I have to agree more with Ben's overall assessment of his deserving the award than Rivera's:

"Dwight Howard is just as valuable to his team, if not moreso, than anyone else is in this league."

That is the truth. LBJ is a stud because he has the ball-handling skill to be one. Dwight's a stud because he's a stud. I'm sorry but Dwight is of more value than him.

Defensively? Better. (You can't question this. No, shut up, no one can.)

Points? If Howard took as many shots as James a game (12.5 to 25, respectively) he would average even in (this is the lowest estimate) 30 points a game. Lebron currently makes 28.6. And people would argue how damaging Dwight is at the stripe. Well to that I present a two fold argument in terms of James: Lebron only shoots 15% better, and how bad he is at 3's (33%) makes up for the difference. So they are equals.

REBOUNDS/ASSISTS? This is James is lauded most. "LOOK at how he averages 7.6 reb. a night and STILL gets his teammates involved with 7.3 assists too!!!!" Right, that number equals 15. Dwight gets 14 Rebounds a night, and still gets 1.6 assists as well (and getting better at it). That number equals 15.6. That makes them about even, and I won't even touch the fact that Lebron handles the ball a vast amount of the time either...(or that Lebron is only 2 in. shorter than Dwight)

BLOCKS? Dwight? 3. Lebron? 1. Okay then moving on.

STEALS? Dwight? 1. Lebron? 1.8. Oh yes, wow, this makes him an absolute monster. Oh wait except Dwight's opposing players rarely get the ball because he's so dominant on defense.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I'm trying to make people realize that we should not let others force feed the idea that Lebron is so much better than Dwight. At the end of the day you may refute some of the facts I presented (I'm okay with that), but you can't ignore how in every facet they are at the very least similar. Dwight is our boy and he doesn't throw chalk into the air to proclaim himself king, he doesn't take photo's during the opening intro's. Lebron likes to think of himself as a Jordan for the 21st century. That's fine. But Jordan never took pictures, Jordan put together his own shoes before games. Jordan never told everyone he was the best (Shaq, Lebron). He lived it. I'll let Dwight be the Jordan of the 20th century. He plays, he has fun, but he never showboat's- there's a confidence minus arrogance with Dwight that is not in Lebron. 

When people try to tell you Lebron>Dwight, tell them they have it reversed. 

With fox sports/msn. 

Pretty interesting stuff, he talks about how they are definitely in contention for the title, how they haven't reached their potential, how they don't need to make any moves because of how great the chemistry is (I found this the most telling thing from the interview), his picks for the NFL Playoffs and Superbowl, and blah, blah, blah on Mr. Dwight Howard and his dunks, and much more...

Lewis Likes Magic's Chances

I did some (rather effortles) digging to see exactly how close the Magic are compared to everyone else. 

So if you take away the first two games of the season, here are the "Top 4's" records:

Boston: 27-7 (.741 win %)

Cleveland: 25-5 (.800 win %) 

Los Angeles: 25-6 (.760 win %)

Orlando: 27-6 (.778 win %)

Stat's don't lie. Well that's a lie, sometimes, but here it isn't. We are 2nd in the league in win percentage after the first two games behind the Cav's. Also compound this with the fact that the Cav's only have a slight .1 stronger strength of schedule (out of over 100 points) according to Team Rankings.com's Website and we start looking like a pretty toy. If you want to add in the fact that we've also played more underachieving teams (76ers, Jazz, Rocket's, Toronto) whose record is actually not a very good sign of their talent, then the info above only looks better. 

We are in this. This is the point of the post. And I know come late January and into February we will know for sure everything we need to know about whether or not we can hang. After that we can wave our home court advantage in the face of Cav's and Celtic's fans who thought they had it wrapped up two months ago. : )