The NBA announced on Monday that LeBron James has been named its player of the week to open the month of March. This comes on the heels of James earning player of the month honors in February. The dominant three-game stretch also encouraged Las Vegas to close the betting-odds gap between Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron for this season’s MVP award. The Greek Freak had been -800 with James at +600 entering the week while the odds have since narrowed to -160 and +120, respectively.
King James shot 52% from the field while averaging 29 points, 10.3 assists and 7.3 rebounds to win the award. He also made his presence felt defensively over a series of high-profile games with 1.3 steals and 1.3 blocks. During this stretch, LeBron led the Los Angeles Lakers to a 3-0 record which included victories over two of the top teams in the NBA in Giannis’ Milwaukee Bucks and Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers. He also earned a victory over the the short-handed Philadelphia 76ers who will be a playoff team in the Eastern Conference.
King of the Week đź‘‘ pic.twitter.com/ec3fReYlfg
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) March 9, 2020
This marks LeBron’s third player of the week award with Los Angeles this season. That makes him the first Laker since Kobe Bryant during the 2012-13 campaign to be named player of the week three times in one year. James also holds the overall NBA record with 64 player of the week honors. Michael Jordan, for example, was named player of the week 25 times during his legendary career.
The momentum in this season’s MVP race now shifts to Los Angeles as James has positioned himself to make a come-from-behind run to claim the fifth most valuable player trophy of his career. With Giannis missing Monday’s game as a precaution after receiving an MRI on his knee, the award could be up for grabs over the next several weeks as we enter the final stretch of the regular-season.
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