LeBron nearly surpasses Jordan in MVP shares: While We’re Waiting…

As most of you know, I enjoy writing Boot Ups and Boot Downs about some events in the sports world. Here’s a history of me doing this same schtick here at WFNY.

Boot Up: LeBron’s MVP Award shares – On Monday night, LeBron James nearly made history. No, it wasn’t a potential fifth NBA Award. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has six and Michael Jordan has five. But it was about an accumulation of career success in the MVP award voting.

LeBron James finished in the top-5 of MVP voting for the 13th consecutive season. He has finished in the top-10 in every season of his career. Here’s how it has gone: 9, 6, 2, 5, 4, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, and, now, 2. Given the fact that MJ only played 13 seasons in Chicago … and several of Kareem’s MVP victories were extremely close calls in voting, LeBron’s MVP voting dominance nearly clinched a record on Monday.

Basketball-Reference.com keeps track of MVP award shares, which demonstrates the percentage of voting points that a player received out of the most possible each given season. There were 1,010 maximum points in the 2017-18 voting: James Harden received 965 (.955 share) and LeBron James received 738 (.731 share).

With that tally, LeBron James (8.066 career shares) came ever so close to eclipsing Jordan’s career sum of 8.115:

https://twitter.com/SportInfo247/status/1012049106821419008

One would expect that with just one more season, LeBron will take the hold of this record for good. No other active players are even close: Kevin Durant (3.184), Harden (2.523), Steph Curry (2.033), Dirk Nowitzki (1.810), Chris Paul (1.640) and Russell Westbrook (1.607). So once LeBron captures the lead, he’ll likely hold on for decades, if not generations, to come.

Boot Down: Salary math – Shocking news: The NBA salary cap rules are hard for the average fan to quite figure out. The $2.5 million Kendrick Perkins team option was weird enough (shoutout to Brendan Haywood’s eight-figure team option in 2015), but the rules regarding trades are even more complex.

Let’s start with the basics: The Cleveland Cavaliers are way over the salary cap. That’s not news. They have just over $140 million in 2018-19 contracts on the books, including LeBron James’ $35.6 million player option (which counts, until he formally decides to opt out).

The salary cap is expected to be about $103 million, although it could drop slightly due to the NBA Finals sweep. The tax line is projected at $121 million. So, yes, the Cavaliers are way over this “soft” limits instituted by the league.

In a memo to teams, the NBA has NOT changed it's preseason salary cap projection, it remains at $101 mil for 2018-19 and 108 mil for 2019-20. Tax at $123 mil and $131 mil, respectively. Typically, there's variance in the pre/post projection but not this year

— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) April 16, 2018

When a team is over the tax line, there are specific rules regarding the outgoing and incoming salary figures. For more granular detail, you can visit question 86 in Larry Coon’s CBA FAQ website. In a nutshell, the Cavaliers are only able to receive up to 125 percent (plus $100K) of the salary that they trade away.

One of the oft-discussed trade partners in Cavs Twitter has been the Charlotte Hornets, who may be looking to rebuild entirely. Players often mentioned in these Twitter fantasies and their 2018-19 salaries are: Nicolas Batum ($24 million), Marvin Williams ($14.1 million) and Kemba Walker ($12 million). If the Cavs were to acquire Williams and Walker ($26.1 million), for example, then they’ll have to send out at least $20.8 million in salaries.

Fans may quickly jump to players like George Hill ($19 million), Tristan Thompson ($17.5 million), J.R. Smith ($14.7 million) and Jordan Clarkson ($12.5 million). Hill’s deal, with only a $1 million guarantee for the 2019-20 season, is likely the most attractive of the bunch. The rest … just aren’t going to be that salivating for any organization looking to purge salary commitments, anyway.

Keep that 125 percent rule in mind though. The ESPN NBA Trade Machine should certainly know that, but when you’re coming up with ideas on Twitter, it’s also good to stay grounded in the actual rules on the books.

Boot Up: Fun with small sample sizes – Undoubtedly, Jason Kipnis has had a rocky back-and-forth season. In a recent Slack conversation, I noted how his season represents a bit of Jekyll and Hyde. Take a look at his offensive production when you slice it into some arbitrary endpoints:

First 11 G (3/29 thru 4/10): .096/.196/.122 w/ 1 XBH, 5 BB, 11 K in 46 PA

Next 20 G (4/11 thru 5/3): .253/.325/.386 w/ 9 XBH, 8 BB, 19 K in 93 PA

Next 11 G (5/4 thru 5/18): .075/.191/.100 w/ 1 XBH, 6 BB, 9 K in 47 PA

Last 32 G (5/19 thru 6/27): .283/.348/.475 w/ 11 XBH, 11 BB, 23 K in 132 PA

Those two 11-game stretches are ridiculously awful. Remove those from consideration and his offensive production, certainly recently, at least slightly mirrors his 2011-16 stats (.272/.345/.423). But that’s not quite how math works and his numbers weren’t so hot last year in 2017 either (.232/.291/.414).

Obviously, it’s been quite the nice little stretch recently. Which has logically saved Kipnis’ short-term job situation amid swirling Twitter rumors of the Indians targeting some high-profile infielders (cough cough, who could that be). But don’t be surprised if the Indians continue to shop his name in the offseason, as they apparently did last year with teams like the New York Mets.

Speaking of small sample sizes … let’s all appreciate what prospect Francisco Mejia has accomplished in his last 20 games back in Triple-A Columbus. He’s hitting .427/.447/.622 with 10 doubles and 16 RBI. He has an astounding 15 (!) multi-hit games during this stretch. You’d maybe want a little more patience (only two walks), but that’s serious nit-picking when a player is that hot offensively. Man, it’d be fun to have a great hitting catcher yet again. More on this to come later today at WFNY.

Boot Down: Records after 8 innings – I got a question from my friend Will Rubin on Twitter following last night’s dramatic College World Series affair:

That's bananas. @JacobLRosen how does this compare to MLB? https://t.co/N78NYWi8BJ

— Will Rubin (@WillCRubin) June 28, 2018

On Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, there’s a Scoring and Leads Summary page where you can dissect data based on leads by innings, runs scored, runs allowed, etc. The 2018 record: 1026-50 (.954). The 2017 record: 2106-108 (.951). The 2016 record: 2106-92 (.958). The 2015 record: 2105-76 (.965). The 2014 record: 2050-101 (.953).

What we were introduced with was this: 126-2 (.984). What that immediately signals to me: It’s actually 126-4 (.969) because people love arbitrary endpoints and we all know what happened last night.

People struggle with relatively improbable statistical outcomes. Just because it happened 126 out of 128 times recently doesn’t mean that … given what we know in MLB (.955-ish expectation) … it wasn’t ever likely to occur in some 128-game sample at some point in time in some format of baseball.

Thus, issue debunked, Will. Sorry to be the Debbie Downer on a fun fact you discovered on Twitter. To me, it doesn’t really pass the sniff test as all that wild and crazy.