duncan228
04-01-2008, 11:37 AM
Duncan="Most Valuable Player Voters Now Just Completely Ignore"
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-080401
Abbreviation Nation: MVP Credentials Defined
By Ric Bucher
ESPN The Magazine
Ask someone who has a vote who their choice for the NBA's 2008 Most Valuable Player is. Their eyes dart, they pull back as if circling their personal wagons and their expression is as if someone just asked, "You paid what for that?"
Their first answer will be, "Uhhh, I haven't decided yet." Or, maybe, the slightly more urbane: "I won't know until the end of the season."
Maneuver around this grand cop-out by asking who it would be right now. Expect to hear that it's between two or three names. Be persistent. "Top of the list?" you ask. "If you had to pick right now?" (The "right now" qualifier has an extraordinarily calming effect.)
Whatever name they give, simply repeat it, slowly, as if it had never occurred to you that their choice was even a serious candidate.
Because the best part comes next: their explanation of why whoever they named deserves to be MVP.
All of this free entertainment is brought to you by the NBA, of course, which has never bothered to define precisely what MVP stands for so that arguments on the airwaves, in front of cameras and around kegs and copiers can be made. Thereby, arguably, insinuating the league all the deeper into our social fabric.
I raised this same point once before, several seasons ago. It is being raised again because, once again, this year's race is so varied that the result will probably say more about the voters and what their particular prejudices are than who actually wins.
Besides, there have been at least a dozen players mentioned at one time or another this season as MVP candidates and there are only five spots on an official ballot. As a second free gift, here's my breakdown of the various types of MVPs we have -- so that if and when one of them wins, you'll already know why.
MEP (Most Excellent Player): Kobe Bryant, Lakers. No one in the league has disputed this for at least four years, but that hasn't been enough for him to finish higher than third in overall voting. Ever. Which suggests that how a player is perceived is as, or more, important than how he plays.
MEPFESFNHWB (Most Excellent Player Finally Earning Sympathy For Never Having Won Before): Bryant, Lakers. Also known in some quarters as the Karl Malone MVP Category. It can only have added to Bryant's sympathy account that he has played (and played unbelievably well) the last several months with a torn tendon in the little finger of his shooting hand and, after complaining that the team should've traded some of their young talent for Jason Kidd last spring, gladly made room for those same young players to blossom when they stepped up their games.
MVPOATWTBRITWC (Most Valuable Player On A Team With The Best Record In The Western Conference): Chris Paul, Hornets. That's the explanation I've heard most often from those who are tempted to put Paul at the top of their ballot -- as in, Kobe gets it unless the Hornets finish with the best record. Then, the thinking goes, Paul simply shouldn't be denied. When someone suggested I make that my criteria, I even nodded in agreement. Hey, why not? It's a safe, easily defensible position.
Paul has done everything you could ask an MVP do. But then I considered how the best-record logic led to Amare Stoudemire winning rookie of the year over Yao Ming and what a travesty that was, considering their respective importance to their teams that year. Then I checked how many injuries and other personnel problems the Hornets have had to deal with this season. Almost none. Then I looked at the kind of years Peja Stojakovic, Tyson Chandler and David West are having. Great, nearly injury-free years.
Paul, no doubt, deserves a certain amount of credit for all that, but the fact remains the Hornets' starting lineup has been nearly intact the entire season -- unlike just about every other MVP candidate's team in the West. I'm not saying Paul shouldn't be this year's MVP; I'm saying the Hornets' record vs. the Lakers, or anybody else, shouldn't be the deciding factor.
MNGPASLYFHFP (Most Naturally Gifted Player Amazingly Still Light Years From His Full Potential): LeBron James, Cavaliers. For years, James has been thrown in this conversation primarily because of his historically impressive stats, which is fine for those who don't actually watch games and know how those stats were accumulated.
While I was previously slow to put him on my ballot, he clearly belongs in the thick of the conversation now. Not because he's putting up numbers that only a handful of players have -- look, if you have a power forward's body and a point guard's handle and you have offensive freedom that no one else in the league has, you're going to have eye-popping numbers -- but because he's using his talent to win games. As in making stops on last possessions or attacking the rim until someone closes down his air space, which rarely happens. No more I-passed-it-because-Donyell-was-open alibis. That's fine for the first 47 minutes. MVPs who can get to within eight feet of the basket anytime they choose and have LeBron's strength and body control put the responsibility on themselves, period. As he has quite often this year.
MHPAOTTWTBR (Most High-Profile Acquisition On The Team With The Best Record): Kevin Garnett, Celtics. Garnett is both blessed and cursed by the same qualifications that Paul is. Sure, Garnett has brought a hard-hat intensity, blue-collar work ethic and regular-guy unselfishness that no doubt helped restore this proud franchise's luster, but he wasn't the only new chair at the table.
