Bill Simmons on MVP. Thought it was real good.
1. Kevin Garnett
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way so you don't think this is a homer vote: I don't think Garnett is the most talented player in the league; I don't trust him at the end of games because he gets too wound up; it drives me crazy that he relies on his fall-away so much (especially in fourth quarters); and I'd rather have Tim Duncan for a playoff series if my life depended on it. Of course, none of that stuff matters in an MVP discussion. He's the one guy everyone will remember from this regular season (sorry, Kobe) and he was worth a 30-win swing to the Celtics this season. In other words, he's the first choice for two of my three MVP questions.
But that's not why I'm picking him. On May 22, 2007, professional basketball was effectively murdered in Boston. Garnett transformed every single facet of the franchise upon his arrival, from playing for the Celtics to coaching them to following them to owning them to working for them. What he did can't be measured by statistics; it can't even be measured in a few paragraphs like the section you're reading right now. It would belittle what he did. He transformed the culture of the team. He taught everyone to care about defense, to care about practice, to care about being a professional, to care about leaving everything they had on the court, to stop caring about stats and start caring about wins. He single-handedly transformed the careers of three young players (
Rajon Rondo,
Leon Powe and
Kendrick Perkins), one veteran (Pierce) and one coach (Doc Rivers), all five of whom could have gone the other way. He played every exhibition game like it was the seventh game of the Finals. During blowouts, he stood on the sidelines and cheered on his teammates like it was a tight game; because of that, the bench guys did the same thing for the starters and basically turned into a bunch of giddy scrubs on a 14-seed in a March Madness upset during every game.
The best word for him would either be "contagious" or "selfless." By Thanksgiving, the entire team was emulating him. Every time a young player got carried away with himself during a game -- like the time Perkins started going for his own stats or the time Rondo snapped at his coach -- KG was there to set him straight and scare the living hell out him. Every time one of his teammates was intimidated, KG had his back. Every time one of his teammates got knocked down, KG rushed over to pick him up; eventually, four teammates were rushing over to help that fifth guy up, and that's just the way it goes with the team now. Every time an opponent kept going for a shot after a whistle, KG defiantly blocked the shot just out of principle. Eventually, everyone started doing it. No shots after the whistle against the Celtics. That was the rule. It was a series of little things, baby steps if you will, but they added up to something much bigger.
You can't measure Garnett's impact with individual statistics, but these numbers seem pretty relevant: 24 (number of '07 Celtics wins); 16 (number of '08 Celtics losses); four (number of useful free agents who signed with Boston after the KG trade); 0 (number of useful free agents who signed with Boston in the 15 years before that); 10.2 (Boston's point differential this season, an historic number); three (number of Texas teams they beat on the road in a four-day span, as well as the Celtics' total number of double-digit defeats this season); 4,753 (estimated number of teammate hugs, shattering the record of the '84 Lakers); 42 (field-goal percentage for Boston opponents this season); 41 (number of home sellouts this season); and 3-to-2 (the Celtics' odds to win the 2008 title).
Look at the Celtics last season and look at them this season. Does any of the good stuff happen without Garnett? Any of it? Maybe his MVP campaign lost some steam when he missed 10 games earlier in the season; I have to admit, even I shifted my attention toward Kobe, Paul and LeBron these past two months. During a conversation with my father last weekend, I mentioned the MVP "argument" and he quickly responded with a fired-up rant that was very unlike my Pops. I'll do my best to paraphrase it:
"Argument? There's no argument, it's Garnett. I went to almost every home game. He's standing on the bench screaming for his teammates when we're up 30 points. He's a maniac! A few weeks ago, I couldn't go to a Wednesday night game so I put my tickets online and they sold in four minutes. Four minutes! Last year, I would have been walking around my office asking if anyone wanted to go, and I would have probably ended up eating the tickets. This year? Four minutes. Who did more for a team in one year? We lost 18 straight games last season. We were nothing. Didn't you watch the games? How could anyone be more valuable than KG was this season?"
It's a great question, and since I couldn't answer it without sounding like a fool, Kevin Garnett gets my MVP vote for 2007-08. Just remember, the "V" stands for "valuable."
