Le Basketbawl

I know what you’re thinking, “Enough with the MVP chatter!” And I know just a few days ago while in my basketball funk I bashed on all the MVP posts and preached for originality. Well, today I’ve thrown myself into the fire and needed to share my own thoughts, as I haven’t up to this point.

I think many of us take the opinion that deciding on the MVP before the Playoffs is completely ridiculous. After the Dirk Nowitzki fiasco from last year, the MVP award became somewhat of a joke for the first time in years.

This year however, we have experienced one of the most intriguing and possibly controversial MVP races of all time. You have the young up and coming superstar in Chris Paul and the veteran Michael Jordan-esque player in Kobe Bryant. The stats put up by CP3 are remarkable for such a young talent, but Kobe in all his greatness has never won the league’s most prized award. How can this possible be decided?

A quick look at their Playoff stats:

• Kobe: 33.5 points, 5.25 rebounds, 6.25 assists
• CP3: 24.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 12 assists

Have we ever seen such a split vote amongst the NBA voters and bloggers? The “internet” NBA lovers have voted for CP3 but the “actual” NBA voters seem to be leaning toward Mr. Bryant. There have been countless articles, posts and rants thrown around that no one can agree upon. After each player finishes a game, we are sent another argument as to why this or that player should be our league MVP.

How can this possibly be decided? Both are easily as deserving as the other but only one can actually receive the award! Right?

I advocate for the birth of the co-MVP! That’s right; let these two share the glory in this amazing NBA season! They’ve done it with the Rookie of the Year award and it’s time they do it with the Most Valuable Player. (Wow…did I ever take the wuss road on that one!)

The regular season wrapped last week, the playoffs are well underway, and I’m a little frustrated. The season itself was fantastic and I have zero complaints about it, but now that it is over I’ve become almost annoyed with the lack of creativity I’ve seen. Just because the playoffs start doesn’t mean we all have to beat things to death with 1000 same topic posts, do we?

How many “My vote for MVP goes to…” posts can you possibly have? At some point don’t you start wondering if anyone is going to care? I mean, people started writing these in week 2 calling Dwight Howard the MVP and by the end of the season and 15,000 posts later, the majority had switched over to either Kobe or CP3. So now we are onto looking for the simplest little tweak or bias to our post to try and get people to see our vision? It’s not up to us!

How many “Tonight’s playoff preview…” posts can you possibly have? I understand that there are few games right now and being playoff games they are always exciting, but why does each person need to write their own game preview? Doesn’t ESPN, SI, Yahoo, and every other major website or newspaper do this for us already? Throwing your own flair into it must be the reason, right?

How many “Kobe and the Aston Martin…” posts can you possibly have? I actually thought the initial video was pretty lame. I’ve seen this stunt done by skateboards and extreme sport guys for years. Maybe because Kobe got all “thugged” out with Heart-Man Turiaf it became a hit? And someone posted a “failed” version? And now a Kenny Smith TNT version? Zzzzzzz. (Ok the Kenny version was a little funny with the wrong foot part.)

What am I enjoying right now? Ball Don’t Lie’s daily caption contests, anything Empty the Bench is running, Hardwood’s NBA Blogger Awards, the Cavs-Wizards series, not watching baseball, and all this ‘Soulja Boy’ Stevensen stuff.

How about a quick look at some stats from the NBA Playoffs? Here is a list of 5 box score stats for each series through 2 games that stand out as to reasons why every team is up 2-0. (With a little side commentary to go along with them, of course.)

Suns vs. Spurs: Spurs lead 2-0

• Grant Hill scores 5 points in 2 games with Finley or Parker guarding him? Huh?
• Leandro Barbosa scores 0 points in game 2. Weren’t you the sixth man of the year last year? Ginobili sure as hell isn’t flopping come playoff time is he?
• Shaq, 11 points 5 boards in game 2? Oof.
• Tony Parker plays 91 minutes in 2 games and thanks himself for taking half the season off.
• Amare goes for 66 points in 2 games. Obviously the Spurs know he can’t beat them by himself and are game-planning this.

Mavericks vs. Hornets: Hornets lead 2-0

• Brandon Bass scores 19 in game 2. When Brandon Bass is your second leading scorer, you won’t win much.
• Jason Kidd averages: 9 pts, 6.5 rebounds, 8.5 assists, 2 steals, 2.5 turnovers.
• Chris Paul averages: 33.5 pts, 4 rebounds, 13.5 assists, 3.5 steals, 2 turnovers.
• Chris Paul
• And…Chris Paul

Raptors vs. Magic: Magic lead 2-0

• Bargnani totals 14 points and 4 rebounds in 2 games. Buuuuuuust! Wasn’t he on my White Boy Bust list?
• Dwight Howard with 8 blocks, Raptors team with 2. Can you say “presence”?
• J.J. Redick with 0’s across the board. This being a reason the Magic are up 2-0.
• Rashard “Overpaid” Lewis goes 0-9 on 3’s in game 1. That’s OK, Dwight Howard grabbed 7 of them for dunks.
• TJ Ford totals 46 minutes in 2 games. Raptors fans must be wondering at this point if he will ever reach full potential and how good this team could have been with him.

