The NBA Finally Has an MVP Whose Game Does Not Shrink in the Playoffs

Kobe has had his share of bounces from the playoffs, too. He just has a better supporting cast this year. I agree that there is probably not another player in the league that I would like taking that last shot though. Thanks.

Come on, is this really fair? Sure, Dirk's Mavs got beat in the first round last season, but they were on the verge of winning the title the year before Dwyane Wade and the officials took over. In the two years Steve Nash won the MVP, the Suns went to the Western Conference Finals, so his game hardly shrunk when he was the MVP. You can't take him to task two years later, now that he's 34 and has to deal with Shaq clogging up the driving lanes. The year before that, KG's Timberwolves made the Western Conference Finals, and Duncan - who won the MVP the two years prior - brought home a championship the second time he won it.

Write as much as you want about how well Kobe is playing now, but don't make it out like he's the only MVP to do so in the playoffs. Aside from Dirk's aberration against Golden State, all of the recent MVPs have played well in the years they won the award.

Kobe should have been the MVP each of the two years that Nash won the award.

Players on teams with fewer than 50 wins simply don't get the award. It hasn't happened since the early '80s.

a truly great or valuable palyer is one who makes those around him better, yall just seem to want to look at stats. look at what KG has done with Rondo, now that is impressive, but Kobe seems to have improved the whole laker lineup

I'd have to say Gasol had a lot to do with that, too. The Lakers weren't exactly burning up the Western Confernece before he arrived. That was the acquisition that put them over the top.

i hear ya, gasol has turned Odom into a trusted role player as well, with some consistency to jis game noew too

The acquisition of Gasol allowed Oden to successfully return to his natural position, and opened up the offense by actually requiring someone to play defense in the post. Gasol was a valuable link that brought not only scoring, but experience. Yet... even though I am not particularly a Kobe fan, I can admit NONE of it works without Kobe. If there's no Kobe, they end up being above average, but not a contender. It's definitely about more than stats.

lamar oDumb took 3 shots last night. while since becoming the 3rd option, he has stepped up his game tremendously, if there is even the slightest bit of pressure on him to produce, he folds like a lawn chair. when hes on, hes great, but i just dont understand why he doesnt do it everynight

Stats play a role, but your point is a good one. I'd argue that Paul had the biggest positive impact on his teammates. But the vote is over and Kobe won.

Rondo is a good player in his own right. You can't pin his success squarely on the shoulders of his teammates. Rondo's a baller.

i think he lacked confidence before KG came to town though, idont remember him as much of a scorer before KG

Rondo IS a "good" player, but he is not the player who was going to take the team anywhere. But there's something that happens to a "good" player when he/she becomes surrounded by great players (and leaders) - their game gets elevated and they begin to play better than anyone could have ever predicted. I believe Rondo is that player.

Kobe didn't disappear 2 years ago up 3-1 vs. the Suns? That Game 7 he looked and acted like a bratty little rook, and absolutely quit on his team. I find it amazing that he has fans outside of LA after doing that in the playoffs.

Either Chris Paul or LeBron should have gotten the award. Not somebody who got a technical foul and ejected in a game against Seattle in a game they were winning all because they didn't make one petty call. But hey, its the NBA.

1) Kobe has also been an All-NBA and All-Defensive Team performer while playing on three championship teams as the squad's leading playmaker (yes, Kobe has been passing the ball for years, despite what you hear on ESPN). Neither Nash nor Nowitzki have done that.

2) As I wrote in "Breaking Down the Lakers Three Seasons" (http://www.probasketballnews.com/friedman_032608.html), Kobe had to lead three different teams this year: one with he and Bynum, one with he and Gasol and one with neither Bynum nor Gasol. Despite all of that turmoil and never having both big men healthy at the same time the Laker finished with the best record in perhaps the toughest Western Conference race ever. Paul had both of his big men, plus Peja, for the entire season. Kobe had one one-time All-Star (Gasol) for a fourth of the season and suddenly he is leading the best team in the West ahead of All-Star duos and trios Duncan-Parker-Ginobili, Nash-Amare, Boozer-Deron, Paul-West, Melo-AI, etc.

