(Daniel Eade is a freelance journalist and basketball contributor to BPL.)

I have a few qualms about Wollongong Hawks import Gary Ervin winning the 2011 NBL Most Valuable Player award.

While Ervin's skill and abilities cannot be questioned, the pocket rocket who burst onto the scene this season failed to carry his team to the playoffs, a huge X in my book when deciding on the league's MVP.

Ervin became the fourth MVP in league history, and the first since 'Jumping' Joe Hurst of the Hobart Devils in 1988, not to lift his team into the playoffs. (With all due respect to Ken Richardson of the West Adelaide Bearcats in 1979, who finished third and missed out on the 1 v 2 Grand Final; the only playoff game in the NBL's inaugural season.)

Ervin, who became the second Hawks player to ever win the MVP award (Mike Jones had previously won in '81 and coincidentally also did not make the playoffs that season), posted impressive numbers through his first season in the NBL, averaging a league-leading 20.1ppg and 4.4apg (4th).

But in the NBL, where MVP votes are awarded after each game by the respective coaches, Ervin appears to have been voted for as the 'Best Player' in the league and not the Most Valuable. And there is a huge difference between the two.

When you look at the bigger picture, the Wollongong Hawks fared worse this year than last when Tywain McKee and Rhys Martin controlled the team as the starting point guards. After losing the 2010 Grand Final series to the Perth Wildcats, the Hawks this season will not appear in the post-season, and that's where I find it difficult to fully support Ervin's MVP.

The team not only fell down the ladder, they failed to dress up for the playoffs.

The Hawks' record, 15-13 (15-12 with Ervin in the line-up), is above 50%, so it's not totally preposterous that Ervin was the league MVP. But with the Hawks enduring a nine-game losing streak at one point through the season that lasted for 62 days, is it right that the MVP couldn't help win a single game for 31% of the season straight?

Ervin won the award with 119 votes, ahead of Sydney Kings centre Julian Khazzouh on 118 votes. Next in line came Melbourne Tigers guard Corey Williams and Adelaide 36ers pivot Adam Ballinger who tied for third with 75 votes. All four of those players will be on vacation when the playoffs begin this week.

Townsville Crocodiles big man Luke Schenscher, fifth on 73 votes, was the highest vote getter from a team that is headed to the playoffs. Oscar Forman from the Hawks came sixth on 72 votes, and Kirk Penney from the top-of-the-table New Zealand Breakers finished seventh with 70 votes.

The NBL MVP voting system is now out-of-date. With the league nowhere near as strong as it was just two seasons ago, one very good player on a mediocre team (with a truckload of losses) is now capable of claiming the league's most prestigious individual accolade, purely because he has no one on his team who is good enough to steal any votes from him.

And while this wasn't necessarily the case in point with Ervin, the league came ever so close to giving the MVP to Khazzouh who, with the Kings, finished dead last.

I am not 100% against Ervin being the MVP, although I am surprised it wasn't Penney, but I believe that in being the 'Most Valuable Player' that player should put his team into an echelon that they would not be without him. Like the playoffs, for example.