LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo-named-NBA-Players-of-the-768x432
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There are two clear favorites to win the NBA MVP award this season: LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick Perkins and Domonique Foxworth debated on ESPN’s First Take on who should win the award.

According to Smith, the fact that LeBron plays in Los Angeles should be taken into consideration, because the city helps attract players such as Anthony Davis.

“Yeah, I understand people wanna go and play with LeBron. But it’s not like you can compare LeBron in Cleveland and Giannis in Milwaukee. LeBron is in LA. LA? Milwaukee? Can y’all answer that question? I mean just stop it. LA got a lot do with it,” Smith said.

In the end, though, Smith went with the Lakers superstar for the MVP award. He thinks that LeBron is more valuable because of the way he facilitates and creates opportunities to his teammates, making them better. At the same time, he said The Greek Freak is phenomenal.

Foxworth concurred that LeBron is a better player. According to him, though, taking James out of the Lakers roster would not make them as bad of a team as removing Giannis from the Bucks would. He went as far as to say without Giannis Milwaukee would be at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, because the team is built around him.

Finally, Perkins disagreed with Foxworth on what it would mean for the Lakers to lose LeBron compared to the Bucks losing Giannis. He was of the opinion that without Antetokounmpo the Bucks would still make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference while the Lakers would struggle battling for the eighth seed in the West.