Originally posted by skyflyer
1. Kobe Bryant.
2. LeBron James.
3. Dwyane Wade.
4. Allen Iverson.
5. Tim Duncan.
6. Shaquille O'Neal.
7. Vince Carter.
8. Shawn Marion.
9. Kevin Garnett.
10. Tracy McGrady.Players who just about don't make it are: Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Dirk Nowitzki.
shawn marion ahead of MVP STEVE NASH!!??? and potential mvp dirk nowitzki?
Both Nash and Dirk should be there before T-Mac.T-Mac hasn't done a thing but shoot 9 for 30 each game with like 3 free throws and hold yao back from his development.
Nash is the best point gaurd in the league by far and deserved the M.V.P last year and can win it this year.
Now Dirk should be on that list aswell the guy is the truth my only beef with him is his lack of inside presence but he's not that type of player.
Marion has a few things over Dirk.Unlike Dirk,Marion can play both sides of the Floor very well and can clean up on the boards on the offensive end something Dirk stuggles with.
Now with Nash no way is Marion more valuable to the suns.Nash is what makes that team go and if you take Nash out the suns are a .500 team at best.
Originally posted by tanjot
players that should be in the mvp mix more often: dirk nowitzki, vince carter, kobe bryant ( although i hate him and know he is a huge ball hog...he can get so much done on the offensive end), and chauncey billups.
Originally posted by thesilverspiderMarion has a few things over Dirk.Unlike Dirk,Marion can play both sides of the Floor very well and can clean up on the boards on the offensive end something Dirk stuggles with.
Dirk, although not as good defensively as Marion, is no longer bad at defense. He has improved that part of his game TREMENDOUSLY over the last 2 years. He is also quite a bit better than Marion on the offensive side. I have no problem seeing Marion in a top 10 list, but Dirk should be too (and not no f-ing McGrady).
i know you will think that im saying this just because he is my favourite player...BUT....FACTS ARE... the nets are 0-3 when vince has either not been in the lineup or has gotten injured at the start of the game, the nets are 0-4 when vince is playing through injury which shows he has not been injured very often. the nets are playing better thanks to him. i know jason kidd is in there as well, but as we have seen vince can play well with 5'5 point guards as he did with the raps earlier in his career.
so what i was really trying to say was, vince should be taken into mvp consideration just as much as chauncey, dirk, or kobe, maybe not steve nash considering what he is working with.
The MVP is basically a popularity contest tanjot. Carter wont win for the same reason Kobe wont, they have too much baggage. Nash or Bron will win, both likable players who are great (dont think im knocking them), but unpopular players are a no no when it comes to the MVP. If Kobe wins i'll kiss Sterns ass myself.
Originally posted by Myth
Dirk, although not as good defensively as Marion, is no longer bad at defense. He has improved that part of his game TREMENDOUSLY over the last 2 years. He is also quite a bit better than Marion on the offensive side. I have no problem seeing Marion in a top 10 list, but Dirk should be too (and not no f-ing McGrady).
Originally posted by tanjot
i know you will think that im saying this just because he is my favourite player...BUT....FACTS ARE... the nets are 0-3 when vince has either not been in the lineup or has gotten injured at the start of the game, the nets are 0-4 when vince is playing through injury which shows he has not been injured very often. the nets are playing better thanks to him. i know jason kidd is in there as well, but as we have seen vince can play well with 5'5 point guards as he did with the raps earlier in his career.so what i was really trying to say was, vince should be taken into mvp consideration just as much as chauncey, dirk, or kobe, maybe not steve nash considering what he is working with.
I think Vince deserves some MVP votes, but not 1st place votes. All the voters get to pick who they think is #1, #2, #3, etc and they get a certain amount of points depending where they rank him. I'd say he should get quite a bit of 4th and 5th place votes, and maybe he'll pull in a #3 vote by somebody, but overall he doesn't deserve to get a #1 or 2 vote by anybody.
