CLEVELAND -- Between his 10 seasons as a player and 25 years as a coach, Cleveland Cavaliers interim head coach Larry Drew has seen a lot of NBA basketball over the course of his lifetime. Like many, he can't seem to find much of a precedent for LeBron James.
"I've never seen anything like it, to be perfectly honest with you," Drew said following James' 35-point, 17-assist, 7-rebound, 0-turnover performance in the Cavs' 132-129 victory over the first-place Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. "It's just amazing at what he does, night in and night out. How he sustains it is just mind-boggling."
And yet at times, it feels as though James' play -- particularly in his 15th season in the league -- is also going underappreciated.
With just less than three weeks remaining in the regular season, James Harden appears to have all but locked up the NBA's annual MVP award. In his latest MVP rankings -- which Harden has sat atop of for most of the season -- NBA.com's Sekou Smith wrote of the Houston Rockets guard:
"Harden punctuates his MVP worthiness with every outing for the league-leading Rockets. It doesn’t matter if it’s a game against a lottery-bound team or a streaking Portland Trail Blazers, whose 13-game win streak Harden helped the Rockets snap with a 42-point, seven-assist, six-rebound performance. If there was any doubts about Harden’s vice grip on the top spot on this list, they should vanish by now."
In what appears to be a wide margin, James now sits in second in Smith's MVP rankings.
"Another day, another virtuoso performance from the man who insists his game is aging like fine wine," Smith wrote. "It’s hard to argue with the 33-year-old mega-star when he shows out the way he did in Wednesday’s showdown win over the East-leading Toronto Raptors."
With three weeks to go until the start of the playoffs, is there enough time left for James to make a legitimate run at what would be his fifth career MVP award? It may seem tough to believe, although it's worth noting that as the season wears on, the Cavs superstar's play only appears to be getting better.
Prior to the insane 35-17-7-0 stat line he posted against the Raptors, James put together a ho-hum 40-point triple-double in Cleveland's Monday victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. Thus far in March, James has averaged 31.4 points, 10.2 rebounds and 9.9 assists -- one month after averaging a triple-double (27.0 points, 10.5 rebounds, 10.5 assists) for the entire month of February.
What's more is that with Kevin Love now back in the Cavs' lineup after missing 20 games until this past Monday, James' play only figures to improve. Cleveland's schedule won't hurt LeBron's cause either, with the Cavs slated to face six teams with losing records in their final 11 games.
On the season, James leads the Eastern Conference in both points (27.4) and assists (9.1) to go along with 8.6 rebounds. He's also on pace to play in all 82 regular season games for the first time in his 15-year career.
For comparison's sake, Harden is averaging a league-best 31.0 points, 8.7 assists and 5.3 rebounds. His true advantage, however, comes in the standings, with Houston possessing the NBA's best-record at 58-14, while the Cavs sit third in the Eastern Conference standings at 42-29.
Could Cleveland gain enough ground in these next three weeks for James to have a legitimate chance at chasing down Harden? The odds are against it.
It wouldn't be the first time, however, that James has accomplished the unprecedented.
