LeBron James 2009 NBA MVP

All of the different articles about LeBron James winning the NBA MVP here on one site for you. (espn.com si.com msnbc.com)

CLEVELAND - Unstoppable at both ends of the floor this season, LeBron James is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.
James, who led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a team-record 66 regular-season wins and the top overall seed in the playoffs, will receive the award Monday, a person with knowledge of the choice told The Associated Press. James chose Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, his alma mater, for the presentation, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been made.
The Cavaliers announced a “major” news conference for 4 p.m. at the school, but did not give the reason.
James is the first Cavaliers player to win the award. He averaged 28.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.2 assists this season, his sixth as a pro. He also finished second in voting for defensive player of the year, making him perhaps the league’s most dominant two-way player since Michael Jordan.
At 24 years, 106 days on the final day of the regular season, James is the youngest player to win the award since Moses Malone (24 years, 16 days) in 1978-79. Wes Unseld was 23 when he won it in 1968-69.
James vied all season for MVP honors with the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Miami’s Dwyane Wade. The three played on the U.S. gold medalist Olympic team last summer and seemed to upstage each other nightly this season.
Focused right from the start, the 6-foot-8, 250-pound James sharpened his already formidable skills this season.
He started a career-high 81 games and set personal bests in field-goal (49) and free-throw (79) percentages. James became the second player to post five straight seasons of at least 27 points, six rebounds and six assists. The other is Oscar Robertson, whose extraordinarily versatile game is the one James’ is most often compared.
James nearly averaged a triple-double — 32 points, 11.3 rebounds and 7.5 assists — as the top-seeded Cavaliers breezed through the first round of the playoffs, sweeping the Detroit Pistons in four games. Cleveland will host the Atlanta Hawks in Game 1 on Tuesday.
It’s no surprise James would select his high school for the ceremony. It’s where he won three state basketball championships and where he burst onto the national scene, becoming a Sports Illustrated cover subject at just 17 years old. He announced plans to skip college in the Fighting Irish’s quaint gym and recently filmed a “60 Minutes” interview there.





Let me see if I can make this clear without getting myself in trouble:
I expected LeBron James, who arrived in the pros as an 18-year-old drawing intense scrutiny and facing extraordinary expectations, to have screwed up by this time. Not a Jeff George-level screwup, i.e., clashing with coaches and consistently underperforming. Not a Michael Phelps-level screwup, i.e., getting photographed with a marijuana pipe. Not necessarily a Kobe Bryant-level screwup, i.e., committing a sexual indiscretion that cost him a reputation that he has only recently begun to salvage.
But some kind of screwup. Show up late or not at all for one game. Miss a practice because of a Nike commitment, then say it doesn't matter all that much. Shove an unruly fan who got in his face in a club. Get frustrated from double- and triple-teaming and lash out at an opponent. Complain about teammates not giving him enough help.
But here we are in the 24-year-old's sixth season, and it's as if he's following a script written by a couple of hip, yet image-conscious screenwriters. Let yourself groove a little, LeBron, but stay within the lines.
And, so, as the Cavaliers' young superstar accepts the MVP hardware that is so deservedly his, I ponder not the specifics of his exquisitely played season or the promise that he will bring the starving city of Cleveland a championship, but the fact that he has yet to make a major false step.
Incredible. Simply incredible.
Now, just because someone lives an Ozzie and Harriet upbringing, as Michael Jordan did, and someone else grows up hard, as James did, does not guarantee a certain life path. But Jordan himself credited his ability to flourish both on and off the court at least partly to a stable, two-parent boyhood, three blissful campus years at Chapel Hill under the tutelage of Dean Smith, and having superagent David Falk to blaze his marketing trail. James' hardscrabble background, in Akron, Ohio, was the polar opposite of Jordan's. He had no college coach to help check his compass. And at the end of the 2004-05 season, James fired his agents, the Goodwin brothers, and hired a group of friends to take over his endorsement career. (He would later select Leon Rose as his new agent.)
Ticket to disaster? Hardly.
James handles everything thrown at him -- criticism, marketing challenges (would anyone deny that he's a more natural performer than Jordan in his ads?), questions about not winning the big one, etc. -- as easily as he handles hounding defenses. When Washington Wizards guard DeShawn Stevenson called him overrated, James simply turned it away by comparing himself to Jay-Z and Stevenson to one-hit wonder Soulja Boy. It's got a degree of cockiness, sure, but it was right for the moment. When Charles Barkley criticized James for talking too much about the free-agent summer of 2010, James responded hotly -- "He's stupid. That's all I've got to say about that" -- and moved on. Again, it was exactly right. Say your piece -- where's the law that someone can't come back at Charles? -- and forget about it.
As he thanked the Cavaliers' fans at the team's final regular-season home game last month, LeBron added, "If we win 99-20, don't boo us because you don't get a free chalupa." He had been upset that Cavs fans sometimes booed when the team didn't score 100 points to trigger a fast-food prize. Again, I thought it was the perfect note, a finger-wave at the fans but a gentle one and one James eminently deserved to make.
His play has been both sensational and exemplary. They're not always the same thing. Remember it wasn't too long ago that James' ability to take -- and make -- the big shot was being questioned. Now he's become a doubly clutch player because he may take the shot but he may also find an open teammate. It wasn't too long ago (the summer of 2006) when a lackadaisical performance at summer camp led some to ponder whether he should even be on the Olympic team. He got the message, and two years later LeBron, Bryant and Dwyane Wade carried the majority of the water on the way to the gold medal.
But the fact that James became a superstar in the tradition of Jordan/Bryant -- let's hold those exact comparisons until we see what happens the rest of the way -- is not really a surprise. It's the way he conducts himself on and off the court that has gotten my attention. True, most of the time, James seems to be reading from a teleprompter in his head, and I would prefer the less scripted, more spontaneous James, the James who calls Barkley stupid. But the kid has grown up fast, under a white-hot spotlight, and, man, what a job of growing up he has done.