Ray Allen was newly acquired, too, and he's no slouch when it comes to talent or professionalism. Tom Thibodeau, the team's defensive assistant coach, has to get some credit for the Celtics leading the league in his department. (An ex-coach described him as the best assistant Doc Rivers has ever had.) But if there's an overlooked element in the Celtics' rise, it's Paul Pierce 2.0, a never-before-seen highly efficient version.
MVPOTTWTBR (Most Valuable Player On The Team With The Best Record): Pierce, Celtics. Because if Boston makes good on having the best regular-season record by winning a championship will not be determined by how well Garnett plays. As demonstrated in the two games with Phoenix -- where Pierce stunk in Game 1 and the Celtics lost and shined in Game 2 and the Celtics won in a romp -- Pierce is the Celtic who, if he makes an effort on D and correctly exploits his double-team attracting ability on O, is this team's biggest difference maker.
MSIPOATWTMVPS (Most Statistically Impressive Player On A Team With Two Most Valuable Players): Amare Stoudemire, Suns. How Stoudemire has expanded his game since microfracture surgery robbed him of the ability to simply crush dunks on anyone in his path is impressive, but his stats rising since Shaq arrived in Phoenix speaks to the Big Diesel (one former MVP) making him better and Steve Nash (another former MVP) finding a way to utilize a starkly different front line. But then that's what real MVPs do.
MVPVNJCI (Most Valuable Player Voters Now Just Completely Ignore): Tim Duncan, Spurs. The search to find someone else to credit for the Spurs' monotonous success is almost comical. Both Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have been thrown into MVP conversation, while Duncan continues to anchor the defense and consistently deliver despite being the focus of every team's defensive game plan.
MIPITWMTAGOV (Most Indispensable Player If There Were More Tattooed and Gun Owning Voters): Stephen Jackson, Warriors. Baron Davis was my edgy pick for MVP before the season started and Davis is having one of the best years of his career, but so is Jackson. While the Warriors wouldn't have a chance at the postseason without either one of them, a case can be made that Jackson is the more vital cog in the way the Warriors play because of his ability to defend any kind of forward -- small or power -- you put in front of him and his pick-and-roll passing. His role in the Palace brawl will never go away as long as he still looks like a thug, but strictly on basketball terms, he deserves consideration.
So who are the five names on my ballot? As of right now? Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett. In that order.
In pencil.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-080401
Abbreviation Nation: MVP Credentials Defined
By Ric Bucher
ESPN The Magazine
Ask someone who has a vote who their choice for the NBA's 2008 Most Valuable Player is. Their eyes dart, they pull back as if circling their personal wagons and their expression is as if someone just asked, "You paid what for that?"
Their first answer will be, "Uhhh, I haven't decided yet." Or, maybe, the slightly more urbane: "I won't know until the end of the season."
Maneuver around this grand cop-out by asking who it would be right now. Expect to hear that it's between two or three names. Be persistent. "Top of the list?" you ask. "If you had to pick right now?" (The "right now" qualifier has an extraordinarily calming effect.)
Whatever name they give, simply repeat it, slowly, as if it had never occurred to you that their choice was even a serious candidate.
Because the best part comes next: their explanation of why whoever they named deserves to be MVP.
All of this free entertainment is brought to you by the NBA, of course, which has never bothered to define precisely what MVP stands for so that arguments on the airwaves, in front of cameras and around kegs and copiers can be made. Thereby, arguably, insinuating the league all the deeper into our social fabric.
I raised this same point once before, several seasons ago. It is being raised again because, once again, this year's race is so varied that the result will probably say more about the voters and what their particular prejudices are than who actually wins.
Besides, there have been at least a dozen players mentioned at one time or another this season as MVP candidates and there are only five spots on an official ballot. As a second free gift, here's my breakdown of the various types of MVPs we have -- so that if and when one of them wins, you'll already know why.
MEP (Most Excellent Player): Kobe Bryant, Lakers. No one in the league has disputed this for at least four years, but that hasn't been enough for him to finish higher than third in overall voting. Ever. Which suggests that how a player is perceived is as, or more, important than how he plays.
MEPFESFNHWB (Most Excellent Player Finally Earning Sympathy For Never Having Won Before): Bryant, Lakers. Also known in some quarters as the Karl Malone MVP Category. It can only have added to Bryant's sympathy account that he has played (and played unbelievably well) the last several months with a torn tendon in the little finger of his shooting hand and, after complaining that the team should've traded some of their young talent for Jason Kidd last spring, gladly made room for those same young players to blossom when they stepped up their games.
