NBA Awards: MVP

My choice is Little Stevie Nash. To me, he defines the phrase "most valuable player" in today's NBA. The way the game is going, there is nothing more important than having a point guard that can dicate tempo, control the game, and make the guys around him better. There is a reason we bemoan his Canadian citizenship in regard to the Olympics: we know that with Nash running the team, we would win. So forget about the fallacy that the MVP must come from the best team in the league and stop worrying about Nash winning three in a row. If anything, it is imperative that he does win three in a row, because it says everything important about the state of the NBA. It underscores the rule changes and the style changes that now dictate the game and it proves that there is nothing quite so valuable as a gifted point guard who knows how to maximize the talents of everyone around him. Nash is having the best year of his career for a team about to set a franchise record for wins and that has nearly 180 wins over three seasons. He led the league in assists, is in the top 25 in scoring, leads the league in true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage, and paces guards in three-point percentage and field goal percentage. What's not to like? To me, this is the easiest MVP race in years.

For more on Nash, click on the hyperlink above to open the whole page. Posted as the first "Comment" is my complete column on why Nash should win the MVP. It was originally posted over at home base, but was taken down because of some technical difficulties. So it will be stored here for the time being.)

NBA Awards: Defensive Player of the Year

Defensive player of the year is a tough one, because it requires both nuanced observation as well as big-picture thinking. To say that most media hacks lack one or both of these skills would be an understatement. Some, like Charles Barkley, get it. He named Tim Duncan as his DPOY the other night, and that is a choice I can get behind. Duncan is a fundamentally sound defender that handles his man while also playing great team defense (as his 2.4 blocks can attest). He also gets away with a lot of fouls, which helps. Most importantly, those individual and team defensive skills are in aid of a terrific Spurs defense. You have to factor in the impact an individual's play has on the group. You just have to. That is why Josh Smith (weakside shot-blocker extraordinaire), Marcus Camby, and Ron Artest are out of the question. I mean, have you seen those teams play defense? For me, the choice comes down to the five best "scoring differential" teams in the NBA: the Mavs, Suns, Spurs, Rockets, and Bulls. Of those five teams, I then looked at field goal percentage defense and not surprisingly, found that the Rockets, Spurs, and Bulls were the top three in the league in that category. So that takes Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, Josh Howard, and Devin Harris (tremendously underrated defender) out of the equation and leaves - in my mind - Bruce Bowen, Tim Duncan, Ben Wallace, and Shane Battier.

Of those four players, I am ruling out Bowen first, because he not only seems a step slow this year, but most reasonable minds can agree that Duncan was the anchor of that defense. Next I am pulling Wallace, because the Bulls seemed to be just as effective on D when Big Ben was out of the lineup. And let's be honest, he didn't have a great year. Hinrich or Deng may well have been the DPOY on that team. So that leaves Duncan and Battier. You can make a great case for either guy. The case for Duncan is outlined above, but as for Battier, he is one of the most versatile guys in the league. He guards Dirk Nowitzki, then he guards Kobe Bryant. He can play anywhere from shooting guard to power forward because he is able to stretch defenses on offense, yes, but mainly because he is strong enough, smart enough, and quick enough to handle virtually any style of opponent. Battier also was able to anchor a Rockets defense through the losses of both T-Mac and Yao, who only played together 40 times this year.

Battier meets both of my criteria listed above. He does all "the little things" that people don't notice, and he does it for the team with the best field goal percentage defense in the league. For that, he's my defensive player of the year in an extremely close call.

NBA Awards: Rookie of the Year

Everyone keeps saying, this is an easy one: Brandon Roy. And then they move on. They are right that it is easy, but skipping over it ignores just how good this guy is. His 16/4/4 is certainly good, but a closer look shows that as he's gotten healthier, he's become a beast. His scoring average has gone up every month, and over his past 20 games he's been a 20/5/5 player shooting close to 50%. Roy isn't just the best of a shaky class of rookies, he's a stud.

NBA Awards: 6th Man

Manu Ginobili was very effective coming off the bench for the Spurs this year, but this award has been Leandro Barbosa's for months. The Brazillian Blur is going for 18 a night while shooting almost 48% (including 43% from three), with 4 assists, and under 2 turnovers a game. Almost everything he does for Phoenix is positive. Plus, I once boasted of Barbosa's future in the NBA to a couple of buddies who then watched him stink during a game in his rookie year and constantly berated me about it. This will provide yet another link for me to send their way as payback.

