Updated:Did racial bias sink Shaq's chance at MVP?

[mattmatik]

You forget how he averaged 8 assists per game?  10 in the playoffs?  Michael Jordan only averaged 8 once in his career, and never above 6.1 after that.  Jordan led a subpar Bulls team into the playoffs the year before (and averaged only *gasp* 6 assits per game) and got an early exit.  Guess who the MVP was?  That's with: Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, Magic Johnson, Larry Nance, Dominique Wilkins also playing extremely well.  Oh, let's not forget to mention that that team had Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Charles Oakley in support of Jordan.

Zing!

585897519[/snapback]

If you are referring the '87-'88 season when Jordan won the MVP, then I have to take some disagreement with that. In 1987-88, Scottie Pippen was a rookie and didn't even start, he was like 1/6th of the player he became. Horace Grant was also a rookie and didn't start...both only played about 20 min/game. Besides, the only reason you know of Horace Grant is because he played with Michael Jordan. And when you average 35 points/game, you are going to win the MVP. When you make your opponent actually come up with a set of rules (see: Jordan Rules) to stop you, you are going to win MVP. Not to mention, Jordan also was the Defensive Player of the Year that season. Personally, I think it was his best season ever as a pro (team success notwithstanding). Think about it: that is like having Allen Iverson (scoring) and Ben Wallace (defensive player of the year) in one player.

But, yeah, let's not forget Michael had Charles Oakley :wacko:

I think Allen's problem, if you can call it that, is just like Isiah Thomas'. They both are/were phenomenal, underrated players who were brilliant basketball players but the NBA, for some reason, doesn't market them like other players and they also are playing at a time when other players are transcending the league (Isiah had to deal with Magic, Larry, and Michael; Allen has to deal with Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, etc).

[Ji@nBing]

I'm not a b-ball fan at all, but I'm from Victoria, so I have to say it's pretty cool that he won :)

[beardly]

I think without a doubt Nash was the correct choice. What is surprising is that some reporters left Shaq off their ballot.

[djsaad1]

I dont see why shaq deserves it more then nash. Shaqs stats this year were pretty horrible compared to the stats he used to have. There are many players in the nba that had better stats then shaq, so obviously you can't give him the mvp for stats. So you go to the next thing, how much he has helped his team. Shaq brought the heats record up by alot but no where near as much as nash did with the suns. Shaq got his team to the 2nd round so far, the heat got to the 2nd round last year without shaq while the suns didn't make the playoffs. I am still not understanding why shaq deserves the mvp over nash, only because the lakers fell apart? Not only did the lakers lose shaq they also lost 2 coaches and only had 1 starter come back this year and maybe 3 bench players. That is a whole new team, did anyone really expect them to get anywhere?

[mattmatik]

Not only did the lakers lose shaq they also lost 2 coaches and only had 1 starter come back this year and maybe 3 bench players. That is a whole new team, did anyone really expect them to get anywhere?

585899514[/snapback]

Yeah, Kobe did :laugh:

[....]

You forget how he averaged 8 assists per game?  10 in the playoffs?  Michael Jordan only averaged 8 once in his career, and never above 6.1 after that.  Jordan led a subpar Bulls team into the playoffs the year before (and averaged only *gasp* 6 assits per game) and got an early exit.  Guess who the MVP was?  That's with: Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, Magic Johnson, Larry Nance, Dominique Wilkins also playing extremely well.  Oh, let's not forget to mention that that team had Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Charles Oakley in support of Jordan.

Zing!

585897519[/snapback]

Yeah, but Jordan's so good, he deserved the MVP on the two years he didn't play between the three championships, too. :p

[Fred Derf Veteran]

May 10, 2005. 06:56 AM

Did racial bias sink Shaq's chance at MVP?

DAVE FESCHUK

SPORTS COLUMNIST

Larry Bird, the Boston Celtics great who until last weekend was the last NBA MVP of the Caucasian persuasion, was asked last year if the NBA needs more white stars.

"Well, I think so," Bird said in an ESPN interview. "I think it's good for a fan base because, as we all know, the majority of the fans are white America. And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited."

One assumes the populus of Bird's white America was positively ecstatic at the events of this past Sunday, when a pale-faced Canadian named Steve Nash was given the league's most valuable player award, narrowly edging an African-American player, Shaquille O'Neal, in a poll of 127 writers and broadcasters.