MVPOATWTBRITWC (Most Valuable Player On A Team With The Best Record In The Western Conference): Chris Paul, Hornets. That's the explanation I've heard most often from those who are tempted to put Paul at the top of their ballot -- as in, Kobe gets it unless the Hornets finish with the best record. Then, the thinking goes, Paul simply shouldn't be denied. When someone suggested I make that my criteria, I even nodded in agreement. Hey, why not? It's a safe, easily defensible position.
Paul has done everything you could ask an MVP do. But then I considered how the best-record logic led to Amare Stoudemire winning rookie of the year over Yao Ming and what a travesty that was, considering their respective importance to their teams that year. Then I checked how many injuries and other personnel problems the Hornets have had to deal with this season. Almost none. Then I looked at the kind of years Peja Stojakovic, Tyson Chandler and David West are having. Great, nearly injury-free years.
Paul, no doubt, deserves a certain amount of credit for all that, but the fact remains the Hornets' starting lineup has been nearly intact the entire season -- unlike just about every other MVP candidate's team in the West. I'm not saying Paul shouldn't be this year's MVP; I'm saying the Hornets' record vs. the Lakers, or anybody else, shouldn't be the deciding factor.
MNGPASLYFHFP (Most Naturally Gifted Player Amazingly Still Light Years From His Full Potential): LeBron James, Cavaliers. For years, James has been thrown in this conversation primarily because of his historically impressive stats, which is fine for those who don't actually watch games and know how those stats were accumulated.
While I was previously slow to put him on my ballot, he clearly belongs in the thick of the conversation now. Not because he's putting up numbers that only a handful of players have -- look, if you have a power forward's body and a point guard's handle and you have offensive freedom that no one else in the league has, you're going to have eye-popping numbers -- but because he's using his talent to win games. As in making stops on last possessions or attacking the rim until someone closes down his air space, which rarely happens. No more I-passed-it-because-Donyell-was-open alibis. That's fine for the first 47 minutes. MVPs who can get to within eight feet of the basket anytime they choose and have LeBron's strength and body control put the responsibility on themselves, period. As he has quite often this year.
MHPAOTTWTBR (Most High-Profile Acquisition On The Team With The Best Record): Kevin Garnett, Celtics. Garnett is both blessed and cursed by the same qualifications that Paul is. Sure, Garnett has brought a hard-hat intensity, blue-collar work ethic and regular-guy unselfishness that no doubt helped restore this proud franchise's luster, but he wasn't the only new chair at the table.
Ray Allen was newly acquired, too, and he's no slouch when it comes to talent or professionalism. Tom Thibodeau, the team's defensive assistant coach, has to get some credit for the Celtics leading the league in his department. (An ex-coach described him as the best assistant Doc Rivers has ever had.) But if there's an overlooked element in the Celtics' rise, it's Paul Pierce 2.0, a never-before-seen highly efficient version.
MVPOTTWTBR (Most Valuable Player On The Team With The Best Record): Pierce, Celtics. Because if Boston makes good on having the best regular-season record by winning a championship will not be determined by how well Garnett plays. As demonstrated in the two games with Phoenix -- where Pierce stunk in Game 1 and the Celtics lost and shined in Game 2 and the Celtics won in a romp -- Pierce is the Celtic who, if he makes an effort on D and correctly exploits his double-team attracting ability on O, is this team's biggest difference maker.
MSIPOATWTMVPS (Most Statistically Impressive Player On A Team With Two Most Valuable Players): Amare Stoudemire, Suns. How Stoudemire has expanded his game since microfracture surgery robbed him of the ability to simply crush dunks on anyone in his path is impressive, but his stats rising since Shaq arrived in Phoenix speaks to the Big Diesel (one former MVP) making him better and Steve Nash (another former MVP) finding a way to utilize a starkly different front line. But then that's what real MVPs do.
MVPVNJCI (Most Valuable Player Voters Now Just Completely Ignore): Tim Duncan, Spurs. The search to find someone else to credit for the Spurs' monotonous success is almost comical. Both Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have been thrown into MVP conversation, while Duncan continues to anchor the defense and consistently deliver despite being the focus of every team's defensive game plan.
MIPITWMTAGOV (Most Indispensable Player If There Were More Tattooed and Gun Owning Voters): Stephen Jackson, Warriors. Baron Davis was my edgy pick for MVP before the season started and Davis is having one of the best years of his career, but so is Jackson. While the Warriors wouldn't have a chance at the postseason without either one of them, a case can be made that Jackson is the more vital cog in the way the Warriors play because of his ability to defend any kind of forward -- small or power -- you put in front of him and his pick-and-roll passing. His role in the Palace brawl will never go away as long as he still looks like a thug, but strictly on basketball terms, he deserves consideration.
So who are the five names on my ballot? As of right now? Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett. In that order.
In pencil.