|
Please touch this.
Owner/Admin
Location: Manhattan
|
HAHAHAHAHA! Today I read the best article ever. Cross-Over, this is for you. Its about the double standard that the media (and regular people) have for the MVP award. It first illustrates how the same values that denied Kobe the MVP award for the last two years are being used to lift LeBron James up on a pedestal this year. Stats. Then, it goes on to dispel the myth that Kobe doesn't make his teammates better, using statistical analysis, while also proving that LeBron actually makes his teammates WORSE. I invite anyone to read it and take it in, then tell me why LeBron is more deserving of the MVP award.
http://forums.lakersground.net/viewtopic.php?t=57461
Quote:
The reality is that journalists are just people. They take sides. They become offended if they are snubbed by a player, and sometimes they can be vindictive. Yet the NBA's Most Valuable Player award is determined by the sports media. Two seasons ago Steve Nash walked away with MVP honors for the second straight season, joining an elite cast of multiple time winners. Nash had a great season, and kept the Suns afloat without the injured Amare Stoudemire. Kobe Bryant would finish fourth in MVP voting despite averaging 35.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.8 steals. His 35.4 points was the most the league had seen in nineteen seasons, since Michael Jordan averaged 37.1 in 1986-87, and he led that Lakers team to a 45-37 record and pushed them to the brink of an upset, going up 3-1 against the Phoenix Suns in the playoffs.
Allow me remind you of his roster at that time. That team featured Smush Parker, Kwame Brown and Luke Walton as 3/5 of it's starting lineup. Kwame Brown is stinking it up on one of the leagues worst teams and Smush Parker has been on paid vacation for most of this season by the league's worst team. Luke Walton had his break out season the next year, but averaged just 5 points and 3.6 rebounds that season. To have led that team to 45 wins and the brink of an upset was truly an accomplishment for Kobe. Say what you will about the Cavaliers supporting cast this season, but they are innumerably better than Kobe's Lakers team two seasons ago.
|
Quote:
|
Yet, there is an alarming trend in the media. Suddenly they have decided that the old criteria didn't make much sense after all. In recent weeks the Lebron for MVP talk has picked up. The Cavs are 35-27 and in 4th place in the much weaker Eastern Conference. The Lakers are 43-18 and second in the Western Conference, despite battling injuries all season. Let's put that into perspective. Despite playing in the much weaker conference, and thus having a lighter schedule, the Cavaliers current record would place them as a 10th seed in the west, or two seeds away from the last spot in the playoffs.
|
Quote:
Ilgauskus was an all-star before playing with Lebron. He has not shown any improvement. In fact the only career high he can boast since the arrival of Lebron is in blocked shots. What has been most confusing about Lebron's game though is that they have brought in a number of guys who have played absolutely terribly with him. One would have to wonder why Kevin Ollie saw his shooting percentage drop from 45.1% the season before playing with Lebron to 37% in the season playing alongside of him. He was only 31 years of age. Ricky Davis was traded mid-season in Lebron's rookie season. He responded by lifting his shooting percentage by 5.7% and his three point percentage by 2.6%. Eric Snow had averaged 12.1, 12.9 and 10.3 points in his three previous seasons, while shooting 44..2%, 45.2% and 41.3%. He joined Lebron at age 31 and plummeting to 4 points per game on 38.2% shooting, despite playing a 22.8 minutes per game.
