Probably my favorite sports column is Bill Simmons' annual "40 most valuable players." I could only find last year's and 2003, 2002. I couldn't find 2004 or 2005, but I recall Yao had slipped a bit after a disappointing '05 only to jump back up to #4 last year. Wade got the top spot last year. McGrady fell to 13th. I think Lebron will probably take #1 this year with Yao possibly moving up to #3 after a dominating 25/10 regular season. It's hard to tell where McGrady would rank - he proved he's healthy again and playing well, but he's getting older relatively speaking. I could see him towards the end of the top 15... last year - 2006 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060707 wade at #1, james at #2 http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/030530 - 2003 Duncan at #1 http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020404 - 2002 I couldn't find any of the others through search.
Its funny to see Francis on those old lists. But he should still be on it. Because that contract is most definitely untradeable.
I agree with him also. It's not that Bill Simmons is some informed basketball wizard or anything, but his ability to crack jokes and trash every single player in the league is ridiculous. This annual column has me in tears everytime I read it.
I could probably write a thesis on Francis' career. It's funny to think that people were raving about this guy 7 years ago maybe even more than they do now about Chris Paul. We're talking about a point guard in his second year almost leading his team to the playoffs and arguably considered the 2nd best point guard in the league after Kidd (Payton was declining). All he had to do was get the turnovers under control, learn the basics of playing point guard in the NBA, and he was Isiah Thomas in the making. Fast forward to now and the guy is about to be bought out.
It really is weird. He had the horrible year with Van Gundy but statistically thrived in Orlando for awhile. I remember him posting some exorbitant triple double his rookie year, something like 25, 17, 14. What happened?
Before his decline Steve was always an enigma. He was a point guard who was always a threat for a tripple double, yet rarely logged more than 10 assists. same with his scoring, he could average twenty but rarely would have what you would consider high scoring games. yet he was still inconsistent. and still at one point he was a top twenty player in the league, deserving of a max contract at the time.