3) Three years ago the Lakers were a seventh seed playing the second seeded Suns. The Lakers started Smush Parker at pg and Kwame Brown at center but, largely because of Kobe, they took a 3-1 series lead. Kobe had 50 in game six but Odom could not get a late defensive rebound and Kwame ran past Tim Thomas who made a big three pointer to send the game to overtime, where the Suns won. In game seven, every Laker but Kobe shriveled up and hid. Kobe had 24 by halftime but the Lakers were down 15. In the third quarter they tried to establish an inside game but Odom and Kwame could not catch or finish and the Lakers fell down by more than 20. The next time someone takes a team to the seventh game of a playoff series with Kwame as the starting center and Smush as the starting pg please let me know: those guys are young and, to the best of my knowledge, not injured, so why aren't they starting players elsewhere, let alone in the playoffs?

4) KG has done a great job and he completely deserved a top five MVP finish and to win the Defensive Player of the Year but keep in mind that he has two HoFers (not just All-Stars) by his side and that Rondo looks like a pretty talented young player. Kobe has no HoFers; his best player made his only All-Star appearance in 2006 and it should be obvious by now that Odom is a nice third option but he has no interest or ability to be the second option that the Lakers tried to make him the past three years.

I assume that is your argument for Kobe being this year's MVP, which means you obviously don't hold last summer's antics against him (on/off/on trade demands; throwing Andrew Bynum under the bus, never apologizing publicly and then taking credit for his improvement). I've said all along that the MVP depends on how you define the term "valuable." Different people value the off-the-court/good teammate actions differently.

I still don't know how you can say that the MVPs in years prior to Dirk "shrinked" in the playoffs. That's not fair to Nash, Garnett or Duncan (or AI before that). And it's really not fair to Dirk, who led his team to the Finals the year before he won the MVP. Kobe is playing well this postseason, but it's not like the MVPs before him didn't play well too.

Why should Kobe apologize for demanding that the front office and his teammates work as hard at their jobs as he works at his? Granted, going public with those complaints may not look good to some people but how do you know that Kobe did not previously air those complaints privately without getting results? Do you realize that Magic essentially got a coach (Paul Westhead) fired early in his career? Bird had his problems with Bill Fitch and that was part of the reason they replaced him with KC Jones. MJ did not get along with Doug Collins, so in comes Phil Jackson. Kobe's "antics" are not better or worse than what previous all-time greats did when they had conflicts with coaches and/or management. Hakeem had a major dustup with Houston's management a few years before they won their titles.

I have always said that the MVP should go to the best all-around player, the player who has the most complete game. That has been Kobe in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Kobe has helped Bynum (and others) to improve and Bynum is the first to admit that. I covered a Lakers-Pacers game earlier this year in which Bynum blocked several of Jermaine O'Neal's shots and when reporters asked Bynum about that after the game he said that Kobe had told him what O'Neal's pet moves were and how to set him up to block his shot. I talked to Kobe about that and he said that Bynum is an eager student and that he regularly drops that kind of knowledge to him. I probably was the only writer in that locker room who wrote about that because it does not fit in to the storyline that the media wants to portray about Kobe.

My critique of MVPs did not go all the way back to Iverson or even KG in 2004. Dirk has actually been a pretty good playoff performer overall but he and his talented team have definitely underperformed since he won the MVP--and my article is about what the past three MVPs have done since they won their MVPs. It's not good when you win 67 games but you get the MVP in a broom closet (that's what the room looked like on TV) because your team lost to the eighth seed. Nash essentially put up the same numbers this year that he has in years past, so he is not over the hill regardless of his age--but Parker completely outplayed him in the playoffs and Nash has yet to make it to the Finals despite playing on a very, very talented team.

