The MVP debate, part I

The zeitgeist (MSM, blogs) seems to suggest that this year’s NBA MVP debate is a particularly interesting one, centering around Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Who is more deserving? Who is better? Who’s made their team better? Who has been snubbed for too long? Who has more support? Etc, etc. In the next few weeks, I will be presenting several different ways of comparing these two, often in contrast with the other two players most often mentioned as potential MVPs, Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul. I plan on using traditional/modern, conventional/unconventional, statistical/subjective means of comparison, and I hope that you readers will help me arbitrate between them. To help in our collective decision making, I have set up a Yahoo! Versus vote, where anyone can make an argument for either player, and then everyone gets to vote for the arguments they find most convincing, leading to a reasonably good collective choice outcome. In fact, in the hopes of web-wide participation, I have created a button linking directly to the vote, and I’m providing code for anyone to add this same button to their web page or blog:

To put this button on your site, just copy and paste this code into your html editor:

<a href=”http://versus.bix.yahoo.com/vs/LeBron_James-vs-Kobe_Bryant”>
<img src=”http://arbitrarian.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/mvpdebate.png”> </a>

I encourage you to add your own arguments and vote, and check back often, as more arguments will be added over time, and you can reallocate your votes as many times as you want.