Gargamel
Starter
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[AWARDS] LA Times: Kobe has won MVP
- Thread starter Gargamel
- Start date
I have no problem with it if it means we'll never hear the stupid chant again. I guess...
Okay, I admit it, he's probably my least favorite NBA player. Maybe even including the retired or dead ones. Maybe my least favorite basketball player. Including amateurs. So I guess I don't care for it, period.
Okay, I admit it, he's probably my least favorite NBA player. Maybe even including the retired or dead ones. Maybe my least favorite basketball player. Including amateurs. So I guess I don't care for it, period.
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hoopsfan
Starter
He's not retiring after this year.
Hey...if Nash can win it twice......
See the edited version.
I realized I hadn't been entirely forthcoming. Couldn't leave it that way.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
hoopsfan
Starter
Gargamel
Starter
That's (should be) irrelevant to the award. Evidently, some of the voters finally realized that.
Yes, Brick. Acknowledgment of the believers shall take the form of a carve job on AK.
venom_7
Starter
Ditto. Followed closely by Danny Fortson.
I never really associated Danny Fortson with "basketball", so I can't agree with that.
bozzwell
Starter
He deserved it, but so did CP3 and maybe even KG. Interestingly enough, Kobe the star of LA team gets an edge over what was very competitive regular season for MVP (we can throw LeBron in as well) in a vote that smacks of compensatory Oscar. You know like when an actor or director gets an Oscar for a role/movie that is not even in their own top 3 best performances _maybe_ because they got snubbed before. Kobe should have gotten MVP couple year ago instead of Nash and Nash deserved it more then ever last year but Dirk got a nod.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
L.A. whining aside, this is really the ONLY year Kobe deserved it. The only one where he truly met the unstated but very consistent MVP critiria "best player on an elite team". You don't win MVPs on 45 game winners. And its very hard to win them when there is the suspicion that you aren't even the best player on your own team. But this year the stars finally aligned: Kobe was on an elite team (55+ wins), he was the best player on his team, and one of the three or four best in the league. Those factors hae never all been there before this year.
If its just best player period, well Kobe loses this year to LeBron. But LeBron didn't win enough, so he suffered from the same unspoken rule that cut down Kobe's chances in recent years. Came down to Paul and Kobe and Garnett, but Garnett's numbers were down and he had All-Star wingmen, and Kobe/Paul may truly have come down to who won the West (hence the thanks he owes us). And yes, I do think there is a bit of the Karl Malone yeah we'd better give it to Kobe lifetime achievement/Paul has plenty of time vibe to it, but after the Lakers won the West, not sure that mattered.
If its just best player period, well Kobe loses this year to LeBron. But LeBron didn't win enough, so he suffered from the same unspoken rule that cut down Kobe's chances in recent years. Came down to Paul and Kobe and Garnett, but Garnett's numbers were down and he had All-Star wingmen, and Kobe/Paul may truly have come down to who won the West (hence the thanks he owes us). And yes, I do think there is a bit of the Karl Malone yeah we'd better give it to Kobe lifetime achievement/Paul has plenty of time vibe to it, but after the Lakers won the West, not sure that mattered.
bozzwell
Starter
I forgot about that - we beat NO and then played dead for LA to give Kobe his maiden MVP. A number of analyst/writers with votes said that it may come down to who wins the West for their MVP vote, so I have to assume that Brick is right here. I don't begrudge anyone, Kobe included, winning something they deserved. But not with our help.
I feel dirty now.
I feel dirty now.
6th
Homer Fan Since 1985
Excellent summation. This is exactly how I feel about it. And, no, I don't have to like it. Kobe, you still make me sick!!
Gargamel
Starter
Agree w/ everything that was snipped.
Re LA whining, the first place voting in years past is the actual issue. In some years he fulfilled part of the requirements for MVP and he would end up 5th in 1st place votes. The media had a lot of beefs with him after the arrest and there are still hangers-on.
As far as the Lifetime Achievement Award title. That's a cute media creation that a number of voters used in their written arguments for Paul. Instead of arguing why they thought their guy was better, they had to argue why Kobe wasn't. That's telling. A trite little catchphrase that one of them made up and others ran with as an easy out.
First, media voters show their hypocrisy to call that a LAA when they're the same people who considered some of Kobe's best statistical seasons crap in comparison to guys like Iverson, Nash, and Nowitzki.
