Bill Simmons' Bogus Book presents: Sim Bits!

Hi again. I have decided to, going forward, break the monotony of long posts with bite-sized excerpts from TBOB that, despite their brevity, I found nonetheless objectionable. I call them "Sim Bits". And when it's time for a little something to cleanse the palate, I'll have another Sim Bit at the ready.

And because it is always so funny to assign a random number to an item as though the entire list already exists and you're just pulling one out of a hat...

(pre-post edit: the thing I just mentioned is supposed to have a link, but I haven't yet found a good example of what I'm talking about)

Sim Bit #17: Bill's 2005 MVP

From TBOB, p252 – “My vote went to Shaq because of…two indisputable facts:
1. The Lakers won 57 games [with Shaq] in 2004 and 34 games in 2005 [without Shaq].
2. Miami won 42 games in 2004 [without Shaq] and 59 games in 2005 [with Shaq].”

Okay then Bill, what do you think of these two indisputable facts?
1) Phoenix went 29-53 in 2004 without Nash and 62-20 in 2005 with Nash.
2) Dwyane Wade was a rookie in 2004 and a second-year player in 2005.

The following chart will illustrate the improvement made by Wade from ’04 to ’05:

But no, Bill, I’m sure you’re right. Miami's improvement in 2005 was ALL Shaq.