Comments on Cleveland Frowns: LeBron Robbed; Kobe to Win MVP; Cleveland Frowns T...

I'm not really arguing against LeBron so much as I...

2008-05-06T13:38:00.000-04:00

I'm not really arguing against LeBron so much as I'm arguing against Kobe, by the way, but I would factor in KG's Defensive Player of the Year award into consideration for the award. But I think the real determining factor for me is that I was born about 2 miles from the stadium.

Also, I LOVE Chris Paul. For that matter I love LeBron too. I think there are only two types of NBA fans: LeBron guys or Kobe guys. I'm solidly in the first camp.

I would not call Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and even R...

2008-05-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

I would not call Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and even Rajon Rondo proportional to what the Cavs currently have by that number of wins. Just my 2 cents. Lebron is 100% the focus of our offense and obviously the other team's defense. This really hinders him some games. Did you see how good Lebron played during TEAM USA play this past summer?? He would be insanely good off the ball or with some sort of true PG. I think he really is the all-around best player in the league and made his team much better than KG or Kobe. If you would have given the award to Chris Paul I would not argue. I just don't think Kobe deserved it.

While I fully appreciate that LeBron has nothing t...

2008-05-06T09:02:00.000-04:00

While I fully appreciate that LeBron has nothing to work with, I don't necessarily buy the "KG had more All-Stars to work with" argument, simply because they won 19 more games. It would be one thing if they won the same amount of games, but they won, I would argue, a proportionally similar number of games given the supporting cast.

If KG were the only All-Star caliber player on the...

2008-05-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

If KG were the only All-Star caliber player on the Celtics, averaged more points, more assists and significantly more rebounds than Lebron I would agree with Bryan. What was the Celtics' recored with KG out of the line-up?

Personally, I'd take a championship to a MVP trophy anyday. I think C.C. would agree.

The NBA MVP isn't about the numbers; it's politica...

2008-05-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

The 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.

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.

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).

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.