Kyle Kuzma thinks LeBron James should win MVP after voters ‘messed up’ the Defensive Player of the Year award

Over the past few weeks, the NBA has named the winners of a handful of the regular season awards, including Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. However, the most prestigious regular season honor that a player can get still hasn’t been announced yet: the Most Valuable Player award.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo won the MVP award last season and he’s the odds-on favorite to win it again this year. However, LeBron James also made a strong case for his fifth league MVP during the regular season, and it appears Kyle Kuzma believes that James’ case is stronger than Antetokounmpo’s.

Kuzma isn’t the only one that thinks so either. On Wednesday, Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson — one of the original members of the Lakers’ young core and a former teammate of James with the Cavaliers — tweeted that James should be named MVP.

Frank Vogel also reiterated that he thinks James is deserving of the award because of how crucial he’s been to the Lakers’ success this season.

“Nobody impacts winning more than LeBron James,” Vogel said. “That’s true for this season, it’s why he should be MVP, and honestly it’s probably true in the history of the game that no one impacts winning more than LeBron James.”

Antetokounmpo will likely be named MVP when the time comes, but the amount of fanfare around his stellar season has cooled down immensely because the Bucks were eliminated from playoff contention on Tuesday. Meanwhile, James and the Lakers currently hold a 2-1 lead in their series with the Houston Rockets.

James could end the season without any regular season awards, but he’s still in the running for the two most important pieces of hardware in basketball. If James had to choose between a regular season MVP and a Finals MVP with a championship trophy alongside it, it’s safe to assume he’d choose the latter, and that’s not just because he has four regular season MVPs at home. I mean, what do regular season accolades really mean without a championship ring?

Not a thing.

Photo credit should read BECK DIEFENBACH/AFP via Getty Images

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