Obviously, I'm really only talking about the Western conference. The East really hasn't been compelling since Michael Jordan was a Chicago Bull. Since then (10 years), the NBA champ has only come from that conference twice, Detroit in 2004 and Miami in 2006. And both of those times, the story has been as much as the team from the West (LA Lakers and Dallas Mavericks, respectively) losing the title as it was the Eastern team winning. Basically, the East just isn't as interesting to watch as the West. I'm not particularly sure why that is, but it is nevertheless.
In the West, every playoff team had at least 50 wins and winning record of .600 or better. That's ridiculous! A grand total of seven games separates the 1-seed (the Lakers with 57 wins) from the 8-seed (the Denver Nuggets with 50 wins). To put that in perspective, that's the same number of games that separates the 1-seed in the East (Boston Celtics, 66 wins) from the 2-seed (Detroit with 59 wins). To further illustrate the discrepancies between the two conferences, the Golden State Warriors won 48 games. In the West, that was only good enough for ninth place and not making it into the playoffs. Had they been in the East, they would have been the fourth seed and had home court advantage in the first round. There's absolutely no question as to which conference race will be more exciting.
Anyone can come out of the West. Anyone. The Lakers are playing great basketball and seem to be firing on all cylinders at the right time. But would anyone really be shocked if a Nuggets team that features Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith and Marcus Camby caught fire for six or seven games and upset Los Angeles? The New Orleans Hornets are the 2-seed and will go up against my seventh-seeded Mavericks. Coincidently, those two teams also happened to meet on the last day of the regular season. It was the Mavericks who came out with a relatively easy 13 point win (and that was with Dirk Nowitzki having a subpar game). The 4/5 match up pairs the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets, who met in the first round last year in a series that went seven games. And the 3/6 match up is the San Antonio Spurs vs the Phoenix Suns, who had a pretty heated series in the semifinals a year ago. Anything can happen in the West. Anything.
Again, the East isn't as compelling but there are still some interesting plots. Can the Celtics close out what they've made their mission to be all year? And what if they make it to the Eastern Conference Finals and face the Pistons? Wouldn't it be hugely ironic if a team led by Kevin Garnett has to face a team coached by Flip Saunders for the right to go to the Finals when the two failed to do so for so many years in Minnesota? And what about the Cleveland Cavaliers? A year ago LeBron James expanded his legend when he pretty much single handedly led to the Finals a team that had absolutely no business being there. Can he possibly match that again this year? Then there's the Orlando Magic. I, for one, am ecstatic that Stan Van Gundy led a team to the playoffs while his snake of a former boss, Pat Riley, presided over the team that ended up with the worst record in the league. I am also rather intrigued to see what the man-beast known as Dwight Howard will be unleashed. Then there's the Raptors, Sixers and Hawks who...ok, so there's pretty much nothing interesting about those three teams.
There's only one thing more interesting than the playoffs right now and that is the race for this year's MVP. However, before I get into the discussion about this year's MVP, I want to say a few things about the reigning one.
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I am glad that the Dallas Mavericks have Dirk Nowitzki on their team. Other than maybe Kobe Bryant, there is not another top 10 player who routinely gets more criticized by fans. He gets criticized for being a seven footer who shoots from the outside; never minding that he's one of the most uniquely gifted players in the history of the NBA and that he's playing to his strengths. Would he get more props if he were a mediocre-average center?
He gets criticized for not being tough. But I saw very few of those critics praise him for returning to the court 11 days after suffering a high ankle sprain. That's an injury that usually keeps people out for weeks if not months. Daniel Gibson suffered the exact same injury and was out for six weeks.
He gets criticized for not being clutch. You know what? Dirk (along with his entire team) has stunk in his last two playoff series, a grand total of 12 games. Other than that, he has over 800 regular season and playoff games where he's proven himself clutch. But I don't see the critics ever bringing up those times. Let me point something out: for his career, Dirk is averaging 22.1 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. In the playoffs, his averages are 25.2 and 11.1. That means that when the game gets tougher, when the stakes are higher and when the competition is constantly better, Dirk has consistently elevated his game. 82games.com has created a statistic called "clutch stats" which measures which players perform the best in the fourth quarter or overtime with less than five minutes remaining and neither team ahead by more than five points. You know who's third on that list behind LeBron James and Kobe Bryant? That's right, the Big German named Dirk Werner Nowitzki.
I am tired of the unfair criticism he gets. You want to talk about the times he's fallen short over the last couple of years. Fine. But be fair about. Talk about how he led his team past the Spurs in an overtime Game 7 on the road in 2006. Talk about how he was the only player on his team that showed up against the Spurs in the 2002 Western Conference semifinals when he he dropped 42 points, 18 rebounds and six steals against All-NBA defender Tim Duncan in the closing Game 5. Talk about how he is one of only two players in the history of the NBA to have a season where he averaged 24 points and nine rebounds while shooting 50% from the floor, 40% from beyond the arc and 90% from the line (the other one to do so was some guy named Larry Bird). Criticize him when he's down if you want. But be fair and give him props when he comes through (which happens much more often).
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Ok, now back to the current MVP race. This is easily the greatest MVP race of my adult life. It might be the greatest of my life period, but for now I will agree with Bill Simmons and say that the races in 1987 (between Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan) and 1993 (between Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon) are probably better. But this year's is still a great one. So who is the MVP?
