If Dwyane Wade is the M.V.P this year then...

[BIG GREEN]

...does that mean that the past several M.V.P awards were given to the wrong person?

Before anyone throws a hissy...know that this is not a lebron vs. kobe thread....it's a thread about M.V.P consideration inconsistency.

07-08 Season:

Lebron James: (best statistical year for him so far)
PPG: 30.0
Bpg: 1.1
SPG: 1.8
APG: 7.2
RPG: 7.9
3%: 31%
FG%: 48%

Kobe Bryant:

PPG: 28.3
Bpg: 0.5 (Better Defence than lebron? Prove it with evidence.)
Spg: 1.4 (Better Defence than lebron? Prove it with evidence.)
APG: 5.4
RPG: 6.3
3%: 36%
FG%: 45%

..Now we all know the end result of that season...kobe bryant earned a landslide victory over lebron to win his first M.V.P award. The cavs that year finished with 54% wins...the same thing miami currently has....54%. So someone explain to me why Lebron was so undeserving last year and Dwyane this year deserves it more than anyone else in the eye of the seeming majority right now?

The past several years including when nash, dirk, and kobe won it...the award was given to the player who was exceptional on one of the better teams in the league...so why change the rules now? If we're going to give it to wade this year...shouldn't lebron have gotten it last year? Shouldn't kobe have gotten it the 3 previous years in a row? Both players lead what many considered to be scrub teams with average players to the playoffs in those years...just like wade is doing now.

I know there is not set written parameters for M.V.P but my point is....the consideration structure seems to be shifting by the season and this alone leads me to believe there is some sort of bias going on in the basketball world. Should it be given to a certain race just because? Should it be given to someone as a career achievement award? Should it be given to someone because he seems like an underdog and we like him better than other players? I might be called all types of lebron nut rider for this post but someone has to expose the nonesense to light.

The kids are free to flame away ofcourse...but I think i've made my point intelligbly without insulting anyone.

[benji]

...does that mean that the past several M.V.P awards were given to the wrong person?

Yes, the media is stupid.

Steve Nash has two MVP awards. Kobe won last year.

[diddy]

...does that mean that the past several M.V.P awards were given to the wrong person?

Yes, the media is stupid.

Steve Nash has two MVP awards. Kobe won last year.

+1

i fully agree with you guys, MVP award is unfair!

[Palos]

if LeBron won last year people still argue.

I mean people don't have contentment and that's the reason.

NBA is a sport and everybody doesn't cheer with only one player so the media's taste is different from ours.

Its like having your wife which for me is like "what the @#$!@ why did you marry that kind of a girl who for me looks like a $#@^!

Simple.. Just my two cents!

[Prev]

Its about player value to his team not about who's stats is better...

[Palos]

Plus to make them candidates for MVP means any of them deserves that award.

[Andrew]

I know there is not set written parameters for M.V.P but my point is....the consideration structure seems to be shifting by the season and this alone leads me to believe there is some sort of bias going on in the basketball world. Should it be given to a certain race just because? Should it be given to someone as a career achievement award? Should it be given to someone because he seems like an underdog and we like him better than other players? I might be called all types of lebron nut rider for this post but someone has to expose the nonesense to light.

I think there has always been an element of that with the MVP award, the idea that it's someone's turn to win it or that it can't be given to the same person again. Still, I think the MVP award is much like an All-Star selection: while there are snubs and disagreements, the selections usually aren't unreasonable to the point where the player in question could not in any way be considered "worthy" of the status that the honour implies. Even with the shifting criteria the player selected as the MVP tends to be an exceptional player and certainly very valuable to his team so there is some consistency in the "value" of the players who win the award.

The lack of consistent criteria does open the selections up to being "lifetime achievement awards" and the like though, since the star on any team tends to be their most valuable player and thus a candidate by default. Like I said in the other thread, this is accentuated in situations where you have a team that's doing OK and has a star who's so far above anyone else on his team that he's clearly the most important player on the roster, the one who shoulders most of the blame when they lose and receives most of the credit when they win.

