source

Source: Nash to be MVP
Suns guard would be 9th player to win award in consecutive seasons

Suns star Steve Nash will be named the NBA's Most Valuable Player for a second straight season, according to a league source familiar with the voting.

The announcement may not come for two weeks, like last season's May 8 ceremony. The votes have been tabulated in what was expected to be a close race with LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Chauncey Billups and Kobe Bryant.

"It'd be incredible to be recognized twice amongst all those terrific players," Nash said after Wednesday's shootaround at US Airways Center. "I really think that everyone is deserving. I think it's a very close race this year."

Nash won the fourth-closest MVP vote last year, edging Shaquille O'Neal a year after Nash was not even an All-Star.

Nash, 32, impressed voters this season by posting career highs in scoring (18.8 points per game), rebounding (4.2 per game), field goal percentage (.512) and free-throw percentage (NBA-best .921). He led the league in assists again with 10.5 per game and finished sixth in three-point shooting (43.9 percent).

After Amaré Stoudemire's knee surgery deprived the Suns of their top scorer, Nash led the team to 54 wins and its first repeat division title with only Shawn Marion and Leandro Barbosa back for a full season.

Nash would be the first international and Suns player to win twice.

"Anytime you sit back and think about just winning it once, it's mind-boggling -- the company and what it means in the history of the game," Nash said. "To win it twice obviously just compounds that. It's just an incredible honor. I think it's a tribute to what this game allows people to do if they work hard."

Only eight previous players repeated as MVP winners. Magic Johnson was the only point guard to do so.

"Steve's great, there's no doubt about it," Suns coach MIke D'Antoni said. "The guy's so good. He's had two great seasons back to back. Shawn Marion had two great seasons. They've really stepped it up when Amare went out. Everybody thought we wouldn't make the playoffs and we won 54 games and the second seed. Somebody had a great season, that's for usre. Those two guys have done it. Steve Nash, everything kind of starts with him. He'll be deserving of whatever he gets."
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crap. It is genuinely silly that they're going to give it him again.

1 - Take him away from Phoenix and they still may have made the playoffs. Take Kobe or Lebron away from their teams and they're counting the number of balls in the draft lottery.

2 - He's not even the best player on his team. Marion is that guy.

3 - He's a horrible defender.

I think he's very good but not an MVP.

If you had to start a franchise and you had the first pick who would it be?

Me - Lebron, Wade or Kobe.

I suppose I should take this as good news. He's the only guy I could see as maybe being as deserving as Kobe this year and Kobe probably wasn't going to get it so better Nash than someone else.

How is he more deserving than Lebron, Elton Brand, Dirk or Carmelo?

What horrible timing. Now Kobe will go off for 50 tonite & the Lake's will win.

This is crazy talk.

naw that's crazy talk...an elite point guard and a truly dominant center are able to affect a team like no one else. Take Nash off that team and as good as Marion is they would have looked like one of the Toronto teams that revolved around Vince Carter and no one else or an Orlando Magic team with Grant Hill or Tracy McGready and not much else. They'd be a lottery team that might be fun to watch. Nash is what makes Phx special.

Nash is the only guy that probably meant as many wins or more to his team as Kobe did. I don't see the others as being nearly as important as either of those guys. Esp. Carmelo...not that he isn't a great player but he shouldn't even be in the discussion.

And If I were going to start a franchise, of course I'd pick Lebron above anyone else. Lebron's a greater talent with more upside but he didn't mean as much to his team as Nash or Kobe.

If that's your logic then the MVP is Chauncey Billups.....and that would be a better pick than Nash.

Not a chance...billups might not even be the pistons mvp let alone the nba mvp. With 4 all stars, no piston deserves mvp...they'd still be a dominant east team if you take any one player off the team.

Marion is better than Nash. Marion has a better Player Efficiency Rating (PER) than Nash as well.

Here's the PER breakdown for this regular season.

RNK Player GP Min FG% FT% TS% Ast TO Usg ORR DRR Reb PER
1 Dirk Nowitzki, DAL 81 38.1 .480 .901 .589 10.2 7.1 27.5 4.6 23.5 14.2 28.20
2 LeBron James, CLE 79 42.5 .480 .738 .568 17.6 8.8 31.4 2.6 17.1 9.8 28.17
3 Kobe Bryant, LAL 80 40.9 .450 .850 .559 11.5 8.0 35.3 2.6 12.7 7.6 28.11
4 Dwyane Wade, MIA 75 38.6 .495 .783 .577 19.8 10.6 30.1 4.5 12.6 8.7 27.68
5 Kevin Garnett, MIN 76 38.9 .526 .810 .589 16.3 9.5 23.3 8.9 29.7 19.6 26.88
6 Elton Brand, LAC 79 39.2 .527 .775 .580 10.1 8.4 24.6 9.3 19.9 14.8 26.67
7 Allen Iverson, PHI 72 43.1 .447 .814 .543 17.9 8.4 32.9 1.7 7.1 4.4 26.02
8 Gilbert Arenas, WAS 80 42.3 .447 .820 .581 17.3 10.6 28.7 2.0 7.8 4.8 23.87
9 Paul Pierce, BOS 79 39.1 .471 .772 .582 15.2 11.1 28.2 3.1 17.5 10.5 23.71
10 Shawn Marion, PHO 81 40.3 .525 .809 .591 8.1 7.1 19.4 8.7 23.6 16.3 23.66
11 Chauncey Billups, DET 81 36.1 .418 .894 .602 33.1 8.1 23.4 1.6 8.7 5.1 23.43
12 Steve Nash, PHO 79 35.5 .512 .921 .632 36.2 12.1 23.4 1.9 11.1 6.6 23.29

Phoenix is the like the Pistons West, so I don't see your logic as to why Nash should be the MVP. Carmelo's the only reason the Nuggets are in the playoffs. Take away him and they're the Trailblazers. Their roster sucks and I'd be surprised if they win one against the Clippers. Same for LeBron and Kobe, though they have a couple of better players on their teams. So I'd give it to one of them, though I think LeBron is more deserving.

Copied from the other thread...

Well he did have a better year statistically than last year, and also helped the Suns win their division, despite the loss of Stoudemire for the year to injuries as well as losing Q and Joe Johnson to free agency. He makes everyone around himself a better player. I mean, look what he did for Tim Thomas.

I'm surprised that he got it, but I can't say that he didn't deserve it with the type of year he had.

has anyone read wages of wins? the authors' blog has some interesting insights about how we evaluate players.

No. Should there be a link?

i guess so...here's the blog:
http://dberri.wordpress.com/

(pasted from The Remy Report message board, courtesy of Nomar 813 Billy

[img][338:500]http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y253/bdiddy0813/nash-braveheart.jpg[/img]

This is bizarre enough to be MEGA's signature. Now, then: Mr Data, make it so.