tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083233540469459957.post-82978597194593903432008-05-05T16:38:00.000-04:002008-05-05T16:38:00.000-04:00The NBA MVP isn't about the numbers; it's political an can be influenced by groupthink. In fact, I'd argue that the MVP has arguably been the wrong choice for the last four seasons.<BR/><BR/>Four years ago, Nash won for the first time over (basically) Shaq, which seemed at the time to be a cop-out against picking Kobe or another shooting guard with similar numbers because it was easier to isolate Nash in a league with fewer great point guards than SGs. I wrote a column advocating Shaq for MVP back then, and there was a lot of chatter, which is one reason that I think Nash ended up winning back-to-backs — the voters looked at his numbers the next year, saw everyone did basically the same thing (except Shaq, who slipped), and thought this would legitimize the previous selection.<BR/><BR/>Well, that backfired when Nash put up an actual MVP season last year, only to put the voters in the awkward position of not giving the award to him because they don't want to hand out three MVPs in a row to Steve Nash. Instead, they gave it to Dirk, which was really just a way of moving the hardware around the league. I'm not going to take shots at Dirk, but Nash's season was clearly better (as was LeBron's, probably).<BR/><BR/>This year, you have the media DYING to finally give the award to Kobe because he's the "consensus" "best" player in basketball. I'll believe it when I see it, but when I look at the league, I (surprise!) see one MVP candidate above all others, and that's KG. And I think that if KG had NEVER won an MVP before, he'd be a lock this year, the thinking being that the younger player (Kobe) would always have another chance. That's the same bias that's going against LeBron right now, the implied sentiment being that now that Kobe's MVP out of the way, LeBron can clear his trophy case. In a way, the Kobe MVP is the best thing that can happen to LeBron's long-term MVP case, as LeBron is now the highest-stature player without the award (as Chris Paul is behind LeBron in stature). Simply put, barring injury, I would be astonished if LeBron didn't win the award next year.Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02195900491166051592noreply@blogger.com