Kobe Bryant and 4 Top Challengers to LeBron James in 2012 MVP Race

LeBron James is playing his best season yet. Rather than having players close in on him for the MVP race, he's putting distance between himself and virtually anyone and everyone else who is still dwelling in the world of mere mortality. 

Right now, LeBron is coming off a game where he played amazingly even for this season, a season in which he's setting an NBA record for Player Efficiency Rating in a season. Last night, James had 35 points on .762 shooting from the field. 

This season, he has a ridiculous .619  true shooting percentage, a 32.3 PER and is one of the best defensive players in the NBA. If you don't think he's the MVP, you're just wrong. Call me closed-minded, but I'd rather be closed-minded and right than closed-minded and wrong. I jest—almost. 

Still, let's just say that by some miracle LeBron James plays like it's the fourth quarter of the finals for the rest of the season and just goes into a total meltdown mode. Who might be able to catch him in a world of science fiction?

Chris Paul is probably the second choice for MVP right now, but it's a very distant second. He has the second best PER in the league behind James. He has the Clippers looking to take over the city of Los Angeles, or at least take the Pacific Division. 

Paul is the "player added." True, he's not the only player added but the perception is that he's the reason the Clippers are a different team this year than they've ever been before. If the Clippers land a player like J.R. Smith, watch out. They could be the team to emerge from the West. 

And, you can't go wrong with getting national attention if you live in a major market, and that never hurts in MVP voting. 

Kevin Durant isn't scoring on the same level he did for the past couple of seasons, but he's only down .7 points per game. He's averaging a career high in field goal percentage, PER, rebounding and assists. It seems that all of that is worth one basket every three games. 

If Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder finish with the NBA's best record, it's going to be hard to ignore him, particularly when you consider he's been making shots when the game is on the line. 

Kobe Bryant has fallen off since his 40 point streak. His scoring, rebounding and assists are all down in the month of February. He's shooting just .383. It's looking like the wrist is bothering him more than being No. 7 in the world now. 

He's still the heart and soul of the Lakers team. He's still Kobe Bryant. That's worth something. 

Derrick Rose is the only other player with a realistic shot at winning this year—don't even mention Dwight Howard right now—that's a possibility that could be fading. The Bulls are 5-2 without Rose, and 4-3 without Deng. 

Plus the more games he misses, the harder it is to justify making him the MVP. It's hard to say you have value when you aren't playing. 

Still, if the Bulls finish with the best record in the NBA, and Rose returns to the way he was playing shortly before he hurt his back where he was scoring 30 consistently and posting double digit assists, he can work his way back into the conversation easily. 

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