Kupchak drafted well (Farmar, Vujacic, Turiaf, and of course Bynum) and Kobe practiced every day with those guys. If he were such a great judge of talent (Bynum vs. Kidd) don't you think he'd recognize that? People forget - he was wrong about Bynum. If he had his way, Jason Kidd would be a Laker right now and they may have never had a shot at Gasol.

Granted, the Caron Butler-for-Kwame Brown was an obvious bust, but other than that, Kupchak did a pretty nice job as GM even before the Gasol score. (And the Butler mistake had to happen to make Brown and his expiring contract available for the Gasol trade.)

At the time, I didn't really blame Kobe for speaking out, but I didn't play with those young players every day. If he were as smart or as prophetic as he thinks he is, he would have known how the young guys (especially Bynum and Farmar) would likely progress and he would have shown some patience.

Having played college basketball for Bo Ryan, I learned that it is paramount to keep team business in house. I don't have a problem with star players voicing their grievances to the coaching staff or management, but to go to the press the way Kobe did was selfish. Not only was it selfish - it was a spectacle. I think if you're going to publicly throw your teammates and management under the bus, then you should publicly apologize when it turns out that you're wrong.

In the end, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

As for the MVP discussion, the arrival of Shaq greatly hindered Nash's game. In prior years, the court was spread when he and Stoudemire ran the pick and roll, and it was easier for Nash to create or score because there was lots of room in the lane. With Shaq on the court (and his defender in the lane), and Marion's acceptable three point shooting gone traded in for Boris Diaw/Grant Hill, those passing and driving lanes were much more clogged, which reduced Nash's options and caused more turnovers.

Nash has never guarded well, and the Suns used a number of players on Parker, so the fact that TP played well shouldn't reflect poorly on Nash. Nobody is asking him to be a shutdown defender and besides, when Parker his hitting his jumper, he's basically unstoppable.

no one gave u a point for this? wow great insight

Thanks for this, Doc. Great stuff.

You're welcome; glad you like it.

It's a good thread, and you're knowledge is right on point. Kobe is easy to hate, I guess, but personal issues aside, there is no question he's the best, IMO. If he were a quote-unquote nice guy, would there even be a debate? Kobe would have at least three MVPs by now.

This is the first year that Kobe was on a team without Shaq that had more than 50 wins. It's very rare that a player on a non-elite team wins the MVP - it hasn't happened since Moses Malone won it on a 46-win Rockets team. Even if Kobe were a "nice" guy, I still think this would be his first MVP.

Slight correction and a couple additions: Kobe had 23 points by halftime of game six in 2006, not 24; Kobe tried passing the ball at the start of the third quarter of that game and his teammates made just 3 of their first 11 shots. If Kobe would not have passed the ball then everyone would say that he was gunning just to get points but when he passed and no one could score they said that he "quit"--just like when he scored 81 points some said that he was gunning (even though the Lakers needed those points to come back from a double digit deficit) but when he scored 62 points in three quarters versus Dallas but sat out the fourth people complained that he did not stay in the game and try to score more points. No matter what Kobe does, some people will refuse to give him credit.

This is why it is so important to really pay attention to what Doug Collins said. Collins was an excellent player in his own right and he coached MJ for years. He points out that what makes Kobe great is the way that Kobe has worked so hard to perfect his craft to the point that he has no weaknesses; that is what sets Kobe apart from other players and that has more significance than mere stats because, clearly, if Kobe wanted to score 35 ppg in the regular season or go for 50 or 60 points he could do that.

Nice!!! Somebody is watchin.

No one outworks Kobe. No one outplays Kobe. No one is better than Kobe. The MVP isn't only about making your teammates better; it's also about being the best yourself. If it were an award for the former, then a point guard would win every year.

I think that's part of the problem. The award is not well defined, so we're arguing about what the award should be about more than who the award should go to. It's up to each individual voter to decide what the V in MVP means to them, which is why there is such a debate every year.