First, let me restate the rationale I use in deciding the MVP, as I first stated last year:
- It's a regular season award. What happens/happened in the playoffs shouldn't affect the voting. Additionally, all 82 regular season games are equal. If you come on strong at the end, that shouldn't automatically bump you ahead of someone who has played well all season long.
- History should not help to determine who wins this year's award. The season should be looked at in a vacuum.
- Making the argument that Player A is more valuable than Player B because Player A's team would lose more without him than Player B's team is stupid. ALL teams get worse without their best player. Player B shouldn't be docked because he has a smarter coach and/or GM.
- What does the "valuable" part of "Most Valuable Player" really mean? The most important statistic in any and all sports is the number of wins you have. Thus, more than anything, how a player contributes to providing those wins should trump all else.
Dwight Howard is currently the best center in the league. If he ever learns to add post moves to his overpowering presence in the post, he can become historically good. Tracy McGrady took his team on his shoulders when the franchise center went down and led them to the second longest winning streak in league history. Manu Ginobili strengthened his argument as perhaps the greatest sixth-man in the history of the NBA and this season took over from Tim Duncan the mantle as the Spurs' best player. But none of them deserve this year's MVP.
LeBron James is the most talented player in the NBA, maybe ever. This year he showed that he's perhaps the best player in the league in terms of taking over a game. It's rare that you can say that one player is almost entirely responsible for an entire team's success but that is exactly what we have with James and the Cavaliers. Unfortunately, that success isn't quite enough; 45 wins in the weaker conference just isn't going to cut it. If he had managed to lead his team to a division title--not impossible if he hadn't had to sit out a stretch in the middle of the season--his claim would be much higher. (Let me add this though: remember after the 2006 Finals when people were saying that maybe Dwyane Wade was as good as LeBron? You don't hear anyone else saying that again, do you?)
Kevin Garnett is the biggest head-scratcher in this year's race. His team has the best record, they are the best defensive unit and they are the prohibitive favorites to make it to the Finals. However, two things hurt him: 1) his numbers pale in comparison to the other people in the running and 2) it can be argued that he's not even the most valuable player on his own team (Paul Pierce led the Celtics in minutes and scoring), much less the entire league. On top of those things, the Celtics still won at the same clip even during the 11 games KG had to miss. That's rather unfortunate because I do think that the Celtics' success this year can be attributed mostly to him. KG brought an attitude and intensity that fed his new team and fueled them to where they are now. But the fact that his team could still win without him seems to indicate that he is not quite as valuable on the court as a couple of other guys, and that costs him in this year's race.
Which brings us to the two most worthy MVP candidates in the NBA this year: Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul. The interesting thing about these two guys is that when you ask their fans to give reasons as to why their player deserves the MVP, they will inevitably start to give you reasons why the other guy doesn't deserve it. Lakers fans are the funniest. Ask them why their team should be favored to win it all and they'll mention things like having the best front court, having the deepest bench, etc. Ask them why Kobe deserves the MVP and they'll talk about how bad his supporting cast is compared to Chris Paul's. Um...you can't have it both ways.
The biggest argument I hear by Kobe backers against Paul is that Paul has an All-Star teammate in David West or that he has a quality double-double guy in Tyson Chandler. Both of these things are true. However, what is not ever mentioned is that it is very likely that these guys are playing so well because they're playing with Chris Paul. West just had his best year ever in the NBA. Didn't play as well before having CP3 as a teammate. This is Chandler's seventh season. He never averaged a double-double before he had Chris Paul running the show. Paul does that one thing that all great point guards do: he makes his team better. And he's playing the point guard position better than it's been played in years. He led the league in assists and steals (something that hasn't been done since John Stockton did it in the 1991-92 season, and Stockton never averaged as many as 20 points per game). He averaged over 20 points and 10 assists per game (last accomplished by Tim Hardaway in 1992-93, and Hardaway never led the league in assists). He led a team that no one expected much out of to winning the toughest division in the NBA and, as late as the last week of the season, still had a chance to win the conference's best record. I think it's also worth mentioning that he shot better than Bryant in all three shooting categories.
Kobe Bryant, on the other hand, finally became the leader that his team needed. Despite the fact that he tried everything he could to get traded prior to the season, once the games started his wiring wouldn't allow him to not go out and give his all. And then he noticed that his team wasn't half bad. Midway through the season the Memphis Grizzlies gift-wrapped Pau Gasol to the Lakers. Some people are saying that Kobe doesn't deserve MVP because of that, which I say is hogwash. The Lakers have been in the top 4 of the West all season, even before Gasol got there. Also, in a season where superstars like KG, LeBron and Dirk have all missed games with injuies, Kobe has played most of the season with broken bones in his finger. Kobe isn't necessarily having his best season. He isn't even really having his most valuable season (that would be 2005-06 when he averaged 35 point per game and led the Lakers to 45 wins even though they had no business having a winning record). But he is having an MVP campaign this year.
The question is whether or not his campaign is better than Paul's. I honestly don't know. At the end of the season, I think it's pretty much a coin flip. Although if I were flipping that coin I'd kind of be hoping that it landed Paul side up.
