Kevin Garnett's stellar performance has led the Celtics to the brink of a 60-win season. He's led a re-birth in Boston that has most people thinking about a championship.

Tim Duncan's great play has the Spurs, once again, near the top of the Western Conference. He won't get many postgame highlights, but he continues to get the job done.

Kobe Bryant is the same killer he's always been, but he's finally being praised for it.

Finally, Chris Paul has become the league's best point guard while leading the New Orleans Hornets to an unexpected level of success.

All of those men have played fantastic, but even their efforts have been lost in the Paul or Bryant for MVP talk. Which means any other deserving player wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

Enter Dwight Howard.

The league's best center has strapped the Magic on his massive shoulders and lifted them to their best season in 12 years. But for some reason his efforts are hardly mentioned when it comes to the MVP discussion. Considering the Magic get little to no respect for the impressive season they're having it's not a big surprise. But that is the mistake of the so-called experts.

Make no mistake about it: Dwight Howard is a legitimate MVP candidate.

It's a long shot that he'll win it, but he deserves to be in the conversation and HOOPSWORLD is going to put him there.

Do you remember the Macarena? Well that ridiculous song was in heavy rotation the last time the Magic had a team worth bragging about. It was also the last time the Magic had a player that presented such a promising future. Sure, that doesn't count toward any MVP votes, but it says a lot about the impact that Dwight has had since arriving in Orlando . But we know, (or think) the MVP award is about the player who has meant more to their team's success. So let's look at some numbers.

Howard is scoring 21.2 points per game, (20th in the league) on only 910 attempted field goals, (48th in the league) both Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu have taken more shots.

He is shooting 59% from the field, (3rd best in the league).

His 65 double-doubles are 15 better than his closet competitor.

He's leading the league in rebounds, averaging 14.5 per game, (the most since Ben Wallace's 15.4 in the 2002-03 season).

The individual statistics are there. But unlike a guy Zach "the Black Hole" Randolph , Dwight's stats have helped his team.

They've enjoyed a seven game improvement – with seven games still remaining – and their first winning season in five years. They've also claimed their first division title in 12 year.

He has truly lifted his team; without Howard this Magic team is counting their ping pong balls.

The Magic added Lewis during the summer and Turkoglu is having a great season, so Howard does have some help. But so do the others. Kevin Garnett has Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. Kobe Bryant has Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Lewis is a good player but not as good as the other players mentioned, and a lot of Turkoglu's success can be attributed to the growth Howard has shown this season.

He probably won't win it this year; the thought that he's a 22-year-old beast with many MVP awards in his future will almost certainly work against him. But if you consider what he's done for the Magic this year you'll see that he has more of a claim than Garnett, and just as much of a claim to the award as Kobe or Chris Paul; maybe more.

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