The MVP race so far
Tuesday 27 July 2004
I think there are only two contenders for the MVP award at the moment - Lauren Jackson and Lisa Leslie. The East forward trio of Chamique Holdsclaw, Tamika Catchings and Swin Cash all look like pretenders at the moment. They all boast good all-round numbers but statistically they haven't distinguished themselves from their winning Western counterparts (unlike LJ did last year and Seattle had a winning record). Unless their numbers improve to the point where it's obvious they're a class above the rest and/or their teams find some form, they are not serious candidates for MVP. Tina Thompson is also in a similar situation but her campaign has been marred by injury which has affected her performance and her team's.
There's not really that much between the two at the moment. Los Angeles and Seattle are close in team performance and and both have made key contributions to their team's success. LJ has better offensive stats while LL has better defensive stats so I'd call that a wash. However I think two things give LJ the slight edge at the moment. #1 She has been the most consistent player in the league this year - Lisa has been prone to disappearing offensively. #2 Historically, the league has favoured candidates with good offensive numbers/percentages and LJ has it over LL in this department. Of course this may all change...
Comments
First, Mabika has been just as good as Leslie has been this year, which hurts LL's chances.
More importantly, missing from your discussion of MVP...Katie Smith, who, in my book, is a close second behind Jacko in the MVP race.
Posted by: Barry | Tuesday 27 July 2004
Mabika's been good, but LL's stats are still top-notch, even if her scoring has been a little up & down. IMO it's just that she hasn't been relied on so much this season to score, whereas even if LJ was having a bad game (which these days seems to be strictly a hypothetical scenario) - she would still be forced to put up a lot of shots and therefore score a decent number of points.
I do think you need to be up there on PPG to get league MVP though (not saying I agree with it, but it's the way it always seems to go), even if the rest of your stats are the best in the league. That will hurt Lisa since 15.9 compared to 21.2 is a pretty big margin.
Katie is always slept-on. That's pretty-much a given. But with LJ's versatility, I think KT would have to win the scoring title by a fair margin to take the MVP.
Posted by: Luuuc | Tuesday 27 July 2004
Yeah I did forget about Katie but as Luuuc pointed out, her all-round stats are a bit lacking. She did deserve a mention in that piece though so I apologise for overlooking her.
Posted by: Insane Platypus | Wednesday 28 July 2004