I've seen Rosenbaum's criticisms of Wins Produced (which you can see with win score, it is a great team barometer but not individual barometer). I'm just wondering if being able to predict team results is the best way to measure an individual player's efficiency? I have no doubt that SPM is a great metric (superior to WP), but is it better than Win Shares on an individual level? I would be curious to see your response Neil.

Find a better analogy. The point of participating in the NBA Finals is not to win the Finals MVP award - it's to win the damn championship.

In fact, I'll give you a better analogy: Let's call this the 4x100 Relay Finals. Representing Boston, we have Garnett, Allen, Pierce, and Rondo; for Los Angeles we have Artest, Fischer, Gasol, and Bryant. And let's say that besides having a champion relay team, there is also a Relay Finals MVS award. Don't you think that, if we are to have a sprinter from the losing team win the MVS award, he ought to look like Secretariat against four tortoises out there?

Kobe has had two good games - nothing on the level of earth-shattering. The Lakers are 1-1 in his two good games. Does this really look like an OBVIOUS MVP here?

However, Penny Hardaway had a very good and underrated finals:

25.5 ppg, 8.0 apg, 4.8 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.8 bpg, 35/70 from the field, 11/24 3pt, 21/23 FT

If it follows that the "rich man's versions" of these stats are better, but generally follow the same relative correlations as the metrics in the study, then PER is actually a really bad predictor, and SPM is arguably the best.

Also IF the Lakers do lose this series (and the whole tenor of this defensive stallwart but offensively inconsistent road team up 3 going back to the opposition's homecourt to try to close it out in 2 games is reminding me an ungodly amount of the Knicks v. Rockets right now, and I'm really scared LA is going to take back to back home games and dash our collective hopes into Hollywood's hellfires), I don't think Kobe deserves the Finals MVP unless he closes out in spectacular fashion. I know we've only got 24 players to choose from, but just because Boston doesn't have one individual absolutely killing it, doesn't mean what has been a not-so-great series by Bryant overall should result in an award that has only once gone to a series loser. Garnett's defense has been tremendous since the series moved to Boston. Let the Ticket have the trophy and ditch his "not clutch" label.