LeBron James won his first NBA MVP award during the 2008-09 season after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 21-game improvement and the top overall seed in the playoffs. It was his sixth season.
He led the NBA with a player efficiency rating (PER) of 29.2 and helped carry the Cavs to top-four finishes in both offensive and defensive efficiency. James would go on to lead the Cavaliers to another 60-win season in 2009-10, then guided each of his next eight teams to the NBA Finals. During that span, LeBron won four NBA MVP awards and earned three NBA championships.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is the front-runner to win his first NBA MVP award this season -- his sixth in the NBA. The Bucks are the top seed in the playoffs after a 16-win improvement year-over-year. Giannis led the NBA with a PER of 31.0, and his Bucks finished top-three in offensive and defensive efficiency.
Deja vu. But can Antetokounmpo dominate the East for the next decade like James did?
Buy or sell: Giannis is about to dominate the East like LeBron did
Beast of (at least) the East
Before we start comparing Giannis to LeBron, let's first establish how Giannis compares to his peers. Kawhi Leonard is strong competition as the best player in the East, and a healthy Kevin Durant is in the running as the best player in the NBA. But Giannis should take this crown. He creates mismatches at both ends of the court that allow his team to build dominant offensive and defensive units around him. This was evident in the Bucks' Game 1 win over Kawhi and the Toronto Raptors.
Giannis had a ho-hum Game 1 by his standards, scoring 24 points on 43.8 percent shooting from the field. Teammate Brook Lopez was the story of the game after hitting a clutch 3 that helped seal a victory. Giannis was the ball handler on the play, driving the ball into the lane. When he picked up his dribble in the paint, literally all five Raptors defenders collapsed in to defend him. Antetokounmpo noticed his streaking center was open and hit him for the clean look.
This play epitomizes Giannis' offensive impact. It marked the last of his game-high six assists, and it was set up by his inevitable ability to get to the rim and finish. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Giannis leads the league by producing 1.19 points per direct drive through either finishing or dishing to teammates (minimum 200 drives). And per Basketball-Reference, Giannis takes 57.3 percent of his shots within 3 feet of the rim, making 76.9 percent of those looks.
Those are numbers that haven't been seen in the NBA since Shaquille O'Neal was in his prime. Meanwhile, Giannis leads the Bucks in assists per game and, not coincidentally, the Bucks are second in the NBA in 3-pointers made per game.
Even though Giannis isn't a great 3-point shooter himself, he creates a ton of easy looks from deep with his rim runs. That helps make him one of the highest-impact offensive bigs in the NBA, trailing only Nikola Jokic among power forwards and centers with an offensive real plus minus (ORPM) of plus-3.1. Among all Eastern Conference players, Giannis trails only Kemba Walker and Bradley Beal in ORPM.
On the defensive side of the ball, Antetokounmpo dominates by preventing opponents from being able to get into the paint and by disrupting their sets. He had a game-high five combined steals and blocks on Wednesday, the third time in the past four games that he has notched at least two steals and two blocks. But his most impressive defensive attribute may be his ability to shut down the lane, then finish the possession with a rebound.
Giannis is tied with Rudy Gobert for third in the NBA with only 0.83 points allowed per direct drive, per Second Spectrum tracking. Giannis ranks seventh in the NBA with only 0.73 points allowed per direct isolation. Opponents don't even try to post him up, as he has only had to defend 50 direct post-ups on the season -- a paltry 1.1 posts per 100 possessions. And Giannis still has the mobility to get out on shooters.
Combining all that with his stellar rebounding makes Antetokounmpo one of the most impactful defenders in the NBA. His defensive RPM of plus-3.4 ranks sixth in the NBA among players who logged more than 24 minutes over at least 40 games.
The Bucks have built their team around him on both ends, and the resulting squad is 9-1 this postseason. Milwaukee has the best player in the NBA.
On the horizon
The Bucks are facing a legitimate title contender in the Raptors, a team that posted the second-best record in the league and the NBA's third-best scoring margin. Though I picked the Bucks to win this series in five games, even if the Raptors can regroup to win this season, they still face a summer of uncertainty in which Kawhi Leonard could leave as a free agent. If that happens, the Raptors would drop from the ranks of contention unless they swung another stunning move like the Leonard trade.
The Philadelphia 76ers are an interesting team built around two monster young talents with huge upside in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. However, the Bucks finished the season nine games better than the 76ers and seem to have found a way to maximize their superstar's talents with strong complementary pieces. Plus, at age 24, Giannis is actually almost a year younger than Embiid with a much more robust pedigree when it comes to health. Add in that the 76ers face major uncertainty this offseason, with three of their five starters eligible for free agency, and the Bucks look like the much safer bet to succeed in the next few years.
After starting the year as the popular pick to win the East, the Boston Celtics battled dysfunction all season and succumbed to the Bucks in a gentleman's sweep in the second round. The Celtics still have a full cupboard of young talent. They could be offseason contenders to bring in another huge talent like Anthony Davis. However, they also face major uncertainty with Kyrie Irving, Al Horford and Terry Rozier all having to make free-agency decisions.
The New York Knicks have two max slots open to recruit star free agents such as Durant and Irving this summer, but free agency is a tricky game, and New York would still have the difficult task of filling out the rest of that roster. Giannis and the Bucks are here now. They need to find a way to retain their own key free agents -- Khris Middleton, Malcolm Brogdon, Lopez -- but they are a much safer bet to contend again than a team full of hypotheticals.
The bottom line
Like LeBron a decade before him, Antetokounmpo is the new outlier in the NBA. He is still early in his prime years, but he is likely about to win his first MVP. The Bucks have identified the strategy to build championship-caliber offense and defense around his strengths. By retaining this core in the summer, they'll have both the coaching staff and the personnel in place to contend every season moving forward.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Eastern Conference is full of uncertainties and speculation. I buy that Giannis is just getting started on LeBron levels of East dominance. Not only are James' accomplishments feasible, but surpassing them is at least a possibility.