THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015
PAGE 7
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It's going to be a long season between both these teams: We both never quit, we've both got great offense and great pitching. And we've got to go out there and find a way to beat each other."
Mike Moustakas via Kansas City Star
FACT OF THE DAY
The Royals have had back-to-back 80 win seasons for the first time in franchise history.
Royals.com
TRIVIA OF THE DAY
Q: How many players have hit multiple home runs already this season?
A. 6 — Cain, Moustakas, Perez,
Morales, Hosmer and Gordon all
have three home runs each.
Royals.com
THE MORNING BREW
Royals need to have great month to be successful
The month of the May has been a critical month for the Rovals over the past few
occidentally missed the Royals over the past few seasons. Even with last year's team making the World Series, the Royals did end up having a below .500 record during the month. Unsuccessful performances during this month have kept the Royals from winning the division the past several seasons.
With the Royals having one of their best starts in franchise history, if they stay on track and have a successful month, they get closer to being back into the MLB Playoffs.
Last season, the Royals were 14-13 going into the month of May. The first four games of the month, the Royals lost all of them, and three of those losses were to AL Central rival Detroit. The Royals were also swept against Houston later in the month.
Dylan Sherwood
@dmantheman2011
This resulted in the Royals going from one game above.500 entering the month to three games below .500 at 26-29 going into the summer months of the season.
The 2013 season was no different, and before May, the Royals were in playoff contention. But they finished five-and-a-half games out of the Wild Card. The difference? The Royals went 8-20 during May.
Kansas City currently sits at a 16-9 overall record, sitting a half of a game back from Detroit for first place in the AL Central. The two teams met for the first time this past weekend, with each team winning two games each.
The team has also had issues with
suspensions and a lack of healthy players. Lorenzo Cain dropped his appeal on his suspension on Sunday and started his two-game suspension that same day and will be able to return on Wednesday in game two of the mid-week series with the Cleveland Indians. Yordano Ventura is currently serving his seven-game suspensi and will return in the Detroit serl
Greg Holland is getting very close to returning, and could do so tonight against the Indians. Holland was scheduled to throw in a simulated game on Saturday according to CBSports.com. Allicides Escobar was put on the seven-day concussion list this past weekend and could return for the following series in Detroit.
Players like Kendrys Morales, Eric
Hosmer, Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas and Paulo Orlando need to keep performing for the Royals throughout this month,because of all of the teams' suspensions and injuries.
Kansas City will play
against the Yankees twice, the Rangers, the Cardinals, the Cubs and the Reds, as well as the Indians and the Tigers this month.
The majority of these teams have winning records to start the season, but the way Kansas City has played as of late, this could be their best May in quite a while.
THE DAILY DEBATE
Edited by Miranda Davis
Should Stephen Curry have won the MVP?
Griffin Hughes
@GriffinJHughes
YES
The Most Valuable Player award goes beyond who scored the most points or grabbed the most rebounds. The MVP should be the player who contributes the most to his team. Stephen Curry put up great numbers and kept pushing his team forward, making him the most valuable player in the league.
base player in the league.
This season, Curry scored 23.8 points per game, eighth in the NBA. His 7.7 assists per game was seventh in the league, two steals per game was fourth, and his 3.6 three-pointers made per game put him at the top of the league. He set a record for most three-pointers made in a season, shattering his own record he set just last year.
His turnover percentage was just 14.3 percent, 18th among players who played 80 or more games. James Harden was turning the ball over 14.9 percent of his possessions while playing more minutes.
Curry's impact on the Warriors,however,goes far
beyond his numbers. He assisted on 38.4 percent of his possessions, helping four other Warriors to average double figures in points on the season. He also had a true shooting percentage of 63.8 percent, the highest in his career. When he took shots, he made them; and when he passed to his teammates, they scored.
Curry's MVP case is about more than just his ability to score. On a Warriors team that was coming off a tumultuous offseason with a new coach, Curry was the rock that held all the players on the same page.
