One of those moments crept up on Pacers fans this week when Danny Granger, who was giddy as a school boy after returning from his honeymoon in Italy, received the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award. He joined former Pacer stars Jermaine O’Neal and Jalen Rose as winners of the award. Let’s just say, when I found out that Danny had won, I was ecstatic, happy and as thrilled as a middle-aged father seeing his fail-at-life son win the “Best Sportsmanship” trophy on his Little League team. After being shut out of the playoffs for the fourth straight year, any good Pacers' news that comes my way results in a shower of confetti and champagne around the apartment. Visions of grandeur floated around my head as I saw future Pacers' teams hoisting Danny into the air after his game-winning jumper in the NBA Finals. One award and I was back on cloud nine.
But there’s a little more to the story about this award, and it’s not a pleasant one.
Of all 24 NBA players who have garnered the recognition since the award’s inception in 1986, how many of them would you guess have won an NBA title? Five? Six? 24? Well here’s the scoop Alice (see below: Scrubs Side Note) -- it’s actually a big, old goose egg. That’s right. Twenty-four different players have won the award, yet none (zero, zip) have a Larry O’Brien trophy sitting next to it in their trophy cases.
SCRUBS SIDE NOTE HERE: How much do I miss Scrubs right now? My God, what a freakin’ awesome finale last week. I’m not going to say my tear ducts swelled up a little when J.D. walked down the hallway and saw the ghosts of his past (including the final goodby from Hooch in a straight-jacket), but man, did I nearly cry like a bastard baby when that happened. Kudos to Bill Lawrence for devising the perfect ending to the perfect show. Yet, after that memorable ending, ABC has renewed the show (according to the LA Times)! Give it up already you D-bags!!! The show is over! How can you seriously bring the show back after an ending like that? It’s impossible. You're only setting it up for ruin. The show will die quicker than the middle-aged father’s dreams of his boy actually amounting to something in life (see above: middle-aged father analogy).
Back to the MIP award. There are several reasons why this anomaly has occurred.
1) Decent players dominating on bad teams: Half of the players who won the award played on teams that drafted in the top 10 in the lottery the next season. It’s not a coincidence that most of those players had only one or two good seasons in the league and those seasons happened to occur on teams that sucked harder than (insert your favorite porn star…and that’s what she said). Had these players been on the 1996 Bulls, they may not have gotten off the bench. (Examples: Scott Skiles, 1990, Orlando Magic; Dana Barros, 1995, 76ers)
2) Signing an outrageous contract with a bad team: I thought the majority of players who won the award would have been in contract years, but this was far from the case. But for unfortunate players who did take home the trophy during a contract year, the result wasn’t always the best scenario. Because bad teams, which have more cap space, are more likely to throw larger amounts of money at bad players, the winners of the MIP award “go for the money” instead of playing to win. This move killed several careers. Had the players taken role positions on good teams for less money (a Robert Horry-esque move), they would have improved their “getting ass after games” quota. But their inability to “choose wisely” cost them in every way imaginable by staying in the doldrums of the league. (Examples: Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (the artist former known as Chris Jackson) stayed with Denver; Barros (again) signed with lowly Boston; Gilbert Arenas left an up-and-coming Warriors squad to sign with Washington (although they had one good first-round series with the Cavs several years later).
3) Only three potential franchise players have won the award: Tracy McGrady, Jermaine O’Neal (I just threw up in my mouth) and Arenas were all set up to be their respective “faces” of the franchise after they won the award. O’Neal (again, more stomach fluid-like acid stuff burning my trachea right now) only lived up to expectations for two seasons, McGrady never panned out in Orlando and Arenas can’t stay on the court in Washington. Thus, every other winner of the award were merely second and third cogs in the machine. This means Granger immediately jumps to “Mount Rushmore” status of MIP winners.
Granger is an elite player. One year after sharing the role with Mike Dunleavy (speaking of which, check out his blog), Granger has become the sole face of the franchise. He is our McGrady, our second-coming of O’Neal (good God, someone stick an arrow in my neck) and our Arenas. Now, I know all of those situations sound awful, but hear me out. There’s something different about Danny, and not in a gay way. His rhetoric is always about “getting better” and “working harder.” Apparently he’s the hardest NBA worker East of L.A. and West of Cleveland.
I don’t think the problem for Danny will be winning this award. Sure, he might carry a little more swagger now, maybe even think he’s a little better than he really is, but I think everybody can live with that. I think it's pretty apparent that Danny is being setup as the man to break the curse of the MIP. There's only one thing stopping him.
The most disturbing thing about this whole thing is this: he’s now married. That's a whole 'nother can of worms. Could be good, could be awful. It's a coin flip. Here's hoping the new wife is the second-coming of Peg Bundy, which forces Danny to think that the training gym is like Al's shoe salesman gig -- it's better than being at home.
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Da Man
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1 comment:
Granger will join Rose, Wade, and LeBron and earn a ring in two years.
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