Deciding the NBA's Most Valuable Player is a lot like trying to select a favorite ice cream. Vanilla, chocolate or strawberry?

Here's the hoop scoop: It's sort of hard to make a wrong pick.

Friendly rivals Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade offer intriguing choices with two weeks left in the regular season. The brilliant play by the trio, the NBA's highest-scoring threesome, has ignited one of the most interesting arguments in years for the league's most prestigious solo honor.

Only 27 players have won the award since it was instituted for the 1955-56 season.

The debate regarding the NBA's three most marketable and popular players began months ago but took on a new flavor last month because of Wade's emergence into the conversation.

The race had been considered a two-man sprint between the Cleveland Cavaliers' James and the Los Angeles Lakers' Bryant, who won it for the first time last season. Neither James nor the Miami Heat's Wade has captured the hard-to-get hardware.

"If I had to pick, you know what I'd do?" asks Hall of Fame center Bill Russell, a five-time MVP with the Boston Celtics. "For the first time in history, we'd have three MVPs. That's not a negative on any of them - it's paying the ultimate respect."

Phoenix Suns guard Jason Richardson echoes Russell's consternation. "Whew - can there be a three-way MVP? Whoever is voting for that award has their hands full with that thing."

The news media voting block consists of 123 voters (three from each team market, plus 33 nationally) who will mark their top five choices. Ballots, sent two days ago, are due April 16, the day after the regular season concludes. Before the 1980-81 season, only players chose the MVP.

Voters are given no guidelines. Is the MVP the league's premier player? Highest scorer? Most spectacular human highlight reel? Best player on the team with the best record?

Or, is the Most Valuable Player, as the phrase implies, the answer to this: "Where would his team be without him?" Wade says.

While Bryant, third in scoring behind Wade and James, does not like to discuss the MVP chase, Wade has no qualms about it.

"Who gets my vote?" he asks. "Me, of course!"

Bryant finally won it in his 12th season, although ESPN analyst Bill Walton is among those who think Celtics forward Kevin Garnett was the most valuable.

"Different voters have different criteria," says Walton, MVP for the Portland Trail Blazers in 1978.

Shaquille O'Neal, one of the most dominant players ever, has been voted MVP once, in 2000. The veteran Phoenix Suns center sounds perplexed, and scorched, by the process.

"I've been jobbed three or four times, and that's why I say I don't know what y'all look for," he says. "Mike (Jordan) was always the MVP, and you can see why - he was always head and shoulders above the rest. Now they say the other two guys (James and Bryant) are ahead because they have better records. But D-Wade is playing great. Who knows what you guys look for in the "Brotherhood of the Media.'"

Wade surges

In 53 seasons, six former greats - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Russell, Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson - account for 49 percent of the winners.

Wade, 27, has the edge statistically on Bryant, 30, and James, 24. Through Monday's games he leads in scoring (averaging 29.9), assists (7.5), steals (2.3) and blocked shots (1.4).

The Heat's slashing guard is the only player in the NBA with at least 100 blocks and 100 steals.

Bryant intensified the battle with 61 points Feb. 2 against the New York Knicks. Two nights later, James threw down 52 vs. the Knicks. He scored 55 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Feb. 20 - two days before Wade poured in 50 against Orlando.

"It's like, "Anything you can do, I can do better,' " ABC analyst Jon Barry says.

Three weeks ago, after Wade torched the Chicago Bulls for 48, including a buzzer-beating, game-winner, James sent him a text message: "Hell of a game. Wow. That was amazing."

"We have fun with it," Wade says. "We push each other, but we also support. I think it's fitting that the three of us are in the race. Before I was injured, the talk was that myself, Kobe and LeBron were the top three players. Now it's back to where it was."

Wade, also in the middle of a bitter divorce, has been hobbled with a strained right hip but has averaged 34 points, 8.6 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 2.7 steals since the All-Star break.

His renaissance season comes after his Olympic gold medal experience last summer, one he shared with Bryant and James. Two years ago, shoulder and knee surgeries left question marks.

He recalls seeing ESPN's "PTI" and hearing, "Is Dwyane Wade the next Penny Hardaway?'

"Penny was on his way to being a great player before injuries," he says. "When I heard that, it was like a knife to my side."

James is the front-runner. Cleveland is a league-best 61-13, including a mind-boggling 35-1 at home. The charismatic leader has recorded an NBA-best seven triple-doubles (points, rebounds, assists). James is second to Wade in scoring (28.4) and also is averaging 7.7 rebounds, 7.4 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.2 blocks.

His selfless, pass-first philosophy makes him responsible for creating much of the team's offense. And he is playing by far the best defense of his career.

James, who plays with a boyish infectiousness, can defend any of the five positions - and has - because he is the league's pre-eminent package of size, strength and quickness.

"He affects every possession," ESPN analyst Tim Legler says.

The Cavaliers are doing a little hardwood diplomacy on behalf of their All-Star forward. This week, they launched the website LeBronisReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyGood.com to showcase his credentials (the half-dozen "Reallys" represents James' six NBA seasons).

"I don't know who votes or what defines it," James says. "I know every night I go on the court, I try to be the Most Valuable Player for LeBron James and his teammates. The NBA championship is the ultimate for me. Individual accolades will take care of themselves."

Low-key Bryant

Yet, the Lakers last spring sent a political-election-style media packet that included bumper stickers, campaign buttons and a note from "campaign manager" Jerry Buss, team owner. The theme: "Who else? Bryant."

This week, Bryant claimed, "I don't even think about (winning MVP)," then took a playful jab.

"It's not something that crosses my mind," he says. "It didn't cross my mind last year, either. I really, really, really, really, really, really want that championship. I really, really want it."

Really.

Bryant, averaging 27.2 points and 5.0 assists, has helped the Lakers go 4-0 against the Cavaliers and the defending champion Celtics. "No disrespect to Kobe, but he's got a hell of a team there," Denver Nuggets swingman Dahntay Jones says.

Wade, who often plays with two rookies and two second-year teammates, must overcome this daunting fact: Every MVP the last 26 years has played for a team that has won at least 50 games, excluding the lockout season.

The Heat are 39-35 with eight games left. They had the worst record last season (15-67). Wade scored 505 in March, the most for a Heat player in any month.

"If you take D-Wade away from the Heat, they might not win 10 games," says NBA TV analyst Gary Payton, a former teammate of Wade and Bryant. "Take LeBron away, that team can survive."

Even veteran voters straddle the fence: "It's hard for me to separate them definitively," ESPN analyst Jack Ramsay says.

One biased observer, Heat President Pat Riley, is concerned that voters, through news media influence, reached a consensus on James a long time ago.

"Anytime there's an argument about an important award," Riley says, "sometimes it can be a little debilitating at the end to know that minds already have been programmed and subconsciously swayed. I think we should stop politicizing it, campaigning for it and talking about it so much.

"Let's vote for the guy who deserves it the most and put the damn ballot in the mailbox."