If you missed Part 1 of my NBA Season in Review, what the hell have you been doing? I had intended to have this article wrapped up by the end of the regular season, but unlike recent years, the last night of this season was actually relevant with regard to playoff seeding, and potentially the MVP race, both of which we’ll get to momentarily. Also, Kevin Durant WENT OFF that night. But now that the season is in the books, I find myself much more interested in previewing the playoffs than reviewing the season. Consequently, I’m going to try to make this brief so I can move on to bigger and better things, like the much anticipated Celtics-Hawks series, known more colloquially as the Mike Woodson Farewell Tour.

February Trade Extravaganza

The most memorable thing to me about all the deadline deals that went down this season is how close they all came to never having happened. Look at it this way. Memphis was going to move Gasol before the deadline, regardless. But what if they had shipped him to Chicago anytime between last summer and when he was finally dealt to the Lakers? All of a sudden, the Lakers weren’t the new juggernaut out West, so there’s no way Steve Kerr takes The Big Risk and trades for Shaq. Consequently the Mavs aren’t known as ‘the only team in the West that hasn’t improved’, so Mark Cuban isn’t obligated to make a big deal in order to appease his disgruntled fans. Finally, if Chicago had offered up Andres Nocioni, Tyrus Thomas and someone else for Gasol, they couldn’t have gone in on the big three-way deal with Cleveland and Seattle. So instead of four really ballsy trades (well, three ballsy trades and the Pau Gasol heist), you would’ve gotten just one fairly boring, fairly inconsequential trade.

As far as their ramifications in the playoffs, I would rank the trades like this:

1. Pau Gasol
4a. Shaq
4b. Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith
4c. Jason Kidd

Look at the list closely, and I think it’s fairly clear how things shook out this way. The Lakers should at least get to the Conference Finals and meet San Antonio, solely because of the trade for Pau. I can’t rank the Kidd trade higher than fourth because, had the Mavs drawn the Hornets in Round 1 with Devin Harris at the helm, they still would have won and they still would have lost to San Antonio in Round 2, ceteris paribus. Similarly, the Cavs were only going as far as LeBron before their ‘blockbuster’, whether that means they would have lost to the Wizards in Round 1, the Celtics in Round 2 or the eventual West champ. The Shaq trade gets the prestigious distinction of 4a here because, even though I believe they will go out in the first Round against San Antonio, I also believe that the trade did in fact make the Suns a better team. In summation, the Mavs gave up a 24 year old point guard for a 35 year old point guard to eventually bow out in the same round. The Cavs trade is essentially irrelevant. The Suns trade was less risky than the media made it out to be because the duration of their window of opportunity is inversely proportional to the number of herniated disks in Steve Nash’s back, so why not?

MVP Race

The other day I was reading an article on some sports website ranking the most closely contested MVP races in NBA history and some of the resumés on that list make this year’s candidates look like chumps. Take, for example, the 1960-61 season.

• 1. Bill Russell- averaged 17 and 24
• 2. Bob Petit- averaged 28 and 20
• 3. Elgin Baylor - averaged 35 and 20
• 4. Wilt Chamberlain- averaged 38 and 27
• 5. Oscar Robertson- averaged 30, 10 and 9.7

This season’s candidates have all performed fabulously and differentiating between them will be sufficiently difficult for the voters, but in the grand scheme of things, these guys can’t hold a candle to the boys of ‘61. If I were fortunate enough to have a ballot, this is how it would look:

4. Kevin Garnett
Every year people discuss the MVP race in terms of how the word ‘Valuable’ is supposed to be interpreted. But in the case of Garnett, I think the discussion has to be centered around to whom this player is most valuable. That is, if Garnett were to win the award it would be because of his impact on the city of Boston and Celtics basketball as a whole, not necessarily for his impact on his team’s performance. If the Celtics had never acquired Garnett, a core of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Al Jefferson still could’ve been a 45 win team in a weak Eastern Conference. To me, an MVP should be chosen based on his importance to his team’s success, and in that regard, KG is clearly behind the other three candidates.

3. Chris Paul
If Chris Paul were a few years older and had put up similar numbers in the 2004-05 when Steve Nash won the award, the third year guard might have a chance on his own merit. Given the competition though, Paul could actually win the award this year in the same manner that Nash did in the 2005-06 season. That year no one thought Nash was the MVP, but the votes were so evenly distributed between LeBron and Kobe that Nash ended up with the most points. Looking at a lot of MVP rankings this year, almost every list I’ve seen has Paul in the top two, but the other three candidates are ranked all over depending on who you’re listening to, so it’s not inconceivable that Paul snakes his way to the top of the voting list, even though the majority of people would say he isn’t the most deserving.

2. Kobe Bryant
Of all the players on this list, Kobe definitely has the most to gain from winning the MVP this season. If he could secure his first Maurice Podoloff Trophy and carry the Lakers to a title in the post-Shaq era, he would cement his place as one of the greatest players of all time. And if he could’ve brought similar success back to LA without Pau, the award would be his. But since Bryant now has significant help around him, you could make the argument that, in terms of elevation of a team’s performance, Kobe’s value isn’t as high as…

1. LeBron James
To me, it’s pretty simple. LeBron simply does more on a nightly basis than any other player to improve his team’s performance. Cleveland is a 20-win team without LeBron, if that, but somehow LeBron has managed keep the Cavs relevant on his own by averaging 30, 8 and 8. It is unfortunate that Kobe has never won the award despite being the best player in the league for five years, but this season LeBron has been the Most Valuable Player to his team.

Best Moment of the 2007-08 Season

Without question, this is the most memorable play of the season. I still can’t get enough of it, and it’s actually somewhat relevant, considering Isaiah Thomas got the axe yesterday. That smug bastard.