Will Durant finished 2nd in MVP balloting?
The Cleveland Plain Dealer and other media sources are reporting Cleveland star LeBron James will win his second straight MVP award that will be presented to him in his hometown, Akron, on Sunday.
But the newspaper didn’t answer the question Thunder fans want to know: Who will finish second?
The Oklahoman polled 51 of the 123 media representatives with votes two weeks ago. The Oklahoman’s results revealed it will be a close race between Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant on who finishes behind James.
James received 49 of the 51 first-place votes in the Oklahoman poll. Kobe received 21 second-place votes, Durant 20. Bryant owned a slight edge for second. But the voting was so close Durant could finish second.
Orlando center Dwight Howard receiving eight second-place votes and nine third-place votes gave Kobe a slight edge over Durant in the Oklahoman poll. But with more than half the votes unaccounted for Durant could finish second.
“It doesn’t really matter (where I finish),” Durant said. “It’s cool to be in the conversation. I’m just glad that we’re getting better as a group.”
Ian Thomsen of Sports Illustrated was one of the voters who picked Howard third and Durant fourth.
“The top three names represent the leaders of the three leading title contenders and each is indispensable to his team,” Thomsen said. “Could Durant play the same kind of all-encompassing role provided by James, Bryant or Howard and maintain leadership of a championship contender? I don’t think he’s ready to do that. He’s too young and inexperienced. As such he doesn’t yet deserve to beat out those three stars on my MVP ballot.”
But one voter who wanted his comment to remain anonymous said Durant was the second best player in the league.
“He won the scoring title and helped his team double its win total,” the voter said. “How valuable is that? To me, Durant was the obvious No. 2 choice behind LeBron.”
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KD should absolutely be 2nd in the MVP voting. And that’s not just me being a homer. It’s obvious. Scoring champ, much better stats than Kobe, more than doubled his team’s wins, only 7 games behind the Lakers in the win column, and Kobe missed significant time and his team still won without him. I’ll be ticked if KD isn’t second.