My Veracious Post

Sorry for the lack of updates; I've been out of town since Thursday.

ESPN.com has posted their writers' MVP choice, which you can view here. The aggregate ballot yielded these results:

1. LeBron James
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Dwight Howard
5. Chris Paul

Not horrible. The right guy wins, and the right guy finishes second. Which is good, because for basically the entire first half, we were sold a bill of goods that said MVP was a two-man race between LeBron and Bryant. As ridiculous as it sounds, early season buzz often carries more weight than full-season performance. In this case especially, that would be a travesty, because Wade clearly had a better season than Bryant. For starters, look at these per-game averages:

Points: Wade 30.2 (1), Bryant 27.0 (3)
FGA: Wade 21.9 (1), Bryant 21.2 (2)
FGM: Wade 10.8 (1), Bryant 9.8 (2)
FTA: Wade 9.8 (3), Bryant 6.9 (12)
FTM: Wade 7.5 (2), Bryant 5.9 (11)

NBA rank in parentheses; rank among shooting guards in bold italics.

So Wade averages a full three points more; while he shoots with greater frequency, it's by less than one shot per game. Meaning that he's been a more efficient scorer than Kobe, thanks to his higher field goal percentage and free throw rate, which negates a substantially lower free throw percentage:

FG%: Wade .491 (2), Bryant .467 (8)
FT%: Bryant .858 (8), Wade .765 (25)
TS%: Wade .574 (11), Bryant .561 (22)

TS% (True Shooting Percentage) calculates what a player’s shooting percentage would be after accounting for free throws and 3-pointers.

So that's the scoring. As for ballhandling, Wade is far superior:

Assists: Wade 7.5 (1), Bryant 4.9 (5)
Turnovers: Bryant 2.6 (35), Wade 3.4 (38)
A/T: Wade 2.17 (9), Bryant 1.89 (14)

The assists numbers are kind of surprising; yes, Wade has the ball in his hands more -- hence the turnovers -- but Bryant's teammates are much more proficient scorers. Perhaps Bryant isn't the amazingly unselfish player we all thought he was... Anyway, then there's defense:

Steals: Wade 2.19 (2), Bryant 1.46 (12)
Blocks: Wade 1.34 (16), Bryant 0.46 (69)

Now steals and blocks are just a fraction of the defensive picture; it's possible, perhaps likely, that Bryant is the better on-the-ball defender. But Wade's the superior game-changer, forcing turnovers and blocking shots at a phenomenal rate for someone his size. Here are just a few of the players Wade has out-blocked this year:

Chris Bosh
Erick Dampier
Joel Przybilla
Nene
Pau Gasol
LaMarcus Aldridge

Even if we go to blocks per 48 minutes, negating Wade's playing-time-based advantage over a lot of the field, he's still 34th with 1.67. Bryant's mark of 0.61 is good for 80th.

What about intangibles? The old "Well, if you took (Player A) off (Team B), they'd be in the lottery," doesn't really work for me; that's basically true of all the MVP candidates. At the same time, each candidate's situation is different, and that simply must be acknowledged. Yes, Bryant's team has the far superior record. But how much extra credit should he get simply because he has better teammates? The more reasonable thing to do is to envision how their respective teams would be if the two switched places. I'm guessing the Heat would be about .500 (they are currently 42-38) and the Lakers would be on pace for about 65 wins (as of now, they're 64-17). Okay, that's hardly scientific. But if we use John Hollinger's PER, which essentially measures a player's per-minute statistical production, Bryant has two teammates among the top-25 most effective players in the NBA -- Pau Gasol (14th) and Andrew Bynum (24th).* Wade's highest ranked teammate? #82, Michael Beasley. Beasley, by the way, is a rookie.

* Yes, Bynum has missed about 40% of the season. But Wade would've killed for 50 games with a player the caliber of Andrew Bynum. And don't give me Jermaine O'Neal and/or Shawn Marion. This isn't 2004. Plus, look at their own PERs: Wade has the second best mark in the league at 30.40. Bryant is fifth at 24.51.

Finally, a little plus-minus action, courtesy of 82games.com. With Wade on the court, the Heat are +3.0 points per 100 possessions; when he's off they're at -11.9, making him a +14.9 overall. Bryant's numbers are +11.4 when he's on the court -- which is superb -- but a still-respectable -1.1 with him off, giving him a lower overall net of +12.5.

All of which would seem to give Wade a pretty good case for the MVP, not just second place, right? Wrong. Remember Wade's +14.9 net points/per 100 possessions? You should, it was just four sentences ago. Well, LeBron's number is an insane +21.1. LeBron also edges Wade in PER, with a remarkable 31.79, which also happens to be the highest mark any player not named Michael Jordan has ever reached for a single season, and a mere 0.10 off of MJ's best. Just a historically great season.

In this comparison, the team record could be used to separate them because the supporting casts are pretty equal. Zydrunas Ilgauskas' 57th-best PER leads LeBron's Cav teammates. And if you do the trade positions thing, I think Wade could lead the Cavs to maybe 50 wins -- they have 66 under LeBron -- and I have no doubt that LeBron could will the Heat to at least 55. And while there's no way for me to prove that, you can't disprove it either.

So this is what my own MVP ballot would look like:

1. LeBron James
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Dwight Howard
4. Chris Paul
5. Kobe Bryant

More to come tomorrow.