The award should go to the best player. Period. That's Kobe. Bringing teammates into the equation is unfair, IMO. It's not a team award. It's an individual award.

Kobe is the best player. Hands down. If you're on the playground, who is the first player you're selecting? If you want to win, Kobe is who you take. Why? Because he's the best. Because he's the most valuable. Because he's the guy you want with the ball in his hands for the final play. Because he doesn't miss layups in the clutch. Because he's going to create a shot no matter what, and hit it more often than not. Double-team him, triple-team him; Kobe will still get a good look.

Yeah, CP3 makes his teammates better, but that's his job. That's what point guards do. That's not Kobe's job. Kobe's job is to kill it each and every night, and he does that better than anyone.

If that's the case, they should rename the award the Most Outstanding Player (seriously), or the Player Most LIkely to Win a One-on-One Tournament (not-so-seriously).

The word "value" has so many different meanings. You have yours and I have mine... and mine don't include public trade demands and throwing teammates under the bus.

And, like Doc said, I'm sure the league loves this annual debate.

Chris Paul is not without fault, either. Just ask Julius Hodge.

Paul definitely has a mean streak, no doubt about that.

and there u have it, well said, KOBE 4 MVP, that jumper of his seems to be flawlees as of late, remeinds me of the MJ days when i was a kid

I agree with everything you said, Dewey, EXCEPT that its not Kobe's job to make his team better. As a former coach (yes, I am throwing that around) I believe it IS the responsibility of your "superstar" to make his or her teammates better. If that doesn't happen, you end up with 4 people standing around watching one person "kill it". The PGs responsibility is to be the coach on the floor: to run the team, and to get the ball to the right people in the right places. Sure, if you don't have a good PG, your team doesn't function at its highest level. But it is not necessarily the PGs responsibility to make everyone better, because your superstar is inevitably going to shoulder the majority of the load. CP3 just happens to be the superstar IN the PG position - as was (is) Magic, Gus Williams, and Steve Nash (and a few others).

That being said, even though I do not agree with Kobe's offseason tantrums, I think he is the right choice for MVP because he did finally wake up to the fact that he needed to invest some of his obvious emotional energy into being a good leader (and making his teammates better), versus complaining about them in the media. My mama always says, you'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar. Way to wake up, Kobe!

P.S. Making your team better does not make the MVP award a team award. How can someone be valuable (hence the 'V' in MVP) if they're scoring tons of points on a mediocre (the Lakers before this year) team? What's the value in that? Who are they valuable to? That's why they have scoring champions - for those folks.

Kobe may be the best player, but it should go to the player who does the most to help his team win games. If a player is only thinking of himself and putting up great numbers, do you think he should get it? I don't. If a player makes everyone around him better , then I'm all for it. Kobe finally showed signs of that this year and he had a better supporting cast, which doesn't hurt.

You are correct that the criteria are not well defined and some have said that the NBA does this deliberately in order to promote the kind of discussion that we are having here.

have heard this too, creates a mountain of discussion and argument, as u see here

MVP is such a meaningless term, and it's amazing how NBA fans get in such a lather over it. It's like winning Best Picture in the Oscars--sure it's a nice award

Do you remember the Warriors from last year or Dirk's MVP season?
Do you remember Karl Malone and Charles Barkley's MVP campaigns in the 90s? Or MJ torching them in the games that really counted?

As defined, the MVP of the regular season is not supposed to be the MVP of the playoffs. How much this player "steps up" in the clutch is irrelevant to the MVP debate. Any voting by journalists or fans can hardly be considered objective.

Kobe himself said it was nice to win the MVP, but there's another MVP award he wants that would mean a thousand times more.

*sure it's a nice award, but it's a closed and arbitrary process that no one remembers five years from now.

The Closest thing to M.J !!!!!!!!!!

Agreed.

Even Bird couldn't save tlhe NBA.Go C's!

MVP is the furthest thing from meaningless in the NBA. It is the only league where the award all but reserves your place in the Hall of Fame. This is why they tend to be lifetime achievement awards that tend to coincide with a great season.

