IN PRAISE OF KOBE

So Kobe has put up 65-50-60 in his last three games, I think that's enough to move my lazy ass to wax poetic about it.

To put this into perspective, 4 guys have had 3 consecutive games with 50+: Elgin, MJ and Kobe have done it once. Wilt did it 10 times.

With these 2 60-point games, Kobe now has 4 in his career, putting him into a tie for second all-time with MJ. Wilt had 32.

Yes, Wilt was fucking awesome.

But hey, different times, different players. What Kobe has done is astonishing. I don't think he's played this well since the 2001 playoff run when he put up 29/7/6 and along with Shaq provided the best 1-2 punch the NBA has ever seen (yes, better than Magic-Kareem, better than Bird-McHale, better than West-Baylor, better than Russell-Havlicek).

Here's the most amazing thing about this stretch of games: his discipline, his restraint. Imagine what it would be like to be the best player in the league, and then imagine what it would be like to be the best player in the league in the hottest stretch of your entire career. You'd want to take every damn shot every time down the floor (wait, I want to do that anyway--and I suck).

I mean, this isn't Wilt or Kareem or Shaq, someone dependent on his teammates getting him the ball--this is someone who can create any shot he wants at any time. So the problem for a guy with this talent level and in the midst of this white-hot stretch is this: how do you decide which shots to take and which not to take when you feel (justifiedly so) that you can make anything you throw up?

And having watched all three games, I can tell you that Kobe's judgment has been remarkable. Astonishing. Unprecedented. Don't get me wrong, he's taken a ton of shots--111 in 3 games--but only a few times have I felt like he was really forcing something. I don't know how you can score 175 points in 3 games and look like you're letting the game come to you, like you're playing within the constraints of team basketball, like you're looking to set your teammates up when the shot you want isn't available--but Kobe's managing to do it.

And another amazing thing about this stretch is that Kobe hasn't been *that* hot shooting the ball from outside. I mean, he fucking ripped Portland, a game I'd put right up there with the 81-pointer and the "singlehandledly-outscoring-Dallas-through-3-quarters" game (the single greatest athletic performance I've ever personally witnessed), but the last two games he's shot the ball like he normally does--good, but not Ray Allen, which means he had to pull out the entire arsenal to get his points. I mean, it's been a clinic in how to put the ball in the basket. He's hit threes, he's hit midrange pull-up jumpers, he's gotten to the foul line (although none of the games were called particularly close--he earned his 175 points), he's gotten to the rim, he's thrown down ridiculous dunks, he's posted people up, he's gotten steals & breakaway buckets...it's like watching a highlight reel of Kobe's entire skill set for three straight games.

And lastly, the team has absolutely *needed* every point he's scored. They've won the 3 games by 2, 7 and 5 (in OT). Kobe has scored all these points because it was the most likely way for the Lakers to win the game, period. I think some (not all) of the criticism of Kobe's egotism and selfishness is justified, but this has been the ultimate performance within the confines of team basketball, in the sense that he did exactly what needed to be done in order to give his team the best shot of winning.

What he's done here is incredible, it's insane, it's historic. This--for me--is what pro sports is all about: entertainment. If you know me in real life or have read my posts on the boards, you know I use this phrase too much, but I honestly do feel privileged to have witnessed this. I'd rather have seen this than watch the Lakers reel off 20 wins in a row (now I'd rather they win the championship than see Kobe pull this off, but that's obviously different--winning championships is pretty goddamn entertaining too).

I still don't think the Lakers have a prayer in hell of running the gauntlet in the West--they needed Kobe to channel Elgin in order to squeak past three pretty bad teams--but I can tell you this much: NOBODY wants a piece of the Lakers in the playoffs. Nobody. Not San Antonio, not Phoenix, not even Dallas. If everyone on the Lakers is healthy and Kobe is hot (not even 175-points-in-3-games-hot, just normally hot), they can play with anyone, just like they played with Phoenix last year.

In fact--what the fuck--I'm going to call it right now: if the Lakers are healthy & they play San Antonio in the first round, as they're currently slated to do, they're pulling the upset. I know that sounds crazy with the Spurs red-hot and the Lakers completely floundering before Kobe started going off, but I just have a gut feeling here. LA matches up with them really well and I think Kobe outlasts Duncan in a hard-fought 6-7 game series.

