The MVP campaigning is in full swing, with Kobe Bryant putting up 52 points on national TV last week and LeBron James dropping 50 on the Knicks Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.
Kobe and LeBron both are making a case for MVP, but who is most deserving?
“You hear it every day,” James said. “I’m a fan of the game, I watch TV, I see the debates every day. So there’s no way you can get away from it. But I go out and just play my game every night and try to be the MVP of my team every night.”
Asked if his numbers speak for themselves, James said, “Well, I would think so.” He’s averaging an NBA-leading 30.8 points, with 8.0 rebounds and 7.4 assists.
Chris Paul and Kevin Garnett deserve consideration, but the most formidable challenge to LeBron is the other player in the league who needs only one name.
“If you give it to LeBron, it’s like, `Wow, that was quick,’ “ said Kobe’s teammate, Lamar Odom, who believes Bryant’s 12 years in the league should give him the edge.
Lakers Coach Phil Jackson offered another reason: “(His) team doesn’t have quite the record we have.”
Either way, there was no denying how special James’ MSG performance was. He was two rebounds shy of a rare 50-point triple-double, which hasn’t been done since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had 50 points, 15 rebounds and 11 assists on Jan. 19, 1975.
And Knicks fans appreciated it. In case you didn’t catch this, James called the ovation he received at the Garden “one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me.”
It’s easy to fall in love with statistics when evaluating the MVP race. The Web site www.82games.com has compiled stats for “clutch minutes,” which it defines as fourth quarter or overtime, less than five minutes left, neither team ahead by more than five points. Very fair assessment of crunch time.
Through Friday, James was averaging 60.3 points per 48 “clutch minutes” compared to Bryant’s 57.4. Both are significantly ahead of the next closest clutch scorer, the Wizards’ Caron Butler (47.2). That’s proof enough to me that it’s a two-man race; Garnett, for example, has 67 players ahead of him in clutch scoring (23.0). The highest-ranking Knick? Jamal Crawford, of course. He’s 50th at 26.3.
James is ahead of Bryant in every major clutch-time category except three-point percentage, which Kobe leads 33.3 to 28.9. That’s great, but I’d like to see their numbers, and their team’s records, in games that come down to the last possession - at either end of the floor.
In choosing the MVP, I have to ask these questions: If I’m strategizing for the last shot, who is taking it if I have the ball and who is defending the opponent’s best player if they have the ball? In both cases, I choose Kobe over LeBron.
In a couple of years? Things will be different.
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After the Heat dropped to 11-47 with a 108-93 home loss to the Raptors on Wednesday night, Pat Riley snapped.
“Just a lack of effort and a horrible attitude,” Riley said. “The attitude they showed, I should write a check to each season ticket-holder. I should write the check and not even them, because I can’t get them to play hard.”
If Isiah Thomas wanted to get fired, all he’d have to do is say something like that and he’d be in violation of James Dolan’s policy not to say anything negative about the Knicks. But hey, at least Dolan abides by his own policy.
As he marched stonefaced past reporters after a loss to the Hornets last Monday night, Dolan uttered something to the effect of “that wasn’t so bad” to one of his henchmen on their way out of the Garden. There’s no way of knowing if he was referring to the Knicks’ performance or a stale knish he’d saved for his postgame snack. Either way, troubling.
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How big is Eddy Curry? So big that the following quote from Pistons center Theo Ratliff after Friday night’s game wasn’t much of an exaggeration. “He’s a load,” Ratliff said. “He’s got me by 100 pounds, probably.”