Btw tanjot, here is something you'll like to hear. After this season, which is undoubtably Vince's best ever, I believe he is officially better than T-Mac. The past couple seasons I thought T-Mac did better, but this season of Vince's is better than any T-Mac ever had. Though I still don't think he is quite at the level you think he is.
Originally posted by Myth
I think Vince deserves some MVP votes, but not 1st place votes. All the voters get to pick who they think is #1, #2, #3, etc and they get a certain amount of points depending where they rank him. I'd say he should get quite a bit of 4th and 5th place votes, and maybe he'll pull in a #3 vote by somebody, but overall he doesn't deserve to get a #1 or 2 vote by anybody.Btw tanjot, here is something you'll like to hear. After this season, which is undoubtably Vince's best ever, I believe he is officially better than T-Mac. The past couple seasons I thought T-Mac did better, but this season of Vince's is better than any T-Mac ever had. Though I still don't think he is quite at the level you think he is.
im alright with that...as long as vince gets as much credit as he deserves and is not said to be a whiner. the one thing, that i think has made vince a much better player this season, surprisingly, is his defence which he has never been noticed for.
i have one question though, does anyone think kobe deserves much mvp consideration??? i would have said that..as much as i hate him...if his team had a clinched playoff birth right now or close to it.
Originally posted by tanjot
i have one question though, does anyone think kobe deserves much mvp consideration??? i would have said that..as much as i hate him...if his team had a clinched playoff birth right now or close to it.
Originally posted by tanjot
i have one question though, does anyone think kobe deserves much mvp consideration??? i would have said that..as much as i hate him...if his team had a clinched playoff birth right now or close to it.
I wouldn't give it to him personally but I think he deserves it enough for me to not be angry with him getting it.
I'll post this here as we are talking about the MVP race, its an article that seems pretty fair about why kobe shouldn't be the MVP under the current criteria.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/sports/abox/article_1100213.php
He is the most talented player in the game. He makes more clutch shots than anybody on the planet, and he stamped his indelible signature on this season with that big, fat 81 he dropped on Toronto.But there is one startling reason Kobe Bryant can't be the MVP of the NBA:
He is too good for his own team.
There is such a huge dropoff between him and everyone else on the Lakers, there have been too many nights like the recent loss to Denver when he took 39 shots and finished with one assist. Too many nights when his competitiveness seems to hurt the team almost as much as it helps it.
It seems so easy to knock him for appearing selfish and scream that he doesn't pass the ball enough. But to whom should he pass on this team?
Kwame Brown, with hands that only Roberto Duran could love? Lamar Odom, whose assertiveness flits in and out more often than the drivers on L.A.'s erratic freeways? Devean George, who seems almost as surprised as his coaches when one of his jumpers goes in?
Bryant shoots too much because he is the only Laker capable of consistently knocking down shots.
But in the process, Phil Jackson's team too often looks stagnant on offense. Bryant shoots, and the rest of the guys stand around and watch.
It isn't exactly the way John Wooden would teach Basketball 101.
Jackson has hinted that he's up to his Zen in frustration. You listen to him after games, and he will praise Bryant, then note that it isn't really the way he prefers things to function.
This isn't so much a triangle now as it is one giant circle revolving around one guy in the middle.
Just the other night, the coach called his best player's performance "remarkable" but then lamented the fact his teammates didn't "get in the flow."
It is a catch-22, or maybe we should call it a catch-81, situation.
You want Bryant to help everyone else get better. But if he concentrates on that, the Lakers probably aren't going to win as many games.
Brian Cook is the next best shooter on the team, but his defense isn't good enough for Jackson to play him enough minutes. Luke Walton is a fine passer and a nice, instinctive player, but he has almost as much difficulty hitting open shots as his father does talking in short, succinct sentences.
So, often on this team, it comes down to Bryant or someone like Smush Parker.
You tell me, which one would you pick with the game on the line?
