Friday, May 11, 2007

Dirk Nowitzki is NBA MVP

Today it was announced that Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki will win NBA MVP this year. Of course, many people think he is not MVP after he choked for most of Dallas' series vs. Golden State, a series in which the Warriors shocked the Mavericks in six games. In the final game Nowitzki scored just eight points and had only two field goals in an embarrasing 25 point loss. Because of Nowitzki winning MVP this year, there has been much debate about when the votes should be cast for the MVP awards in sports.

Of course, in the NBA, the votes need to be in once the regular season is over, but does a regular season really define what an MVP is? In my opinion, MVP means Most Valuable Player, which means that the team the MVP is on should lose a lot more games if he wasn't on his team. A couple of players that immediately come to mind are Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets. Without those players, all four of those teams would probably be seventh of eighth seeds at best. As for the Mavs, without Nowitzki I think they could have been the fifth seed because remember, they have a good bench that has DeSagana Diop and Jerry Stackhouse in addition to all-star forward Josh Howard in the starting lineup. After the first round of this year's playoffs, I think that most people who watched NBA basketball for the first time would think that the MVP the announcers were talking about was Baron Davis of the Warriors and not Nowitzki. In my opinion, if the MVP voting was at the end of the year, Nash would be celebrating his third straight MVP award.

No comments: