Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, in his 12th NBA season, finally won his first Most Valuable Player award earlier Tuesday afternoon. But the question still remains: did he deserve it?
There is no doubting Bryant's immense talent - pound for pound, he's the best basketball player in the world. But does that make you an MVP?
This year, Bryant's Lakers were the best team in the Western Conference, earning the number one seed. He had plenty of help along the way, especially after the mid-season theft -- I mean trade -- of Pau Gasol from Memphis.
When was the last time a Kobe-led team dominated either a regular season or post season prior to 2008?
How about when Shaq-daddy was still roaming the Staples Center court?
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Do you see the trend?
If Bryant is surrounded by superstar talent, the Lakers succeed at a high rate. If he's not -- they barely make the playoffs, if at all.
Now, this in and of itself does not exclude Bryant from being a MVP candidate. But it has to be at considered, especially when you have a guy like LeBron James single-handedly willing his team to victories night after night.
Or a guy like Chris Paul, my choice for NBA MVP.
Here is a guy who, as we speak, is running circles around Tony Parker and the defending NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semis.
Paul has made stars out of players that were glorified role players before his arrival (i.e. David West and Tyson Chandler). He led his team in points per game during the regular season, while leading the NBA in assists (11.6 apg) and steals (2.71 spg).
Maybe the MVP is different to me than it is to those that vote on who should receive it.
Take Chris Paul off of the Hornets roster. Do you think they'd be the second seed, up 2-0 on San Antonio? Me neither.
But could you see the Lakers, with a healthy Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol, competing for the Western Conference crown? I could see that far more than the Hornets being where they are without Paul.
That's how I define an MVP—the player most valuable to his team.
Not to discount Kobe or anything he's accomplished, but the top two players that deserve this award in my mind are Chris Paul and LeBron James.
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4 months ago
Hi Mr. Moss !
How about if we replace Tyson Chandler with Kwame Brown ? and well ... David West with Brian Cook ?
What do you think Mr. Moss ? Do you think Chris Paul can take the Hornets into the no. 2 in the West ?
Maybe you can explain ?
Thanks
al
4 months ago
"Do you see the trend? If Bryant is surrounded by superstar talent, the Lakers succeed at a high rate. If he's not -- they barely make the playoffs, if at all."
is this even a valid knock on kobe? when did we ever see a player make it far into the playoffs without a super supporting cast? shaq didn't. jordan didn't. magic didn't. kareem didn't. bird didn't. duncan didn't. the pistons didn't. (and to even make it more interesting, even with super talent nash was never able to lead the suns past the 2nd round- that's far more egregious than what you're trying to insinuate) so if none of the greats ever won a ring without superb team mates, why should it be a criticism of kobe? the truth is, the fact that "they barely make the playoffs, if at all" with kobe in the line up for the last 2 seasons is an astronomical achievement and a tribute to phenomenal talent that only a handful in the history of the nba has had; who else in today's league do you think can lead a team that should be vying for the worst record in the league actually into the playoffs in the west or 1 rebound away from the second round? and if you think lebron can, that's obviously not true because this year lebron's team mates were finally as bad as the lakers had been the last 3 seasons, but he barely had a better record in the weaker eastern conference than what kobe was able to lead his team to in the western conference. look who kobe had: smush? kwame? cook? evans? mihm, not to mention pre-developed bynum, farmar, and sasha? the first two weren't even able to get bench time on the worst teams in the nba. without him, the lakers would have been consistent lottery bound teams up until this season.
"especially when you have a guy like LeBron James single-handily willing his team to victories night after night."
lebron definitely can will his team to victory, but as it has been proven time and time again, there is no one who can do it at the level of kobe. and please don't bring up lebron's "run" to the Finals. we all know the "competition" he had to get there, and when he did meet real competition, he got swept.
"Paul has made stars out of players that were glorified role-players before his arrival (i.e. David West and Tyson Chandler). He lead his team in points per game during the regular season, while leading the NBA in assists (11.6/apg) and steals (2.71/spg)."
contrary to popular belief, it's a fallacy to believe that paul made stars out of his team mates. Why?
1. chris paul does NOT make west better: everyone somehow points to the fact that west's scoring average jumped up the year chris paul arrived to prove that chris somehow affected that. first, let me explain that i don't doubt chris' impact on the floor- he's a great facilitator of the team. but facilitating and passing to a player is not sufficient for getting assists for the passer or points for the receiver. the receiver needs to have some ability to score consistently in order for this relation to work. for example, chris can pass to kwame brown as much as he wants, but chris will rarely get an assist and kwame will rarely get the points in this case. but on the other hand, no one cares to inspect that west was a star in college with obvious talent (not just potential, we're talking about manifest talent), and that his first 2 years on the hornets were spent as a bench player averaging about 13 and 18 minutes (not to mention his second season was cut short by an injury). is it really improbable, then, that a highly successful college player with sound fundamentals will not naturally improve on his OWN in the nba given more playing time? this isn't even a difficult concept to understand: a good player will generally become better given starter-status,more minutes, or a change in function on the team. just look at steve nash, baron davis, antawn jamison, and rashard lewis's careers as just a few of many examples who illustrate this principle. these players weren't untalented their first few seasons in the nba and then magically became better because of someone else later in their careers, and neither is this the case for david west. they became better on their own accord because they had talent to begin with and later became starters who played more minutes, and so with david west. chris paul can only give opportunities as a point guard, but he can't give a player talent. david west was going to get starter status, more minutes, and much more points and rebounds REGARDLESS of whether chris paul was his team mate or not. if you're going to credit chris paul for allowing west to score more, you then need to acknowledge the fact that west also greatly improves chris' assist average. remember the dual relationship here?
2. chris paul does NOT make tyson chandler better: once again we see people going crazy about how chris paul makes chandler better because he has higher scoring and rebounding averages. but do they care to inspect that when he was in chicago, he was not even a starter and that he averaged anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes less playing time than on the hornets? if you calculate the per minute stats when he was in chicago, and extrapolate that with respect to the minutes he plays on the hornets, they easily exceed anything he's averaging right now. so if chandler's chicago stats would have been the same or better than the numbers he's been putting up the last 2 seasons if he were playing the same minutes he's playing on the hornets, then is chris paul really making him any better? or is it the more likely case that chandler's just performing at his normal level? now, i'm sure chandler's scoring life is slightly easier with chris finding him open looks, but chris is NOT making chandler better. once again, this is a two way relationship.
3. chris paul does NOT make peja stojakovic better: everyone somehow says that peja was "over the hill" but chris made him better. obviously he's not going to be the same player he was in sacramento after playing so many years, but that definitely does not mean he's a poor player now. it only means that he's not as good relative to his own earlier years, but still an outstanding player in terms of absolute contribution. look at his stats. there's no real trend of great improvement or deterioration. and some people seem to forget that last season he missed almost the entire season- he wasn't "over the hill", he was injured. he has generally been consistent in how much and how well he scores. playing with chris did NOT make this 3 time all star, 2 time 3-point shootout champion, and one of nba history's top 3-point/free throw leader better.
"But could you see the Lakers, with a healthy Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol, competing for the Western Conference crown? I could see that far more than the Hornets being where they are without Paul."
i see two teams that are essentially equal, so i hardly see it being a more plausible situation than the Hornets without paul. and since gasol alone in memphis wasn't able to accomplish anything (that's not a knock on him, since we already discussed how one player can't do it alone, but the difference is gasol is not the type of player who can carry a team alone as far as kobe can alone), and since the main reason that bynum is actually productive on the floor (at this point) is because kobe is drawing all the attention from the defense, which allows kobe to feed him consistently near the basket, there's no way those two could have competed for the western crown this year without kobe.
chris was a deserving mpv candidate this year, but unfortunately there was just someone else who happened to be more deserving than him.
4 months ago
Thanks for the feedback, guys!
Albert -- My point still remains the same. Kobe Bryant did not take Kwame Brown and Brian Cook to the level that Chris Paul has taken West and Chandler. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if you swapped the two, but to answer your question, no, I do not think the Hornets would be a 2 seed with Brown and Cook replacing West and Chandler.
Jeff -- I was not knocking Kobe at all, as evident by the list of players you provided that have had the same fate as he when playing with sub-par supporting casts. But look at what Paul is doing with the Hornets right now! They just beat Dallas in 5 games, and are up 2-0 on San Antonio. If they advance to the Western Conference Finals, then he (Paul) would have done something that everyone you listed couldn't do -- go deep without a superstar supporting cast. Doesn't that make his case even stronger for the MVP?
4 months ago
the last 2 sentences below were deleted from the first paragraph. it should have read:
"is this even a valid knock on kobe? when did we ever see a player make it far into the playoffs without a super supporting cast? shaq didn't. jordan didn't. magic didn't. kareem didn't. bird didn't. duncan didn't. the pistons didn't. (and to even make it more interesting, even with super talent nash was never able to lead the suns past the 2nd round- that's far more egregious than what you're trying to insinuate). you're right to notice the trend: the trend exists because it's a natural thing that no one player, no matter how great, can achieve the ultimate team prize without tremendous help. but you're wrong to stigmatize kobe because of that trend.
4 months ago
"Jeff -- I was not knocking Kobe at all, as evident by the list of players you provided that have had the same fate as he when playing with sub-par supporting casts. But look at what Paul is doing with the Hornets right now! They just beat Dallas in 5 games, and are up 2-0 on San Antonio. If they advance to the Western Conference Finals, then he (Paul) would have done something that everyone you listed couldn't do -- go deep without a superstar supporting cast. Doesn't that make his case even stronger for the MVP?"
first, both the hornets and lakers are doing extremely well in the playoffs, so to selectively note the hornets' success while failing to mention the lakers' success is misleading. i can easily counter and say "look at what the lakers are doing now!", but that's not a good argument for why kobe is the mvp.
second, it's again not true that chris paul does not have a superstar supporting cast, as i have already pointed out.
here's something to look at: a full laker roster is a superior team to a full hornets roster, but the crucial thing to note is that the lakers didn't even have a full roster this year because bynum, ariza, and mihm (again) missed most of the season; and not only did pau come mid season, but he, too, missed a large portion of his time on the team. rad, luke, sasha, and odom missed games; and fisher is playing through a torn ankle and kobe played the entire season despite experiencing a sprained groin and, for the second half of the season, a torn finger on his shooting hand that requires immediate surgery. so when you look at the laker team that actually played this year, the talent gap is no longer there, and you can even argue that the hornets are slightly better in this case. so if kobe led his team to a better result while enduring a massacre to his team roster than chris whose team didn't suffer such misfortunes, who do you think is more valuable? now i realize that a few hornets did miss a couple games, but no one missed more than a couple games and (most importantly) no more than one player was injured at any given time. compare this to the laker team who has had multiple players out throughout the season, and had even played with an 8-man roster for a few games. the following article will give a more detailed look into this fact:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/17320-NBA-Kobe-Bryant-is-the-Clear-MVP-Over-Chris-Paul
so once again, it's evident chris paul has a great team to help him out.
4 months ago
"My point still remains the same. Kobe Bryant did not take Kwame Brown and Brian Cook to the level that Chris Paul has taken West and Chandler."
if jordan weren't able to improve kwame, i don't think it should matter kobe wasn't able to help him out. kwame had potential, but he was never able to realize it, and that is no one else's fault but kwame's. like i said above, paul can pass to kwame all he wants, but if kwame can't convert, then it's all futile.
cook was the same whether he was playing with both shaq and kobe or just kobe- if you think kobe wasn't able to improve cook, then you should also criticize shaq. but this is irrelevant. the relevant point is that, like i said above, a player needs to be good first in order to convert a pass from chris paul- receiving a pass from paul does not endow magical powers that automatically allows a player to make a lot of shots. so to compare cook's talent level to west's, or cook's playing position to chandler's playing position is flawed reasoning.
here's an interesting question: why hasn't paul been able to make bonzi wells "better", a player who clearly has better capabilities than someone like cook? but you see, i'm not going to diminish chris paul because he was not able to elevate bonzi to some higher plane of existence. why? because it doesn't reflect chris paul as much as it reflects bonzi himself.
4 months ago
Thanks for the continued comments!
