Got a question? Send it to NateSmithBR@gmail.com
This is my first mailbag and I'll be answering questions that have been sent to me.
James (LA): I love your articles about Kobe. Do you think he'll be MVP this year?
Nate: Yes. While a number of sportswriters have a strong dislike for Kobe that will prevent them from being fair to him in MVP voting, I think the vast majority will place Kobe where they honestly think he should be based on his play this season.
Ricky (Philly): Kobe is a punk! Giving him the MVP sends the wrong message to kids about the role of being a good teammate.
Nate: Good catch. I do worry about rewarding Kobe after his offseason demands, but in my opinion they were off-season. I only look to what happens during the season.
In any event, had the Lakers imploded and stunk, Kobe would have (rightfully so) shouldered almost all of the blame. It is only fair that he gets some of the credit when then win.
Roland (no location specified): Who do you think is coming out of the East?
Nate: I think Boston is going to come out of the East. The one thing I look at is defense and point differential. Boston is an excellent defensive team that wins convincingly.
Detroit has not exactly built up an impressive rhythm going into the playoffs, and I think that's going to hurt them in the later rounds.
Eric (Ft. Lauderdale): Why can't Melo stay out of trouble?
Nate: Youth. Carmelo is good for one bonehead incident per year.
Jack (San Antonio): The Lakers win against the Spurs was impressive, but I still think San Antonio is the team to beat once they get healthy. Agree?
Nate: Absolutely. The problem with San Antonio is that they go through long dry spells where they can't score. It doesn't matter how good their defense is, teams are going to go on runs. If San Antonio cannot score, they aren't going to be able to whether those storms.
Nonetheless, the reintroduction of Brent Barry, Manu Ginobli, and perhaps Robert Horry will allow San Antonio to be much more effective scoring the basketball.
Laura (NYC): Fact or fiction, Isiah Thomas will be the coach in New York next season.
Nate: Fiction. I think the Isiah experiment has run its course. He has managed to go from worst GM in the league to worst coach in the league. He is an absolute disgrace to the game of basketball because New York deserves a team that is competing for a title.
They have the best fans in all of the NBA and hopefully they get a coach who can push them. They really need a coach of Nate McMillian caliber.
Jeremy (no location specified): How can you say Kobe is the best player in the league? LeBron owns him head to head, puts up better stats, and is more dominant because of his size.
Nate: LeBron is the second best player in the game in my opinion. LeBron doesn't have the multitude of moves that Bryant has and isn't as good from the charity stripe. Kobe has elevated his team to a higher status while playing through injuries that LeBron sat out, all while playing much better defense than LeBron.
This is not a knock on James. He just has a while to go before he can claim to be as skilled, as dominant, or as mentally tough at Kobe. He's on the right track though.
End of Season Awards
MVP
1. Kobe Bryant
2. Chris Paul
3. Kevin Garnett
4. LeBron James
5. Amare Stoudamire
COY
1. Byron Scott
2. Doc Rivers
3. Nate McMillian
4. Jerry Sloan
5. Phil Jackson
ROY
1. Al Horford
2. Kevin Durant
3. Luis Scola
DPOY
1. Kevin Garnett
2. Marcus Camby
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Josh Smith
MIP
1. Hedo Turkoglu
2. Chris Kaman
3. Chris Paul
All NBA 1st Team
G - Chris Paul
G - Kobe Bryant
F - LeBron James
F - Kevin Garnett
C - Dwight Howard
All NBA 2nd Team
G - Deron Williams
G - Steve Nash
F - Tim Duncan
F - Amare Stoudamire
C - Marcus Camby
All NBA 3rd Team
G - Manu Ginobli
G - Chauncey Billups
F - Dirk Nowitski
F - Tracy McGrady
C - Tyson Chander
All NBA Defensive 1st team
G - Kobe Bryant
G - Bruce Bown
F - Josh Smith
F - Kevin Garnett
C - Marcus Camby
All NBA Defensive 2nd Team
G - Raja Bell
G - Chris Paul
F - Shane Battier
F - Tim Duncan
C - Tyson Chandler
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6 months ago
Why no 6th Man of the Year award? Manu? Yay or nay? He's definitely not finishing the regular season with a bang but his season has been off the charts as a whole.
from 6 months ago
Manu winning the 6th man of the year award is merely a formality now. They should almost give an award to the guy coming in second. As long as Manu is healthy and keeps his role of a 32-minute-a-night 6th man, he'll win it every year.
