| A Decade of Greats |
|
|
| Written by Joe Buckley | |
| Sunday, 07 September 2008 | |
 And yet, do you deny Tim Duncan deserved his two? Or Steve Nash? Of course there can always be arguments made, but no one can definitely say that Steve or Tim or Dirk didn’t deserve there’s, because in the end it comes down to how you view that particular award or how you view how valuable certain players are. The problem being that with some players, they can be both valuable and detrimental, again it normally comes down to how you view it. If you look at Kobe before this season, he was constantly criticised for being a ball-hog and hurting the teams offence. Yet it was obvious he was keeping them alive with his scoring outbursts. Shaq has won teams hundreds of games with his dominance, and lost quite a few with his free-throw shooting. So I guess you kind of have to take the good with the bad. What it comes down to, is that there are more great players than there are seasons. Allen Iverson. Tim Duncan. Kevin Garnett. Kobe Bryant. Tracy McGrady. Steve Nash. Dirk Nowitzki. Shaquille O’Neal. Ben Wallace. Jermaine O’Neal. Dwayne Wade. Carmelo Anthony. LeBron James. Jason Kidd. Chris Paul. Yao Ming. Within the last decade or so, at one point or another you could argue that these guys deserved an MVP award. I’m talking about the last 7/8 years, yet i’ve just listed 16 players. And there and quite a few I’ve missed out. What if I started listing the guys that just had the one good year and then fell off? Peja Stojakovic? Ron Artest? Like I say, I’m not saying that the actual winners of these awards are not worthy. Let’s look at Steve Nash. He won his first MVP award in 2005, and his second in 2006. If i look at 2005, and had the deciding vote, I would vote for Shaquille O’Neal, as he went to Miami and transformed a franchise, his motivation to start working out again was an inspiration as he had one of his best seasons. If i look at 2006 and had the deciding vote, I would vote for Kobe Bryant, because he absolutely dominated the league that year in terms of scoring and made the Lakers at least relevant again after the disaster of the year before. AND YET, if I look at the two years overall, and I look at Steve Nash, he does deserve at least the one MVP award. He began Phoenix’s run of domination and turned them into the most exciting team in the league. He is easily the best point guard (so far) of the decade, and I loved to see a player dominate the game without scoring, even though he can definitely do that too. Of course players have been shunned before. And I’m going to go ahead and guess that there will be in the future, but it doesn’t really deduct from the arguments surrounding who is the greatest etc. Kobe just won his first MVP, but before that, most people would still have voted him as the best basketball player in the world, as well they should The point I am making, is that although awards are great, and that the winners should be revered, player’s legacies should not be defined because of them. In the same way that Championships shouldn’t. Patrick Ewing. Karl Malone. John Stockton. Reggie Miller. Charles Barkley. They never won a championship but still are among the game’s greatest of all time. Of course sometimes awards are used as criteria and as a measuring stick, the same as Rings and stats, and I don’t mind that every once in a while, but players should never be defined by statistics. For half of Bill Russell’s career they didn’t record blocked shots, yet there is no doubt that he was one of/ perhaps the best defensive player of all time. Perhaps the biggest annoyance I have with the basketball world, is John Hollinger’s dam Efficiency Ratings. Basketball is not maths. Basketball is not strictly numbers. Basketball is a sport. Basketball is a game. It is impossible to dictate how valuable a player is or how good he is by looking at his numbers. A look at last year’s PER rankings hosts some abominations such as Amare Stoudamire being better than Kobe Bryant. Carlos Boozer being better than Kevin Garnett. Vince Carter being better than Paul Pierce. BRAD MILLER being better than Manu Ginobli, Hedo Turkoglu and Brandon Roy?! Truth being that there is no statistic that takes everything into account, and there never will be. Thank god, because there wouldn’t be much point in watching after that would there? Of course no one is going to win the MVP, if they handed them out like candy, they wouldn’t be as coveted would they? There will some i don’t agree with, some I would rather went to someone else, and its the same for you, but at the end of the day, that shouldn’t take away from our enjoyment of the game. LeBron may well win his first MVP this season. He may well not, he may well never win one, but that does not subtract from what an amazing basketball player he is.         Set as favorite Bookmark Comments
(3)
kb24
written by KobeTwentyFour , September 08, 2008
kb24 is going to win it again:D MVP MVP MVP MVP
Votes: +0
report abuse
vote down
vote up
...
written by Xerxes , September 09, 2008
Nice Article. Hope Kobe wins it again.
Votes: +0
report abuse
vote down
vote up
Just maybe...
written by Jbuckley , September 11, 2008
Kobe could easily win it again, but it will be extremely hard if the Lakers don't pull off the number 1 seed again, as technically he will have even more help this time.
Votes: +0
report abuse
vote down
vote up
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