The next season they made the moves that were supposed to move them into contention. They brought in Donyell Marshall, who had long been a deadly shooter. He had averaged 11.5 points on 41.6% from beyond the arc the season before, and had shot 40% or better from that range for the past two seasons and routinely averaged in the low teens. Yet in three seasons with the Cavs he never shot better than 35.1% from that range or averaged more than 9.3 points. Damon Jones was also brought in to space the floor. The 29 year old averaged 11.6 points on 43.2% shooting from beyond the arc and 45.6% from the field the season before in Miami. Those numebrs dropped to 37.7% shooting and 6.7 points playing under Lebron, however. The largest disappointment though was Larry Hughes. Hughes was an all-defensive player who was coming off a year in which he averaged 22 points on 43% shooting. He had averaged 18.8 points the season prior to that. Yet he never averaged more than 15.5 points or 40.9% shooting in three seasons with Lebron. He was recently traded to the Chicago Bulls and saw a 4.1 point and a 4% leap in his field goal percentage in the seven games since the trade. It's way too early too make any determination on the impact of his latest shooter, Wally Szczerbiak, but it should be noted that in the six games since joining the Cavs he has seen his fielg goal percentage plummet by 13.6% and his three point percentage drop by 4.9%.
I don't want to hear how Lebron makes his teammates better ever again. There simply is no statistical analysis to support this. In fact, he seems to destroy the shooting stroke of the guys brought in to spread the floor for him. Oddly enough, the guy who for years the media has said does not make his teammates better, has indeed done a much better job.
Perhaps the best indication is Smush Parker. Smush bounced around from team to team for a couple of years, never having averaged more than 6.2 points or shot better than 41.9%. The previous season he averaged 3 points per game. Yet he averaged 11.5 and 11.1 in two years with Kobe, having career best numbers in both shooting and three point shooting in each of those seasons. He left to the Miami Heat thsi season, where he saw his average drop by 6.3 points, his shooting percentage by 12.1% and his three point shooting by 11.5%. Chris Mihm was a 45% shooter on his career, with a career high 48.8% from the field. Not only did he have career highs in scoring average during each of his first two seasons with the Lakers but he also shot above 50% in each of those seasons prior to his injury. Kwame Brown had never shot above 49% in his career, yet he shot 52.6% and 59.1% as a Laker. He was traded mid-season this year and since that trade he has seen his field goal percentage drop from 50.3% to 35.3%. The other big man in that trade, Pau Gasol has seen his field goal percentage raise from 50.1% in Memphis to a whopping 59% alongside of Kobe, as well as raising his scoring average by 1.8 per game. Gasol is a 51.1% career shooter who had never shot better than 53.8%. The third piece of that trade, Javaris Crittenton, has sene his shooting percentage drop from 49.1% to 38% since it was made. Another mid-season acquisition in Didier Ilunga-Mbenga has seen a similar rise. He shot 31.3% from the field last season, and 39.1% in 16 games with Golden State this year. He has shot 45.5% in 14 games with the Lakers. Derek Fisher's three years away from L.A. saw him shoot 39.3%, 41% and 38.2% from the floor. Since returning to the Lakers he has shot 44%. Laron Profit suffered a career ending injury in his first season as a Laker. In the 25 games prior to his injury though he shot 47.6%, his previous career high was 43.8% with two seasons under 40%. Jumaine Jones shot 39.1% from beyond the arc and 43.2% from teh floor playing alongside Kobe, after shooting 34.4% from teh floor and 29.5% from beyond the arc the season before. Since leaving he has never shot better than 40.5% from teh floor or 34.3% from long range. Chucky Atkins also had arguably his best season alongside of Kobe, scoring 13.6 per game while shooting 38.7% from beyond the arc. He hasn't matched either number since.
Lamar Odom has in the eyes of some struggled to co-exist with Kobe. In many ways this is true, as both guys like to have the ball in their hands. In reality though he had shot under 43.9% in each of his three previous seasons before joining Bryant, and never above 46% in his career. He has shot 47.3%, 48.1%, 46.8% and 50.4% in his four seasons with the Lakers. His scoring has dropped slightly, by a couple of points a game. The other odd case is Caron Butler. Caron became an all-star after being traded from the Lakers, and some might use that as justification that Kobe held him back. The reality though is that Caron averaged a career high in both points per game and in field goal percentage in his season with Kobe. His field goal percentage jumped 6.5% from the season before and was 2.9% higher than his previous career best.
|
Those are just interesting excerpts, but PLEASE read the whole thing. |