As a point guard, he ran the offense almost flawlessly from the first tip, and he needed to. The Warriors started the season with a completely new offense, and by the first game, Curry was running it like he'd been learning it for years.
The impact of a truly great player should be felt most strongly when he competes against the other greats. Against some of the top defenders in the league, Curry scored and assisted even more than he did on average. Against Patrick Beverley and the Rockets, he averaged 25.8 points and 8.3
assists per game
Against Ricky Rubio,
Zach LaVine and the
Timberwolves, he averaged
26.3 points and 7.0 assists per
game. Against Eric Bledsoe
and the Suns, he averaged
29.3 points and 6.8 assists.
Not only can Curry score.
Not only can Curry score,
"THE WARRIORS STARTED THE SEASON WITH A ... NEW OFFENSE, AND BY THE FIRST GAME, CURRY WAS RUNNING IT LIKE HE'D BEEN LEARNING IT FOR YEARS.
he can defend, he can assist,
he can steal and he can run
an offense. Curry plays his
best when the lights are
brightest and he helps his
teammates do the same.
The mark of an MVP isn't his numbers or his star power; it's that "V" part.
And no player was more valuable to his team than Stephen Curry.
Edited by Chandler Boese
Nick Couzin
@Ncouz
NO
Monday morning the NBA named Stephen Curry its Most Valuable Player. Curry is deserving of the award, no doubt; however, James Harden is even more deserving. When the NBA picks an MVP, they should look at how that team would fare without the MVP.
"CURRY IS DESERVING OF THE AWARD... HOWEVER, JAMES HARDEN IS EVEN MORE DESERVING."
When you look at the past two MVPs, Kevin Durant in 2014 and LeBron James in 2013, they were the most important players on their teams, as we have seen this year. As we all know, LeBron is no longer on the Heat; he's back in Cleveland. With no LeBron this year, the Heat missed the playoffs. Same thing goes for Kevin Durant and the Thunder. He was
out most of this season and the Thunder didn't make the playoffs. The team had to rely on Russell Westbrook.
James Harden singlehandedly brought the Rockets into the playoffs as a two seed in the Western Conference. That's an accomplishment in itself. The Rockets struggled with health issues all season. Dwight Howard was on-and-off injured, as was Donatas Motiejunas. Patrick Beverly developed health issues after all-star weekend.
The second-best performer on the Rockets, Josh Smith, didn't even get to them until the second half of the year. Without Harden, the Rockets would be nowhere close to making the playoffs without him, especially as a two seed. If you look at Golden State and Curry, the Warriors have arguably the deepest bench in the NBA.
If you take Curry off the Warriors, they still have Klay Thompson, Draymond Greene, Andre Iguodala and David Lee. Warriors, most importantly, suffered no significant injuries like the Rockets did. Those starting five could be a seven or eight seed in the West.
Curry has definitely had
many plays this season that left NBA fans speechless, but to get wins, a team needs points, and Harden scored more points this season then Curry. Harden had a total of 2,217 points-- nearly 317 more points than Curry's 1,900.
To finish the season, Harden finished with 40 points or more in three of the last six games. Harden is currently averaging 27 points, seven assists and six rebounds per game. That is something only the greats like LeBron and Michael Jordan can do. His points per game average leads the league and his assist average puts him in the top ten among shooting guards in the NBA according to basketball-reference roc
The Rockets have scored 106 points per 100 possession in Harden's 1,013 minutes according to NBA.com. But during his 298 minutes on the bench, the Rockets scored less than 88 points per 100 possession. Not only does he excel on the offensive side of the ball, but on the defensive as well. Harden's excellent season shows he deserves to be the NBA MVP more than Stephen Curry.
Edited by Chandler Boese
785-864-4358
PAINTERS NEEDD
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After School Care Teachers
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A POW PLACE TO WORK
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HOUSING
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