Steve Nash said he would have voted for Shaquille O’Neal as the NBA’s MVP, and that’s not just a great player showing a great sense of sportsmanship. That’s a great player recognizing a valuable player when he sees one.

The voters didn’t see it that way. And for the 12th time in Shaq’s 13 Hall-of-Fame seasons, someone other than the most dominant player in the game is the most valuable player in pro basketball.

It is beyond preposterous that one man has done so much and has so little individual hardware to show for it. It is almost as if O’Neal is being punished for being big and powerful and able to impose his will on a game.

“I would probably vote for Shaquille,” Nash told the Associated Press. “He’s one of the greatest ever to play the game. I look up to him. He’s a huge part of this game’s history already. He’s one of the very best personalities and players in the game’s history.”

Do not take this in any way as being dismissive of Nash’s qualifications for the award. He came to a team that won 29 games last season and led it to a league-best 62-20 record. He led all players with 11.5 assists per game. Nash is a worthy choice for the game’s top individual honor.

But the league faced a similar decision three years ago, when Tim Duncan was the dominant player for the Spurs, who would win the championship, and Jason Kidd had a spectacular season in leading the Nets to the NBA East title and the NBA Finals. That year, it seemed as if the point guard who led a fast-breaking team should have won the award, but Duncan, the big man who scored the high-percentage shots and hauled down the rebounds took it instead.

This year would seem to be a repeat of 2002, but it wasn’t Duncan –- as popular a player as there is in the game –- who was the big man; it was Shaq.

The Heat center is certainly popular, but not the way Duncan is. Shaq is famous off the court for a personality as big as his substantial physique. Duncan is famous for quiet dignity and being a sterling community leader. It’s as if the voters are choosing the person they like the most instead of the one who makes the biggest difference.

If it were just this year, it would be understandable. Nash’s year and his contribution to his team were extraordinary.

But it’s not just this year; it’s every year.

The NBA has had just a handful of truly dominant centers in its history. All of them have won multiple MVP trophies. The first unstoppable big man was Wilt Chamberlain, and he won four MVPs. Bill Russell was Wilt’s nemesis, and Russell won five trophies. Then came Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won the MVP six times. Interspersed with his were the three won by Philadelphia’s great big man, Moses Malone.

Among the great centers who won just one MVP are Hakeem Olajuwon, Willis Reed, David Robinson and Bill Walton. But Walton’s career was dogged by injuries, Olajuwon played when Abdul-Jabber, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan were monopolizing the trophy. The same goes for Robinson. And Reed was an undersized center whose greatness was due more to the great Knicks’ team around him than to his own talent. Take him off that team and he’s still a good player, but he’s not a great player.

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