More complaints about the Naismith.

More complaints about the 2 voters who didn't put Taurasi on the first team.

The Courant demands (and gets) answers to the latter controversy. Durham Herald-Sun reporter Jim Furlong put Chandi Jones ahead of Taurasi. Star Trib reporter Pam Schmid put Shereka Wright ahead of Taurasi.

In my view, Alana deserves Player of the Year awards, and Diana deserves to be on the first team. But I also don't care terribly much, and I don't have strong feelings.

The problem with these awards is that the voters hardly get to see the players play. How many times has Jim Furlong actually seen Chandi Jones play this year? Once? Twice? He says he did "3-4 hours of research" before voting... I take it that means he spent some time looking at their numbers, maybe looking at individual box scores, maybe reading news reports.

That's no way to vote.

Unless you actually watch games, you can't know how good someone is on defense, how many loose balls they get, how many passes they deflect, how many screens they set, how many double teams they draw, how many big shots they make at key moments. Or, for that matter, how many stupid plays they make, how many ill-advised shots they take. The box scores just don't tell you that.

Of course, it's not Furlong's fault -- until there are more games on TV, all any voter can do is look at numbers. So until there are more games on TV, these awards just don't mean that much.