Jazz vs. Rockets: Jazz lead 2-0

• Kirilenko with 21 points, 4 boards, 3 dimes and no TO’s game 1.
• Wow this series is boring and nothing else stands out. Is anyone watching this series?
• Next…

Wizards vs. Cavs

• Butler, Jamison and Arenas combine for 28 points in game 2. LeBron had 30.
• LeBron’s averages: 31 points, 7.5 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 blocks, 1 turnover. Such an overrated King isn’t he D?
• Boobie, Wally and Ilgauskas combined averages: 42.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, 8 assists.
• Butler, Agent Zero, and Jamison combined averages: 44.5 points, 21.5 rebounds, 9 assists.
• I just compared 3 All-Stars to 3 role players and their stats are almost identical?

I know I haven’t posted in almost 5 days (Sorry!) and the only real excuse I have is that I was a little busy with the family this weekend and I didn’t have a chance to watch ANY NBA games. Sounds absurd huh? For a guy running a basketball blog? Well you’d be surprised at how fast a weekend can go!

Friday was carne asada steak taco night which kicked ass until the next morning when my stomach wanted to blow up. Too much beer, whiskey and taco meat truly DOES a number that you shall never ask to be repeated.

Saturday featured my Mom owning up some bowling tourney while I consumed cheap bowling alley $2 Michelob’s and cheered! (First place after the first day; solid work Mom!) After napping off the bad beer we readied ourself for dinner.

We ate at a fantastic Indian restaurant called the Bombay Cricket Club which you should all try the next time you stop in Portland. Finding myself so fascinated with cricket on a mini-tv during my Lamb Tikka Botee was something to see. If only I knew what the hell was actually going on or what the hell was firing up my mouth I would have been golden!

Then came Sunday and a quick recap on Saturday’s Playoff games followed by the Mom’s team not fairing so well. More cheap beer and a disappointing finish in the tourney sent me home for the day hoping for something exciting.

For good reason the basketball was finally turned on, but I didn’t actually sit down to watch it. Instead I set up my new desk and then went off for hours blogging on my other blog.

That makes 2 straight days of Playoff games and I had not watched one! I realized I was in a funk for basketball and must have needed a little break. Your thinking I’m crazy right? “It’s the Playoffs Kellex!”

Well today I fixed my funk with this:

What a thing of beauty! (Yes both of them, but today we’re talkin’ TV’s!)

Yes that is a LG 42 Inch 1080P LCD, son!

And I am officially out of that NBA funk and ready to watch every single damn game possible! Wouldn’t you be?

How about a list of the top 10 videos for this week of the playoffs? There are so many videos out there that a compilation just sounds like a great idea.

10. Kenny Smith jumps an Aston Martin.

9. Bob Delaney just ejected a fan?

8. Haywood drops LeBron.

7. Ernie Johnson doing his own toolbox Stevenson.

6. Kobe Bryant with a Jordan-esque moment.

5. People are loving this Steve Nash “60 Million Dollar Man” video.

4. LeBron shuts up toolbox Stevenson.

3. Kirilenko and the flop of the century.

2. Shaq hit in the “scrotum.”

1. Michael Jordan – Maybe Commercial.

• Part one, two, and three of Give Me the Rock’s “Catching up with the International Game.”

• Empty the Bench’s 36 season ending lists.

• Golden State of Mind with NBA Playoff Bracketology. And a new site design! Pretty.

• Nugg Doctor recognizing that Denver just hit 50 wins for the first time in 20 years.

• KnickerBlogger on how the season ended including playoff positioning and draft percentages!

• Dream Shake is not all that happy with ESPN right now.

• The Yao Ming rehab video courtesy of NBA Obsessed.

• Seriously Kyle Korver. This is twice now!

• Hoops Addict with a great article on the NBA and the Internet.

• I freakin’ love Charles Barkley.

• Twolves Blog and a look back at Minnesota’s draft history. Eek.

• What If Sports simulating the playoffs 10,000 times? Damn,

Yeah we are pretty damn crazy to be picking winners from the most competitive first round of the playoffs we will probably ever see, but we just like to live a little on the edge. And you know if we get these all right we’ll be bragging all over the basketball blogosphere!

Matchup 1: Lakers vs. Nuggets

Is this one really that difficult to decide on? Of course not. The Lakers will take this series down with ease, sip a few cocktails in the sun and wait for their second round opponent. Nice job with that “Dewy” days before the playoffs Melo! Kobe in 5.

Matchup 2: Hornets vs. Mavericks

Ooh the second matchup is actually a good one! We’re going young here and taking the Hornets. The Mavericks are definitely one of the scariest 7 seeds we’ve ever seen but Chris Paul is absolutely on fire this year. He may have a little beef with the league also once that MVP voting gets dropped. Hornets in 6!

Matchup 3: Spurs vs. Suns

It really makes me sad to see these teams meet in the first round after last year’s fiasco, but damn is this going to be good! I’m pretty sure Steve Nash will do everything in his power to not let the Suns go down in flames AGAIN to their rival, but I’ve got some worries. Can Shaq make up the difference? Will Timmy D do it again? I’m going “Longoria Annoying Factor” here and picking the Suns in 6.

Matchup 4: Jazz vs. Rockets

I know the Rockets went on that nice heartwarming streak just after the All-Star break but I’m still not buying their legitimacy. The Jazz are the real deal and with Sloan still running the show I would expect them to roll through this series. Sorry T-Mac. Sorry Yaozer. Sorry Adelman. It’ll be “Deron Williams time” all over again. Jazz in 5.