[King Glorious]

The award was basically conceded to Kevin Durant before the season started. Through the first two months of the year, it looked like he had it locked up. Not so fast. The Clippers' Al Thornton is coming on strong. Living here in LA, I get to see this guy play regularly. He's going to be a serious player in this league. It took him a while to come around but he's really showing that he's a force to be reckoned with. If I had a vote, I would be leaning towards Thornton right now. Unlike Durant who's strictly a jump shooter, Thornton has a variety of ways that he can score. He's also a very capable guy on the boards. A comparison of how Durant and Thornton stack up since the start of 2008:

Note-Thornton(2) are his stats when you take out his games where he played less than 20 minutes. Durant has played over 25 minutes every game.

Jan/Feb
Durant.......20 games.....39% fg.......18.9 pts.......3.9 boards.....33.4 mins
Thornton....21 games.....47% fg.......14.6 pts.......4.4 boards.....28.4 mins
Thornton(2)17 games.....47% fg.......16.3 pts.......5.0 boards.....31.2 mins

Feb only
Durant.......5 games.......38% fg......17.2 pts.......3.6 boards...34.2 mins
Thornton....8 games.......43% fg......16.8 pts.......6.1 boards...32.9 mins
Thornton(2)6 games.......46% fg......19.8 pts.......7.5 boards...37.7 mins

As you can see, Thornton was right on par with Durant when combining the months and this month, has outdone him. It's even more impressive when considering that of the 21 games Thornton has played since January started, he's only started eight of them and he's started five of the eight February games. So he's getting his numbers as a part-time starter while Durant is getting his as not only a starter but the first scoring option on his team. Thornton has been on a tear in his last four (37.3 mins, 21.5 pts, 8.0 boards, 58% shooting). The race is definitely heating up.

The funniest thing is that Thornton wasn't even chosen to compete in the Rookie/Sophomore Challenge game.