I’m not surewhen exactly it happened.
Media,communication, society, it all changes pretty fast these days. But at somepoint, probably somewhere in-between My Space and Facebook, the concept of anonymitystarted to become a problem. It was manageablethen, the occasional encoded e-mail address and what not. But with Twitter, it’snow an epidemic.
And of coursethe problem isn’t anonymity, it’s a wonderful thing if you’re fortunate enoughto have it. The problem, is that it comes with a certain amount ofentitlement. That lack-of-awareness,fake-tough bravery that usually comes after too much to drink, or for those ofus new parents, not nearly enough sleep.
People say thenastiest, vicious, twisted things when armed with a keyboard and theinvisibility cloak of the internet. They are, more often than not, the samepeople that would smile, shake your hand or ask for an autograph if they sawyou in person. It’s a disturbing, ugly trend. I mean, sure it is. But it’s an absurdly small priceto pay for the freedom of speech we’re blessed to have and the extraordinary ageof technology in which we exist.
There are 100million people on Twitter. If a few dozen backwards teenagers, bred in ignorance,tweet something offensive after Joel Ward scores the overtime goal for theCapitals, it’s not a story unless we make it one.
Morons haveexisted from the beginning of time. So has classlessness, ignorance and hate.And they always will. Progress isn’t eliminating them, that’s a noble idea butit can’t be done. Progress is recognizing it, isolating it and going on withlife in the real world while the increasing minority of people fueled by raceand hate grows extinct.
It’s how we gotrid of disco, Members Only jackets and Lava Lamps. Just give it time.
Anyway, thepoint is that as big a fan of anonymity as I am…I don’t think post-season awardballots should be anonymous. Never have.I’ve been voting for NBA MVP, and the other awards, for fourteen years now. It’sa privilege, not a right. And I think with that privilege, comes a certainamount of accountability. I’ve always made my ballot public and I thinkeveryone should. If you’re “expert”enough to get a vote, you should be able to defend your choices, that’s all.
With that in mind, I’llbe submitting my ballots to the league shortly, and here’s what they’ll looklike.
ALL-NBA
I always beginhere. By picking the top 15 guys in the league, it starts my process in pickingthe five for my MVP ballot.
And thestrangest thing about the All-NBA team this year? In fact, the strangest thing maybe about thistruly strange NBA season? The centerspot. For years now, it’s actually beena struggle to find three centers worthy of all-star consideration. You’d convinceyourself that Tim Duncan was playing center even if he wasn’t, or that Nene wasreally underrated. It was astruggle. This year, if you call Duncana center, there were legitimately seven guys competing for the third spot.
Dwight Howardwill get hurt in all the categories, Defensive Player, MVP, all-NBA because ofthe (self-inflicted) drama of his season and the fact he missed the final twoweeks. But he’s still the gold standard at the position, and played the same numberof minutes this year that Dirk, Paul Pierce, Al Jefferson, did. Andrew Bynumhad a phenomenal year, to the point that I think he and Pau Gasol should reallyput a dent in the Kobe-as-a-strong-MVP-candidate idea. Tyson Chandler is theDefensive Player of the Year, no question. And although his 70% shooting were alldunks and uncontested layups that come with playing alongside Carmelo and Amar’e,he had a phenomenal year. Marc Gasol not only was 6th in the NBA inminute played. Sixth! He was a double-double, starting center on a home courtplayoff team. And if that sounds a lot like Roy Hibbert, it’s because he was aswell. Tim Duncan has willingly slid down the Spurs pecking order with TonyParker having an MVP year. But he’s had some old-school Timmy nights.
It was alreadythe best Center year in the fourteen years I’ve been in the NBA. The best since you had Ewing, Olaujowon,Shaq, Mourning, David Robinson. (Can you appreciate what it must have been likefor Acie Earl to come into the league then? I only ask as an excuse to get anAcie Earl mention in here).
But that wasbefore the unexpected addition of a first-ballot hall-of-famer, a 17-yearveteran and rookie center. In January, Kevin Garnett had to play center in aTNT Thursday night game against Dwight Howard and the Magic. It looked like itmight be a horrific mismatch.
It was.
Garnettdestroyed him.
And that set thetone for one of the remarkable stories of the 2012 season. Kevin Garnett, weeksbefore his 36th birthday, shifting to center, continuing to dominatedefensively while giving the Boston offense four shooter to play with RajonRondo. It was a game-changer in Boston’s season, maybe in the EasternConference season and while a lot of people are talking about Rondo as anMVP-candidate, he wasn’t even the MVP of his own team. That’s how good Garnettwas.
My centers wereHoward, Bynum and Garnett. Those three and Chandler were inter-changeable.