6 months ago
Uh... to this I can only say oh my god!
"Lebron is the second best player in the game in my opinion. Lebron doesn't have the multitude of moves that Bryant has, isn't as good from the charity stripe, has elevated his team to a higher status while playing through injuries in which Lebron sat out all while playing much better defense than Lebron. This is not a knock on James. He just has a while to go before he can claim to be as skilled, as dominant or as mentally tough at Kobe. He's on the right track though."
Lebron scores at a higher rate, scores more efficiently (FG%), dishes out more assists (by a decent amount), and rebounds at a greater frequency.
I agree that Kobe has more moves than LeBron, but so does Carmelo and he certainly isn't as valuable. Moves only get you a shot and with those moves Kobe still doesn't convert as frequently as Lebron.
This is stunning and mind numbing that people hear that Kobe is the best and just accept it without examining the facts. Consider the assists - Kobe passes to Pau while LeBron passes to Ben Wallace who wasn't even a Cav 3 months ago and LeBron STILL GETS MORE ASSISTS. The difficulty in getting an assist as a Cav is far greater than getting one as a Laker.
If this award is to be whittled down to the top teams' best player then giving Kobe his "career award" is fine, but to label him as the best is plain silly. I guess we all hate to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
6 months ago
Say that when lebron jumps over a moving car, not posing as King Kong in some silly magzine =)
6 months ago
No love for Stan Van Gundy in your Coach of the Year results?
6 months ago
i agree with everything except one thing...garnett should not be in the MVP talk at all. why should he be in it? it is paul pierce's team after all. he let go of mins, points and became a man who people rarely talk about because he wanted to win a championship. take KG out
6 months ago
I love how people change the definition of MVP every year so it doesn't match what Kobe has done. When Kobe was putting up insane numbers, they said, well the Lakers were terrible. They couldn't win the necessary 50 games (they won 45 and 42). Well guess what Lebron fans. Your MVP can't win 50 games in the EAST! So suck on it. He's not an MVP this year. He's just putting up crazy numbers on an avg team. Just like Kobe did two years ago. Just like Jordan did in 88. Guess what, neither of those guys won it those years either.
Give it to Kobe for the stuff he did THIS YEAR. Those who are setting up this myth of a career award are just kobe-haters that can't admit he's been that good AGAIN.
It's like all the CP3 supporters saying they were voting for him because he had the best record in the west. Now where are they? Back pedaling quickly and trying to find another reason not to give it to Kobe. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Kobe didn't win it. Kobe and Laker hate runs deep. Not surprising, just embarrassing for the NBA.
They choose to give it to Steve Nash TWICE. And now have to deal with CP3 crushing Nash's MVP numbers. If they actually handed out the award based on any type of criteria and performance, instead of image and popularity, they wouldn't be in this situation now.
6 months ago
Some of what ^^^^ said is very true. If Kobe deserved an MVP it should have been two years ago. This year the numbers belong to LeBron.
6 months ago
hahhahah beau is an idiot.
6 months ago
"Lebron scores at a higher rate, scores more efficiently (FG%), dishes out more assists (by a decent amount), and rebounds at a greater frequency."
-actually, both kobe and lebron score at virtually the same rate.
-fg% is nothing compared to true fg%, which captures more accurately a person's ability to shoot efficiently. and guess what? kobe has the better true fg%.
-do you know how the triangle offense works? there's no point guard in it because every player is a facilitator, hence the assists are shared and there are plenty of hockey-assists. do you know how the cavs operate their offense? that's right- everything through the ball-hog lebron scheme, which means lebron is dominating the touches 99% of the time, so of course it's going to look like he has higher assists. (by the way, having higher assists doesn't equate to making your team mates better- chris paul and nash doing it is, lebron doing it isn't) lebron passes only when he has no other option and is stuck, whereas kobe plays in a system that constantly pushes the ball around. if kobe played on the cavs offensive scheme, he would have double the assists he has right now and at least 5 more points.
