Well, it took five long months, but the 2008 NBA Sim Tournament finally came to a close about two weeks ago. And the last men standing were the All-Time Milwaukee Bucks. And, just like last year, I was so exhausted after finally completing this goal I had to take some time off. But now all the results are up so enjoy!
And, with the end of the 2008 tournament it’s inevitably time to start thinking about the beginning of the 2009 tournament. I’ve got a massive change to how I’m going to do things that will hopefully result in much fairer contests with more accurately simmed players. I also wish to have it actually end in the year 2009! We shall see.
Basically, APP is a formula I use to bottle a player’s performance into one number without the bias of team pace. Using this formula, Chris Paul performed just slightly better than LeBron James did during the season so he would be my vote for MVP. One big criticism about this method of analysis is that it doesn’t factor wins into how well a player is perceived to have done for the year. But I have several arguments against that critique: Firstly, basketball is a team sport and everyone on the team – from the franchise player to the scrub at the end of the bench – is attributed each individual win or loss. Sure, some players are so good they are capabale of “taking over a game,” but that dominating performance would most definitely appear in his individual stats which is what APP is based in.
). Even voters have proven that, while extremely relevant, wins aren’t the only deciding factor in who should be MVP. Since the beginning of MVP awards in 1956, the NBA has awarded the MVP to a player on the best (or tied for best) team, determined by win percentage, 63% of the time. An MVP has even been picked from as low as the ninth best team (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1976).
The annual Most Improved Player award is probably the regular season honor I have the most problems with. Not only is the conditions for candidacy vague like the other awards, but whole other realms of problematic circumstances come into play. Some candidates appear to be young starters who take the next step and become all stars. Others are comeback kids who were hobbled for a season – either by injury or slump – and have returned to form. Still other candidates are breakout players who were probably pretty good during the previous season, but now have more minutes or a bigger role on a (possibly different) team. By the end of all this, what exactly are we measuring when we say “most improved?” Improvement in performance? Resiliency? Exceeding expectations of greater responsibility? It’s mindboggling to this NBA fan who appreciates careful, balanced, measurable analysis. Meanwhile, the people who vote appreciate jumps in scoring, so 
Every team has 12 players, so logic would dictate that each team has a sixth man. But do they? Is the sixth man on each team well-known and his place well-defined? And, with trades and injuries, are any of these roles and positions constant enough to track? It’s all very vague so to determine who was the best Sixth Man of the Year, I first decided to create rules to define who was qualified as a sixth man.
Yesterday, Orlando Magic center, Dwight Howard, was named the 
I realize that the 2009 NBA Playoffs have already begun but I had some major issues with my networking provider. I already threw up a half-hearted week 23 post, here’s it’s accompanying week 24 (+ last few days) post.
Chris Bosh
Brandon Roy