LeBron James' campaign for the 2008/09 NBA MVP award has gotten off to a great start as James was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Month for November as James helped lead the Cavs to a 14-3 start, their best ever.

James beat out New Jersey’s Devin Harris, Orlando’s Dwight Howard and Toronto’s Chris Bosh.  New Orleans Hornets' Guard Chris Paul won the award in the Western Conference.

In 15 games during the month, James averaged 28.6 points on .497 shooting, 7.1 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game. James has now won the award eight times in his career: for the first time this season; two times during 2007-08, once in 2006-07, twice in 2005-06 and twice during the 2004-05 campaign.

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During November, James ranked second in the NBA in points per game (28.6) and ranked sixth in assists (6.2) and steals (2.1) among Eastern Conference players. James led his team to a 13-2 record during the month, which tied for the most wins in a month in franchise history and was their best November record ever. James also won Eastern Conference Player of the Week twice during the month (for weeks ending November 9th and 16th).

With his second steal at Dallas on November 3rd, he became the youngest player (23 years, 308 days) and fastest (395 games) to reach the following milestones in five statistical categories: 10,000 points, 2,500 rebounds, 2,500 assists, 700 steals and 300 blocks.

During the month of November, James scored 41 points three times and became the first player since Michael Jordan in 1991 to reach the 40-point mark at least three times in his team’s first eight games of a season. James scored 41 points twice against Chicago (November 5th and November 8th), becoming the first player to have consecutive games with 40 or more points versus Chicago since Rick Barry (1974-9175) and he has now scored 30 or more points against the Bulls in seven straight games. He joins Nate Archibald (9 games from 3/10/72-10/10/73), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (8 games from 2/13/71-2/20/72) and Oscar Robertson (7 games from 12/2/67-11/9/68) as the only players to accomplish that feat. In the Cavs’ next game on Nov. 11th, he scored 41 points versus Milwaukee on 16-24 shooting (.667) and added six assists and three steals. With James’ 13th point in the first quarter at New Jersey on November 18th, he became the youngest player in NBA history (23 years, 324 days) to score 11,000 points, surpassing Kobe Bryant who reached the plateau at 25 years, 99 days.

This was supposed to be it.  The NBA finally had a Bird V. Magic rivalry that turned the NBA from being a tape delay league to a league with a network of its own.  That kind of excitement surrounded NBA Draft night 2003 when the Cavaliers selected LeBron James #1 and Denver picked Carmelo Anthony at #3.  Remember, going into the draft lottery both the Nuggets and Cavs had an equal chance to win the rights to select James and a bit of animosity had been building between the franchises that many thought were tanking the end of the 2002/03 season in hopes of getting the lucky ball.

When it went down the way it did, wit James staying in his hometown and Anthony heading West, pundits proclaimed that these two guys would go back and forth at each other for the next decade.  Never mind that Toronto selected Chris Bosh, or that Miami selected Dwyane Wade, this was the LeBron/Carmelo draft.

via media.collegepublisher.com

Fast forward 5 years, and everyone's dream rivalry has done very little to live up to expectations.  Part of it has to be that Carmelo's Nuggets have won 7 of 9 meetings between the two teams, staggering considering the Cavaliers have won 145 games over the past three years.  The other part is LeBron's Cavs have had much greter Post-Season success, getting to the Easter Conference Finals in 06, the NBA Finals in 07 and the Easter Conference Semi's in 08.  The Nuggets, while having solid seasons, play in the Western Conference which has meant 50 wins, a 7th or 8th seed and a 1st Round exit at the hands of a team like San Antonio.

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You won't read much talk from me on this site about the impending summer of 2010 when everyone with a microphone, a pen or a keyboard are telling you that LeBron James will opt out of his contract and leave the Cavaliers for New York or LA or......Detroit?  Could the Pistons be a player in the much-predicted LeBron sweepstakes?

The move to trade Chauncey Billups, and the 3 years/$36 million left on his deal, might have been the first step in clearing cap space to be utilized in 2010.  Sure, Detroit picked up Allen Iverson and his $20 million but his deal is over at the end of thise season, and unless something incredible happens it is unlikey Joe Dumars will extend that deal.  Rasheed Wallace is also nearing the end of his deal, meaning that Detroit is in fine position cap wise as early as this summer.

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Man, it sure was good to have basketball back in Cleveland.  The Indians were a disappointment this summer and the Browns, well, we won't talk about that.  The Cavaliers have high hopes for 2008-09 and they got to show off their shiny, new toy last night at The Q.  The score may lead one to believe the Cavs didn't play very well, but that would be a bit misleading.

My post-game reports are a work in progress, so feel free to let me know what you like, what you don't, and how I can change it up a bit.

After the jump, the BoxScore and reaction --

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