Amare Stoudemire: The Odds-On Favorite for NBA MVP

That's right, I said it. Amare Stoudemire will win this year's MVP award. 

To everyone’s surprise, the Phoenix Suns will be a top team in the West this year. I’m projecting a No. 3 seed in the West. With Terry Porter’s emphasis on defense, the Suns now have a legitimate chance, come playoff time, to make it past some tough teams.

This has not been the case for the past couple of years where the Suns spent no time at all

working on defense, and just tried to run everyone off the court. Running was great for Phoenix to gain fans, and expand their brand name across the country. However, it was not a style to win championships in the NBA.

Everyone knows the phrase “defense wins championships,” which is usually the case once the playoffs start. Unfortunately, former coach Mike D'Antoni wouldn’t even try to get an assistant to teach defense, so he left for New York.

To start this year, the Suns are giving up 98 points per game compared to 105 under D'Antoni. So far, the offense is scoring 106 points a game compared to 110 points a game under D'Antoni. That is a three-point-per-game positive increase in their spread. So far, so good.

This is where I come back to Amare. Granted, Amare is not the best or even a great one-on-one defender. Now that Shaquille O'Neal will be playing semi-full-time at center, Amare can play off-the-ball defense.

He finished the other night against Indiana with 49 points, 11 rebounds, six assists, five steals, and two blocked shots, while hitting 17-of-21 shots from the field and going 15-of-15 from the free throw line. It doesn’t get much better than that, and two of those missed shots were three-pointers taken trying to beat the 24-second shot clock.

Amare is now more of a focal point in the Suns' semi-slowed-down attack, and could easily be in the top-three in scoring this year. If he averages 10 rebounds a game for the first time in his career, he will become one of the top choices for MVP.

It’s going to be a tough sale, considering Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Joe Johnson, and Kevin Garnett are going to have great seasons. I project the Suns win 58 games this year, taking third in the Western Conference behind New Orleans and Los Angeles.

Steve Nash is the Suns' leader, but Amare’s amazing efficiency on offense from the post, to the outside, to the free-throw line, along with his improving defense, will send the team further this season than the last four years. Go Suns!