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PenWing said:
Rip Hamalton, probably out in the Eastern/NBA Finals.



Strange, I seem to see an "R. Hamilton" in the Detroit box score tonight. Does he have a brother?

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big_pimp_tim said:
no, syeve made marion good. without nash, marion would be just a good player on a half decent maybe make the playoff maybe not team.



Marion has been a terrific player for years(much better than "just good"), long before Nash returned to Phoenix.

This argument is one very similar to the one used against Amare Stoudemire last year. Most seem to accept that Steve Nash makes these guys great, without really considering that, perhaps, these guys also make him great.

Marion is an NBA all-defense teamer and terrific rebounder, despite playing out of position with the Suns. He shoots a very high percentage from the field(someone's gotta make 'em for Nash to get those assists). He scores over 20 a game yet rarely turns the ball over. He ranked ahead of Nash in PER this year, and that doesn't take into account his defensive ability, which is light years ahead of Nash's.

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dirk didn't get it because while he was deserving of a thought, avery made the dig difference in d.



How do you figure that? Avery inherited the second winningest franchise of the past half-decade, a team that won 60 games in 2003 and made it to the conference finals that year.

Even if the change in coaching philosophy did help the team tremendously, how does that hurt Dirk?

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lebron was probably a close second, but he didn't carry his team as far as nash did.



Well...LeBron accounted for a larger percentage of the team's offense, has a giant advantage in terms of PER, player wins and win shares, was statistically the most versatile player in the NBA, and outplayed Nash when the two went head to head. In other words, LeBron was more efficient and more productive.

Let's put it this way: even if you believe what no metric in the universe supports -that Nash was as good on a per minute basis as LeBron James- LeBron played more than half a quarter per game(7 minutes) than Nash. He was on the court 20% more!

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mvp isn't best layer on a losing team. or even best player period. it's the person that did the most for his team.



How can Nash have done the most for his team if he wasn't even the best player on it?

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dirk was expected to have a better team, and did.



Expected by whom?

Check out ESPN's predictions from the pre-season. Of the 12 experts, only two picked them to finish second in the division, and none picked them to finish better than they did the previous year.

Brendan McGovern at probasketball.com projected them to finish 47-35, 11 games below where they were in 2005.

Sports Illustrated picked them to finish fifth in the conference.

I'm searching for anyone anywhere on the net who thought at the start of the season that the Mavericks were a 60-win team. I didn't think they were. I thought they'd be about as good as they were last year though, probably a little worse.

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lebrom was expected to improve, and make playoffs. kobe has done exactly has predicted, great season on a mediocre team. nash is the only one that took a dire outlook and came out shining, suns in tow.



"Biggest surprise" doesn't equate "most valuable". It's pretty ridiculous to argue that, because LeBron didn't exceed expectations, he's less valuable than someone who did. He was expected to be MVP-caliber, and he was. Shouldn't that be a point of merit, rather than a point of detraction?

MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.