Yi vs. Durant vs. Horford

Yi's productivity had been going up in the past few weeks, but in the last couple of games its slipped back a bit. Still, his glamour numbers are at a point where he's beginning to receive serious consideration for ROY, alongside everybody's favorite, Kevin Durant of Seattle.

Dave Berri of the WoW Journal does not believe either Yi or Durant are worthy of the award. He thinks the obvious choice is Atlanta's Al Horford. He lays his case out here.

I agree with him that Horford is the hands down choice for ROY at this point. But, I think his analysis of Yi and Durant ignores the fact that both are small forwards playing out of position.

If you consider both players as SFs, then Durant might look a bit worse while Yi might look a bit better (the only caveat would be what effect the position switch would have on turnovers -- Durant might have fewer, while Yi might have more). Otherwise I think its a well thought out post.

That said, I'm sure Durant is going to win the ROY. It won't even be close I bet. Here's why I say that. Recently, a reporter from the Boston Globe (I forgot his name, and had never heard of him prior to that), appearing on ESPN, called Durant the prohibitive favorite for ROY because of his scoring totals. The reporter pointed out that Durant needed a lot of shots to amass those totals, but he said Durant "had that freedom" playing for Seattle. HUH????

This is the kind of rank stupidity that permeates basketball journalism.