KOBE WILL GO OFF TONIGHT!!! 55 IS MY GUESS! REMEMBER WHEN ROBINSON WON THE AWARD AND DREAM DESTROYED HIM............HERE COMES DEJA VU
First off the two players play different positions..where as hakeem and robinson were both centers...of course kobe is going to score a bunch..thats what he does...But kobe doesnt make his teammates better, not nearly as much as nash does at least. True Kobe's teammates arent that good to begin with, but to compare nash/kobe is like comparing stockton/jordan ...two very different players with two very different roles. IMO i think nash does deserve it..But If i were to guess who would have won it prior to the announcement i would have guessed lebron or kobe..and yes that would still make it 3 consecutive years a MVP will not make it to the finals.. further proving the game is evolving more into a team effort rather than the individual.
Your right, demote Miami to 2nd tier (with Phx) benith 1st tier Det and SA, and 1AA tier Dallas. I'd still argue Wade has about as strong argument as Nash (or Dirk), I just they are all a little behind Kobe and Lebron as far as persuasiveness of MVP resume. The real problem with the MVP race is neither of the two conference leaders has a dominant leader. IMO that was a big reason Nash won last year (his team had the best record in the league). That leads it to be wide open from the best players from 2nd and 3rd tier teams, and lots of players had great years. I just lean that Kobe's is the most persuasive case all factors considered (individual statistics, team improvement, clutch play, what his team would have done w/o him).
No matter how many points he scores, I just don't see a guy with non-stop "givemetheball" hands position winning most valuable player to his team award in a team game like basketball. I don't hate Kobe as you could see from my previous posts, but Nash is much more obvious choice. There should be a case for Dirk and LeBron, though. Nash is the right choice for this year's MVP. Case closed.
Nash should get it. Preseason rankings on NBA.com had Suns ranked as around #7 in the league, at the end of regular season they were #4 I believe. Also, Rockets were ranked #4 before season started, and we all know how that turned out. Oh well, only room for improvement next year!
While i would have been happy about whoever got MVP between kobe, LBJ and Nash i knew ultimately it would be my reaction to the winner that would show who i really felt should have gotten the award. I think Kobe should have gotten it. 50 wins is great in the Eastern Conference, but you do realise that Kobe's Lakers would be playing the Cav's in the first round right now if they were in the East? Instead, they are the seventh seed in the much tougher west. As for Nash, he turned what i thought would be an 8th seed into a dangerous team, and he even made marion look like an MVP candidate, he of the no shot creator abilities. But ask yourself this. If Nash started out the first quarter dishing and getting his teammates involved, only to have them clunk open shots and miss their spots, we would have no problem with him taking it upon himself to fire away to keep his team in the game. Because, well thats what MVP's do. Kobe simply found himself in this situation alot, except Nash's teammates rarely had an off night (u can say what you want about him making his team mates better--he can't shoot the damn ball for them!). Whereas Kobe's teammates were rediculously inconsistent. He may not have looked for them, but he only has 48 mins a night to carry this team, the Lakers couldn't spare a game to experiment. Let me also add this...If Yao was injured throughout the season, And a healthy Tmac carried this club to the seventh seed by simply scoring at will because his team mates (as you saw this season) couldn't buy an open shot, wouldn't you think he was deserving of MVP? I know i would.
what a ****ing joke. why don't we just rename it the steve nash award and give it to him for the next five years. i guarantee as long as d'antoni's system is in place and they mostly keep everyone nash will get a lot of assists and phoenix will win. if that's all it takes, just hand it to nash. and this "making your teammates better" stuff is such PG-centric bull****. what about making the team better by being a badass? lebron i believe led the league in PER, PER differential, beat nash in plus/minus, and certainly plays at least equal defense (i'm going with better). kobe i believe beat nash in all of those categories as well? does being a good player not matter any more? is it just how many more points you make your teammates score (scoring for yourself is still good). the worst mvp ever somehow gets the mvp again. and even if he had a better season, the only reason he got it last year is there was NO COMPETITION! shaq's mediocre season was the best they could muster. now you've got lebron as the 4th 30/7/6 person, and kobe as the 5th to score 35, both having better seasons than nash, but it doesn't matter. the little white guy who could gets another mvp. and that guy was so valuable that the mavs got even better when he left them for nothing. truly the mark of a valuable player. how do you come to that conclusion? the numbers don't say he was the most valuable. making lots of passes isn't the end all, be all. b/c the competition got even better. that's like saying how can you not win the batting title by hitting for a better average if you won it the year before. someone else did even better. but he's not a championship caliber player and everyone knows it (not the way jordan, magic, bird, hakeem, shaq, and duncan are), which makes it even stupider that he got 2 mvp's. so many great players have had to "wait their turn" just for one, but nash gets two, even though the natural tendency to not vote for the incumbent and the strong seasons by others should've made it easy to keep him at one. apparently he is. not that you're picking nash, but how many people have ever had such mediocre stats as nash and gotten even one mvp? i mean 19 and 10? on a run and gun team made to make offensive numbers look better. it's just so weak. it would be a good year to have the 2nd pick. maybe, maybe no. they both were pretty close to equally spectacular and 50 wins in the east is pretty much 45 wins in the west. so there supporting casts are probably