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Issue link: http://dimemagazine.epubxp.com/i/130678
Everything had been lining up in Paul's favor for a monster season. He was healthy, and coming off a fantastic run in the summer Olympics. He hadn't had a transcendent year since 2008, another season where he nearly won 2 about the most valuable player anymore. It's more about the best player with the best story. Expectations factor in as well. James' expectations are so high that he has nowhere to go but down. If Miami were to stumble down the stretch of the regular season, and James were to only average somewhere around 26/7/6, even if he still brought more to the Heat than any other player brought to any other team, voters would look the other way. At this point, he has to be better than last year, and that's almost impossible. The media and the voters want to seem smarter than everyone else, and they're always willing to follow the big stories. Remember Karl Malone in '97? Or how about Shaquille O'Neal CHRIS PAUL the MVP before losing out to Kobe Bryant's "career achievement." And his team is loaded. Like scary good. Seriously, we're not sure how they're ftting in Chauncey Billups and Grant Hill now that everyone is healthy; they're already LeBRON JAMES What, you expected to be surprised? The best player in the game on arguably the best team in the game, LeBron will be in the conversation for MVP until he's Earth-bound and flming commercials for Rogaine. Statistically, there have been few like him. We celebrate 25/5/5, but for James, that's a night off. He's in another stratosphere, a 27/7/7 expectation that would whittle the will of anyone else. It's not easy being the man night after night. But LeBron's been so good for so long they should give him his own record book, especially after he became the youngest player to reach 20,000 points this year… in the same game that he collected his 5,000th career assist. We know what he brings on the court: as of press time, 26.5 points, 8.1 rebounds and 7.1 assists a game while shooting a god-like 56 percent from the foor. The only thing that can truly stop LeBron's run, which would be four out of fve if he wins this year, is boredom. We're not sure when the trend started, but the MVP isn't really 58 at least 25 minutes a night this season, he is currently 22nd in usage rate, per HoopData. The best point guard in the world is being used less often than Ramon Sessions, Raymond Felton, Tyreke Evans, Brandon Knight and Shannon Brown. Everyone stop and give Vinny Del Negro a round of applause. Then there's that annoying bruised knee, an ailment that forced the Point God to miss 12 games throughout 2013 as of press time. It shouldn't affect him all season, but when you're already playing from behind the 8-ball – in this case: less minutes, less opportunities, stupidly deep team, and the fact that LeBron and Durant are on another planet – any hiccup could torpedo your MVP case. Then again, the team was only .500 during that stretch, losing to stalwarts like Washington and Toronto, so maybe we should give him the trophy based simply off that. Paul will keeping throwing up his customary 18 and 10, with solid shooting percentages, great defensive numbers and a sky-high assist-to-turnover ratio, as well as a major fair for the dramatic (don't overlook this aspect). It's everything else that'll determine his MVP candidacy. only winning one career MVP? Or how about Steve Nash winning two straight? It's the storylines that'll carry an MVP case, and even if that doesn't make sense, it's a reality. At this point, can you really argue anyone should be ahead of LeBron? It's diffcult. You almost must take the feld versus James, which might be the only way you can deny him. He's just that good. But his only true competition stepped his game up to another level this year. His only competition, a dude named Kevin Durant, is pulling on the King's cape, and as the leader on perhaps the best team in the NBA, is also the leading candidate to take home the regular season's biggest individual honor. NIKE 3 too deep as it is. They are so deep, so explosive, so exciting, so potentially dangerous that, for a while, there was a chance they would end with the best record in the West. If you told us that at any point during the offseason, we would've laughed. But Oklahoma City will spend large chunks of the season relying on two players, the Spurs are old and Gregg Popovich has shown he doesn't care about giving games away, and the Lakers look like they spent the entire summer frozen in carbonite. But what makes L.A. so dangerous (their depth) also threatens to derail CP3's shot at a Maurice Podoloff. It's not just the minutes either, although Paul is only playing 32.9 a night, by far the least amount of his career. Because the team has so many offensive weapons, CP is spending long portions of the season watching. Jamal Crawford. Eric Bledsoe. Blake Griffn. Caron Butler. Billups. Jordan. Hill. Every game will end the same way – with Paul shredding defenses off high screen-nrolls from the top of the key. But even last year, his frst in Los Angeles, Paul wasn't dominating the ball. It seems hard to fathom, but among point guards who are playing