Just like I predicted here and here, Kobe won the MVP award. Now, until he gets another title and has a MONSTER regular season, he’s not gonna win another. Book it.

Starting with next season, the voters will finally be able to focus on the new generation of players when voting the MVP. Lebron, Chris Paul, Wade (if he comes back at 100% and the Heat rebuild quickly), Amare and Dwight Howard will fight for it. Kobe will probably get 3rd place at best, just like Garnett got now.

Hedo Turkoglu was named the Most Improved Player of the year, as I expected. According to ESPN, Byron Scott will be named Coach of the Year. My choices for COY and MVP were Phil Jackson and Chris Paul, but,  because the voters gave the MVP to Kobe (as expected), they gave the COY to Byron Scott (the Hornets had to reveice an award for their amazing season) and the DPOY to Garnett. So I guess there are no more doubts about who’s gonna get the MVP now.

By a weird twist of fate, Kevin Garnett is not going to receive the MVP, despite being the best player on the best team in the league. Partially because he has 2 other All Stars next to him, partially because “yeah, but they’re in the East”. That despite the Celtics mopping the hardwood with the teams in the West, including a sweep of the Texas Triangle.

But even if he doesn’t win the MVP, he still should have some hardware to show for the impressive season he lead the Celtics to. Since he’s no longer a rookie, did not improve (from a personal stats point of view) and he’s not a coach yet, the only “consolation award” he can be given is the DPOY. Not that he doesn’t deserve it anyway, but he should win it by a landslide if the voters take all these into account.

This season’s second place is Dwight Howard, who’s still one season away from win it himself, and perhaps only 2-3 seasons away from winning the MVP. Other players receiving consideration should be Camby and Duncan, but nothing more than consideration for them. On second thought, a case can be made for Dwight winning the DPOY award THIS season. Duncan and Garnett have a defensive stopper in Bowen and Pierce  (who took up this role this season). They take the opposing team’s best scorers (most scorers are perimeter players), making the job easier for the big men behind them. Howard, on the other hand, has to cover an average defensive backcourt as well as a couple of SF not known for their defense, out of which one is playing out of position at PF.

UPDATE: Kevin Garnett was just named DPOY. As I was saying above, he won it in a landslide, as a sign that voters considered it a consolation award:

Garnett won the league award for the first time by a wide margin one day before Boston takes a 1-0 lead into Game 2 of the first-round series against Atlanta.


He had 90 of the 124 first-place votes and a total of 493 points. Marcus Camby of Denver, last year’s winner, was second with 12 first and 178 points, just edging Shane Battier of Houston, who received 11 first-place votes and 175 points.

What does this mean ?? Well, it means that Kobe got the MVP. So congratulations to Kobe for that.

So we’re finally here. The MVP. The one that really matters. Since there’s a lot to talk about here, I’m gonna divide it in 3 parts.

1) Who WILL win it.

Kobe. Don’t even ask why - it’s a lifetime achievement award. He’s gonna receive it because of the (incorrect) perception that he was somehow slighted 2 years ago, so voters don’t feel bad they voted against him in previous years. Thing is, he didn’t deserve it 2 seasons ago either. I agree Nash shouldn’t have won it, but it wasn’t Kobe’s either. But I suppose the voters felt somehow weird to give the award to someone who was barely 21 years old. And YES, I am talking about Lebron James.

But this season ? He doesn’t have the best stats: Lebron (29.23) and Chris Paul (28.39) lead the league in PER while Kobe (24.31) is only 8th. His team doesn’t have the best record: the Celtics do and were 9 games better, and the Pistons are 2nd. And if you gonna deny Garnett cause he plays with Pierce and Ray Allen, then how can you give it to Kobe, who plays with Gasol and Odom ?

It’s been getting on my nerves how people always claim Kobe had a worse supporting cast than Lebron a couple of years ago, and that is just not true. Everybody seems to forget what Odom is capable of doing. Lakers fans label him as trash in an attempt to make Kobe look better, but Odom is anything but trash. He proved it recently by putting up monster stats and playing the role of glue guy perfectly. Lebron’s best role-player was Boobie Gibson. Nuff said.

And let’s not forget that Kobe has benefited from playing for the best coach alive. Phil Jackson is underrated at this moment. He’s one of the few coaches that can run a good offensive system while also improving the team’s defense. Most coaches, even really good ones, are only strong on offense or defense, but not both. Amongst examples: Larry Brown (defense), Rick Adelman (offense), Mike D’Antoni (offense), Jeff van Gundy (defense), Nellie (offense).

2) Who SHOULD win it

If we’re using the “best player on best team provided he doesn’t have a star filled supporting cast” criteria - the one that eliminates Garnett and should also eliminate Kobe - then the obvious choice is Chris Paul. He is the one and only undisputed superstar of his team. David West may have made the All Star Game, but had he not played with Chris Paul, nobody would know his name now.