NBA Awards: Most Improved

This might be the toughest award to pick this year because of the emergence of so many young players. Monta Ellis, David Lee, Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, Josh Smith, Andres Biedrins, and Deron Williams are just a few of the players that made huge strides this year. The other thing that makes this award tough is since it is measuring improvement, it isn't clear whether a full season is mandatory (Lee), or how important team success is. I liked what Kenny Smith said on TNT the other night, that teams in contention provided better candidates because every game had something on the line. That said, I think you can also look to the first half of the season, when everyone had something to play for, to kind of get at the same thing. Al Jefferson was my choice initially, but he fits neither of these methods of analysis, since he only started becoming a low post monster after the Celtics were already toast. I'm ruling out Lee, Ellis, and Biedrins because their improvement was really about opportunity. Kevin Martin gets the boot because he was a stud in last year's playoffs. And Josh Smith had already shown flashes as well. That leaves Williams, who I think is being overlooked because he was nearly an All-Star. But since when do we cap the Most Improved award? Last year Williams was a step slow on defense and looked confused on offense as Utah got crushed for taking him over Chris Paul. Now he's #2 in the NBA in assists and looking every bit like a franchise point guard. In my opinion, nobody improved more than Deron Williams.

NBA Awards: Gilbert Arenas Award

This is a new award I'm handing out to the player who makes a huge leap forward during his second year after being an overlooked second round pick, then overlooked rookie. Gilbert only played in 47 games during his rookie year for Golden State and then broke out to the tune of 18 and 6 and a massive contract to play in Washington. Ironically, G-State is home to this year's winner as well, as Monta Ellis thrived under Don Nelson in his second season. After playing in just 47 games last year, Ellis has emerged as a rising star, leading the team in scoring at 16.7 per, while adding over 4 assists and almost 2 steals a game. He also put on a spectacular show during the Rookie-Sophomore game during All-Star Weekend. Hopefully for Warriors fans he doesn't follow in Arenas' footsteps by signing a contract with a new team.

NBA Awards: Biggest Bust

In a year filled with tanking and suspect injuries, you could probably list about 126 busts. However, I am burdened with the task of choosing one (a burden I gave myself), so I will do just that. With apologies to the atrocious Andrei Kirilenko, I am giving this award to Brad Miller of the Sacramento Kings. A fringe playoff team heading into the season, the Kings were looking forward to a full year from Ron Artest and the continued improvement of Kevin Martin. They got both of those (mostly, in the case of Artest), but got a big bag of poop from returning stars Mike Bibby and Brad Miller. Bibby had a terrible year, but he looked awesome compared to Miller. In his first three seasons in Sacto, Miller averaged almost 15 points, 9 boards, and 4.5 assists a game while shooting over 50%. This year? 9/6/3.6 and 44% shooting. Friends, those are Channing Frye numbers.

Actually, that might be an insult to Frye.

NBA Awards: Comeback Player of the Year

I don't even think the NBA has this as an award, but that is stupid, so I'm including it. Besides, next up is "Biggest Bust" and then "The Gilbert Arenas Award," so I'm clearly not following any protocol here (kind of like Jack Bauer in Day Four of 24, back when the show used to be good). Anyway, this is an easy one. While guys like Boozer and Zach Randolph made nice comebacks this year, the hardware has to go to Amare Stoudemire. As recently as the preaseason, it looked as if he couldn't run and might never return to anything resembling his pre-surgery form. A few weeks later he was flying around, dunking, blocking shots, and generally playing like a beast. He's nothing short of a miracle of modern science.

NBA Awards: Coach of the Year

This seems like a good place to start. By all accounts, it is a four-horse race between Avery Johnson, Jerry Sloan, Sam Mitchell, and Jeff Van Gundy. However, picking between these guys is proving to be a difficult task. I think the best thing you can do is come up with a method and then just apply it, without worrying so much about the results. What methodology will I use? I certainly won't be following the path of ESPN's Marc Stein who (and I'm not kidding you about this) opted for Sloan because he "didn't even have Utah as a playoff team" in his predictions. Oh, so your predictions are so good that anyone who surpasses them must be a miracle worker? You have to be kidding me. By that token, Mike D'Antoni wins my vote, because I thought it would be hard to incorporate Amare and that the Clippers would win the division. Does the fact that Phoenix won while the Clippers sucked mean that D'Antoni is the coach of the year? Or does it mean that I was an idiot and made a stupid prediction? I'm going to guess the latter, but then again, I lack the all-seeing genius of Marc Stein.

As for MY methodology, I am going with the "change out" test. With a different coach, would the teams have performed the same? It is hard to imagine that the Mavs would be this good without Avery, but I also believe that they could have a robot coach and still win 65 games with that roster. Sorry, Avery. The Raptors are in the same boat. It seems like Bosh's development and the work of GM Bryan Colangelo are more resonsible than any coaching genius on Mitchell's part for the Raps' turnaround. And I think Van Gundy has been holding Houston back for the past three years, so I'm not about to start giving him any credit. That leaves Sloan, which makes sense to me. He found a way to use Okur and Boozer together (even though neither of them block shots), he masked the complete and total lack of a shooting guard all year, and - perhaps most importantly - he got through to Deron Williams and turned him into an All-Star level point guard. Unlike Stein I DID have Utah winning their division, but luckily for Sloan, I won't hold that against him.

