Dwight Howard: MVP?

then I think Rose is the bigger threat for MVP. Voters love players who dribble and drive to the basket, new up-and-comers, and the Bulls will most assuredly finish ahead in the standings.

But overall play has to go to Howard this year. Take LBJ or Rose out of their teams and the only thing dramatically altered is the offense. Dwight effects both sides of the court.

There is no question in my mind that Dwight Howard is the league’s MVP. No one affects the game as much on both ends of the court as he does. Not even close. Teams have to gameplan tweaks to both their offensive and defensive strategies based on his presence on the court. There just aren’t any other players you have to do that for. None.

Furthermore, while I’m not a Lebron fan at all (can’t stand the guy), but I at least understand why he should be considered for MVP. What I do not understand is the push for Derrick Rose to be MVP. I just don’t get it. It’s like at some point in November ESPN decided that’s who should get it so the talking heads just repeat it ad nauseum without thinking about it.

For the season Rose is averaging a whopping 1.7 points per game over Dwight but taking 6.5 more shots to do it. Rose also averages fewer steals and more turnovers. The only place Rose can best Howard is his 8 assists per game. However, that’s only 10th in the league for assists while Dwight is 2nd, 2nd, and 5th for rebounds, field goal percentage, and blocked shots.

Even if you don’t think D12 should be MVP, there is just absolutely no logical way to argue that Rose is more deserving of that honor than Howard.

…for all the reasons stated in the post.

Derrick Rose should be second ahead of James, because look at how much the Bulls have improved as a team and look how much Rose has improved as a player, and look how much Rose is doing for that team.

Of course, Thibodeau deserves a lot of credit for the Bulls’ improvement, and he should be a frontrunner for coach of the year. The Bulls also made some nice acquisitions during the off-season, have three solid players in Noah, Boozer, and Deng, and very good team chemistry. Without Rose though, this team would be in the middle of the pack somewhere instead of contending for the East’s best record.

…on this same subject. But I’m not sad I was beaten to the punch. Hubie Brown, who I think knows basketball (if not a bit grandiose), said that “Dwight Howard in the last 16 games is averaging 26.5 and 15 rebounds, which hasn’t been done since…” If any non-All Star runs the point for Chicago, they would still win 45 games, easy. Any other center for the Magic-40, maybe. Dwight has been the MVP the last 6 weeks….

When was the last time someone other than Dwight top-scored for the Magic?

To me I’d be surprised if he wasn’t the MVP given his level of performances; if he can keep it up at this level, there is no competition IMO. Defensively, people aren’t even talking about DPoY because it’s such a given.

Jordan and Bird each did it once. For LeBron, it’s his career average, and he’s done it 5 times. Until he stops being the most valuable regular season player in modern NBA history, I don’t see how anyone can be ahead of him.

That said, Dwight’s 23/14/2 is extremely impressive as well. Only six players in post-NBA merger history have averaged at least those numbers for a season (Shaq 3x, KG 1x, Kareem x1, Olajuwon x3, M. Malone x1, and Dwight). Furthermore, only one other player has accomplished it since 2000 (around the time the NBA started shifting to a smaller, less inside-dominant game), KG in 2003.

Dwight’s numbers this season are better than just hall of fame worthy, they’re all-time exceptional. However, that’s par for the course for Bron; he remains in a category by himself as best Swiss Army knife of all time. While I’d love to see Dwight win an MVP (and there’s a very real shot that he can, as long as the Magic don’t collapse around him), it would feel less like an accomplishment and more like the voters punishing LeBron.

Nice work as usual, Evan.

because they see him as a future Laker. This isn’t right, but it is the real world. Once they see Howard as a potential big city dude, they’ll give him his props. Shaq didn’t get MVP props here. He won it in 2000 when he was a Laker, even though he took this team to the finals in ’95.

No one has ever won it three times in a row (Ben Wallace won it 4 times in 5 years and Dikembe won it 4 times in 7 years). Would that fact get in the way of him winning it again?

And if he does indeed win it again, will that be the excuse not to crown him the MVP? Voters would see that only MJ (‘88) and Hakeem (’94) have won both awards and would freak out at the thought of putting Dwight’s name next to theirs.

Not only are Dwight and Lebron the top two contenders for MVP this season (my slight edge to Lebron), but they may be the only two players in this era who have a chance of winning the MVP and DPOY in the same season.