I will never be a professional basketball player. The market for six-foot white guys with a broken jump shot with absolutely no rotation on the ball, barely enough hops to touch the rim, and the lateral quickness of school bus in reverse is simply not there. It is also increasingly looking like my window to become a basketball writer for ESPN is quickly closing, thanks to my aforementioned non-existent basketball career and my complete lack of press credentials. My bitter broken dream be damned, I am still going to dole out my midseason NBA awards.
Most Valuable Player
I believe that the MVP should go to a player on a top tiered team, and of the five or six teams I had to consider, only one had a team whose fate was so desperately tied to one player. King James of the Cleveland Cavaliers (and soon of the New York Knicks) has graduated from man-child to simply the man.
He is the MVP thanks to the fact that he is the only star quality player on a 31-8 team. His highlights alone make me dream of flying to the hoop from a two step jump stop after a crab dribble. It is his 27.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 2.05 steals, and 1.28 blocks that seal his worthiness for the award.
Rookie of the Half-Year
This is a race between the Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose and the Memphis Grizzlies’ O.J. Mayo. It is a difficult pick because both teams are dreadful (that’s why they had such high draft picks in the first place). Mayo is a slightly better scorer than Rose with his (19.3 PPG to 16.8), but Rose distributes the ball better (6.3 APG to 3). This is probably a symptom of their positions. Rose is a point guard and Mayo is a shooting guard.
My Chicago-tied heart strings beg me to choose Rose and, thankfully, my mind has to agree. Mayo is on a team loaded with young talent and players to trying to find their role. Rose took over as the team’s leader thanks to injuries and has been playing in a role beyond his years. He does not play defense and O.J. does, but Mayo is not the focus of his team. For the mere fact that Rose is in charge of his team and that team has a better record (18-25 compared to 11-29) he is the Rookie of the Half-Year so far.
Defensive Player of the Half Year
How do you pick the best defensive player in the league? Is it his personal numbers? Is it the team’s performance? There are simply so many factors, including the quality of the other players on the court.
I would like to consider a LeBron James and a Dwayne Wade, but this is a big man’s award. These giants (even by NBA standards) keep players out of the paint (where it is easiest to score), grab the defensive rebounds, and are the axis on which the defense moves. That leaves two players, Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett.
The award has to go to Howard. As much as one could argue that KG’s numbers never truly express how much he impacts the game and how Paul Pierce and Ray Allen have never been close to all world defenders, one simply has to watch an Orlando Magic game to see Howard’s indomitable will being displayed.
Howard leads the league in rebounds with 14.1 a game and blocks with 3.21 a game. His rebounding lead is slim, but his block lead is huge, .61 a game. That and his team is far from outfitted with lockdown players. Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis are great scorers but susceptible to being broken down on D. The backcourt? Jameer Nelson and Keith Bogans, oh yeah… terrified.
Dwight, a.k.a. Superman, has helped his team allow the sixth fewest points in the league and that defense has the Magic with the best record in the NBA. Sorry KG, but the seasons of unquestioned awards for the Boston Celtics is over, especially after the team’s recent snag that dropped them from number one to number three in the Eastern Conference.
Most Improved Player
With this blog entry running a little long this is the last award. Most of the time this award goes to the player that has emerged from nowhere to actually contribute in big ways, but this season the award goes to a superstar.
The Miami Heat have their 22-18 record because of one man Dwayne Wade. Wade may not have increased his numbers dramatically, going from 24.6 PPG to a league leading 28.9, from 6.9 assists to 7.4, from 4.2 rebounds to 4.9, but his play just seems inspired after two injury plagued seasons.
The change is evident in his steals. He averaged 1.7 last season and is third in the league with 2.3 now. He is playing inspiring all around basketball and playing it at a superstar level. For the past two seasons he has merely been a star. It is that jump from a star player to a superstar player that is perhaps the hardest and most memorable and Dwayne Wade has made that jump, again.