But then I think they get handled by Phoenix or slaughtered by Dallas. Just a bad/horrible matchup, respectively.

2009, baby!

(Speaking of which, watch out for Memphis down the road. If they get Kevin Durant (they currently have a 9-game lead on the #1 slot in the lottery) to go along with Pau Gasol, Hakim Warrick, Rudy Gay and Mike Miller--that's a *real* nice core group of players. Real nice. Just need a competent pass-first PG to throw in there (e.g., Brevin Knight), and that's potentially a monster of a team. If they get the #1 pick, I think they'd be insane to trade Gasol. Actually, I think they'd be insane to trade him, period, and I think the Bulls were insane *not* to trade for him. He's a 20 & 10 26-year-old center who blocks shots, those guys don't exactly grow on trees. Ben Gordon has virtually no chance of ever being as valuable as Pau Gasol is right now--and I love Ben Gordon. Huge mistake for the Bulls.)

DIRK FOR MVP

The MVP Race

With Lebron sleepwalking through half the season, Wade getting injured, and the Lakers going into a complete tailspin, the MVP has become a two-man race between Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash. It's close. It's very close. But I think the nod has to go to Dirk here.

Phoenix is having an amazing season, but Dallas is doing something historic. This could be a 70 win team, for crying out loud. After an 0-4 start, they're an astonishing 52-6--that's just completely insane. Let's put this into perspective. There are currently 6 teams with a winning road record, which tells you how tough it is to consistently win on the road in the NBA. Well, Dallas' 22-7 road record is better than the home record of 27 of the other 29 teams in the league. Only Phoenix and Utah have a better record at home than Dallas does on the road--and neither of them are even close to Dallas's home record of 30-3. What Dallas is doing is even more impressive when you consider that 2/3rds of their games come against their own far superior conference (the West's winning percentage vs. the East is .570, a gigantic disparity--only 8 teams in the league have a .570+ winning percentage).

This isn't to slight what Phoenix has accomplished. Amazingly they're right there with Dallas, just 3.5 games behind. If you take out the 2 wins and 4 losses they ran up when Steve Nash was hurt, they've been at a pace that would put them at 68 wins for the year--which would make them one of the greatest 2nd best teams in league history.

But even taking out the Nash-less games, they're still 47-10, behind Dallas' 52-10 (and it's not like Dallas has been injury-free, they've lost #2 guy Josh Howard for 10 games, as well as Jerry Stackhouse, Devean George and Austin Croshere for 10+ games each). Bottom line: as good as Phoenix has been, Dallas has been better.

Now that's not the end-all of the MVP argument, of course, but "best player on the best team" is always a good place to start. Where I think Dirk really earns the nod is that, in my opinion, his supporting cast is worse than Nash's. This is pretty difficult, it's tough to match up guy-for-guy in a team sport like basketball--but I'm going to anyway.

Shawn Marion and Josh Howard are pretty much a wash, maybe Marion gets a slight nod. Jason Terry and Devin Harris get the slight nod over Raja Bell and the rapidly-arriving Leandro Barbosa (more on him later). The Mavs' scrubs are definitely much better than Phoenix's, the Mavs are a far deeper team with Stackhouse, George, Croshere and defensive specialists Greg Buckner and Desagana Diop vs. James Jones, Kurt Thomas, and a bunch of guys who don't even play (Jalen Rose, Jumaine Jones, Marcus Banks). So maybe Dallas is a bit ahead so far. But we have one comparison left, the starting centers: Amare vs. Erick Dampier. Um, yeah. I think that one goes to Phoenix by a hair. It's really that simple, their supporting casts are pretty similar, with the exception that Nash has one more top 15 player on his roster than Dirk does. But Dirk's team is better.

I know, I know, it's really not that simple. Basketball is a team game, and Dallas more than anyone really plays like a team--it's hard especially to compare defensive-minded guys to offensive-minded. But can you at least give me that the surrounding talent on the two teams is close enough that Dallas' superior record is a solid point in Dirk's favor? Yeah, I thought so bitch.