The Huggins Problem

Bob Huggins is going to West Virginia, which means we have a very interesting situation on our hands. Rarely have such high levels recruits openly selected a school just for the coach, so we all know that Michael Beasley and Bill Walker are going to want to transfer. However, Kansas State is taking a hard line and saying they won't release anyone front letters of intent (abusing yet another terrible NCAA rule). So what is going to happen now that the NBA farm system that was being cultivated in Manhattan, Kansas is finished before it ever got started? Will KSU cave and let Beasley and Walker follow Huggins to West Virginia? Will they go play overseas? Stay and play for the Wildcats? This is going to get very interesting.

MVP Eligibility

Today my newest column should be going up over at WhatifSports.com and in it, I announce my surprising choice as the early MVP of the NBA. The whole exercise got me thinking: who is really eligible to win the award? More than any other sport, the NBA MVP seems to be reserved for a player from a winning team. Perhaps this is because a basketball player can have the most singular impact on this teams fortunes, but whatever the reason, you won't see any Andre Dawson or A-Rod type winners coming from last place teams. But how big does your team have to win? Last year I thought Allen Iverson got shafted and that he was never really considered despite the fact that he took his horrible team to the playoffs. Apparently, making the playoffs isn't enough. But what is? Top four in your conference (and home court advantage for a playoff series)? Top 2? A Division title? It's time to check it out. Read on for a breakdown of the last 25 MVP's in the NBA. (By the way, this is important when you consider that three of this year's top candidates - Iverson, Kobe, and LeBron - are on teams that certainly won't be winning their respective conferences.)

Changing My Vote

MVP! MVP! MVP!

Recently I wrote a column about the NBA's MVP award (can be found using the WIS Insider link to the right) and gave the award to Shaq. Well, I'm changing my vote. Allen Iverson was already a candidate, but what he did down the stretch convinced me that he's at another level. 10 games ago, you couldn't find an expert that had Philly making the playoffs. They supposedly couldn't beat Miami or Indiana or anyone else on their schedule. Well, somehow they found a way.

Wait, not somehow. Allen Iverson is how they found a way. AI become the first player in NBA HISTORY to finish in the top five in scoring (first), assists (fifth), and steals (second). He won his fourth scoring title at 30.7 per game and trails only Jordan and Wilt for the most titles all time. He joined Jordan as the only players to average 30 points, 7 assists, and 2 steals a game for an entire season. He lead the league in minutes once again (tied with LeBron at 42.4). He averaged 32.3 points and 8.6 assists per game after winning the All-Star Game MVP. As Jason Kidd said recently in a hilarious quote while hyping AI for the MVP award: "He's always been a threat; now he's a superthreat."

Not enough? The Sixers went 8-2 over their final 10 games. Not counting the final game against the Hawks in which he played only the first quarter, AI's numbers in the other seven wins were phenomenal. He averaged 37.5 points, 13.8 assists, 6.5 rebounds, 3.9 steals per game, while shooting 53.1% from the floor and 91% from the line. I'm telling you, this will go down as one of the best stretches of the decade. His whole season will go down as one of the best. It's incredible how overlooked this whole thing has been.

Oh yeah, and he did all that with a broken thumb. But it was okay, because the other one was only badly sprained.

When you think of AI from this 2004-2005 season, remember one game. April 14 at Miami. Shaq returns to the lineup, nobody gives Philly a chance after being upended by Boston at home. A loss probably sends them spiraling out of the playoffs. All AI did was play the game of his life. He was on the floor for all 53 minutes and committed no fouls and only two turnovers. He hit all 13 of this free throws, including two that he willed in to send the game to OT. He grabbed three steals and six boards. And he threw up 38 points and a career high 16 assists, something that had yet to be done in this millennium (I was unable find the necessary game logs further back than 1999, so who knows how long it has been since someone went for at least 38 and 16 in a game). It was arguably his greatest game ever and possibly the most memorable performance of this NBA season. Pure brilliance.

So there you have it. I don't care about "first place teams" or "offseason acquisitions." I don't care about what I wrote last week or what anybody says in regard to the MVP award. Iverson's my guy.

AI for MVP! Spread the word.

Book It

Did anyone think Gordon
would be THIS good?

This was an interesting season to decide the Rookie of the Year award. Emeka Okafor was a monster, but played in relative obscurity and missed several games on the IL. Dwight Howard has been great all year and is really turning it on down the stretch while playing on a team fighting for the playoffs. And Ben Gordon has been the best 6th man in the league on the surprise team in the East.

I've been leaning toward Gordon on the strength of his league-leading 19 double-figure fourth quarter performances, but was undecided. Until tonight. My man went for 35 points on 11-17 shooting (6-8 from three) in ONLY 23 minutes. That's crazy.

Anyway, he's been the man in crunch time for a team that has a good chance at grabbing home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. He's one of the best scorers in the league. He is the new frontrunner for 6th Man of the Year.

Which makes him my Rookie of the Year.