There's a Reason He's My Nemesis™

My Nemesis Bill Simmons™ grabs his bag (of mail) today. In it here's his case for why Kobe shouldn't be MVP (answering a "question" he received from a "LeBron J, Cleveland"):

Q: Why is everyone handing Kobe the MVP and counting me out? I'm carrying a lousy team and averaging nearly a triple-double every night. I play hard every game. I've become a really good rebounder and weak-side shotblocker at crunch time. I lift my offensive game at the end of every game and score with 2-3 guys guarding me. When I drive to the basket, I can go left or right and guys bounce off me like superballs. I always make the right pass. I always make the right play. Every time I'm on national TV, I put on a show. Basically, I became who you wanted me to be ... and if that's not enough, I'm only 23. Do you realize I'm the same age as MJ during the 63-point game at the Garden? That's right, I'M THE EXACT SAME AGE AS MJ DURING THE 63-POINT GAME!!!!!!! And you're all taking me for granted already??? Yeeeesh. No wonder MJ played baseball for two years.
--LeBron J., Cleveland

SG: Let's get one thing straight: MJ played baseball for two years because David Stern secretly suspended him for 18 months for gambling and told him to come back for the '95 playoffs. Get your facts straight. As for your other points, you're right -- you and Chris Paul are the leaders for MVP at the three-fourths mark because you're both having superlative seasons, as is Kobe, with the difference being that neither of you has Phil Jackson or a great bench, and in your case, you don't have even a borderline All-Star on your team. It's you and 11 role players. Switch you and Kobe and you'd be doing just as well, but he'd be gritting his way through every Cavs game on cruise control and leaking fake trade rumors through his agent. I also can't forgive Kobe for what happened during the first 15 games, when he moped around and pushed for a trade. Does someone do that during an MVP season? I say no.

Yes, James has been amazing, but Kobe's been Kobe, and he's been more Kobe-tastic this season than any other. His Kobe-ness has been off the chart this year, and he's hurdled that one hurdle that he's accused of not being able to hurdle, he's made the players around him much better this season. Plus, he plays a lot better individual defense than BronBron does (even if BronBron did a good job against Kobe in their two meetings this season). Kobe had this MVP award won back during the FIBA trials in Las Vegas. When all the best players in the league are gathered on one team, and even then he outplays, outhustles and outshines all of them, you know he was ready for a special year. Kobe will win it this year mainly because he hasn't won it previously, and he may not have as good of a chance to win it again. It would seem strange that one of the all time best players this league has ever seen hadn't ever been awarded an MVP award, and that fact will be factored into how people vote.

If it were only on the merit of this one season, then yes, LeBron has a very good case to make, and possibly Chris Paul has an even stronger case. Even before the Gasol trade, Kobe had a team that many were picking to finish somewhere between 7th and 10th in the West near the top of the Conference most of the season. This idea that Kobe was just 'cruising' early in the year while trying to figure out if he had a decent team around him is just bunk, also.

Bill's just bitter that it's looking more and more likely that his Celtics aren't going to make the finals, while the Lakers will.

Enjoy it While it Lasts . . .

A couple of screen caps from ESPN, first the Western Conference standings with the LA Lakers as the number one seed. I think the last time this has happened was either in 2003, or more likely 2002. It's a great accomplishment by a team not expected to do too much this year, plus it's also a testament to how tightly bunched all the good teams are in the Western Conference. If the Lakers go on a 2-8 stretch over their next 10 games, they could find themselves at the bottom of the playoff hunt, rather than on top.



The next screen cap is from the playoff odds projections (going the screencap route cause the links for these pages always go to current standings, they don't do daily archives). With the loss of Bynum, a slide is to be expected, but Kobe Bryant being Kobe Bryant, and given the very real depth and progress made by the young role players at every position, if Kwame Brown can play well in Bynum's absence, the Lakers could still manage a 18-12 record in Bynum's absence, which should at least leave them as a 4 seed, plus you'll have a solid Kwame plus a rested Bynum come playoff time. Celtics-Lakers finals here we come!

Kobe, 65, Ho Hum

65 points in an OT victory over the Portland Blazers. 24 out of 30 Laker points total in the 4th quarter.

FGM-A 23-39
3PM-A 8-12
FTM-A 11-12

in 50 minutes of fighting through picks on defense, running around the court to get free on offense and making turn around jumpers from behind the 3pt arc. Sick! Sick!! Sick!!!

His game tying shot in regulation, and his game sealing shot in OT were insane three pointers that no human being has a right to even think about attempting let alone making.

The stat line is mind blowing, yet watching it is even more impressive.

And I was ready to stick a fork in the Lakers and declare their season over if they lost this game.

They came very close, it took a superhuman effort from an insanely talented player to pull off a victory at home against a lousy team.

That's not good.

Before this game, they had lost 7 in a row, and that was after a few other long skids. They've been in a tailspin since just before the All Star Break. But, the have enough games left to fix what's broken, and the games they have left are mostly against teams with worse records than the Lakers, so they should be able to win most of them.

Still, I thought the Lakers had evolved past being Kobe and everyone else, but sometimes if Kobe being insane is what it takes, then that's what's going to happen.

The Lakers will need consistent effort from all their players if they're to maintain their playoff seeding and have any chance of beating any of the 3 Western Conference titans (Mavs, Suns, Spurs) that they'll face in the first round.