LeBron and KevinDurant were easy choices as the first team forwards. Kevin Love and Luol Dengsecond. Easy. The last two spots, not so much. Blake Grififn had a strongplus-minus year and obviously enough highlights for them to launch an ESPNBlakechannel in Bristol. Danny Granger and Andre Iguodala were my toughest omissions.Granger the best all-around player on the surprise team in the NBA and Iguodalawas great early, but was as culpable for the Sixers collapse as anyone. PaulGasol very quietly had a strong second half. Carmelo missed a lot of time, butshowed MVP flashes late in the year under Mike Woodson. But before their season fell apart, LaMarcusAldridge was carrying the Blazers to a top-four spot in the West. He held thatteam together longer than they should have been able to stay held together. Andwhile a lot of people in Boston are not fans of Josh Smith, and with goodreason, he’s played poorly against them it seems, for years. But the Hawks area home court playoff team. That wouldn’thave shocked me at the start of the year, I really liked Atlanta, but that’s becauseto me, Al Horford was a ready to have the kind of season that would get him onthis list. For him to miss the year, and the Hawks finish ahead of Boston,Orlando and New York in the East? Didn’t seem possible. Josh Smith drivespeople crazy, I get it, but he’s earned this spot. Led the league in defensivewin-shares, if you’re into that kind of thing.
In any case,here’s how it came out…
1stteam 2ndteam 3rdteam
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Now you see whyI do all-NBA first. Now that we’re down to 15. Well, 16 because Chandlerdeserves top 10 consideration. 1-2 is a no-brainer to me. People will say, write, blog and tweetanything about LeBron James. A lot of it fair, most of it hilarious. But let’s just step away from that for asecond to say this. LeBron isn’t just the MVP in a runaway, easy choice. Youcan put his 2012 season with any MVP of the last decade, maybe back to Jordan.I’m sure some people will vote for Durant, I actually know someone who’s votingLeBron third. But as Hubie Brown wouldsay, come on now…LeBron is the best player in the world…we know this…
The onlyquestions for me was one, who gets third Tony Parker or Chris Paul? And two, isther ea wild-card candidate that would knock Kobe out of 5th. The first wasn’t as complicated as I thought.Chris Paul will probably get third but in the west, best player on the bestteam? Parker. And after looking at Kevin Love, Dwight Howard and Luol Deng, Ibegrudgingly went with Kobe 5th. Have some remorse on not going Deng5th, but I’ll live with it, you can’t go wrong with Kobe onyourballot this time of year.
My Ballot: James, Durant, Parker, Paul, Bryant…withDeng at 5 1/2.
ROOKIE OF THEYEAR..
Really had a lotof difficulty with this one. I mean, the winner was as easy as it gets. KyrieIrving is special. And he’ll do this award proud, meaning we’ll look back in 5years and be glad he won, his name will fit in with all the others. Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, EmekaOkafor.
Brandon Knightis an attractive candidate, but finished last on his team in plus/minus. KembaWalekr by the way, has one of the worst +/- ratings in NBA history and finisheddead last in the league in field goal percentage, so no thanks. That Big East Tournament seems about tenyears ago now.
Kenneth Fariedand Greg Stiemsma were both bigs that made much larger impacts on playoff teamsthat we could have thought. But neithergetting to 1,000 minutes hurts their cause.
MarShon Brooksplayed lot. But not very well and on abad team. Klay Thompson and Isiah ThomasI had ahead of Brooks, but not on my top tier.
So I was leftwith Iman Shumpert, Kawhi Leonard and Chadler Parsons for the other two spots. Shumpert was very good defensively, but sowas Leonard on a much better team.
SIXTH MAN
Very similar toRookie. Obvious choice, followed byseveral, hard-to-distinguish choices for 2 and 3. James Harden will win, and should win, and itdoesn’t take a Metta World Peace elbow to the side of your head to drive thathome.
It actually wasn’ta great year for 6th men. AlHarrington played a nice role for Denver. The Sixers had two strong candidates,one offensively in Lou Williams, the other defensively in Thaddeus Young. JasonTerry’s been a stalwart in this category, and people like new blood, but I don’tthink enough happened to displace him. Lamar Odom and Big Baby Davis, two strongcandidates last year, weren’t this year.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER
Chandler, Howard, Garnett. Near misses for Deng, LeBron, Tony Allen and Elton Brand.
COACH OF THE YEAR
Have always hatedthis category. So do coaches by the way. Here’s what I mean. Doc Rivers wasCoach of the Year as a rookie in 2000. He hasn’t come close to winning it since. Does that mean he was a bettercoach then? Funny thing about this yearas how it changed during the year, Stan Van Gundy and Kevin McHale were strongcandidates two-thirds of the way in, they won’t get near it. There are at leastsix interchangeable candidates; GregPopovich, Tom Thibodeau, Frank Vogel, Rick Adelman, Lionel Hollins, Doc Rivers.That’s the order I think they’ll finish. I went Vogel, Pop, Thibs, but it was basically flipping a coin.
MOST IMPROVED
Not a fan ofthis category, too esoteric. Avery Bradley won’t get a sniff even though I’venever seen an overnight improvement like his this year. Ryan Anderson could win, and probably will. Somethink Jeremy Lin is a no-brainer. But as impactful as the Lin-Sanity stretch was? It was seven weeks long. That’s it, seven weeks. He played less thanhalf the year. That said, he deserves some resonance in a season that everyonewill remember him for. The unspoken rule is this is for a guy that went fromthe periphery to legitmate NBA standout. If it was from standout to star, you’dbe talking guys like Bynum, Conley and Josh Smith. But as it is, I went Anderson, Lin, Nikola Pekovic.
And there youhave it, a difficult year to navigate if you cover the league, a difficult yearto get the awards right, but we did our best to handle both.
And without anonymity.
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