LeBron James picked up 120 first-place votes for the 2013 NBA MVP award (via ESPN), which is great...save the fact that there were 121 ballots, one first-place vote going to Carmelo Anthony.
Following the news that LeBron wasn't voted the first unanimous MVP in league history, everybody lit their torches and sharpened their pitchforks to hunt down whatever monster could have committed such an atrocity.
The general consensus is that it was Dan Le Batard, Miami Herald columnist and ESPN talking head, and the full wrath of the Internet came spiraling down in his direction.
On Sunday, Le Batard wrote a column in the Miami Herald that both panned and praised the proclamation of LeBron as the league's most valuable player.
It was a writer highlighting the fleeting memory of the public and the inability of the media to stick to their guns three years after "The Decision."
[S]o he rigged the odds of this particular game in his favor by teaming with other stars in a warmer Miami, and this was met with howling accusations about shortcuts and a legacy burning just as surely as his Cavaliers jerseys.
Gone somehow is the wailing about the unfairness of James getting all that help, ironically replaced by Rose not having enough help and Durant having lost his help and Howard teaming with the wrong help and Anthony not sharing with his help.
Never an admission, but not a celebration of LeBron's phenomenal season either, thereby leading many to believe it signaled a vote for somebody else.
Of course, the subsequent Twitter mobbing came soon thereafter, complete with Le Batard retweeting a portion of those upset.
Now this is obviously a case of focusing on the miniscule bit of negative as far as LeBron's career is concerned, but in reality this is of some significance.
There's the argument over whether or not there should be some kind of unwritten rule to keep players from winning awards unanimously, whether the ballots should be made public (something about Internet anonymity makes me think keeping the ballots private is in the best interest of voters), and whether or not everything is taken too seriously.
Le Batard has tossed out a few pictures of media-types reaching out to him for an interview, and there has been some rebuffing of the assumption that he voted for 'Melo or that he voted at all.
The only thing that remains unchanged after a day full of rumors and unexpected anger is that LeBron James is still the 2013 NBA MVP.
Via: Nagoya Grampus Eight - Vegalta Sendai - Japanese j-League
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