If you like lively sports debates, the one raging on the Internet involving the league's MVP race is about as juicy as it gets.
Somebody listed a top five the other day and didn't even include Bryant, which is ridiculous. The fact he has carried this team, practically by himself, to the brink of the playoffs is more than enough to qualify him as a serious candidate.
He belongs in the top five.
But because of the strange makeup of his team and the fact he often is forced to play too much isolation basketball, you can't pick him to win the award.
Not when you have so many other strong candidates. Not when you can choose from a list that includes the Suns' Steve Nash, the Pistons' Chauncey Billups, the Cavaliers' LeBron James, the Clippers' Elton Brand and the Mavericks' Dirk Nowitzki.
Nash, who was MVP a year ago, is probably the favorite. When Amare Stoudemire went down at the start of the season, the natural inclination was to think Phoenix was finished.
But the cool-hand Canadian with the distinctive mullet had other ideas. He not only leads the league in assists again, he also leads in free throws. More important, he and five teammates are averaging career highs in points, and that's all attributable to Nash's rare ability to distribute the ball.
So if he won last year with Stoudemire, and the Suns are playing almost as well without their gifted, young power player this season, what does that make Nash?
Probably a two-time MVP.
Although it is just as difficult to discount Billups. Call me old-fashioned, but this still seems like an award that should go to the best player on the best team. If that's the case, the Pistons' point guard is your man.
Detroit has played the finest team basketball in the league this year, and Billups is the primary reason. He not only is averaging 19.1 points a game, his assist-to-turnover ratio is an extraordinary 4 to 1.
The Pistons are the closest thing to the old Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere Knicks of the 1970s, a team that never met a pass it didn't like. With Billups at the point, this group reminds you that basketball still is at its most watchable when it is a five-man game.
Not that it isn't fun to watch a blossoming talent like the remarkable Mr. James. Even more than Bryant, LeBron can take your breath away at times. But what impresses you isn't so much his raw talent as his ability to see the whole floor.
The kid is just as willing to make a big pass as he is a big shot. But that's the difference between James and Bryant.
One has an All-Star named Zydrunas Ilgauskas playing alongside of him. The other has Kwame Brown.
You could say the same thing about Brand, who's enjoying a terrific season for the Clippers. He has Sam Cassell.
Bryant has ... well, you get the idea.
Attempting to do it all by himself, the Lakers' superstar has had a truly remarkable run this year. He deserves a ton of credit.
But he doesn't deserve to be MVP.
chauncey, lebron, dirk, nash, kobe, and elton brand should not be the only ones in the mvp race.
everyone honestly tell me, where do you think the nets would be without vince carter?? exactly where they were last season before he arrived, not even close to a playoff spot. he definitely should be getting much more recognition and should be an mvp candidate. yeah he is not leading the league in scoring, assists, or rebounds....but he averages a solid 24.6ppg, and is a great contributor on the court and gets his teammates A LOT of open looks on which they usually do not convert..therefore being the reason he does not get a lot of assists, unlike kobe who has horrible shot selection at times and does not get his teammates nearly as much open looks as vince, if any in the first place. even as a scorer vince has scored 40 or more points 5 times this season including a career tying 51 point performance against miami.'
do not tell me that the nets r winning because of the big three....all they need is vince carter and jason kidd ( nothing against rj) , because if the nets won 14 of their last 20 games last season to make the playoffs then they can sure as hell do it without him this season. richard jefferson is in the mix to take some of the pressure off of vince, but vince has shown that he can explode for 30-40 points every game without him in the lineup. vince may have set his new career high last season against the spurs if he did not get ejected for running after bruce bowen who intentionaly stepped under his jumper to try to injur him...again. vince had 42 points at the start of the fourth quarter in that game, so..you know what i mean. vince can get it done without richard jefferson, and plays better with j-kidd, but can play well with a decent point guard as well. jason kidd though..can not be effective without vince carter much more than with richard jefferson.