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Originally Posted by Jordan23Forever
Umm, Jordan was a top 5 MVP candidate at the AS break. Did you have your head in the sand that year? Did you not listen to any anaylsts or read any articles?
Translation: Everyone else is wrong and I'm right. I made a comment and, despite being provided with evidence to the contrary, will not admit my error. I am not intellectually honest.
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Let's try and see it unsiased, then. And sorry if some of my calculations are incorrect.
1-
At the ASG break, the Wizards were 26-21. That's good for a .5553W%. Translated to 82 games, the Wizards would have won 45 games at the end of the season. Is that MVP material? Everybody was harping that Kobe couldn't have won the MVP last year because no MVP winner should play for a mediocre team. Guess what? The Lakers won 45 games that year. And Kobe played on a higher level than Jordan in 2002 till the ASG.
2- Reviewing the list of MVP votes, 3 guys are (IMHO) heads and shoulders over Jordan in the first half of the season: Dunca, Kidd and Shaq.
3- So, that's 3 of the "Top-5 MVP contenders considering the first half of the season".
4- Till the ASG break, the Celtics (Pierce) were at a .580% clip; the Sixers at .510% (Allen missed the first 5 games of the season - all losses); the Magic (T-Mac) at .510%. One can be said that all players' games compared with Jordan's.
5- Till the ASG break, KG had the Wolves at a .666w% rithm. And Webber was leading the Kings for the best ecord in the league.
6- From the 13 top vote getters for the MVP award at the end of the season, only 3 players (Tract, Iverson and Payton) led their teams to inferior winning % as to Jordan's Wizards till the ASG break.
So, for me, it's pretty much a certain that Jordan was NOT a Top-5 MVP candidate at the ASG break. Kidd, Duncan,Shaq, KG and Webber (i have to check his games played till the ASG) were easily more worthy.
That's 5.
Iverson, IMHO, comes next.
One can debate where to rank Jordan (till the ASG) between players like Kobe, T-MAc, Piece, Dirk and Payton, but i think it's clearly obvious that he was not a Top-5 MVP candidate. So, in all coherence, i'd have to say that whoever was saying that was lying. And that's while also ignoring the "Kobe can't be MVP because his team sucks" criteria.
But please, for me, go right ahead defending how a guy leading his team for a 45-37 finish in the East, while shooting .430FG% was a logical Top-5 MVP...