Great Exercises in Internet NBA-Related Postings: 4.14.08

Do you find Chris Paul's 16-48 shooting in the past four games to somehow be "meritorious"? If another MVP candidate, let's call him "Bean," had shot 16-48 in the past four games wouldn't a lot of people be saying that he had shot himself right out of MVP contention?

I said before these recent games that I would not base my MVP vote on just these games but I have yet to hear or read anything from all the people who trumpeted the importance of these games to the MVP race; I strongly suspect that if the "right" player had shined then we would be hearing a lot about how much these games "proved."

Even though on the surface this was a great weekend for the Lakers, I think in reality their title hopes ended before the Hornets game on Friday when Bynum had that impromptu press conference in which he basically said he's done for the year. The Lakers might have enough to make it to the Finals without him (but it's going to be incredibly difficult, especially if they have to play Phoenix at some point), but there is no way in hell the Lakers can beat Boston if Bynum isn't playing and playing well.

I think the knock on Paul's defense is overblown, just because I think PG defense is a somewhat overrated concept. If the opposing team has a PG that features someone like Nash or Paul or Williams or Parker (Tony, not Smush), you can't just throw a great defensive PG out there and expect to contain them in any way, shape or form. Occasionally there are guys like Shawn Marion or Bruce Bowen who can use their size advantage to really throw off the games of great PGs like that, but usually if a PG of that caliber is held in check it's because the whole opposing team has geared their defense to stopping them, and not because someone like Derek Fisher is either A) a tenacious defender or B) a great flopper.