True Lakers Fans

Great read by the hated Bill Simmons, complete with lists and historical perspective! 3Peat, you will LOVE this one. BTW, I disagree with his conclusion for reasons he didn't even mention.

https://theringer.com/bill-simmons-2017 ... 617e8d5df5

KobeMVP888 wrote:Great read by the hated Bill Simmons, complete with lists and historical perspective! 3Peat, you will LOVE this one. BTW, I disagree with his conclusion for reasons he didn't even mention.

https://theringer.com/bill-simmons-2017 ... 617e8d5df5

OK I just read that whole thing and I swear Bill Simmons is my brother from another mother but I disagree with him regarding MVP. It has to be Westbrook. I vote Westbrook. He just broke Big O's record. Love his stuff though because he lays it out there like I do. Bill Russell wasn't a better a player compared to Wilt Chamberlain either. He played on better teams so he won more Championships. Russell is arguably Top 5 because he was the ultimate winner, Great Defender, Great Leader, Good Offensive player when he had to be. Wilt was just fucking dominant in every aspect! I have no doubt Wilt would've won 8 straight Titles playing for Boston as well and his Stats still would've been off the charts. His Top LUCKY 13 of all-time is similar to mine so IMO he knows his shit:
His-Simmons/mine-3Peat
1. Jordan/Jordan
2. Russell/Magic
3. Kareem/Kareem
4. Magic/Wilt
5. LeBron/Kobe
6. Bird/Russell
7. Wilt/Duncan
8. Duncan/Shaq
9. Kobe/I have LeBron here
10. West/Bird
11. Oscar/Oscar
12. Hakeem/Hakeem
13. Shaq/West

Back to the MVP discussion, if Russ was getting all of these TDB's and not winning then Simmons and many others would have a point but Russ is more than 10 games over .500 and 6th in the West and dominating. Russ is a no brainer for MVP to me! Harden leads the league in Turnovers and is a huge flopper - 2 things these voters need to take into account. Thanks for article Kenny!

It's Westbrook. Harden has the benefit of D'Antoni as his coach. Just like Nash stole Kobe's MVPs because of "7 seconds or less," same thing here. I also believe that it is more because of D'Antoni's system that they won 55 games than anything else and if you did replace Harden with Clarkson, they still would have won more than 45 games because of his system. When we had Earl Clark and Jordan Hill as our bigs in 2013-14 (with despondent, injured Pau), we won 27 games, and if it wasn't for D'Antoni, we would have won 20-23 games that season IMO.

Westbrook then Kawhi then Harden.

Julius Russell wrote:Westbrook then Kawhi then Harden.

Love Kawhi, but it's a two man race.

Skill level elite
More wins than both.
Defense on another level than any other candidate

Kawhi should win it if Westbrook doesn't.

Kawhi's not the flashy pick -- and let's face it, flash goes a long way in the public's eye -- plus he plays for the SnoozeAntonio Spurs, the "boring" perennial title contenders. But he's definitely as big an impact player as Westbrook and Harden. If Westbrook doesn't get it, something's wrong.