LeBron James Proposes An NBA Offensive Player Of The Year Award

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James believes the NBA should take a page from the NFL by adding an Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY) award to its list of annual individual honors.

LeBron James Suggests An NBA Offensive Player Of The Year Award

The NBA’s criteria for the MVP award have always been subjective, as several individuals from the media — some of whom are oftentimes biased — cast their votes to determine the winner of each type of award.

On an episode of the “Mind the Game” podcast with Steve Nash, James floated the idea of an Offensive Player of the Year award for the player who had the best offensive year in a given season.

“I did think about how the NFL does Offensive Player of the Year and MVP. I thought that could possibly be something in our league, where you give an Offensive Player of the Year and an MVP,” James said.

The NFL’s nationwide panel of sportswriters typically decides the winner of the AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year based on which players had record-breaking or near-record-breaking offensive seasons.

NFL Players Can Win OPOY While On Bad Teams

Unlike the NBA’s award system, NFL players can win an award like OPOY despite playing for a non-playoff team, whereas NBA players must be on a top-performing contender to win MVP.

That observation doesn’t sit too well with Nash.

“You could be on a poor team, have an unbelievable offensive year, and still win Offensive Player of the Year,” he said. “And vice versa, you could maybe not have the best player in the league, but you were the most valuable in taking your team to a new height.”

The problem with the MVP award is the broad definition of value, which doesn’t automatically refer to the best player when the word gets mentioned.

However, LeBron James’ idea could help the NBA to fix this issue.

“It’s like, OK, so is it the best player? Is it the player who had the best season with their team? Maybe that’s Offensive Player of the Year,” James continued.

“Or is it just simply the best player in the league? Statistically, this was the best player in the league. Obviously, you’re not going to have someone in there whose team didn’t come close to making the playoffs … it’s not the most valuable, then.”

Nikola Jokic Could Have Won OPOY Last Season

Last season, Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won both the regular season MVP and NBA Finals MVP, leading his team to its first championship.

Per Basketball Reference, Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in points (2,484), points per game (32.7), field goals (860), field goal attempts (1,656), free throws (601), free throws per game (7.9), and defensive win shares (4.8).

SGA had 19 games in the 2024-25 regular season with 30 or more points without multiple turnovers, tying a record he set last year. No other player in the NBA had more than eight such games in 2024-25.

But if an OPOY award had existed, the honor might have been given to Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, who averaged a triple-double and became just the third player in NBA history to do so.