If the award was given strictly for this season, making complete abstraction of the previous seasons, there is no way Chris Paul doesn’t win it. And had the voters been able to see how he dismantled the Mavs in the first 2 games of the series, he would have probably won in a landslide.

3) Who is the best player in the league

So they say the MVP is not necessarily the best player in the league. And I keep hearing and reading how Kobe is that best player. Which is just not true. Kobe might be the best scorer, but the best scorer is not the best player. The best player in the league at this moment wears #23, not #24. His stats blow Kobe’s out of the water. He is more efficient, he involves his teammates more, he rebounds better, and this season he’s been defending better than Kobe.

Lebron was also the best player in the league during the 2005-06 season, when he put up 31.4 points on 48% FG, 7 reb, 6.6 ast, 1.6 stl and 0.8 blk. And that was a slight DROP in his stats  (except for scoring) compared to the previous season, when he put up 27.2 points on 47.2% FG, 7.4 reb, 7.2 ast, 2.2 stl and 0.6 blk. In 2006-07 he seemed to coast a little bit, but this season he’s been nothing short of amazing. His 30 points on 48.4% FG, 7.9 reb, 7.2 ast, 1.8 stl and 1.1 blk are comparable to Michael Jordan’s 32.5 points, 8 reb, 8 ast in perhaps his best overall season in 1988-89. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Stats aside, Lebron does everything a superstar should do. And then some. He makes his teammates better, this season he improved his defense by leaps and bounds, last season he was accused of coasting so this season he played out of his mind all season long. He became a leader, he keeps his emotions under control, not allowing them to negatively affect his game or the team. He’s incredibly mature, too, for 23 year old who’s a superstar.

Lebron even started to talk a little trash, which, for superstars, is a weapon. Jordan, Bird and many others knew when to say and what to say to demoralize their opponents. In last year’s playoffs Lebron whispered something to Arenas and Arenas missed 2 crucial free throws. Then during this season, after Bosh’s cousin and girlfriend (2 separate persons, just to be clear) heckled him, he went berzerk in the 4th quarter and destroyed the Raptors, after which he turned to her and said “This is your fault”. And now is on his way to making DeShawn Stevenson his biatch. Stevenson is about to become the gimp (Pulp Fiction style) that Lebron keeps locked in a box somewhere in a small storage room in his huge mansion.

Put all these together and you have the best player in the league hands down. The only thing that really stays between Lebron and a bunch of titles is his crappy team, which was assembled by his even crappier GM. Let’s just hope he will have more luck than Garnett over the first 10 years of his career.

The overwhelmingly popular pick for this award is Kevin Durant. And you can bet your house he’s gonna win it. His numbers are indeed better than Horford’s. Especially since towards the end of the season he finally cut his turnovers and improved his FG%. But I am picking Horford.

Overall, Durant averaged 20.3 ppg to Horford’s 10.1, but he did it on 1366 total shots, over twice as many as Horford’s 668. Durant, while proving he can score, did not impress with his rebounding. His 4.4 rebounds are way too low for a player 6′9, even if he’s playing SG. Kidd, who’s only 6′4, gets 7.5 per game (he was averaging over 8 this season before the trade).

Al Horford proved a reliable player for a playoff team, albeit in the East. He averaged close to a double-double, scored pretty efficiently (49.9% FG) and had a rather low turnover rate (1.69 per game). And had he been given the ball more, his numbers would have been better. Instead, Mike Woodson, who, by the way, is NOT a COY candidate, chose to let Joe Johnson continue shooting at .432

And while Durant is enjoying his holidays (and hopefully adding some muscle to that wiry frame of his), Horford continued to prove his case by being the best player of the Hawks in their first game against the Celtics. Said Woodson: “He was unbelievable. He played like he has been playing playoffs all season.”

There’s not much to say about this one either. A case could be made for Rajon Rondo, Chris Kaman, Brandon Roy, Andrew Bynum, even Chris Paul. But usually MVP candidates don’t receive MIP awards. On the other hand, they didn’t receive 6th man awards - they weren’t eligible. As for the rest, they all made improvements, but none of them seemed to make as big a leap as Turkoglu  did. He became the 2nd best player for the Magic, who got the 3rd seed in the East.

Turkoglu hit big shots, had to play point-forward because his team doesn’t have a true PG, he maintained his production over the course of the season and proved more valuable than the 120 million man. He even made a few defensive plays in crunch time to help preserve a few Magic wins. He was everything Rashard Lewis was paid to be. And then some. Since he was snubbed for the All Star Game, the least the voters could do for him is give him the MIP award.

