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Tuesday, 25 April 2006 |
By D. W. O’Dell
 As the basketball season winds down, people’s thoughts turn to post-season awards. This is because basketball’s post-season is nearly as long as its regular season, and almost as dull, until the very, very end.
This year’s MVP balloting should be interesting, as there really is no one, or even three, front-runners for the title. One name that has popped up in many sportswriters’ columns has to raise a few eyebrows: Kobe Bryant. This is interesting because the Lakers are far, far worse now than they were two years ago, and the reason is mostly Kobe.
Support for Kobe is presumably based on the metric that the MVP must be the person who scores the highest percentage of his team’s points during a season (seriously, has anyone checked what percentage of LA’s points Kobe scored, because it has to be some sort of record). Taken at face value, that would appear to be the person who was most valuable to their team (unless you also want to count assists, and how many of those does Kobe have this season?).
But there should be some consideration for team quality. Kobe doesn’t make a good team great; he makes a bad team mediocre. Honestly, without Kobe the remaining Lakers couldn’t challenge a good high school team. Yes, that makes him really valuable; but shouldn’t the standard be a little higher?
The problem is that great teams often don’t have one “valuable” player they rely on. Great teams are usually composed of a balanced attack utilizing at least two, if not more, stars. Okay, the Bulls won six rings with Michael Jordan and four other guys (didn’t they once beat the Atlanta Hawks 101-95 playing Michael Jordan and four fans chosen at random from the stands? No? Maybe I dreamed it). But that’s Michael and that’s an exception.
The same problem arises in discussing baseball MVPs. The Yankees won 114 games in 1998 and didn’t really have an MVP; Derek Jeter finished a distant third in the voting, while three other Yankees were in the top 20. In 2001 the Mariners won 116 games; Ichiro won the MVP award (in a very close vote), but teammate Bret Boone was third and three other Mariners were in the top 20. Great teams aren’t carried by one player.
On the other side of the argument, lousy teams are often carried by one player. The 2003 Texas Rangers were dreadful, but Alex Rodriguez won the MVP award for leading them to a 71-91 record. In 1987 Andre Dawson led an almost as bad Cubs team to a 75-85 last place finish, but he won the RBI title and thus picked up the MVP award.
I’ve always believed that giving the baseball MVP award to a player on a last place team made no sense. It’s like when Ralph Kiner asked for a raise after leading the league in home runs for a truly dreadful Pirates team and was told, “Look, we finished in last place with you; we can finish in last place without you.” How valuable can a player be if the team wouldn’t finish any worse without him?
The situation in the NBA is a little different. Since more teams make the playoffs than in baseball, the argument could be made that the most valuable players are those who turn 9 seeds into 8 or 7 seeds. Without Kobe, the Lakers would be sitting at home rather than being the seventh seed in the NBA west (come to think of it, even with Kobe they watched the playoffs on TV last year; must be that Phil Jackson coaching magic that made the difference this year).
Still, I think the MVP should come from a team that has a chance to win it all, not one hoping for a first round miracle. Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitski, Duane Wade, LeBron James and Chauncey Billups have all done wonderful jobs with teams that have a real chance to win it all. Isn’t that what MVP awards should reward: excellence, not mediocrity?
Oh, and the MVP in the NHL? Who cares? Really? Okay, it’s the guy, you know, the one with the named that’s spelled funny.
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