<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>It's the final Friday of the regular season ... and you know what that means. One by one we dribble through the season-ending award ballots that will soon be shipped back to the league office. Ready? Most Valuable Player Bryant Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers I thought the standings would help me decide. But they didn't. I thought that Chris Paul having the best season of any point guard in a conference teeming with Hall of Fame-bound quarterbacks and leading his team to the best record in the West after 79 games -- while possibly saving basketball in New Orleans in the process -- would be clinchers. They weren't. I thought I'd be voting for Paul after stacking all that up, but this voter simply can't deny Kobe his maiden MVP because the Lakers might finish a game or two or even three behind the Cinderella Hornets in the nine-team race of the century. I keep looking at Bryant's season and looking at Paul's and, yes, I'm still giving the edge to Kobe. For all of Paul's undeniable brilliance -- and for all of you who can't wait to angrily dismiss this as a Lifetime Achievement Award for the guy who's considered the Best Player To Never Win The MVP Award -- I'm sorry. But Bryant has had to deal with and do more this season than even CP3. Bryant has seen more double- and triple-teams and junk defenses. He's endured a far lower grade of overall team health; Andrew Bynum will end up playing less than half of the season and Pau Gasol has likewise missed 11 games just since his Feb. 1 arrival. Kobe has also played through a hand injury of his own that still requires surgery and is asked by his coach and teammates to be All-NBA at both ends, all while shouldering higher expectations than any player in the league. Kobe certainly could have made this a lot easier if the Lakers hadn't suffered those unforgivable home losses to the Bobcats and Grizzlies in late March, giving New Orleans its huge opening to shock the world and secure the West's No. 1 overall seed. But I'm rescinding my previous contention that the team with the better record would decide the Kobe vs. Paul derby because the win-total difference, in the end, won't be sufficiently drastic to separate these two. The variables mentioned above, to me, are bigger. I know, I know. Now you're going to ask how I could vote for Steve Nash two years running and not vote for Paul now. That complaint, for starters, has never made sense to me. Every season, and thus every MVP race, should be judged on its own. The specifics of every season are different and so is the MVP field every season. Just look at this field: It's suddenly down to a two-man sprint after it seemed for so long that we had four potential MVPs, now that LeBron James and his Cavaliers are sputtering to the finish and with Kevin Garnett's culture-changing impact in Boston unfairly (but unavoidably) taken for granted because of all the wildness out West. If you insist on persisting with the Nash comparison, don't forget that the little Canadian won his back-to-back MVPs for almost single-handedly turning a 29-win team into a 62-win team that posted the league's best record in a West that wasn't too shabby ... and then by keeping Phoenix at a 54-win level after they traded away Joe Johnson and then lost Amare Stoudemire for most of the following season. Dragging Nash into this, in other words, doesn't really settle anything because Paul season's doesn't precisely correspond to either blueprint. Dragging Nash into this actually supports Garnett's campaign more than Paul's. Clear cut for Kobe? No one would dare say that. But I finally decided that Bryant has to be my MVP when he's playing the team ball of his life, for a club everyone fears in the playoffs far more than the Hornets, while he's also playing in a stratosphere as an individual that only LeBron can presently reach. At Stein Line HQ, all that adds up to No. 24.</div> Stein's Award Predictions Speak the Mother Fuckin' Truth!
He sure is defensive about voting for Kobe. It's like he had to talk himself into it. If you want to give Kobe a "Lifetime Achievement Award", go ahead. It's as valid a reason as any. Hell, you don't even need a reason. It's your vote.
PHILADELPHIA: The Most Valuable Player ballots are due at the NBA office in New York by Thursday afternoon. LeBron James doesn't have an official vote, but he's got a pretty strong opinion. He is in the mix and one of his best friends in the league, Chris Paul, has an excellent chance of winning it in what is expected to be a very close race. Yet James, as he has done numerous times in his career, is deferring to Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant. He didn't take long to think about it, either. ''I'd give it to Kobe,'' James said. ''What he's done this whole year, to carry that team to the No. 1 team in the West right now. He's playing his best basketball all around. I've watched him the whole year. I saw it last summer when I played with him with USA Basketball and the sacrifices he's made for the team and he's done that with the Lakers.'' Various polls done around the country have Bryant and Paul in a dead heat for the award with James coming in third or fourth. Two years ago, James finished second in the voting. Last year, he finished fifth. Bryant hasn't won the award in his 12 years in the league, but this appears to be his best shot. ''I've been quoted millions of times saying Kobe is the best player in our league for the last five years,'' James said. ''He hasn't received the MVP. This is his year I think.'' James is completing the best regular season of his career. He has a chance to become just the third player in history to average 30 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in a season. The other two, Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan, won MVPs in those seasons. But the Cavs are on pace to win their fewest games in three seasons and that plays a role. ''For me as an individual, if you look at the numbers, this is the best I've played in my career and this is the best I've felt,'' James said. ''Team success plays a big part in what the MVP is all about, so there it is.'' Dribbles • In recent games, there has been a little increase in squabbling between Cavs players both on the court and in the huddle, including a rather intense exchange between James and Anderson Varejao in the second half against the Miami Heat on Sunday. Not to mention other players who have been frustrated with constantly changing levels of playing time. Cavs coach Mike Brown said he is concerned a bit about the team chemistry. ''You always worry about that,'' Brown said. ''It's tough when you have so many new bodies. Chemistry you can't force, it has to come. Hopefully it clicks sooner than later.'' • Successful St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli was in the locker-room area before the game to see former players Delonte West and Dwayne Jones, who starred for the Hawks. It was the Cavs' first and only visit to the Wachovia Center this season. LeBron James' pull WKYC (Channel 3) reporter Chris Tye gave his audience a unique story about the allure of LeBron James on Sunday's newscasts. Tye told the story of a group of high school seniors from the tiny village of Natulo, Alaska, who came to Cleveland on their senior trip just to see LeBron James and the Cavaliers play.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ghoti @ Apr 12 2008, 07:25 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>He sure is defensive about voting for Kobe. It's like he had to talk himself into it. If you want to give Kobe a "Lifetime Achievement Award", go ahead. It's as valid a reason as any. Hell, you don't even need a reason. It's your vote.</div> You make it sound as if the MVP award means something and is not given out without bias. Its been the most BS award since the Media took over the polls for it. It was far more real when it was the players and coaches voting for MVP.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Trench @ Apr 15 2008, 04:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ghoti @ Apr 12 2008, 07:25 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>He sure is defensive about voting for Kobe. It's like he had to talk himself into it. If you want to give Kobe a "Lifetime Achievement Award", go ahead. It's as valid a reason as any. Hell, you don't even need a reason. It's your vote.</div> You make it sound as if the MVP award means something and is not given out without bias. Its been the most BS award since the Media took over the polls for it. It was far more real when it was the players and coaches voting for MVP. </div> It would still be a retarded popularity contest. I don't see an easy solution to fix this thing. But anyway, if the voting is based on precedence, then the 3 players who should be in the race are mainly: (elite team, best player) KG, Kobe, and Chris Paul (no order) outsider: Lebron If it's by stats: Lebron, Kobe, Chris Paul (no particular order) outsider: KG (he's had better season's statistically)