Jeff -- My point was not to recognize the Hornet's playoff success while ignoring the Lakers success. The original point in my article was that Pau Gasol is a much better second option than anyone the Hornet's currently have for CP3. The Lakers should be having this success, because Kobe has shown that with a viable wingman, he can take the Lakers to the NBA Championship. Their success shouldn't come as a surprise. But he never won a MVP award when he had Shaq... and I still think, despite his unbelievable talent, that he wasn't the most deserving candidate this year. Is it a travesty that he won? Hardly. But I can't help but think it was given to him this year as more of a "lifetime acheivement" award than for this season alone.
I do want to ask you this, Jeff. Why is Kobe the MVP, in your mind? If you can discount the fact that Chris Paul has made everyone on him a better player, then I can do the same for Kobe. Kobe didn't lead the NBA in any major category, while Paul lead in both steals and assists. Is it solely based on the fact that Kobe is a better scorer? If that's your argument, then LeBron deserved it more than Kobe -- LeBron lead the league in scoring. Maybe you'd say Kobe plays with less than Paul. Really? If you gave any NBA Exec the option of Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Vladamir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic, and Luke Walton or Hilton Armstrong, Jannero Pargo, Tyson Chandler, David West, Peja Stojakovic, and Morris Peterson... 9 times out of 10, they'd take the Lakers roll players.
I just don't see it. I see Kobe's talent, for sure. But I don't see how anyone can make the case that he is MORE valuable to his team than CP3 is to the Hornets.
4 months ago
"But could you see the Lakers, with a healthy Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol, competing for the Western Conference crown?"
Lakers didn't have neither "healthy" Bynum nor Gasol for full season.
Gasol and Bynum NEVER played together.
And if you want to talk about the impact of newly acquired players,
Hornets did have Peja, West and Chandler with CP3 last year and what happened?
They missed the playoffs! They acquired Peterson and boom, they are 2nd place in the west.
Then, shouldn't Morris Peterson be the MVP of the Hornets since he's the only difference in that
starting line-up?
Chris Paul with injured West, Peja and Chandler = missed playoff
Kobe with injured Bynum, Ariza and Gasol = 1st place in the toughest conference in the history
4 months ago
"Biggest piece of crap article by a sore loser ever"
- Comic Book Guy, The Simpsons
4 months ago
"What a maroon!"
- Bugs Bunny
4 months ago
I think what John is trying to say is that if you take Kobe and Paul out of their teams, their teams won't be in the position their in right now. They are both valuable to their teams, he is just saying that Paul is MORE VALUABLE to the Hornets than Kobe to the Lakers.
"If you gave any NBA Exec the option of Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Vladamir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic, and Luke Walton or Hilton Armstrong, Jannero Pargo, Tyson Chandler, David West, Peja Stojakovic, and Morris Peterson... 9 times out of 10, they'd take the Lakers roll players."
This above statement is true, any NBA Executive would pick the Lakers' role players 9 out of 10 times, that's why John stated that Paul is MORE VALUABLE to the Hornets than Kobe to the Lakers. Example, if you take out Paul to his team, their team would lose 10 games, and by taking out Kobe, his team lose 8 games. (From the example) Through this, Paul is MORE VALUABLE than Kobe.
But looking in the season's perspective. At some point, Lamar, Derek, Pau, Andrew, Vlad, Sasha, Luke, Ronny, is not always there, meaning they have not been complete the whole season. At some point in the season, do you think that still 9 out of 10 times the NBA Executive will pick Lamar, Derek, Vlad, Sasha, Luke, Ronny (Pau and Andrew out with injury) over Hilton Armstrong, Jannero Pargo, Tyson Chandler, David West, Peja Stojakovic, and Morris Peterson, I say not. This is what Jeff is trying to say.
4 months ago
Sorry, I forgot to mention Ariza, who is also a good role player in the Lakers team, and that makes them at some point in the season out with the injury of pau, Bynum, and Ariza
4 months ago
Sorry, I forgot to mention Ariza, who is also a good role player in the Lakers team, and that makes them at some point in the season out with the injury of pau, Bynum, and Ariza.
4 months ago
gasol is a better 2nd option than david west? are you crazy? who carried them in game 1 vs the spurs? it was david west-30 pts and 9 rebounds that won the game for the hornets. . i can't believe you just totally discount the other hornets. most of west's points came on his own, either by posting up or taking his man off the dribble. peja had 22 points and is a former all star and mvp candidate.