No, Dirk doesn't make his teammates better the way Steve Nash does--all he does is make his team better, and that's what counts. Michael Jordan, contrary to popular myth that makes him the greatest there ever was in every aspect of basketball, wasn't a great distributor. Sure he got a lot of assists, but is it so hard to kick out to a wide open John Paxson when you're being triple teamed? What Jordan had--and what Kobe doesn't--is excellent *judgement*. His court vision was nothing special, but he had outstanding discretion as to when to force a shot and when to give the ball up to a teammate. So he made his teammates better in the way all great players make their teammates better--by being fucking awesome and taking the other team's focus away from them. But he absolutely did not make his teammates better the way a Nash or Magic does/did. All he did was make his *team* really, really, really good--and last time I checked, that's what they give you trophies for.

The Comers

As typically starts happening this time of year, a handful of young players are starting to bust out.

First let's start with Leandro Barbosa, one of the 10 most difficult players to guard in the NBA. In 11 games since they all-star break, Barbosa is averaging 20.6 ppg on .524 shooting. But what's most impressive is that he's shooting .556 from three on 6.6 attempts per game, bringing his season 3PT FG% to .439. This is after last year's .444. When you're literally one of the fastest players in league history, a great finisher at the rim, *and* a money 3-point shooter, that makes you a matchup nightmare. Just this week I watched him absolutely tear apart one of the best defensive teams in the league in Houston, going for 32 on 12-18 shooting. In the first part of the game, he was blowing by people to the basket. When they played for the drive, he sank 5 of 6 threes. By the second half, they were doubling Barbosa every time he got the ball--when you're going against a team with Amare, Nash and Marion and you're forced to double *someone else*, you're in serious trouble.

Another guy on fire is Andre Iguodala. He's been coming on ever since Iverson's departure, but the last couple weeks have really been strong for him--in the 11 games since the break, Iguodala is averaging 21/6/6, with 2.5 steals and a .475 FG%. In 6 games in March, he's bumped his PPG up to 24.5. This guy's a really good all-around player, with his skill beginning to match his high-end athleticism. The only problem is that he's played so well, he's taking Philly out of the Durant/Oden sweepstakes. The 76ers are now 9 games ahead of Memphis and 6.5 ahead of Boston (with Milwaukee and Charlotte also a couple games behind the Sixers).

Speaking of Boston, Al Jefferson has been huge for them lately. Post-break, he's putting up a 20 & 13 spot with a steal and almost 2 blocks per game, along with a .553 FG%. Jefferson just turned 22 in January--this dude's a beast. If Boston manages to get into that bottom 2 (again, difficult with Jefferson playing so well), they'll be in fantastic shape for the future.

A couple of rookies are giving Portland some hope as well--Brandon Roy is averaging 18/4/6 post-break and is shooting over .500 from both the floor and from 3, and LaMarcus Aldridge is averaging 14 & 7 with 2 blocks. Looks like two very nice draft picks for them, along with longer-term prospect Sergio Rodriguez who's shown flashes of brilliance.

Finally, moving from up-and-comers to not-yet-as-decrepit-as-you-might-have-thought, I have to give props to Shaq. What he's doing for Miami in the wake of Wade's injury is nothing short of amazing. I predicted here that they'd be a total disaster, but I didn't count on Shaq channeling his 2001 self. In 11 post-break games, he's averaging 20/10/3 on .630 shooting in just 29 minutes per game. Miami is 8-3 in those games, and is currently on a 7 game winning streak that's included wins against Eastern Conference leaders Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Washington (twice), as well as Western powerhouse Utah. Shaq has pretty much overpowered everyone in his path--when he's in the game, the other team's defensive gameplan just has to change completely. If you don't double him, he'll score, it's that simple. With his excellent post passing, that means everyone on the team is getting wide open looks all game. In other words, he's making the team better the same way Michael Jordan made his teams better. I still don't think Miami can make it to the Finals without Wade--no way does Shaq not wear down over a couple long series--but at least Shaq's allowed them to get in good position while Wade (hopefully!) recovers.