Andre Iguodala's Case for Finals MVP

Imagine a basketball player that is 35 percent less effective than LeBron James. This would still be a very good basketball player, and a player 35 percent behind the historic pace that LeBron has set in these NBA Finals would still be one of the better players in the NBA.

This 35 Percent Off player would still be fast and athletic. He would still have incredible jumping ability and athleticism; he'd have a knack for finishing dunks with noisy power and would be able to knock down shots if given enough space. He would chase down rebounds and pass the ball to the right guy at the right time. His defense would be a weapon to deploy against the opposing team's best player. That player would be a welcome addition to any team, and would be one of the more valuable, if not the most statistically versatile, player on many NBA teams.

Oddly enough, that player might be the Finals MVP in a series that features the actual LeBron James. Andre Iguodala has held/"held" LeBron to three 40-point games during the first five games of the NBA Finals. Yes, this is complicated. But yes, Iguodala deserves the Finals MVP trophy.

The difference between Andre Iguodala and James is the difference between a player who can do a little bit of everything and a player who can do everything, full stop. Both are valuable and rare, although one is more so than the other; only one can be tasked with guarding LeBron James, although the other has the advantage of actually being LeBron James. And while LeBron is the most important player in the NBA Finals, stopping him is the most important task in the NBA Finals.

Iguodala has averaged 14.6 points, six rebounds and 3.8 assists per game through five games this series while shooting 55 percent. This would make for one of the most underwhelming statistical showings by a Finals MVP ever. And yet the growing chatter is that, if the Warriors can close out their 3-2 advantage, Iguodala would be their most deserving honoree.

This is based almost entirely on the the things that Iguodala has provided that don't register in stat lines—his bouncy energy and savvy timing enable him to have his fingertips all over a game even without playing huge minutes, and without taking anything away from his teammates. And yet this does not seem like enough. If we are grading on intangibles then we would start and end with the fear that Steph Curry strikes into opposing defenses whenever he has the basketball beyond half court. In terms of value and effect, we would have to speak of Curry's scoring barrages, which are so sudden and so violent as to invert the context of a game instantly, and which seem to happen independently of how well he's defended. That unmatched skill is what allows every other Warrior to succeed unhindered. It's what earned Curry MVP honors this season.

And yet neither statistics nor an attempt to make intangibles tangible sums up what Iguodala has done in these Finals. His case for Finals MVP has everything to do with LeBron James, who generally has the best MVP case in any series in which he plays, and who has done more in these Finals than he ever has before.

The Warriors have limited their double teams on James, and so have forced him to do it all himself. James has happily obliged, making Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson, Shaun Livingston, and Draymond Green literal witnesses to his brilliance. Only Iguodala's long arms and instincts have so much as given LeBron trouble, and Iguodala has done an excellent job guarding James in isolation. James is shooting 33 percent when Iguodala is playing him on defense and 42.7 percent when any other Warrior is guarding him. In a series in which LeBron has three 40-point games in five contests, that is what success looks like.

Iguodala has been guarding James for a decade now. Knowing what the best player is going to try to do doesn't mean you can stop him, but it's a lot better than not knowing. Has Iguodala done even a decent job of shutting him down? Not really, although it's hard to imagine anyone who could. But containment is a world of difference when LeBron's only alternative outlets are J.R. Smith or Iman Shumpert or Matthew Dellavedova

And so here we are. James is dominating the Warriors in almost every sense, and yet he and his team are on the brink of elimination. In a matchup that is so clearly comprised of the greatest player versus the greatest team, degrees of dominance begin to matter. This is where we are: if it weren't for Iguodala's defense, James might have achieved a level of dominance that could have overwhelmed the Warriors, even collectively. If Iguodala has only mitigated the damage, he's still done a lot.

Why would we possibly give the Finals MVP to someone when the player he is guarding is averaging nearly 40 points per game? Well, because the player he is guarding isn't averaging 50 points per game. It all has to do with who that player is. The player in question is LeBron James. And Andre Iguodala has done better work against him than anyone else in the building could dream to of doing.

If James can drag the Cavaliers to two straight wins then he will likely be the most deserving Finals MVP of all time. If not, then he'll either be given the award anyway or a candidate from the more balanced Warriors will be selected. But if James does almost everything anyone could to win this series and still comes up short, then Iguodala will be the reason the fifth word of this sentence is "almost." If that wins him the award, he'll have earned it.