NBA at Midseason

All over the internet and sports shows, people are doing their midseason assessments. I got a little bit sick of watching/reading them. They were all pretty much the same. So I'm going to do what they did and add a little bit at the end. Enjoy.

MVP: Steve Nash: I really don't think he can be denied if he keeps up his play for the entire season. I really wasn't a fan of him winning the past two years, but he's just been on all season. Nash averaging 19.6 pts per game and an astonishing, 12 assists per game. The last player to average 12 assists a game for an entire season was John Stockton 12 years ago. The fact that Phoenix is 36-9 doesn't hurt him. A strong second half my Dallas and Dirk Nowitzki could win the award, but as of right now, I'm going with Nash.

Rookie of the Year: Brandon Roy(pictured): This years rookie class is pretty bad. Not only is the class not very deep, there are several guys not getting any minutes at all. Roy is averaging 14.5 points per game to lead the way for rookies this season. Roy is fortunate to play for Portland where it seems like ownership is finally committed to rebuilding the team with good young players instead of good criminals. The rookies are getting plenty of run in Portland, this will probably continue the rest of the season meaning the award is Roy's to lose. The only other rookie getting 30 minutes per game other than Roy is diabetic Adam Morrison, who is shooting 37% so far this season, that won't get it done.

Defensive Player: Emeka Okafor: Okafor had a good rookie season and really fell off last year. He has rebounded very well this year on both ends of the floor. Okafor currently ranks 5th in rebounds and is 3rd in blocks per game. His over 11 boards per and 3 blocks per look a lot like Ben Wallace's number in 03-04. The difference is on the offensive end where Okafor is averaging 15 points per game. He'll probably never average 20 pts per game, but he keeps defenses more than honest.

Most Surprising Team(in a good way): Toronto Raptors: At 22-23 the Raptors aren't threatening for the championship this year, but they could very well find themselves in the playoffs. Toronto has some very good young players in Bosh, Bargnani, and TJ Ford but most people saw them as being a few years off yet from making in real dents in the league. Ford was obtained from Milwaukee in the offseason for hairless Charlie Villanueva but has proven his worth so far. Ford currently has per game career highs in, points, assists, and field goal percentage. If he can keep up his play and stay healthy, Toronto should be in the playoffs.

Worst Player in the League: ESPNs John Hollinger created the "Player Efficiency Rating" which is too complicated to explain here in a short manner. Anyway, it values a player on his per minute value. So a guy can only play 15 minutes per game and be rated right up there with the LeBron's of the world. Right now the lowest rated player in the NBA is Jason Collins of the Nets. I wanted to come up with someone different than his rating, but when looking all over the league, scouring the stat sheets, there really isn't a player getting significant minutes playing worse than Collins(left). First of all, Collins was a first round pick back in 2001, which is sad. The thing that makes Collins so bad is that he plays so much. Collins has appeared in 43 games this year and started 42 of them, getting 23.5 minutes per game for the disappointing Nets. Collins, a center, is shooting 35% from the field. To put that in perspective, Ben Wallace is shooting 45% from the field and Flip Murray is shooting 38%. Yikes. He also shoots 49% from the free throw line all while averaging 2 pts per game and 4 rebounds per game. He also blocks a shot every other game and is seven feet tall. In closing, he is really bad.

Most Disappointing Rookie: Hate to pick on the guy but it has to be Adam Morrison of the Bobcats. Morrison didn't play defense in college, not at all, but scouts didn't care because he could score at will and his shot was amazing. Now he's in the pros and his defensive ineptitude is even more glaring and he's not making up for it with his shot. To the Bobcat's credit, the let him play and let him shoot. Morrison is averaging 13 pts per game on almost 14 shots per game, not a good ratio. Morrison will probably be a decent pro, but he needs to learn to become a more efficient scorer. Rajon Rondo gets honorable mention here because he got so much hype before the season and has been pretty bad.

Most Disappointing Team: Miami Heat. The defending champs are 19-25 and if the season ended today they would be out of the playoffs. Not only is their record bad, but they are doing it all in a bad division and an even worse conference. If is often said that great teams just do not get blown out. There may be one here and there for the great ones, but not at the rate the Heat are getting blown out. They lost by 42 to the Bulls on opening night, 22 to Houston, 24 to the Isiah Thomas "led" Knicks, 20 to the Spurs, 26 to the Bucks, 29 to the Magic, 28 to the Suns, 20 to the Knicks. That is awful. Sure Shaq was out almost all of those games, but would it really have mattered that much? No matter who they had, would they have won any of those games and countless others? I say no. They are in serious trouble. Perhaps the most telling statistic: Jason Kapono has led them in scoring 4 times this season.