So many choices here … Scott Skiles, Jim Boylan, even Larry Krystkowiak. I kid, I kid. It’s a tough choice between:

• Phil Jackson: finally making Kobe understand what team-play is and getting the Lakers the 1st place in the West even with Bynum out, Gasol comming over, then getting injured and comming back after some weeks, not to mention he had to deal with losing Kwame Brown
• Byron Scott: taking a team that didn’t make the playoffs last season and almost winning the Western Conference is no small feat. And there’s no way you can compare the talent on the Hornets with what the Lakers have. The Hornets are not even close, so from this point of view Byron Scott’s achievement kinda trumps Phil’s.
• Doc Rivers: he managed to turn a bunch of newly acquired players into a team from day 1. He put his ego aside and allowed assistant Tom Thibodeau do his thing.
• Stan Van Gundy: I know he won’t really receive considerations for the award, but I’d like to give him props for the job he did in Orlando. I highly doubt that the 120 million man Rashard Lewis is the reason for this team’s improvement. In fact, Rashard’s play was quite average, at best worth half of the 20 mil he makes per season. Van Gundy found a way to turn a team with only one real good defender (Howard) and that featured a poor defender playing out of position (Lewis at PF) into the league’s 7th best defensive team. He also found a way to unleash Dwight Howard upon the league. One can only imagine what he could do with a real PG able to put the ball in Dwight’s hands more often and in better spots.

With all due respect for Byron Scott, but I think it’s about time Phil Jackson got his second COY award. Just think about this for a moment: best coach alive, arguably best coach ever, has 9 titles but only 1 COY award. Another reason is that Scott has been the coach of the Hornets the past couple of seasons when they were just another lottery team. So I’d rather credit Chris Paul’s improvement as playing the biggest part in the Hornets raising in the rankings.

Otherwise known as the Biggest Rapist of Fellow Executives Award, this one should be a toss-up between:

• Danny Ainge: got Garnett from Minnesota after McHale dropped trou, bent over and asked Ainge to take him hard from behind in the memory of their old Celtics days. Many GMs wish they’d have this kind of luck …
• Mitch Kupchak: after Kobe crapped all over the Lakers front office during the summer, Kupchak responded by getting Gasol for the change he had in his pocket and a couple of tickets to the 2005 Spurs-Pistons finals that nobody wanted to buy from him. I guess this was his way of telling Kobe: “Now you have what you’ve been whining for. Can YOU deliver the goods ?”

Even if there were a couple of other big moves (Shaq to Phoenix and Kidd to Dallas) who might turn out to put those teams over the hop, there just wasn’t enough time for those teams to gel, and since voting takes place before the playoffs start, even if one of them wins the title, it will be too late to land the award for Kerr or Donnie Nelson.

Joe Dumars might receive some votes as well for partially retooling the Pistons, but I think the real challenge for him will come this summer when he’ll finally have to face the fact that he has to rebuild this team of whining underachievers with a sense of entitlement.

My pick is Cupcake Kupchak, cause he didn’t have an old connection to help him land the player he wanted. He had to work hard to find a fool and part said fool and his money all-star player.

Reading today about Ginobili getting the 6th man award made me realize that I completely forgot to post my own choices, so I decided to try and do it before they actually hand out any more awards. And here they are:

Well, the award has already been given, but really, could there have been any other choice ? The press release says “Ginobili received 615 out of a possible 620 points, including 123 of a possible 124 first-place votes”. Well, I’d like to know who the fuck was the one who did NOT have Manu on first place. That person should be banned from voting. And I don’t mean just for NBA awards, but any kind of vote. He (or she) should not even be allowed to give a vote of confidence. That’s how stupid that was.

I mean Ginobili had the 7th highest PER in the league. He was ahead of guys like Kobe (who’s about to get his MVP trophy), Dwight Howard, Boozer, Nash, Melo, Iverson and so on. If any of these guys would have qualified for 6th man voting, someone would have to be crazy not to vote for them. The guy should be receiving MVP votes. There’s absolutely no excuse for thinking claiming (there was no thinking involved) he’s not the best amongst those qualifying for the 6th man award.

Just as I was babbling writing about the Spurs and their chances of resurrecting themselves and making another run, Lebron James was getting dressed for the Celtics game (ie putting his cape on, underneath his uniform) and getting ready to bully the Celtics into submission. So far (10 min left in the 2nd quarter) so good: 16 points on 6-7 shooting, 3 reb, 5 ast. Seems like Lebron is really mad that Garnett, not him, won the mid season awards.

Pierce has been perfect so far from the field (4-4) but if things are close to the end of the game, look for him again to try and be the hero. Again. And mess things up for the Celtics. Again. But more on that in a later post. In any case, too bad Garnett is out, or it could have been a classic duel, one that might have influenced the actual MVP vote. Although last season Nash owned Dirk in the Suns-Mavs games, including abusing him whenever Dirk was left to defend on him after a switch on the pick and roll, yet Dirk received the MVP (and proved that he deserved it by choking against the Warriors in the 1st round).