Has anyone noticed the NBA playoffs are on? I have not. Nor has Mel Kiper Jr. from the looks of things, as he and many others are more involved with the NFL draft than a nagging girlfriend. Personally, I can't watch NBA basketball. I haven't been able to watch a whole game since Michael Jordan left the league and I don't think I'm alone. The game has become a series of five-minute stretches where the team with the lead refuses to play defense and lets the losing team back into the game. It happens all the time. Really, NBA games don't count until the final four minutes of the fourth quarter.
Anyway, Wednesday night after I got home after a long night of studying and writing and whatever else we responsible students are supposed to do, I flipped on the idiot box and found the Lakers-Suns game. About three minutes after I sat down, my roommate (who we will name Franz) came home. Franz had been enjoying the weather and spirits on the Terrace all afternoon and was a bit... out of sorts, shall we say. I told Franz that it was rumored that Steve Nash was to win his second straight MVP award.
Franz reacted in total shock. What?\ he said. ""No Kobe? Give it to Kobe! What did he average—35 per game? Give it to Kobe!""
I thought it was interesting, but as I love Steve Nash, I defended my favorite Canadian-born point guard. Franz made an interesting point, however. Kobe has put up 35.4 points per game to Nash's 18.8. Nash, however, is invaluable to the Suns, as he distributes the ball all around the court and enables other players to perform at a higher level.
This is where Franz made his most cogent point of the evening.
""What about scoring 35.4 points every night makes a team worse?"" Franz said (it's not a direct quote, but it was close.)
Good point Franz.
Kobe scores 35 every night. That's immense. That's gargantuan. And where do analysts get off saying that all Kobe does is help himself? Those 35 count for the entirety of the Lakers' scoring, don't they? And if you try telling me that drawing a double team for two quarters doesn't open up the offense, you're crazy.
Franz's next dose of wisdom went like this: ""Man, if that 81-point game didn't get him the MVP, I don't know what it takes.""
Well Franz, I don't know if I agree with you there, but let's think about it. In sports, players often receive awards they don't exactly merit. For instance, the last two All-Star games Cal Ripken Jr. attended in '00 and '01 he did so with a .259 and .239 average. It seems to me that the MLB was more concerned with having the Iron Man at the game to sell tickets than actually selecting the best in the field.
So why not reward Kobe for his 81-point tutelage of the Raptors? He clearly has the stats to back it up. To me, it's similar to Barry Bonds.
In the same game he hit his 71st and 72nd homeruns, the Giants were eliminated from the playoffs. He still got his MVP. Maybe the NBA could learn something here. Throw Kobe a bone.
If you think Steve Nash's hair alone should get him the MVP over Kobe, contact Connor at cgmcknight@wisc.edu.\