The NBA will announce LeBron James as its MVP on Monday, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland and The Associated Press have reported, citing unnamed sources.
A day before the Cleveland Cavaliers begin their second-round series against the Atlanta Hawks, the league will anoint James, 24.
The announcement will be made at James' alma mater, St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, the reports said. The Cavaliers called a news conference for 4 p.m. ET but didn't specify the nature of the event. ESPNEWS will carry the Cavaliers' news conference, expected to announce LeBron James as the NBA's MVP, at 4 p.m. ET
His Cavaliers teammates were expected to attend.
James, whose Cavaliers swept the Detroit Pistons in the first round of the playoffs, averaged 28.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.2 assists during the regular season, his sixth in the NBA, in which Cleveland won a team-record 66 games and earned the top overall seed in the playoffs.
James' coach, Mike Brown, also was honored by the NBA last month as its coach of the year. Since the ABA/NBA merger, it is only the fourth time the MVP and coach of the year came from the same team that also finished with the league's best record. The last time it happened was 2004-05 (Mike D'Antoni coach, Steve Nash MVP, Phoenix Suns), but in the group of four, only the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who won 72 games, won the championship.
The Cavs host Atlanta on Tuesday after the Hawks finished off the Miami Heat in Game 7 of their first-round series Sunday.
James, who will become the first Cavaliers player to win the award, finished second in voting for defensive player of the year.
At 24 years, 106 days, he will be the youngest player to win the award since Moses Malone (24 years, 16 days) in 1978-79. Wes Unseld was 23 when he won it in 1968-69.
Focused from the start of the 2008-09 season, the 6-foot-8, 250-pound James sharpened his magnificent skills this season.
He started a career-high 81 games and set personal bests in field-goal (49) and free-throw (79) percentages. James became just the second player to post five straight seasons of at least 27 points, six rebounds and six assists. The other is Oscar Robertson, whose well-rounded game is the one James' is most often compared.
James was in a three-way battle all season with Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant and Miami's Dwyane Wade for MVP honors. The trio -- teammates last summer on the U.S. Olympic team that won gold -- seemed to upstage each other on a nightly basis.
It's not a surprise that the loyal James would select his high school for the ceremony. It's where he won three state basketball championships and where he burst onto the national scene, becoming a cover subject for Sports Illustrated as a 17-year-old. He announced his intention to skip college in the Fighting Irish's quaint gym and recently filmed a "60 Minutes" interview there.