With no clear cut favorite, Lebron might receive third straight MVP

Lebron James recently said that he felt his and Dwyane Wade's chances of winning any future MVP awards were thrown out the window the second they decided to team up.

While James might have just been trying to sound humble, many Heat fans, and NBA fans in general, shared the same kind of sentiment.

Many felt that while the duo had the chance to be great, the mere pairing of the two would cancel each other out when it came time to vote for the leagues most valuable player.

But as the season reaches its halfway point, and still no clear cut MVP emerging (Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, and Derrick Rose all having great seasons, but more impressive than Lebron?), you'd have to say that James has as good a shot as anybody to win what would be his third consecutive MVP award.

Is a third straight MVP in Lebron's future? 

And while one could contend that his stats are down, this is an argument that simply couldn't hold up in court.

Sure, his scoring is down a bit from last year when he averaged 29.7 points per game compared to 26.1 this year, but that should have been expected by everyone. He's still the second leading scorer in the league.

But if you take a look at some of the other major statistical categories, not much has changed.  His rebounding and steals are almost identical to last year and his three point percentage is up.

It all comes down to what the voters are looking for.

Will the voters cancel James out due to the MVP like calibre play of Wade? Or will they recognize the significance of a truly special player who's former team just set the NBA record for consecutive losses at 24.

If James wins his third consecutive MVP he will be only the third player to do so and the first to do it since Larry Bird when he accomplished the fete in the 1985-1986 season.

It'll be interesting to see if the voters do whats right at the end of the season and award the worthy candidate or if they settle for what I call a "default MVP", similar to when the great Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson won the award for the 1994 and 1995 seasons respectively, due to the first retirement of a guy named Michael Jordan.