Who Should Be the NBA MVP?
By Eric Yearian
A few days ago, I was thinking to myself, who would be on my NBA MVP ballot for this season if I had a vote? Then, the next day, my boss here at Hoopsdaily asked me to put together a ballot for the site, so of course I jumped at the opportunity. Now, the NBA is notoriously vague when it comes to its awards. There is no definitive set of criteria for deciding who should be named the league’s Most Valuable Player. This means that each voter can use whatever criteria he/she wishes. Should it be the best player on the best team? Should it be the best player in the association? Maybe it should be the guy who has the most value to his particular team? It really is hard to say which way is the best way to evaluate who truly deserves the honor. I don’t have an official ballot to vote for the award, but if I did, this column will show what it would look like. If you disagree with some of my picks, which I’m sure many people will, remember that this is only my ballot using my criteria. If you substitute your criteria for mine it could drastically change the outcome. The first thing I did in putting together this ballot is cut the list to 30 players, one from each team. The reason I took one player from each team is because I feel if you aren’t the most valuable player on your team, you shouldn’t be considered for the most valuable player in the league, which will lead to some noticeable omissions. From there, I eliminated anybody who will not be in the playoffs, because how valuable are you to your team if you can’t help lead them to the postseason? This gave me 16 players to choose from for league MVP honors for this season. Coming into this project, I had already decided that I was jumping on the Derrick Rose for MVP bandwagon. Then, a funny thing happened; I looked at the data and had to evaluate how much the “eye ball test” meant in my evaluation of the 16 MVP finalists I had left. After some consideration that was much more difficult than I anticipated I decided that the following player is my NBA MVP for 2010-2011:
MVP First Place Vote: LeBron James, Miami HEAT
LeBron James, the two time reigning MVP of the association, excused himself from the situation in Cleveland to join Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in Miami, effectively ending his run on MVP trophies. I never really bought into that, but believed it gave guys like Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant a chance to break his streak. LeBron did see a decrease in his statistics, but only a small one while playing alongside players that took up a lot more of his opportunities. Over the last two seasons, James got the vast majority of opportunities, as only one player over that span, Shaquille O’Neal, had a usage rate of more than 25. This season, LeBron didn’t even have the highest usage rate on his team—that belonged to Wade. James became a more efficient player and cut down on his ill-advised three point attempts this season. All season long people looked at the HEAT as failures, but they did end up as one for the top three teams in the conference. What Rose has accomplished this season is outstanding, but he was building on what he had established the past few years. LeBron stepped into a new environment, where he had to learn to be more efficient and step aside at times, and led the team to home court advantage in the first two rounds of the playoffs. People say, but LeBron had Wade and Bosh, and I get that, I really do. However, each game, Wade and Bosh go to the bench and Spoelstra leaves James out there with a lineup of guys like Bibby, James Jones, Juwan Howard and Erick Dampier. There aren’t four guys on the Bulls roster that could put that poor of a surrounding cast around Rose. Rose has far more good players around him, just no great ones. Oh, and let’s not forget, James also put up the best statistics of anybody in the league and, in all actuality, it wasn’t that close—even if the MVP was as close as I can ever remember it being.
MVP, First Runner-Up: Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls
Derrick Rose
Like I said, I had all but decided that Rose was my MVP choice up until I sat down to write this. Still, I’m not saying Rose doesn’t deserve the award, he does—I just feel LeBron did just a little bit more to earn it. I fully expect Rose to win it, and I have zero issue with that. For most of the season, I was saying LeBron, until the Cavs beat the HEAT. At that point I changed, because I feel like the MVP should be able to will his team to a win, especially late in the season against a team they should beat, but James fell on his face in that game. It made me think about Rose and all season long, I can’t remember Rose falling short in a situation where his team really need him. He kept the team afloat despite injuries to Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah. Rose has been the best player on the best team in the East. While the HEAT underperformed relative to expectations, the Bulls surpassed expectations, and that’s another reason Rose can legitimately stake claim to the league MVP this season. In the end, I couldn’t look past the fact that Rose was far less efficient than LeBron. Rose had a higher usage rate and an effective field goal percentage of .486 compared to James’ .542 this series. I know not everybody likes metric stats, but I feel they’re a great way to compare players and in the end, Rose and James had seasons that I felt were equally impressive, and I used advanced statistics to break the tie. If you believe Rose deserves the award, you’ll get minimal argument from me.
MVP, Second Runner-Up: Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic
Orlando, as a team, has been a disappointment this season, but it had little to do with Howard. Howard’s critics (who at times have included me) can argue that his offense relies on him getting dunks due to his lack of a dominant back to the basket game and his poor attitude (see: two games missed for excess technicals) hurt his team, but you can’t argue that his contributions are not greater than his misgivings. Howard has been an anchor for a Magic team in transition since Otis Smith made the major trade early in the year. The Magic have been nailed down the 4th seed in the conference due to fantastic defense and rebounding. What is so interesting about that is that of all the people on the Magic roster. Howard is the only one described as either a defender or a rebounder. This means that the Magic are relying on Howard more than any other team may be leaning on one player. Howard has had some ups and downs with season, but he has had enough ups to be considered for the MVP award.
MVP, Third Runner-Up: Pau Gasol, Los Angeles Lakers
And this is the point in the ballot you start thinking I’m crazy, but hear me out on this. I stated that I only considered one player from each team, but the fact that I chose Pau from the Lakers does not mean I’m saying he is a better player than Kobe Bryant, because he’s not. What that does mean, is that I feel Pau has had a better season than Kobe. Kobe’s stats are all down from a year ago, while Pau’s didn’t take a hit. Bryant, while an outstanding talent, is primarily a scorer for the Lakers, while Gasol is the team’s second leading scorer and leading rebounder. He’s had a terrific year and is putting up good numbers despite Kobe monopolizing the ball most of the time. Pau doesn’t get nearly as many opportunities to shine as Kobe, Sasha Vujacic (pre-trade), rookie Devin Ebanks, and Shannon Brown all had a higher usage rate than Pau. Kobe topped Pau in the player efficiency rating by the thinnest of margins, and Pau was, for large stretches of time, the most impressive player in a Lakers jersey. The Lakers locked down the second seed in the west, something they wouldn’t have done without Pau. Granted, the Lakers need both Pau and Kobe to be great, but this season, Pau was the more effective player. Emphasis on this year. You could make a case for Kobe here, though, obviously.
MVP, Fourth Runner-Up: LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland Trailblazers
LaMarcus AldridgeThe fact that a guy who wasn’t even in the all-star game probably says something about the all-star game voting; but that’s a column for a different time. Coming into this season, the Trailblazers expected Brandon Roy to lead them, and hoped Greg Oden would be healthy and able to play the way a number one overall pick is expected to. Obviously, neither of those situations worked out due to both players having knees that are putting NBA careers in jeopardy. Aldridge stepped up and basically took on the role of both guys, and kept the Blazers from falling apart. Aldridge set career highs in scoring, rebounding, assists, blocked shots, and steals this year. With Roy down most of the year, Oden unable to help, and Gerald Wallace not being brought in as backup until late in the year, things probably shouldn’t have gone this well for Portland, but they did and it’s all thanks to this man. He was also an iron man on a team that at times seemed to be plagued by injuries. Aldridge didn’t miss a single game this season due to injury. Aldridge really helped keep this team together when it looked like they could fall apart, and for that, he gets the last spot on this ballot.