It didn't take long for at least one prominent U.S. columnist to begin connecting the dots on a racist media conspiracy to create a great white hope. "How much of this has to do with race?" wrote the Miami Herald's Dan Le Batard, who, while he didn't claim to know the answer to the question, claimed "Nash stole (O'Neal's) trophy."

"No one who looks or plays like Steve Nash has ever been basketball's MVP," wrote Le Batard, who was apparently forgetting the white and short Bob Cousy, who won the trophy in 1958. "Nobody is suggesting voters made their selection while wearing Klan hoods. Today's racism rarely is that overt."

The column got smarter, cribbing from a section of Blink, the book by New Yorker journalist Malcolm Gladwell, which points to evidence of a subconscious racism that pervades society, the kind that, in the example Le Batard chose, leads Chicago car dealers to offer better deals to whites than to blacks.

Now, it's impossible to say whether a certain number of MVP voters, largely white men, gave Nash the nod, unconsciously or not, based on the colour of his skin. Maybe some did, and maybe some, suffering from some latent white man's guilt, thought Nash should be the MVP but gave their vote to the black guy. Who knows? Short of hurled epithets and burning crosses for evidence, how does the accuser of a crime of conscience get a conviction?

What we do know is that it's hard to argue a pattern of racist behaviour in MVP voting. O'Neal, the dominant player of the post-Michael Jordan era, owns one MVP trophy, so it says here he'd been shafted before he lost to Nash, each time by the supporters of an African-American MVP. You get the feeling O'Neal's dominance is simply taken for granted, like another hot day in Miami.

But take the case of Karl Malone and John Stockton, the retired Utah Jazz duo so inextricably linked they've got a joint write-up in the NBA Encyclopedia. In that instance, though Stockton's role as the pass-first point guard was arguably as vital to the success of his club as Malone's role as the high-scoring power forward, Stockton never even got an MVP sniff. While the little white guy got one first-place vote in his career, Malone, the big black guy, won two MVP trophies. If there were voters with Klan hoods in their trunks, you'd think they would have made the case for Stockton.

Pat Riley, the white Miami Heat president, said race had "zero" to do with Nash's win. Michael Wilbon, the black Washington Post columnist, went on ESPN radio and said he was going to "scream" at Le Batard for writing the column. Donnie Walsh, the white Indiana Pacers president, said that in his long career "race has been a non-issue in this league. ... It's a meritocracy." Walsh said Nash was a deserving MVP, then added: "I'd pick Shaq every year."

These eyes see it the same way as Walsh on both counts, but it seems there are no shortage of skin-deep conspiracies. Earlier this season Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal, who is black, said he felt the league's push for an entry-draft age minimum was racist because it will almost solely affect black teenagers. Last month Minnesota's Wally Szczerbiak suggested his relegation to the Timberwolves bench was racially motivated, saying coach Flip Saunders repeatedly told him, "You're a white guy, you have a target on your chest, it's going to be harder for you to succeed in this league."

In the say-anything NBA, race certainly isn't the last taboo because there is no first.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=968867503640

[L3thal Veteran]

Doubt the choice was based on racism. Just let Nash take his MVP award that he well earned.

[ANova]

Oh yeah, Nash didn't deserve MVP because of his skin color and the fact that he doesn't score 25 or more points per game. Certainly the fact that he helped elevate the Suns to the #1 team in the NBA with the third biggest turnaround in NBA history had nothing to do with his winning. Nor the fact that he is the playmaker for the team.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Some people just grasp at straws.

Edited May 11, 2005 by ANova

[YaZoR]

So what, he starred in a SNES game.

He's lived his life to the max! :laugh:

[mattmatik]

I don't get why people even put Shaq as the runner-up to Nash this year. He wasn't even the best player on his team (Dwayne Wade) nor the best player in his conference (Allen Iverson). Hell, had that stupid owner of the Cavs not come in and fired Paul Silas and decimated the team, the Cavs most likely would have been in the playoffs and LeBron probably would have won MVP.

And as far as racism towards black players in the NBA...give me a break. When was the last time you saw commercials with Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Manu Ginobili, or any other white player in a shoe commercial? Or a soft drink commercial? Karl Malone always got the press in Utah but it was John Stockton who pretty much made Karl's career (but, yeah, he'll always be the guy who wore short-shorts).

I'm with L3thal...let Steve Nash enjoy his award. He more than earned it. In a time when the NBA is all about isolations and players playing at 75% speed for most of the game, Nash is a team ballplayer who plays at 100% every second on the court.