[The X]

Easiest way to stop arguments is to just scrap the MVP award....I wouldn't be opposed to that....scrap the MVP, ROY, DPOY, 6th man, MIP awards and keep the All-NBA, All-Defensive & All-Rookie Teams....also keep the main award, Finals MVP....at least with Finals MVP, player who deserves it usually gets it (except that year Manu missed out, I thought he was Finals MVP that one time)....

as for the race, if Cavs finish 1st in East, LBJ is a lock to win it....I would also agree with you that last season LBJ was probably a more deserving candidate than Kobe & I would've punched him as number 2 on my MVP ballot behind Chris Paul....

with the Wade thing, players who do more after All-Star break tend to get more consideration as its fresher on the voter's minds....remember Garnett being a "lock" for MVP for Celtics early last season, but the other 3 guys overtook him later in season....

all that being said, if I had to punch my MVP ballot this season, I'm unsure how I'd go....it would depend on how the last month of the season goes....if Wade continues on this tear & got the Heat to homecourt in 1st Round, then he definitely is top 2....

in the end, it's just easiest to get rid of the award & the All-Star Weekend

[JaoSming]

easier for who? the NBA? or the people who cry whine and bitch about it on online forums and in bars?

[Andrew]

Exactly. Why should the arguments and complaints have to stop? What's wrong with a sporting league endeavouring to honour some standout players? If we're to scrap individual awards in team sports then we should also scrap awards for acting, writing and directing in television shows and movies, (since those are but elements of a different kind of team effort). Same goes for Nobel prizes and really any other awards and honours which are given to an individual but are often the product of more than that one person's efforts? Also, if you're going to eliminate those awards in the NBA, why bother to keep any of the other individual awards or the All-NBA teams, which still honour individuals? It's not like there aren't annual arguments about those honours either.

As for getting rid of All-Star Weekend...why? I just don't get the disdain for it. Some years it's better than others, just like some games are more enjoyable and exciting than others. That's just the way of sport. Why do we have to get rid of these things just because we don't always like the results or agree with the selections? Isn't that the fun of being a sports fan, not just the love and appreciation of the sport but debating these things with one another and arguing over who's better, Player X or Player Y?

[benji]

The only problem with awards is that people use them to support arguments as if they actually have any meaning. ("Who's the best player in the league?" "Kobe." "Why?" "MVP." "That's just decided by the media who have already proven they don't watch any game and build themselves up to a meme/myth supported self-fulfilling consensus all year long." "Kobe won, get over it fanboi.")

[Andrew]

True, but then there's people who base their entire argument for Kobe being the best player in the league on his 81 point game. Take away the awards, people will always find one significant thing to use as supposedly irrefutable evidence that they are right.

[diddy]

also,any type of award is motivation for any player to have it!

[Andrew]

Of course, in that respect it could also be a negative as it might distract more selfish players from team goals but if a player can use it as positive motivation then so be it.

[diddy]

yeah, there will be sport entusiasm, game spirit without titles, awards and stuff! issue is rules!

[Patr1ck]

In my opinion the MVP award seems to change every year. Whether it was a new player coming to a team turning them into a contender (Nash) or the best player on the best team (Nowitzki) or a great player who improved by not trying to carry his team (Bryant). One could argue that last years MVP was also more of a career honor with an MVP award he "deserved."

I don't think there is a bias against Lebron. It's him or Kobe this year. Dwyane won't get his "deserved" MVP because he put up big numbers after receiving some new teammates and his team makes the playoffs as a middle seed. Lebron did similar last year, no? Took Boston to 7 games, no? They finish 1st in the East this ear and he wins.

[NovU]

WADE 29.7 PPG 7.7 ASG 5.1 RPG 0.495% FG 2.2 SPG 1.4 BPG
JAMES 28.2 PPG 7.1 ASG 7.5 RPG 0.487% FG 1.7 SPG 1.2 BPG
KOBE 28.1 PPG 4.9 APG 5.4 RPG 0.475% FG 1.3 SPG 0.4 BPG

As of now, I don't think Kobe's up there with James and Wade in terms of numbers. His team win column's going to get him some votes but the reasons like him having better supporting casts, and Cavalier doing as well as Lakers, are likely going to cost him in negative ways a bit. Wade's team isn't even near Cavliers or Lakers in standings, so that's right, Lebron is the strongest candidate at the moment.

