Steve Nash was selected MVP today and I couldn’t have been more disappointed. Although Nash is a great player, he doesn’t belong in the elite category of players that have won this award in back to back years.
Nash is an excellent team player and continues to improve the players’ stats around him, but he still hasn’t won an NBA Championship. Professional athletes are judged on how many Championships that player brings to an organization. The fact that he won MVP last year, when he wasn’t even in the finals was surprising but acceptable. This year Phoenix will not win the NBA Championship and probably won’t even make the finals.
I believe the MVP should be awarded to a player that can carry their team to Championships or at least the finals. I agree that there are exceptions to every rule, like youth, trades, injuries and things of that nature. This being said, if a player is going to be MVP for two years running, their team should be playing in the title game at least one of these years.
There’s one big hole in your argument. While there is no clear set criteria for the selection of a MVP, one thing that should not be considered – since the voting takes place at the end of the regular season – is whether or not that player wins a NBA title that year.
The MVP is awarded to the player that had the best season for a great team. How that team does in the playoffs has no bearing on the selection.
Complicating matters, not since Moses Malone won the award in 1982-1983, has a player from a team with fewer than 50 wins actually won the award. This was probably why Kobe didn’t win it and it probably hurt LeBron to some extent, considering that he Cavs had exactly 50 wins this year.
In Nash’s defense, the Suns were a mediocre team before his arrival. He lost several players from last year’s team – most notably Amare Stoudemire and Joe Johnson – and helped to keep Phoenix a winner with three new starters this season. I think the sportswriters painted themselves into a corner this year. By most accounts, Nash had a better year this year than last year and last year he won the MVP, so how can you NOT give him the award again? The only justification would be if a player had a year that made him the clear-cut winner, and while LeBron, Kobe and Dirk Nowitzki all had great years, there was no clear-cut favorite.
I think it also helps Nash that most sportswriters look more like him than they do LeBron, Kobe or Dirk.