San Antonio Spurs: Breaking Down Tony Parker's Fantastic Season

With the best record in the league, the San Antonio Spurs are on the way to claiming home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. The Oklahoma City Thunder are just three games back, but the Spurs have exhibited exceptional consistency across the season. The driving factor for such a feat is Tony Parker.

At the beginning of the NBA year, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone claiming Parker as a Most Valuable Player candidate. His nightly contribution of 21.1 points and 7.6 assists is stellar, but he's actually been improving each month.

Below is a brief overview of Parker's statistics for each month, courtesy of ESPN.com:

	PTS	AST	STL
Nov.	16.9	7.3	0.7
Dec.	21.1	7.4	0.9
Jan.	21.9	7.9	1.1
Feb.	26.6	8.4	1.1

As you can see, Parker has been performed on a high level exponentially for the entire season. He is playing a season-high 34.6 minutes per game this month, which would seemingly indicate Parker's increased production.

Nevertheless, he is the alpha force on this Spurs team. Tim Duncan has the credentials and Hall of Fame career numbers, yet it is San Antonio's point guard who is the main reason why the team has had such a successful season.

Parker has registered three double-doubles this month, and two of them came with at least 29 points and 11 assists. He's topped 30 points in four games through February, which is an accomplishment considering he shot under 50 percent shooting (47.8 percent) in just one of those outings.

The 6'2" guard's play this season has been more than worthy for MVP consideration. However, with a certain forward in South Beach playing even better, it is unlikely Parker will receive the award. Thus appreciating his play is the best we can do.