(DANIEL EADE is a freelance journalist and regular basketball contributor for BPL.)

I don't care if Julian Khazzouh is the best player in the NBL, the league MVP cannot come from the team that finishes the season in last place.

At the moment the Sydney Kings are in the NBL basement with a 4-15 record and, while Khazzouh has been a shining light on the born-again club, it would be a monumental embarrassment for the league if Khazzouh is voted the 2011 MVP. Not to mention the message it would send to his Kings' teammates and coaches: if they were better then the club wouldn't be in the position it finds itself.

The league MVP must come from a playoff team or, at a stretch, a team that has won at least 50% of its games. Khazzouh and the Kings will accomplish neither this season.

The Kings are in last place. If they didn't have Khazzouh, they would still be in last place for, as great as Khazzouh has played this season, he hasn't elevated the team to another level where they are challenging for a birth in the playoffs.

Sydney has won three of its last four games, but that was after it produced a 14-game losing streak.

A 14-game losing streak through a 28-game season - that's 50% of the season that they managed to go winless, in consecutive weeks. A team that is so inept at winning cannot produce the league MVP.

Khazzouh ticks all the boxes on the stats sheet: 17.3ppg, 10.5rpg and 1.9bpg. But at the end of the day, when the losses are stacking up, the club is holding Khazzouh back from being a nominee.

If you swap Khazzouh with New Zealand Breakers big man Gary Wilkinson, I'd be raving for Khazzouh to be a legitimate MVP candidate, but as long as the Kings are losing then I cannot take their gun centre as a worthy MVP candidate.

In 1987, Andrew Gaze averaged 44.1ppg, an NBL record, but he didn't win the '87 MVP because the Melbourne Tigers only won three games (3-23). And fair enough. But how can Gaze not win for that season if Khazzouh is potentially going to win for this season?

Under the NBL's flawed NBL voting system, where coaches distribute 10 votes per game, Khazzouh is sure to clean up because no-one else on the Kings' roster does enough to consistently steal votes from him.

Khazzouh is being rewarded for having a dud team around him. How does that make you an MVP?

Don't get me wrong, Khazzouh is a very good player, but he is not yet a great player. Mark Bradtke, Chris Anstey and Scott Fisher were great big men who all won MVP awards when they lifted their team to success, not when they wasted away in the cellar of the NBL standings.

The 2011 MVP should be Breakers guard Kirk Penney, ahead of Cairns Taipans forward Alex Loughton. With a mention to Perth Wildcats forward Shawn Redhage, who before injury would've been a serious challenger. And what do all three have in common?

They're heading to the playoffs.