The Unsung NBA MVP Candidate

Last season, on the heels of a 28-point, nearly eight rebound and seven assist season, Cleveland Cavalier forward LeBron James won his first National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player award after five years of finishing in the Top-10 in the voting but falling short each time. LeBron James had a great season, and probably deserved the award, but some would argue that the true MVP for the 2008-09 season was a man whose stats in every category pale in comparison to James´, but his true vale was to a team, once considered to immature to be a contender, that he brought to the brink of a championship.

Before his arrival, The Denver Nuggets, with Carmelo Anthony as the lead player and, for just over one season, with Allen Iverson on loan, were a team good enough to make the NBA Playoffs, but were not good enough to get out of the first round. Once Chauncey Billups arrived, the Nuggets suddenly, thanks to his leadership, became a legitimate contender in the Western Conference and for the NBA Championship. Unfortunately for Billups, he did not receive any first place votes and finished sixth in the MVP voting. This year, it appears that there will be more of the same.

Throughout the 2009-10 NBA season, the MVP race has been discussed as being a two-man affair. Depending on which side of the Mississippi River you lived, you either favored Kobe Bryant or LeBron James, the last two winners and arguably the two best players in the league. However, with the arrival of the Oklahoma City Thunder as a team to be reckoned with, and with Thunder star Kevin Durant competing for the scoring title with James and Anthony, Durant is emerging as an MVP candidate. Sadly, no one is talking about Chauncey Billups as an MVP candidate, even though his Nuggets are the only team being looked at as a true threat to the Los Angeles Lakers´ reign as the best in the West.

Chauncey Billups is not a basketball player whose statistics place him among the league leaders year-to-year, yet, since he has been given the reigns of the teams that he played for as the starting point guard and the floor general of his teams, which began with the Detroit Pistons in the 2002-03 season, his teams have gone as far as the Conference Finals, covering a span of seven straight seasons. Billups is known as a leader and he usually brings maturity and stability to the teams that he plays for. From the time that he departed the Detroit Pistons, the Pistons have gone backwards while the Nuggets, the team that he left the Pistons for, have advanced and become one of the league´s powers. Their turn around can directly be attributed to the presence of Billups.

It is no surprise that the league´s Most Valuable Player Award is part statistical analysis and part popularity contest with a pinch of "who is the next big thing in the league?" Since Billups is not at the top of any statistical category, and is also not the marketing darling that James & Bryant are, his only true option for winning the MVP is through being the next big thing, but since Billups has been in the league for thirteen years, that is also not possible. Therefore, unless Billups leads the Nuggets to a 65-win season next year with Carmelo Anthony not playing due to an injury that keeps him out for much of the year, Billups will not be seen as a candidate for next season´s Most Valuable Player Award. As for this season´s award, there is no chance that Billups will win it, even though his value to his team, which is what the award, based on its name, is supposed to be about, cannot be denied. The most valuable player, one would think, would be the player without whom his team would be at the greatest deficit. Take a look at the Pistons since he left and then determine his value to them, and then look at the Nuggets since he has arrived. That seems like the credentials of a valuable player.