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This Poll will last for 10 days. I have listed 6 candidates for MVP of the first half of the season.

Kevin Garnett
Chris Paul
Kobe Bryant
Lebron James
Dwight Howard
Allen Iverson

I was leaning towards KG earlier in the season, but now I think it is Chris Paul. The man has his team #1 in the West and this from a team that didn't even make the playoffs last year and had no significant upgrades this year.

Hard to Argue against Paul imo.

Chris Paul IMO

1. Paul
2. Bryant
3. James
4. Howard
5. KG

This is my top 5 for the moment.

Chris Paul for me. How he leads the Hornets past SAS and DAL is simply unreal.

Give me Lebron. 29.9, 7.7 7.3, 2.0, 1.1. A ridiculous PER of 30.00. You have to go back to 1989 and Michael Jordan to find a wing player having a better all-around season. The Cavs are, I believe, 24-14 with Lebron. Without him, they went 0-5, and looked like a damn HS team. I love Chris Paul. But Lebron has been simply the best AND most valuable player this season.

1-paul
2-kg
3-lebron

50-iverson

Garnett. Paul's my #2.

Can't imagine why Iverson would be on the list of options before Nash. For perspective: Do you expect Denver to get to the 2nd round of the playoffs? I'd expect your answer is no, which means you should remember that Denver was already a playoff team before Iverson joined the team and he hasn't lifted them to a new level.

Garnett has too much help to be the MVP. They need to finish with the leagues best record for me to even consider KG.

MT1983 wrote:Give me Lebron. 29.9, 7.7 7.3, 2.0, 1.1. A ridiculous PER of 30.00. You have to go back to 1989 and Michael Jordan to find a wing player having a better all-around season. The Cavs are, I believe, 24-14 with Lebron. Without him, they went 0-5, and looked like a damn HS team. I love Chris Paul. But Lebron has been simply the best AND most valuable player this season.

Tracy Mcgrady 02-03 is comparable.

There are only 3 real candidates in my opinion and they are:

- Kobe Bruant
- Kevin Garnett
- Chris Paul

I was going with Bryant over Garnett until recently... The team success of the New Orleans Hornets is just too much for me to overlook anymore so I guess CP3 for MVP.

Believe it or not, you should have Bynum up there(hey, the poll did say I can specify others.) The Hornets won 17 of the last 18, with their only loss coming at home, in a quick blowout against the Lakers with a healthy Bynum.

NetsForce wrote:There are only 3 real candidates in my opinion and they are:

- Kobe Bruant
- Kevin Garnett
- Chris Paul

I was going with Bryant over Garnett until recently... The team success of the New Orleans Hornets is just too much for me to overlook anymore so I guess CP3 for MVP.

Dwight Howard and LeBron James are very much contenders.

Lakers05 wrote:Believe it or not, you should have Bynum up there(hey, the poll did say I can specify others.) The Hornets won 17 of the last 18, with their only loss coming at home, in a quick blowout against the Lakers with a healthy Bynum.

Bynum is not in the top 20.

Not according to his regular season stats. However, looking at his play in the 5 games just before he went down(where he showed legit post moves, in fact, he looked like he had no weaknesses, save for soft man D at times), you could make a case of him being in the top 10. In other words, Bynum's play in the New Year is clearly not of a double-double guy.

Now I know lots of guys have stretches where they'll play really well. However, as I've said before, Bynum's improvement suggests a pattern. In addition, even if guys have a good stretch, it will not be outrageously higher than their average. The fact that Bynum jumped from 12 and 10 to 18 and 13 in "relatively the same number of minutes"(most of the times, if a guy is putting up big numbers, their minutes have gone up as well, Kobe for example, he's averaging 32, 8 and 5 without Bynum, which would be impressive if it weren't for the fact that he's averaging 44 minutes as well, it's still impressive, but because he's having to play 7 more minutes than average, the impact is not as great as it should) suggests that his improvement is more than just weak competition.

Most of the times, if a guy is playing well, weak competition is the cause, however, weak competition will only account for a certain increase. Basically, let's say a group of centers give up an average PER of 18, which I think was Bynum's competition at the time, well, 18 is 3 points higher than average, one could say then that Bynum's average in that stretch is 3 PER points higher than usual, and that if he played 5 more games against competition that would eventually lower the OPP PER to the league's average, then his real average(which we can now extend to the whole season since we now have a sample that represents the league's average) would be 3 PER points lower. In other words, over time, he would be averaging 18 and 10 in 31 minutes instead of 18 and 13, which would still be pretty damn good. Depending on how his stamina would hold up, that could translate to 20-22 and 11-13 in 40 min.

Anyway, that post was only half-serious, half-joking(in the sense that it's funny that a guy averaging merely a double-double can be considered an MVP candidate, or has MVP-type impact, yet when you look at his play just before he went down, looking at the Hornets example I gave above, and looking at how we're doing without him, it's not) anyway.

You don't crack the MVP top 10 by having a great 5 game stretch. If so then Turkoglu and Caron Butler are there as well. Come to think of it, Butler may actually be top 10.

NetsForce wrote:There are only 3 real candidates in my opinion and they are:

- Kobe Bruant
- Kevin Garnett
- Chris Paul

I was going with Bryant over Garnett until recently... The team success of the New Orleans Hornets is just too much for me to overlook anymore so I guess CP3 for MVP.

I agree the candidates, except I would add Steve Nash in there.


As for Chris Paul being the MVP, I think he has a legit chance to get it. However, if I had a vote I would give it to my man Kobe Bryant.

His team is not that talented outside of Bynum. He's got a really good record, and he plays both sides of the ball. Bottom line is he is more dangerous of a player than Chris Paul at this moment.

Earlier in the season I was giving it to KG, and I still think he is deserving of it.

At the end of the day, all three of those players are deserving of the award. I think the player that gets it will likely be Bryant though due to politics.

I never said Bynum should be MVP(the fact that he's out for 30 games should disqualify him on the spot.) I'm just pointing out the irony of how under certain criteria, Bynum could be considered one. In other words, the first post is for comedic rather than serious value.

Other (Specify) gets my vote