Mid-Season Awards

Wow! The season's half over already. Three more months, and we've got playoff basketball once again. Not only that, but Portland might play into the playoff picture this year. At first this thought makes me giddy, and then I think about all the money that I will be forced to spend on tickets, and I smack my forehead and curse silently. Why me?!?

I have noticed that if you want to be taken seriously as a pundit, you must dole out "mid-season awards" as if there are such things, and as if your opinion is worthy of scholarly recognition. Ergo, my fake, meaningless awards...


MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
LeBron James



The popular choice is Kevin Garnett here, but it's wrong. Sure, Boston's got the best record in the league, and Garnett is the biggest reason why, but giving the award to Garnett would, in my estimation, diminish the efforts of Allen and Pierce. I've also heard Dwight Howard mentioned in the MVP conversation, but there's no way he's more more valuable to the Magic than Brandon Roy is to the Blazers, or Chris Paul to the Hornets, or even Carmelo to Denver.

There are only two clear MVP candidates this season - LeBron and Kobe. At first I was gonna give it to Kobe, simply because I feel so pretentious capitalizing the 'B' in LeBron. I feel so stupid even writing it. Imagine if you have a name like LeBron, or LaMarcus, or DeShawn. What a pain that would be. Or what about JamesOn, as in the Chicago Bulls' JamesOn Curry. How do you even pronounce it? Do you say "Jamison", as in my old friend Jamison Smith, or "James On", as in "Hey James - on which concoction of drugs was your mom when she named you?"

LeBron gets my vote because he plays on a terrible team, his coach is a bumbling goofball, and yet somehow it looks like things are coming together as they (or he) gets ready for another deep playoff run. Without LeBron, Cleveland's the worst team in the league. With him, they might make it back to the Finals. Go figure.



ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Kevin Durant



Yeah, he'll win the award at the end of the season, but check this out: he's shooting under 40% from the floor! 28% from 3! That's terrible. Is it because defenses collapse on him, due to the fact that there's nobody else that's decent on his team? Is it because of the pressure thrust upon him as the main offensive threat of a team whose future is in limbo? I don't know. But what I do know is that I still can't say whether or not the Blazers made the right decision in passing him up. At this point, I would have assumed that we would have known.



COACH OF THE YEAR
Nate McMillan



He deserves the award for finally - finally - easing up on his team and taking the Sergeant hat off. Basketball is a fun game, and when you take the fun out of it, young players sometimes play with a chip on their shoulder that bring them down and inhibits their performance on the court. McMillan eased up, and the Blazers immediately won 13 games in a row. I still don't agree with McMillan's style, or his substitution patters, or his insistence of playing Jarrett Jack in the fourth quarter of close games, but whatever he's doing, it's working. The players are happy, and the team is winning.



MOST SURPRISING TEAM
Los Angeles Lakers



The Blazers are up there, obviously, and the Hornets are playing out of their minds. But there were signs that Portland and New Orleans would be pretty good coming into the season. The Lakers? Kobe demanded a trade, and Phil Jackson was unhappy, and they were stuck with Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm as their big men. It didn't look good. Now? They're 4 games behind first place in the West. Of course, the Lakers have already started to crash and burn, as Andrew Bynum will be out for five more weeks. And Kobe still won't officially rescind his trade demand. Some things never change.



BIGGEST JOKE
Miami Heat



Disappointment? Who's disappointed? Not me, that's for sure. The Heat got lucky in 2006, winning a championship thanks to Dwyane Wade's amazing ability to drive into the lane, jump up towards the rim and flail about in a desperate attempt to draw a foul. But now, Shaq's older and slower, Wade's shoulder is still bothering him, and Pat Riley is a senile old git. This should have been obvious before the season even started, when Miami signed Smush Parker and Penny Hardaway instead of keeping Jason Kapono, who happened to be their only legitimate outside shooter. As a result, Miami is 9-34. That's a game ahead of Minnesota for the worst record in the league. And they were champs in '06? Flame on!

TJH