-he's a forward, he's going to have more rebounds than a guard. can you get that through your head? lebron's a decent rebounder for his position, while kobe's a superb rebounder for his position.
"I agree that Kobe has more moves than LeBron, but so does Carmelo and he certainly isn't as valuable. Moves only get you a shot and with those moves Kobe still doesn't convert as frequently as Lebron."
Do you know how lebron gets his points? because lebron is a horrible jumpshooter, mostly from dunks and layups using his huge body and strength. how about kobe? kobe gets half of his from jumpshots and he's also just as able as lebron to get to the hoop, but not by strength or size, but by creativity, improvisation and skill. i already proved to you kobe is the better shooter than lebron, so kobe's being the more talented and creative offensive player is just icing on the cake.
"Consider the assists - Kobe passes to Pau while LeBron passes to Ben Wallace who wasn't even a Cav 3 months ago and LeBron STILL GETS MORE ASSISTS. The difficulty in getting an assist as a Cav is far greater than getting one as a Laker."
nice argumentation skill- you pick the worst possible case to make your point (logical fallacy anyone?). for your information, it's Z who mainly plays the center, not ben, and Z is a much more efficient and capable player than ben. i already explained above the difference between the two team's offensive schemes which explains how each player operates and how much more difficult it is for any one player on the lakers to dominate the assist statistic, while it is only lebron who is able to collect assists on the cavs. so no, lebron is not a better assist producer than kobe (in fact, this proves kobe is superior to lebron in this category)
congratulations beau for making a horrible argument for lebron! maybe you should learn some facts about basketball before making an opinion.
6 months ago
"Lebron scores at a higher rate, scores more efficiently (FG%), dishes out more assists (by a decent amount), and rebounds at a greater frequency."
-actually, both kobe and lebron score at virtually the same rate.
-fg% is nothing compared to true fg%, which captures more accurately a person's ability to shoot efficiently. and guess what? kobe has the better true fg%.
-do you know how the triangle offense works? there's no point guard in it because every player is a facilitator, hence the assists are shared and there are plenty of hockey-assists. do you know how the cavs operate their offense? that's right- everything through the ball-hog lebron scheme, which means lebron is dominating the touches 99% of the time, so of course it's going to look like he has higher assists. (by the way, having higher assists doesn't equate to making your team mates better- chris paul and nash doing it is, lebron doing it isn't) lebron passes only when he has no other option and is stuck, whereas kobe plays in a system that constantly pushes the ball around. if kobe played on the cavs offensive scheme, he would have double the assists he has right now and at least 5 more points.
-he's a forward, he's going to have more rebounds than a guard. can you get that through your head? lebron's a decent rebounder for his position, while kobe's a superb rebounder for his position.
"I agree that Kobe has more moves than LeBron, but so does Carmelo and he certainly isn't as valuable. Moves only get you a shot and with those moves Kobe still doesn't convert as frequently as Lebron."
Do you know how lebron gets his points? because lebron is a horrible jumpshooter, mostly from dunks and layups using his huge body and strength. how about kobe? kobe gets half of his from jumpshots and he's also just as able as lebron to get to the hoop, but not by strength or size, but by creativity, improvisation and skill. i already proved to you kobe is the better shooter than lebron, so kobe's being the more talented and creative offensive player is just icing on the cake.
"Consider the assists - Kobe passes to Pau while LeBron passes to Ben Wallace who wasn't even a Cav 3 months ago and LeBron STILL GETS MORE ASSISTS. The difficulty in getting an assist as a Cav is far greater than getting one as a Laker."
nice argumentation skill- you pick the worst possible case to make your point (logical fallacy anyone?). for your information, it's Z who mainly plays the center, not ben, and Z is a much more efficient and capable player than ben. i already explained above the difference between the two team's offensive schemes which explains how each player operates and how much more difficult it is for any one player on the lakers to dominate the assist statistic, while it is only lebron who is able to collect assists on the cavs. so no, lebron is not a better assist producer than kobe (in fact, this proves kobe is superior to lebron in this category)
congratulations beau for making a horrible argument for lebron! maybe you should learn some facts about basketball before making an opinion.
5 months ago
good article
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