Dime Magazine

NO73 2013

Dime is the premier basketball magazine, covering the NBA, NCAA, High School, Playground and International basketball - as well as sneakers, fashion and music.

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C O N T R A RY T O W H AT T H E modern game's critics believe, bushels of future NBA legends are currently playing. Kobe. LeBron. KD. Garnett. Duncan. Nash. CP3. We can go on. But what separates the truly great players, the ones who'll be remembered 30 years from now, are the MVPs. Sure there are some exceptions, and a few players become infamous for their lack of Most Valuable Player trophies (Shaquille O'Neal for instance). But for the most part, it's a pretty exact science: the greatest players of all time win the majority of these things. Everyone else is just fghting for second place At some point though, the league must do something about the MVP. It's too ofen about hype, rewarding the best stories, and giving the trophy to players who furthest exceeded expectations. The best players in the league have to go above and beyond. People expect greatness from them. Why didn't Michael win the MVP every year from '87 on? People expected him to average 33. They expected the game-winners and the championships and the lockdown defense. Not much of the criteria have changed since, and you'll see that theme play out in these rankings. Don't get mad if we failed to include a top ten or even a top 15 player. We all know the race for the Maurice Podolof isn't always about that. As part of our midseason celebration in this issue, Dime is projecting the fve best candidates for this year's greatest individual award: the NBA MVP. 5 Whatever Duncan and Kevin Garnett are drinking, they need to pass it along to Blake Griffn, Kevin Love and LaMarcus Aldridge once they're through because the two old legends have become the Benjamin Buttons of NBA big men. Parker has been the offensive catalyst this season, but when Duncan missed fve games at the end of January, the 6-2 guard went to another level, averaging 24.6 points and 9.8 assists. The Spurs won every game. This happened during a month-long span that saw Parker shoot 58 percent from the feld. Even though he's always been one of the best guard fnishers, that's mind-blowing. At 30 years old, Parker fnally earned Popovich's trust, and now normally runs the offense on his own. He's graduated, in a sense, and while Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving are garnering all of the limelight at the lead guard spot this year, you can make the argument that the offensive conductor for the NBA's second-best team and ffth-best offense has been better than either of them. TIM DUNCAN/ TONY PARKER Between the fast start of the Clippers and their 17game win streak, the Lakers' troubles, and the development of Kyrie Irving and James Harden, no one noticed San Antonio. That's nothing new. Last season, the Spurs won 20 straight games without fanfare, and then garnered a host of "Are the Spurs done?" stories once OKC topped them four straight times to go to the NBA Finals. Yet here we are, just past the NBA's midseason classic and the Spurs have the best record in the NBA (49-16 as of press time). That's amazing, especially when you consider Gregg Popovich will throw a game if he has to. There's Manu Ginobili, who's missed time this season with injuries, and even when he has played, is having his worst season in a decade. Kawhi Leonard hasn't made the leap many expected this year, and San Antonio still doesn't have a completely reliable second big man. How have they done it? By relying on their two best players. Tony Parker and Tim Duncan are both playing out of their minds. Duncan hasn't played at this level in four years, and TP might've been having the best season of his career before going down with an ankle injury. Popovich is monitoring their minutes more closely than ever, and really, if the Big Swimmer was averaging more than 29.6 minutes of PT a night, he'd have a case to be the MVP and the Defensive Player of the Year. Despite not being able to jump over… well, anything these days, Duncan is blocking shots at by far the highest rate of his career, and while the Spurs are a worse than average rebounding team, without Duncan they completely fall off on the glass. 56 To pick between Duncan and Parker is almost impossible. Without Duncan, the team's defense falls apart, and they get pounded into submission on the glass. Without Duncan, they have no post presence, and no way to play inside-out for open shots. But without Parker, they lose their most consistent playmaker, and the man whose slashes open up shots for San Antonio, which makes the ffth-most three-pointers in the NBA. No one really believes we'll see San Antonio in the Finals, partly because this group hasn't gotten there in six years, and because they lack a big-time scoring threat. We saw them wilt the last few years once the intensity picks up, almost like the John Stockton of NBA teams. Stockton played so hard all the time that when everyone would lift their game to another level (the postseason), he couldn't do it. He was already playing at max effort. So it's a good thing the NBA MVP isn't a postseason award because Duncan and Parker deserve to be in the conversation.

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