The NBA Needs To Get Rid of the MVP Award

           

I hate the MVP award.  It's too objective and the definition of the awards is different among every voter and fan in the world.

Dirk Nowitzki won the award this year ... then promptly was ousted of the playoffs by a team that won 25 less games than Dirk's team and qualified for the postseason on the last day of the regular season.  Dirk was the best player of the best team in the regular season ... that's why he got the award.  This isn't to say he didn't have a great season, just that he may not have been the most valuable. 

Especially when the playoffs come around and he disappears.  The award is for the season, but when the chips are down he wasn't there. 

The guy who won the previous two awards [and finished 2nd to Dirk this year] is Steve Nash.  In those three seasons, Nash hasn't sniffed the NBA Finals.  This year, they guy many still felt should've won the MVP, had:

*a first team All-NBA center
*the winner of the Sixth Man award
*an All-Defensive first team player
*another NBA All Star

Yet, the "guy who makes everyone around him better" couldn't bring it home with those guys.  And spare me the gripes that the Suns were robbed of Game 5 because of bogus suspensions of Stoudemire and Diaw [they both did break a rule].  MVPs elevate their games when the going gets tough.  Just ask Magic, Jordan, Kareem, Bird and the rest of those multiple MVP award winners. 

The award is a joke.  I mean, how else do you explain that Shaquille O'Neal has just one MVP award in his career?  Heck, how does Michael Jordan have just six?  Or Wilt Chamberlain have just 4 awards?  Kobe Bryant, whom many feel is the best player in the NBA, hasn't even come close to winning the award. 

Why must we have an award to celebrate the person who had the most "valuable" season even though we can't figure out what's "valuable"???  Take Kobe off the Lakers ... and where are they?   Check out how Steve Nash controls a game and his team ... and how about him?  Or how Dirk Nowitzki is a matchup nightmare for anyone ... so it's him?  Or how simply great that Tim Duncan plays the game ... so it's him? 

Screw it.  That's why we have the postseason ... where real legends are made.