I check NBA.com more than my email and facebook combined

It's not for inactivity. Actually relatively speaking it is. There is no way either can compete for activity with NBA as it is a sport that averages probably 5 games a day.

It's great though, I love the basketball season when its on. I would never ever go watch an NBL game mind you. I can still remember the days of childhood where inadvertantly buying NBL merchandise (usually the parents mistake) left you feeling real stupid.

Anyway, the rookie season is exciting this year. Unlike last year where it was a one horse race. Furthermore whereas the past few years the Eastern Conference was dismal but had a lot of my favorite players in it, this year it's reversed, Lakers are the new Celtics, the Celtics are the new lakers, Wade is the new old Kobe and Kobe is the new... Dirk Nowitzki? Which is probably all gibberish to you.

One thing that sucks though is that Lebron James is dominating the Race to MVP. For the exact inverse reasons that Kobe was cheated of MVP. Albeit I guess James is both winning and carrying his team unlike when Kobe carried his team and lost. But James whilst not having a star studded line up has a star sprinkled line up at least. This is no Smush Parker, Kwame Brown shite parade.

There is a question out there though on what makes an MVP? Most Valuable Player. And that's investment terminology. It would be interesting to see a MPP - Most Profitable Player award go to the best return on investment. Objectively the Most Valuable Player should just go to the highest paid player each year in AFL this means Kouta would have won it back to back to back in 3 of his worst seasons ever.

It would also mean Kobe would have one it the past 6 years running. Lebron the perennial runner up. But I don't think and wouldn't bank on a sitution where the best player in the league is not considered the most valuable because the team hold back on using him.

Sure it could lead to diminished form, but I have to say the idea of a Lakers team that has Kobe up their sleave 'just in case' it looks like losing is something to be feared far more than a Lakers team of past years where they lead with Kobe and benched him rarely.

This team arguably doesn't need Phil Jackson's triangle offence with Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum as the base line players. Anyone would probably be tempted to just lob the ball up towards the goal for a probable 3-1 chance one of your pals would score on the tip in.

Then MVP isn't just complicated by team depth, there's the 'intangibles' meaning stuf f that isn't measured. The best case of this right now is probably Chauncey Billups. Mr. Big Shot is a clutch player and plays a slow half-court style game. As such he breaks any run-and-gun tempos in favor of set plays. So his stats aren't impressive because his style is all about slowing down the game. Winning 90-80 instead of 134-131. His scoring is low, blocks low, steals low and assists low (mind you without any of those stats taking him out of the top 10 in the league but there's no stat line for 'controlling the game' the statisticians don't have a 'possession' or 'seconds per possession' stat like the disposals in AFL where the maxim of 'he holds the ball controls the game' is widely acknowledged.

Then there's the Tim Duncans, whom are boring and I think rules should be designed to discourage future Duncan style play. That said Bill Russell wisely pointed out that Duncan is great at 'playing without the ball' these intangibles aren't captured either. The screens and box outs etc that can be big contributors to the outcome but not to your lines as a player. Same same for great passes that aren't assists. Frankly though I don't really know how you'd categorize something as a great pass that isn't an assist. Because the cuasation is hard to follow.

Anyway if this post was all gibberish to you, at least take away that success is hard to define, as is excellence and genius. There's only ever a vague sense that we know what we are seeing, and what we are seeing is someone successful at being an excellent genius. But you can apply it to the flaws in any performance indicators of any job role on the planet. They don't need to be perfect, they just need to be close.