Ramona Shelburne Went On TV And Said She Voted LeBron For MVP Because She's A "Narrative Based Voter"
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Let me begin by saying this is nothing new and frankly will always be the case when you talk about the NBA MVP. Narrative voting has always existed when it comes to that award. At the same time, not exactly the best look for a voter who lives in LA to come out and say on national television that they voted for LeBron because they are a narrative voter. This has always made me cringe when you hear people talk about LeBron's MVP case. These media pundits keep talking about how LeBron should be the MVP because he had to deal with Kobe's death, China, and all this shit. I'm not kidding
It's bananaland stuff. This isn't to say LeBron doesn't have an MVP case, he should absolutely be in the top 2. But to anyone who has actually watched the season, looks at the data and the on court production, I don't know how anyone would vote for a player not named Giannis. That is, unless you don't care about any of that and only care about pushing a narrative.
Well let me ask you something. What about the narrative for Giannis? This dude carried the Bucks to another HISTORIC season. He's putting up numbers on a nightly basis that we've never seen before. The man basically averages more points than minutes played! All the things people try and use for LeBron's "narrative" are things Giannis had to deal with too. What he didn't care about Kobe? The China shit didn't impact him? That will never stop being strange to me.
This isn't to say narrative shouldn't be factored in, it all matters to some degree. Just ask James Harden if he feels like narrative impacted his MVP totals. Shit, even LeBron has been on the other end of the narrative MVP debate on numerous occasions. Pretty sure Steve Nash has an MVP due to narrative. It happens.
I look at it like this. If the roles were reversed and LeBron had Giannis' season but Giannis was getting votes because of "narrative", would Lakers fans be cool with it? Of course not!
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I don't know what the answer is. Media voters are always going to have an agenda when voting for this shit. I just know it's a pretty rough look for the league to have a voter go on TV and say none of the actual on the court shit matters when it comes to their most important award and they just vote on a narrative when it's the media that drives that narrative in the first place. That seems like the opposite of what you want to have happen when it comes to voting.