more contentious than Finals MVP is regular-season MVP among its fanbase, it’s worth assertively establishing this before the likely decisive Game 5 on Friday: LeBron James has confidently pulled in front of Davis for an award neither of them will lose any sleep over.

So far, this two-man race for Finals MVP has been the most competitive thing about this championship matchup. With Bam Adebayo out for most of Game 1 and then all of Games 2 and 3, and Goran Dragic sidelined for the entire series, the Heat have sorely missed two of their best three players. The margin for error was slim entering the series, and each new injury made it razor-thin. It took an all-time performance from Jimmy Butler in Game 3 for Miami to steal a win, and it was during that contest that Davis lost his pole positioning for the Bill Russell award.

While Butler would leap to the front of the pack if the Heat miraculously rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win it all, this championship round — much like all of 2020 to this point — is heading for an unenjoyable, stone-hearted result. The Lakers will probably close things out on Friday, and barring something like a 50-point, 25-rebound detonation from Davis, LeBron is heading for his fourth Finals MVP award.

You could make a case for either Lakers candidate. Squint hard enough, handpick the narrative you like best and ignore all the empirical evidence, and sure! Davis is right there with James. Lakers fans may even be used to this train of thought, since it was imperative in building their regular-season “MVP case” for LeBron and AD’s Defensive Player of the Year case — in both cases, against Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Greek Freak, of course, won both awards, and rightly so, which is why it’s important to set the record straight before a potential close-out game. After all, voters and NBA Twitter only have a few precious minutes to update their Finals stats with the latest game’s numbers before the votes are cast and the award is handed out.

Through four contests, the King is posting 27.8 points, 11.0 rebounds and 8.5 assists per game, all of which are team highs. He’s shooting 54.1 percent from the floor, canning 36.4 percent of his 3s and the Lakers have been a plus-11 in the team-high 153 minutes he’s been on the floor.

In the Brow’s case, the Lakers have been a staggering plus-24 in the 152 minutes he’s logged, dropping to a minus-1 in the 40 minutes he’s sat. That’s favorable compared to the plus-12 the Lakers have posted with LeBron resting, but that’s probably the only area where the Unibrow edges his superstar teammate.

Davis is averaging an impressive 25.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.0 steals per game. He’s shooting a scorching 60.6 percent from the field, a confounding 54.5 percent from 3-point range and has been the head monster in the Lakers’ monstrous defense — particularly in Game 4, when his own decision to guard Jimmy Buckets limited Butler’s scoring punch after a 40-point eruption in Game 3. Squint hard enough and you can see a Finals MVP path for AD if he explodes in the Game 5 closer and LeBron tanks.

But given the numbers James is putting up despite — let’s face it — comparatively sleepwalking through this series compared to some of his other Finals performances, it feels highly unlikely that’ll happen. LeBron is leading the winning side in scoring, rebounding and assists, playing stellar defense for the first time in years and is finally getting a relatively easy Finals opponent.

Call it “justice” for Giannis winning MVP (it’s not), “poetic justice” after Kobe Bryant’s passing (please stop twisting his death into Finals narratives) or simply Sisyphus finally prancing up the hill without the accompanying weight of his trademark boulder, but either way, LeBron James is poised to win Finals MVP during his easiest title run yet.

#OtherContent

The Seattle Storm swept their way to another championship, but what did we learn about each WNBA team this season?

NBA trade season is almost upon us, and ESPN’s Bobby Marks is trying to make sure we’re all prepared with his team-by-team breakdown.

The Heat may lose the Finals, but The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor says they could be the real winners with a Warriors-esque path to the league’s next dynasty.