Tower of Power: Breaking Down the NBA MVP Race

(Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)

There are five players operating on a different level than everyone else in the league right now. Not-so-coincidentally, they comprise the top five on this list and also not-so-coincidentally, Howard ranks fifth among them.

He hasn’t quite captured the consistency of the other four and his relative mediocrity in April both on an individual level (16.4/12.5/2.6 bpg and 50.5 percent shooting compared to his season line of 20.6/13.8/2.9 and 57.2 percent) and in his team’s play as they battled for home court advantage (4-5 with losses to the Knicks, Raptors, and Nets) cost him points

Still, the backbone of Orlando’s rise as an elite team (defense and perimeter shooting) is predicated on Howard’s strengths. His 2.9 blocks per game were a league best and that doesn’t take into account the endless number of shots he altered or deterred entirely; simply put, he’s the most feared defensive force in the game right now.

He’s equally pivotal to Orlando’s offensive efforts. He dunks on anyone he wants to in a manner reminiscent of Shaq in his prime and also like Shaq, creates innumerable shot opportunities for other players to knock down.

It’s very telling that they can keep chugging along after replacing Jameer Nelson - the front runner for the league’s most improved player award, an All Star, and on his way to having one of the best true shooting percentages in the league - with Houston outcast Alston and not skip a beat.

If he develops any semblance of an offensive game more than five feet away from the rim and starts hitting his free throw, the rest of the league might as well give up trying to stop him

Tier II: The Kobe Zone

4. Kobe Bryant

The reigning MVP put together an extremely impressive title defense with his usual stellar numbers but Kobe’s case is built off team success.

That this Lakers squad won 65 games with dramatically worse bench play (Trevor Ariza excepted), a glaring lack of consistent play at point guard, and missing Andrew Bynum for an extended period is a testament to how good Bryant and Pau Gasol were.

Most importantly, the Lakers became the team that nobody wanted to play and for good reason; they were so good that they lost only two series all season.

Kobe gets his own stratum because as good as Dirk and Howard were, he was better. But this year, we have been treated to three transcendent seasons, three great efforts that have forced their way into the annals of the all-time great performances. Kobe’s numbers aren’t quite at that level, and he had a much better supporting cast than the top three.

Tier I: Transcendent Seasons

3. Dwyane Wade

Good God was his team terrible. The gap between Wade and the Heat’s second leading scorer Michael Beasley was 16.3 ppg – which is three points more than Beasley’s season average of 13.9 ppg, and easily one of the biggest margins in history.

They’ve coaxed 30 mpg out of Jermaine O’Neal’s corpse, 16.1 mpg out of somebody named Joel Anthony, 15.8 mpg out of the one-dimensional James Jones, and their point guard tandem is two players who each ought to be part timers (Mario Chalmers and Chris Quinn).

Somehow that made the playoffs. Nobody has done more for a putrid team since Iverson in the latter stages of his Philly career; without Wade, this mess would be lucky to win 10 games.

And the numbers...wow. A league leading 30.2ppg to go with 7.5apg, 2.19 steals per game (good for second in the league), and the shortest player ever to swat 100 shots in a season.

He shot 49 percent on the season, which is fantastic enough in a vacuum but given that he was double- and sometime triple-teamed with nothing close to a second option, it’s surreal.

He had a two month stretch where he averaged roughly 34/8/5 on 51 percent shooting, including nine games at the beginning of March in which the Heat went 7-2 and Wade threw down 40+ in five of them.

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