Second, if Kobe F. Bryant(!) has that knock on him, then that means Shaq and Jordan should've won that award every year of their primes, no ifs ands or buts. And don't even attempt to argue that Nash and Nowitzki are more valuable than Duncan.
Gargamel
Starter
For some reason, that really made me laugh.
Oh, yeah. Timmy's laughing too as he has looks down at the pile of rings in his palm.
You changed it. I was going to agree with you, partially, that '05 and '06 were Duncan's years, not Nash's. I'd have given Nash '07, due to the way his team played and his career high numbers. I don't know that Dirk would have gotten a top three vote from me last season; Nash, Duncan and LeBron all would have been ahead of him.
And if you and Brick are arguing about '97, when Jordan clearly deserved it more than Karl Malone, I have to say that that was probably more about not giving it to MJ every single year, which you easily could have, than it was about giving Karl Malone a lifetime achievement award. Maybe a combination of both, I suppose.
Shaq got it in 2000, deservedly so, but the only other season that I think he should have gotten it was 2001, and wasn't that one of the tightest races of all time, according to the numbers? Not that Iverson wasn't deserving, but Shaq showed in the playoffs and the Finals why he should have gotten it, putting up practically 40/20 every game. I couldn't see him getting it any other year, honestly. He fell off big time in 2002, missing a ton of games and not completely dominating like he had before, and Jason Kidd and Duncan clearly deserved it more, I think. '03, same thing, plus the fact that the Lakers struggled to win 50 games that year, due largely to Shaq's lack of presence. Then he began to decline sharply after that. If he'd had the work ethic of a guy like Karl Malone, he probably would have won five in a row, but he's not known for his work ethic.
This year, Kobe was probably most deserving. Paul does have more time to get one, but I don't think he ever will. Guys like LeBron and Dwight Howard will probably overshadow him for the rest of his career.
Vlade4GM
All-Star
Best player doesn't just mean best stats. Kobe was the best player this year and for the 2 years previous. Kobe plays better D (albeit he doesn't always play his best on the defensive because he has to do so much offensively, but he can be a lockdown defender in crunch time whenever he wants) than LeBron and he's a much better end of the game player. And if Kobe got the calls that LeBron gets, forget about it. Regardless of what the unsaid criteria is, I think Kobe has been the deserving MVP the last 3 years. The 05-06 team outside of him was the crappiest laker team I've ever witnessed and he got them to finish above .500 and into the 7th seed in a tough conference.
Gargamel
Starter
No argument, just talking out loud.
I'm just saying that the "LAA" thing is a convenient little dismissal of Kobe by voters who have baggage. I'm not claiming one can't truly think Paul deserved it more, but when a voter feels compelled to argue AGAINST Kobe while arguing FOR Paul, that's sketchy. If they really felt he wasn't a worthy candidate (or a threat), they wouldn't have felt the need to mention him at all. Paul's merits would've stood on their own. Yes, I may be more sensitive to this stuff as a Laker fan, but remember that I've also heard 5 years of vicious media criticism and agendas, so I know it's there. Even our LA media aren't cut and dried Kobe jockers. T.J. Simers is more acidic to Kobe than piksi. Joe McDonnell is a Shaq jocker supreme, was calling for Kobe to be barred from the league (this is one of Jerry West's favorite media guys we're talking about...).
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I think you can expect it to die down a decade or so after everyone's forgotten about Webber's time out call at Michigan.
tradepeja
Starter
God, I don't know if I've ever agreed with you more. I think he is one of the most overrated players ever, "superstar" or not.
uolj
Starter
I don't understand how he's overrated. Garnett's rated much higher, but Nowitzki's gotten his team to the finals, stepped up in crucial moments, and gotten great stats, too. I'm not saying Nowitzki's better than Garnett, I'm saying he's not overrated.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
He was never at any point an MVP caliber guy however. Nor a first team all NBA guy really. He's always been a step back from that level A great offensive player, but there's just that gap. He got MVP because his team won 67 and the other candidates were all missing something, or in the case of Nash, had already gotten theirs.
uolj
Starter
Right, and I think most people think that way. Hence, not "overrated".
Futuristic
G-League
Who would rather CP3 take the wining shot than Kobe????
That question has NO direct bearing on who should win the MVP award.
You're grasping at straws, and what makes it so bad is that you really don't have to. I don't think anyone here is arguing that Chris Paul deserved it more than Kobe Bryant. And even if they were, your argument is hardly conclusive evidence that Bryant should get it.
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