Editor's note: ESPN.com pondered who the best player in the NBA is during the All-Star break. This is how columnist Jeffrey Denberg made the case for Allen Iverson, who has been named the league's MVP.

They don't know what to do about Allen Iverson.

	Every time you look up there's Iverson scoring and leading his team to victory.

His bosses, Pat Croce and Larry Brown, alternately hug him and rip him because that's what you do when the prodigal son has a wild streak.

His policemen, the NBA, take his money with one hand and salute him with the other because that's you do when a phenomenon thrills you one day, scares the pants off you the next. And who could miss the irony when the league announces Iverson as its best player in January and then fines him $5,000 for insulting language that leaked into the NBC microphones the next.

He's Philadelphia's baddest little boy since Charles Barkley, only the Chuckster appeared to have more fun and only hurt people with his fists, not his trash mouth.

Weigh the good, weigh the bad. The truth about Allen Iverson is that this slip of a guy, 6-feet, maybe 155 with a soaking wet uniform, is head and shoulders the MVP of the NBA this season. Take it a step further. A guy who goes into nearly every game he plays at a physical disadvantage is arguably the greatest player in the league today.

Certainly, he is the most formidable force on a team that has the best record in the league. He is first, second or third in 12 categories -- second in steals (2.4), third in scoring (29.6), first in minutes (42.6), third in hoops made, first in hoops tried, second in free throws, third in attempts and on and on.

He put a 50-point beating on Cleveland, 47 on Orlando in overtime the other night when he put up 35 shots and 19 free throws, 54 tries in 54 minutes. Seven assists, five rebounds, two steals, two blocks. Imagine the energy expended to accomplish all this one night after he scored 23 of his 31 points in the second half to beat the Knicks.

"You can contain him, but you can't stop him," teammate Tyrone Hill said. "He has never met his match."

The Hawks' precocious young Jason Terry had Iverson stopped without a basket at halftime It was a different story after that. "All you can try to do is stay in front of him," Terry said. "If you work real hard and stay in front of him, then you have a chance. But you know sooner or later he's gonna use his quickness and get by you. Once he does that, he becomes impossible to stop because he feeds on success. If he's got it going you just have to admire him for being that good."

Being that good -- that small and that good -- Iverson should be the NBA poster boy, the hero to every kid on your block. They can't all be 7-feet like Shaq. They can't even be 6-7 like Kobe. But every skinny little kid with a ball in his hands can dream of being Allen Iverson.

	MORE ON DA BEST We have more coverage on the best players in the NBA than Allen Iverson. Ric Bucher from ESPN The Magazine hung out with Chris Webber, while Marc Stein discusses Tim Duncan. Check out the Best Player Index page to tell us your favorite and see all our features.

That's on the court, not off. And it's the off-court stuff that doesn't go away, that limits his appeal. Middle-class America looks at his tattooed body, his braids, hears about but certainly would never listen to his filthy rapster's music and takes a nervous step back.

The homophobic exchange with Pacers fans didn't help. The long record of tardy slips and missed practices. He carries with him the stain of a four-month jail sentence for fighting, even though the governor of Virginia pardoned him. Detractors still refer to the incident his rookie season, when he was a passenger in a Benz going 93 miles an hour and was busted for having a weapon and a stash.

The criticisms of Iverson are justified that he is far from a perfect human being, but he is an incredible basketball player, astonishingly resilient, knocked about like a rag doll but never knocked out. Earlier this season he was declared out a couple of weeks with a dislocated right shoulder. Remember? He missed one game. He plays each game with his sore elbow carefully wrapped.

The cognoscenti said he would never be a winner and the 76ers could never win with him. Brown changed that and in a running battle with Iverson, like a thoroughbred yielding to his trainer, eventually stopped fighting him. I love Iverson's line about Brown a few weeks ago: "With all the turmoil we had with each other, now I want a chance to pour a whole bottle of champagne on his head."

Brown likes the change in his game, the growth he sees in Iverson the man. "I've heard some of the stuff he's been subjected to. I just know the refs have told me all season about how much he's grown up. I try and focus on the positive things.

"So many nice things have happened to Allen this season, and he's done an amazing job. People all over the league have recognized how much he's done, how positive he's been. I'm around him, I see how much he cares about how people perceive him. Somebody ought to sit with me and hear the things people say to this kid. He tells me it hurts. My response is, 'You get them back by the way you play, the way you try.' "

Iverson is getting there. "Allen has another level to go to," teammate Hill said. "He's still not in his prime. He's got two more levels. What I've seen the last two years, the upside in him is very amazing. He wants to win, he wants to play."

Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.