DWIGHT WINS PLAYER OF THE WEEK AGAIN

Maybe, just maybe, the voters for the Most Valuable Player award will take notice of Orlando Magic franchise center Dwight now.

Dwight won the Eastern Conference’s Player of the Week award for a second consecutive week. It was the fourth time this season that Dwight has captured the award and the seventh time in his career he was honored as the East’s Player of the Week.

Dwight led the=2 0Magic to a 3-1 mark last week while averaging 23.7 points, 15.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks. Also, he made an impressive 61.5 percent from the floor.

Dwight notched his ninth 20-point, 20-rebound game of the season, three more than the rest of the NBA combined, on Saturday against the Atlanta Hawks. His totals were 21 points, 23 rebounds, five assists, four blocks and three steals.

He had 22 points and 18 rebounds against the Heat last Monday, and 30 points, nine rebounds and three steals against Toronto. Dwight was huge in the Magic’s rout of Cleveland on Friday night with 20 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks.

Dwight leads the Magi c in scoring (21.1) and leads the NBA in rebounding (14.0) and blocked shots (3.0). He has all but locked up the rebounding and blocked-shot titles, making him just the fifth player ever to do that in the same season. His Magic are 57-19, just a half-game back of Boston for the No. 2 seed, heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Houston Rockets.

Jason Kidd, Dwight’s teammate on the Olympic team this past summer, was the West’s Player of the Week after averaging 13.5 assists and 9.8 points last week. On Sunday, Kidd passed Magic Johnson for third on the NBA’s all-time assist category. With 10,148 assists, he trails only John Stockton (15,806) and Mark Jackson (10,334).