Tonight, at 10:30 Eastern/7:30 Pacific, the Los Angeles Lakers will face the New Orleans Hornets in Tinseltown.

Potentially on the line: the #1 seed in the West, and an MVP award that could go to Chris Paul or Kobe Bryant.

Whoa. Really?

Think back to when this season began. Remember preseason predictions?

(By the way, I don't mean to pick on the people at NBA.com by linking to their predictions. Mine were just as bad -- but theirs came up first in my google search, and a blogger mustn't dawdle. And as long as we're parenthetical, predictions that later look silly are one thing I really really really love about the NBA. The game, in the end, laughs at just about everyone who thinks they know what's going to happen. Picking who is going to win an NBA game is like launching a three-pointer -- you can be among the best in the world at it, and still clank it off the rim time and again.)

In the midst of the mighty Kobe Bryant meltdown of 2007, the Lakers would have won a "most likely team to be launched into orbit to make things simpler on earth" vote. But they were not on anybody's "most likely to win the West" list.

The Hornets? The Hornets were in the worst of preseason predicaments.

Picture your typical high school movie. One of the worse people you can be in that movie is the kid that gets locked in the locker while everybody gathers around and laughs. What's worse than that? The kid who gets locked in the locker while nobody even notices, and goes about the business of their day. That was the Hornets. Praised by almost no one, and forgotten by almost everybody else.

Even people who love them some NBA are still not certain which city the Hornets play in. The conversation from a thousand barstools: "Oh yeah, the Hornets ... Charlotte, right? Oh no no, wait ... sorry ... sure, of course, Oklahoma City. Wait. I mean, what? Oh, did they move? Again? They're back? In Charlotte? Oh, cool ... good for them. New Orleans is awesome. Big Easy, baby!"

But here we are. That's the deal. All the teams that everyone loved in the preseason -- the world champion San Antonio Spurs, the Phoenix Suns who lost to the Spurs on something of a technicality, the Dallas Mavericks who had special motivation courtesy of the Warriors, the Jazz who were fresh off the Western Conference Finals, the trendy Rockets -- now have a combined 7.1% chance at winning the top seed in the Conference, according to John Hollinger's playoff odds.

And it's up to these two unlikely teams.

The way the tie-breakers and standings and everything break down, in broad laymen's terms, the Hornets can practically wrap up the conference with a win tonight. If the home team wins, however, the fight is on.

Meanwhile, in the MVP race, I'm a steadfast believer in the candidacy of all four candidates.

LeBron James, no matter what Cleveland's record is, has to be in the mix. Let's say Cleveland makes it to the Finals every year for a decade with LeBron James plus a crappy supporting cast. At the end of that, we'd know he was the most amazing player, right? Well, right now it's one down and nine to go. At some point, he will have backed up those fearsome stats.

Kevin Garnett, on the other hand, made the best team in the league out of the worst team in the East. When the Celtics have won their rings (that is the most likely thing, isn't it?) and everyone is dissecting the performance, we might all feel really stupid for not crowning this guy.

Yet if you read the tea leaves -- the brain droppings of the media who vote -- at the moment, I feel the two most likely candidates are the guys playing tonight.

Chris Paul is the insurgent. The new kid. The future that may or may not be here yet. And Kobe Bryant? He's the people's champ, even if he can't really jump over a car.

And now they go mano a mano (... a mano a mano a mano a mano a mano a mano a mano a mano -- not wanting to neglect the other eight players on the court.) What's going to happen tonight? Oh man, I am kind of thrilled to say that I have no idea.

In lieu of priming you for the big event with actual insight or clairvoyance, I am instead going to leave you with a broad array of information that is kind of neat-o:

• Kobe Bryant vs. Hornets this year: 27.7 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 5.7 APG (1-2)
  Chris Paul vs. Lakers: 26.0 PPG, 14.3 APG, 2.7 SPG (2-1)
• John Hollinger in a recent chat confirms that by the best review we have of box score statistics -- PER -- Paul is a stronger candidate for MVP than Bryant: "I think Kobe's argument for MVP is pretty weak to be honest. His PER isn't even better than Garnett's, who is supposed to be the non-numbers candidate, and it isn't close to Paul's or James's. If he wins, it's a guilt trip by the writers over the '06 vote."
• By a new measure that assesses rates of assists and buckets, Chris Paul plays a role in nearly 50% of New Orleans' baskets. That's darn near the best rate in NBA history. John Stockton holds the all-time record.
  
• Let's talk defense! Chris Paul gets a gold star for leading the league in steals. But that happens two or three times a game, and defense happens every time down the floor. We need a bigger picture view. I'm really hoping that Kobe Bryant will max out his machismo and spend some time guarding Chris Paul. I think there is little chance Paul -- who gets devoured by big strong guards like Deron Williams, despite his feistiness and strength -- will reciprocate. According to numbers tracked by the Celtics and discussed on the radio by the Celtics' owner Wyc Grousbeck nearly two weeks ago, one on one, Chris Paul holds his opponents to a field goal percentage that is 4% below the league average for their position. Bryant holds them 3% below by the same measure, according to Grousbeck.
• Grousbeck cited one of the many imperfect ways we have of measuring defense. Another is to dig deep into plus/minus numbers, which can always leave you wondering how much of what's happening is attributable to the player. However, on this front, I urge you to consider an amazing email from professor Stephen Ilardi, who has consulted with Roy Williams' staff at Kansas, and is an expert in adusted +/-. He writes: "CP3 is obviously one of the game's top offensive players, his overall defensive performance this season has been poor. How can I be sure? The simplest way is to look at the Hornets' defensive efficiency (opponents' points-per-100-possessions) with Paul on-court versus off-court. With Paul on the court, the Hornets give up 106.37 points every 100 possessions; with him off the court they're much better defensively, giving up only 99.94 points every 100 possessions. It's worth noting that Paul's on-off disparity is the worst of all Hornets players (starters or subs), so it cannot be a mere artifact of his being on the court with other poor defensive players. (By way of comparison, for example, the Hornets are 1.5 points better defensively with David West on the court). As you know, the best measure of a player's overall impact on the game's bottom line is his adjusted plus-minus rating, which adjusts statistically for the effect of all teammates and opponents, and also factors in both offensive and defensive contributions. Paul's adjusted plus-minus rating right now (through games of April 10) is +0.76 points per 100 possessions, indicative of a modest overall positive contribution. Put simply: his superb offensive contributions have been largely offset by his apparent defensive liabilities. Based on this season's adjusted plus-minus numbers, a much stronger MVP case can be made for either Kobe (+12.04) or LeBron (+11.35), and perhaps the best case of all for Dwight Howard (+16.57).

POST-GAME UPDATE: What a game! The MVP story was a mere backdrop to the Lakers' taking a HUGE lead, and the Hornets fighting a point shy of all the way back.

Kobe Bryant, the victor by a whisker, sure didn't hurt his MVP case with his play, while Paul was also magnificent. As much as his play helped Bryant's campaign, his rhetoric was even better. From the Associated Press (link also has highlights):

"The MVP nowadays is not an individual award, you really have to make your teammates better and elevate your ballclub. I think for me to be nominated in that race is a tremendous honor because that's really been one of the criticisms people have had of me, how well I make my teammates better. From that standpoint, I feel like I have already won." 

(Photo by Layne Murdoch/Getty Images)