Still, if they manage to defeat any of those teams in the first round, then the sky's the limit.

I Thought I Was Being Effusive . . .

. . . but Jackie MacMullan of the Boston Globe out does me, and then some. Seriously, since when are folks in Boston allowed to like Lakers?

Her article about Kobe glows with admiration.

Meanwhile, in the local paper, Coach Phil Jackson rips into Andrew Bynum (slightly), and tweaks Jordan Farmar.

I guess Phil Jackson is the person who thinks Phil Jackson can't coach rookies.

Bynum had a couple moments against Atlanta that I noticed. In the 3rd Quarter after fighting through the lane and not getting the ball in the post (in what would have been a contested and inadvisable pass), he showed his frustration and seemed to relax on the play instead of get into position to rebound. Second at the end of the game, with the outcome already decided, he found himself with the ball in his hands behind the 3 point arc with 12 seconds left on the 24 second clock. He's a kid, so he does what a kid would do in that situation, he shoots. Phil glowered, called a time out, yanked him from the game (with only about 45 seconds left), and didn't say a word to him on the bench. Bynum was still all smiles though, the shot was close and his form good, but Jackson was trying to show that what he did was fundamentally wrong.

The Lakers need Bynum to be solid, predictable, and play the way he's coached to play in the playoffs if the Lakers are to advance past the first round (which will likely be a road series against either San Antonio or Utah).

And Kobe's still putting together an MVP quality season.

Which NBA Team Has Home Court Advantage In At Least 12 Cities?

That would be the LA Lakers right now. A remarkable thing has been happening in the 4th quarter of games the Lakers have played on this epic Eastern road trip (2 weeks away from Staples for all 3 resident pro teams cause of some dumb awards show).

That thing would be crowds in normally hostile places (even in Boston!) cheering for Kobe, and chanting MVP after he makes stunning shot after stunnig shot.

It happened again in Atlanta tonight. The game was tight throughout, but after Kobe came back from his usual sit down at the beginning of the 4th quarter, he was hitting everything, and doing it with style.

I'd never thought I'd see a Boston crowd cheer a Laker, or a Knicks crowd boo because the opposing team's star was suspended, but it's been happening.

Same thing happened in Washington, everyone expected to see a shootout between Kobe and Arenas, and for a bit, they got just that. Arenas made some sick baskets from outside the building practically, but the Lakers demolished the Wizards at the end, and Kobe put on a show once the game was in hand.

In Atlanta, it was a Laker crowd from the start (and a rare sell out in the ATL).

Kobe is once again something special, and the Lakers after a rough patch when Lamar first returned, are beginning to look like a team that can play with the really good teams in the West.

Still, there's something very wrong about MVP chants starting in a non-derisive manner for a player on the opposing team.

I doubt you'll hear that in Detroit, and you certainly didn't hear that in Indiana (and coincidentally, or not, the Indiana game was Kobe's worst on the trip so far).

Of course, that's only since they've been beating up on Eastern conference teams lately, we'll see how they do in their 3 games in 4 days facing Detroit Thursday, Toronto Friday, and Cleveland Sunday (on ABC, check your local listings)

(I always wanted to say, "check your local listings")

Bynum continues to get better, by the way. He's been putting up double-doubles almost every game in Kwame Brown's absence. If he could stay away from dumb fouls, he'll earn more and more playing time.

Who said Phil Jackson couldn't coach a young team?

As far as MVP goes, Steve Nash deserves it now more than the past two that he won, but because he has two, and only the greatest of the greatest in NBA history have won 3 in a row (only Chamberlain, Russell and Bird, not Kareem, not Jordan, not Magic), I think voters will be searching for somebody else to annoint.

Kobe's been more phenomenal as a player in previous years (last year he was pretty sick, just one word 81), but I don't think he's ever had a more consistently positive impact on his teammates than this season. This team enjoys when Kobe 'goes off', they don't become spectators, they still crash the boards, and they still play defense. When it was Shaq/Kobe's team, Shaq would sulk if he wasn't more involved in crunch time, but it was his own damn fault for being vulnerable to the 'hack a Shaq'.

The first year after the trade, everyone was certain it was a mistake. The second year, Miami wins it all, and again Kupchak and Buss look like idiots. This year . . ., Miami still has a chance to do well in the East (which is testament to how bad the East is), but the likelihood that Shaq will be a great and dominate player in this league again are looking less and less, while Kobe appears to still have another great decade left in him (and with his youthful and improving supporting cast the Lakers could be on their way to a 3rd Dynasty).

Also, he seems to be completely rehabilitated image wise after his fiasco year. I think in an odd way the Duke Lacrosse thing has helped Kobe. Folks realize that, yes athletes can be piggish horndogs, but women do sometimes lie, and prosecutors sometimes claim to have better evidence than they really have.

As far as the MVP thing goes, it seems a bit incredible that Kobe has yet to win won, he's the greatest basketball player playing right now and can dominate a game offensively or defensively. Nowitzki is great, and it's about time a European player wins the award, but he benefits from being a big man who plays an outside game (and doesn't play enough defense), Duncan is always Duncan and deserves consideration, but San Antonio has been on auto-pilot this season. Gilbert Arenas has been pretty special in stretches, but I'll just dismiss all players in the East for MVP consideration right now, cause the East is definitely the Least.