John:

I did not say that Kobe was a great judge of talent; I just said that Kobe speaking out publicly about how those players had performed up to that time is not that different from what Bird, Magic, MJ and Hakeem did and it should not in any way disqualify Kobe from being MVP, at least the way I define what the MVP should be: the best all-around player in the NBA (I realize that a lot of people have different definitions than that one).

If someone other than Kobe had spoken out that way, people might be inclined to say that this shows how much Kobe wants to win but because Kobe has already been branded as selfish by some people a lot of the things he says and does are automatically viewed in that light.

Regardless of what Kobe said during his moments of frustration last summer, by all accounts he has been a model teammate this season and a very positive force in the development of the young players. Look at how seamlessly Gasol fit right in--do you really think that Kobe had nothing to do with that?

I don't remember those guys calling into radio shows demanding then retracting then again demanding a trade or badmouthing a teammate in a parking lot of a mall. In fact, I don't remember those guys speaking out publicly at all, but I was a lot younger when they played, so I'll take your word for it.

We simply place a different level of importance on what Kobe did last summer.

MJ and Hakeem definitely made their displeasure known publicly. Magic was less public about his sentiments but everyone knew that he wanted the coach fired.

I just don't see what any of that stuff has to do with the fact that when those players (including Kobe) were on the court they produced at an MVP level. Now, if you are willing to take a consistent position that none of those guys should have won MVPs then you can say that about Kobe but otherwise you sound like you are just grasping at straws to go after a player who is widely recognized by knowledgeable basketball people (GMs, coaches, players, scouts) to be the best all-around player in the game.

John:

As for Nash, it is just an excuse to say that Shaq's presence hurt his game. No team runs a five man fastbreak. After Shaq arrived the Suns' rebounding differential improved from the worst in the league to among the best, so they had more opportunities to run and their scoring actually went up (look it up). They beat the Spurs in the regular season with Shaq and they had them beat in game one but executed very poorly in late game situations. Late game execution was actually a problem in several games, including the one that turned into a Nash turnover-palooza at the end. If you watched those games you know that very few of those turnovers had anything to do with Shaq (I can recall one where Nash threw a bad pass toward Shaq that was stolen but I'm not sure how that bad pass is Shaq's fault...).

The fact that Nash has never been able to guard players at his position is hardly a ringing endorsement of a voting process that made him a two-time MVP and wrongly put him in an elite group with guys like Wilt, Russell, Kareem, Magic, Bird, MJ, etc. The fact that Nash was not guarding Parker (because he could not guard him) does not, in my opinion, absolve Nash for the fact that the opposing player at his position completely dominated him in that series.

No one runs a five-man fast break? Huh? The Suns' fast break is based on a three-man break with two trailers in the secondary break. Those trailers can either spot up for three or cut to the rim - neither of those skills fall within Shaq's wheelhouse.

Nash's mediocre defense wasn't much of a factor during his MVP seasons. He was doing what Chris Paul is doing now - totally controlling the pace of the game. Once Shaq came over, I noticed that the lane was much more clogged than in years past. You can label this as an excuse, but the simple fact of the matter is that the driving and passing lanes were not as open as they once were and it hurt Nash's effectiveness. Part of this had to do with Marion's departure (filled by Stoudemire at the 4) and Hill/Diaw at small forward instead of a Barbosa/Bell combo on the wings. Shaq's presence in the lane along with a lack of three point shooting made things much more difficult for Nash. i believe the late-game execution was a problem due to the relative unfamiliarity that the team had playing with Shaq.

Still, the point is - I don't know how you call a 34 year-old point guard out for not playing like a MVP two years after he won it when he's playing against one of the top offensive point guards in the league and with a much different team (and clogged lane). The title of your post says "finally" like Kobe is the only MVP to play well in the playoffs the year he won the award, when everyone in this decade (save for Dirk) played pretty well the year they won it.