Overall, I believe Wade's going to have a stronger case against Lebron's MVP case than Kobe will, since Wade certainly does have less talents around him and he's having a better season individually. But like I said... if Wade ends the season in high note, keeping the way he has been playing since all star break, I think he might have a good shot at MVP award, if not close.

[benji]

Kobe didn't deserve it last year, and he doubly doesn't deserve it this year.

Yeah, LeBron's been surrounded by great players this year like Ilgauskas, Williams, Wallace, Varejao, West, and Szczerbiak on offense. (That last guy has somehow gotten worse on defense, but he's morphed himself into the spot-up shooter he should've turned into years ago.) But he's miles ahead of all of them. Same as last year when he basically just had Ilgauskas. The debate should've been him vs. Paul last year.

As I said in the other thread, there's only three players in this discussion, LeBron, Wade and Paul. Wade is like LeBron last year, the best player by a mile on a team that without him would be in the lottery and features nobody who would even sniff the all-star game. LeBron this year is still at that level, and even better, but he has a team full of winners around him, so they've been elevated into the top of the league because of LeBron. (Note of course that the Cavs added three of the players at the end of last season and they noticibly improved, and one more had missed the first part of the season and played his way to into shape.)

It mostly depends on what you value more, a player who is saving a lottery team and dragging them single handly into the playoffs. (See also: Paul probably.) Or a guy who is taking a low seed Eastern playoff team and turning them into an unstoppable juggernaut because he's putting on the most dominating performance since Jordan circa 1987-1990.

Let's put it this way, if Paul is adding like twelve wins, Wade is adding thirteen (probably fifteen if we count just his play after the break), LeBron is at fifteen. And all of them are adding wins two to three times as much as anyone else on their teams. Kobe isn't in the discussion because: Pau Gasol. Howard is in the discussion well before Kobe.

For the record, Kobe probably should've won in 2006-07. And it probably should've been Dirk-LeBron co-MVP in 2005-06. And KG should've repeated in 2004-05.

Realistically, LeBron should be going for his third (or second and a half if that's your thing) MVP, not his first. But of course, this is the league and media that somehow only gave Shaq one. (And gave Malone the two on either side of probably the only year he really deserved it.) (And as a further note someone in one of these threads semi-sarcastically suggested that Jordan should've won it almost every year. And they're right, he should've! He probably should have around nine, and 1997-98 is the only year he won but probably should not have.)

[Andrew]

For the record, Kobe probably should've won in 2006-07.

I was thinking that too, particularly if we were to consider Wade the frontrunner this year since Kobe was in a similar situation that year, doing the same sort of things as far as dominating opponents and carrying a lesser team than the one he's a part of now to a lower seed.

[BIG GREEN]

Where there is competition and sport..there will always be awards. The solution to the problem is for the NBA to make a clear cut criteria for winning the award but if they did that...it would call alot of the past MVP winners into question. As a result...i'm sure things will remain the same.

[Prev]

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/tnt_o ... ipoff.nba/

[Alejandrov011]

I know that Wade is having a terrific year, he's pushing the Heat into the playoffs...

But Phoenix has a better record than Miami... And Phoenix is playing bad... And Miami hasn't an outworld record, they're 38-32

If LeBron doesn't get the MVP, it's a robbery

[shadowgrin]

As long as the award is voted for by people, bias will always be a part of the selection process.

I say let Wade have it, so we can have a full year of Diddy mocking us.

[diddy]

As long as the award is voted for by people, bias will always be a part of the selection process.

I say let Wade have it, so we can have a full year of Diddy mocking us.

shadow, you're as great as always

[shadowgrin]

To tell you the truth, Wade doesn't deserve it like Kobe doesn't deserve it. Kobe has Gasol and Wade has Anthony. See the similarities there?