decently close. i'd still give the edge to cleveland's, but not by a landslide or anything. although luke walton, smush parker, and kwame brown were 3 of the 5 starters, so maybe they are worse. but those guys don't suck. and they got kurt thomas. (bell+diaw+kt) -(jj+q+amare) is certainly a net negative but it's not like they just picked up bogans and hayes or something, and the suns also lost 8 or 9 more games (which is a lot) so it's not like they just stayed the same. diaw has averaged 6 assists per game this season. unless nash is identifying the open man, throwing it to diaw, and then telling diaw where the open man is i have to assume either diaw is pretty good or the system just makes everyone look good. honestly, it's probably the system more than anything. and nash benefits like everyone else. is nash really just so much better than the guy he was in dallas? he could shoot, makes awesome passes, run, and make crazy shots in dallas and he even had a team that ran and had tons of shooters. he's got the same thing here and he wins about as much (dallas won 60 games one year). but thanks to d'antoni getting there at the same time, and injuries making the suns much worse the year before, everyone now thinks nash is this savior who could turn any team around. first off, according to 82games.com, all of the lakers are better on offense when kobe is on the court than when he is off. in fact, when he's off, they are absolutely terrible on offense (90 pts/100 possession while no full team scores less than 100). the difference b/t kobe on the court and off was the largest in the league (22 pts/100), beating nash's 17 from last year (don't know what he had this year). secondly, what happened to making yourself better, or taking your own contribution into account? if points are all that matter, then nash makes his teammates better but kobe is a ton better than nash (when you score 16 more pts you're not going to have as many assists). thirdly, tmac's 02-03 season was great and maybe should've gotten more attention, but the western conference now is waaaayyyyy better than the east of 02-03. that may have been the apex of the eastern conference's suckitude. this is certainly not the worst west in a decade ('99 or '00 were the real emergence of the west). 44 wins got the 8th seed, pretty stout. that's what makes this so sad. he's not the best player in the league, and he's not on the best team. he's a top 10 guy on about a top 5 team. good grief. usually you either have to be the best player on the best team, or insanely good on a less than stellar team. nash was the best guy on a good team. i would've been ok with either kobe or lebron. both were amazing, both led their teams, they both had the best seasons in the league. it's a shame kobe and nash don't play the same position so kobe could take it out on nash. although the suns run so much pnr there would be no real chance to guard nash anyway.
Just one thing about the Mavs let Nash go. He's a great PG, who can be great to a team full of players can play catch and shoot, those rhythem shooters. Dallas was, is, and will be always a team full of players who can create for themselves. Nash played great in Dallas, but even better in the Suns, because they all depend on him. Still, we can talking about most valuable to a team, not the best or who played the hardest or who is the most complete player.
The whole award needs to be redefined or renamed. The fact that Shaquille O'Neal has only won this award once in his entire career is a travesty. Shaq wasn't the top candidate this year, but the award in itself has taken on so many interpretations now, it's almost useless giving it out. When the most dominant force in basketball for the last 10 years has only won this award one time, there's a problem. You want to know what value is? Look at the Orlando Magic, LA Lakers, and Miami Heat franchises before Shaq arrived. Look Orlando and LA since Shaq left. There has not been a single player in professional sports who can impact the overall level of competitiveness of a given team the way he can. How much more can his value within the league be spelled out when you look at the flight of those franchises when Shaq arrived/departed those teams. This isn't so much about this year, but just about what the award has become. The award shouldn't be a lifetime achievement award, but it shouldn't the award for the player who exceeded our expectations. Just rename this award Player of the Year so we have a clear concise definition.
This reminds me of the heismann. Bush was the popular choice, but Vince deserved it. Vince proved that he deserved it in the Rose bowl as Kobe will prove he deserved it in this Series especially tonight! I'm ok with Nash winning it, but I believe Kobe should have won it. I'm not too bent out of shape about it.
What else should it take? Great stats...check. Wins....check. Most important person to his team....check. Leading a transformation of style in the NBA....check. Look, I'm not saying Nash should DEFINITELY be the MVP, but I don't see how you can really argue so vehemently against it. No, he doesn't score 35 points a game, but he does account for nearly the same total amount of points. And considering he is a better shooter than Kobe, you could argue he could score a lot more if he wanted to. I understand the concept of potentially higher shooting percentages taking less shots, but in each of the last 5 years (and I think more, I got tired of counting), Nash has shot better overall, at 3's and at the FT line. His rebounding is only slightly less, which is shocking considering the size differential. And his impact on the game is higher. First, because he's a point guard and simply handles the ball and therefore controls tempo better. Moreover, though this is just an opinion, I think if you switch the 2 players, the team's records also switch (not exactly...you do have to give the Suns the slight edge in talent with Marion...but after that, not much).
This is ridiculous Hands down Kobe Bryant was the mvp this year....his team would not have won 20 games if it wasn't for him. IMO, Kobe = MVP, Lebron = Runner-up
there's Kobe dunking it over the "mvp" steve nash....reminded of when ricky davis dunked over nash as well and a little reminiscent of tmac's dunk last year that sent shawn bradley into retirement