Do you see the trend? If Bryant is surrounded by superstar talent, the Lakers succeed at a high rate. If he's not -- they barely make the playoffs, if at all."
if you're going to judge kobe by that criteria, then do the same with chris paul. replace chandler and peja with kwame brown and smush parker.
4 months ago
It really hurts, doesn't it? Kobe getting the MVP and all.
You made a complete fool of yourself, taking your time to write a piece like this AFTER the award is over?!
Honestly. I've never seen such a loser mentality piece on any blog, anywhere.
I mean, do you really realize how stupid this makes you look?
It would be like saying after your team loses, "We were the better team than yours, Na! Na! Na! Na! Na!"
Sorry guy, but that was sad.
4 months ago
Next time you write an article live this comparing 2 players, it would be very informative to know the statistics of the other player.
You mentioned that Chris Paul led the NBA in assists and steals, but didn't bother to mention this points per game total, which is something that everyone will look at when drawing comparisons.
While I agree with you that Chris Paul deserve the MVP, I think you comparing their stats, would be very helping in helping the fans on Bleacher Report make comments on your articles.
Hope this helps.
Jeffrey
4 months ago
First of all the LeBron thing is a Joke. I you want to say Chris Paul or Kevin Garnett then fine, but LeBron James? Get real. LeBron might be the best player in the league, I really don't know and there is no real way to measure that. However his season was almost a mirror of Kobe's 05'-06'. Great numbers, bad teammates, mediocre record, made the playoffs. You cannot deny Kobe the MVP in 05'-06' with 35+ppg and making the playoffs with D-League supporting cast and then give it to LeBron for doing the same thing. Doesn't work that way. Unless you will say that Kobe deserved it in 05'-06', then I will agree that LeBron deserves it this year. I doubt that you will say that, but I will wait patiently......
By the way the only person who had an MVP vote that picked LeBron first was John Hollinger from ESPN, and that is because his computer formula told him to.
Almost everyone agrees now that you must be the best player on one of the best teams. I personally think that is crap, but that is the prevailing opinion. That narrows it down to Garnett, Kobe, or Chris Paul. Being so dominant in the east I think KG deserves it for being the best player on the best team. Kind of like last years joke MVP Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk is a great player but he is no MVP.
On to the Chris Paul part (man I haven't written this much since high school, lol). Chris Paul, David West, and Tyson Chandler went to the All-Star game this year for N.O. Only Kobe went for the Lakers. Pau didn't even make it and he was the focus of his team at the time. So how exactly is CP3 doing more with less talent than Kobe. And for the record the Lakers were the best team in the West when Bynum went down and before Pau, so you cannot give all of the credit to the trade for Pau. How can Kobe get 82 votes to Chris Paul's 28 (first place only) if he didn't deserve it. Keep in mind that most of those people have never really liked Kobe to begin with and CP3 is the new NBA poster boy.
I really hate to call people haters, but this article reeks of "haterism". Sorry, but it really does. I think there are many people out there (including you) that will always find evidence to back up your own theory instead of the other way around.
Oh by the way Scott. You are using the stats from one game in their entire careers to compare Pau and David West, dude give me a break. Poll a few GM's and then get back to me.....
4 months ago
Thanks for the posts, guys.
First things first, I'm not a Hornets fan. I am a fan of Chris Paul... but I'm also a fan of Kobe, LeBron, KG, Amare, Nash, Dirk, etc.
Secondly, the point of the article is being overlooked. The MVP should not be an award given to the best scorer, best rebounder, etc. It is an award that should be given to the most VALUABLE player to his team in the NBA. If you want to argue that Kobe was more valuable to the Lakers than CP3 was to the Hornets this season, then lets have that argument.
I've stated numerous times that Kobe's talent is obvious, and by no way was it a travesty that he won the MVP. There were three or four players that deserved it this year... I feel Paul deserved it the most. If you feel Kobe deserved it -- cool by me. That's your opinion. I wrote mine.
Hopefully, we'll see the Lakers and Hornets square off in the Western Conference Finals. What a series that would be!
4 months ago
I don't have a problem with your opinion that CP3 is the MVP this year. As far as I am concerned he certainly deserved it. The problem I have is twofold. First you said it should be CP3 or LeBron. CP3 OK, but LeBron, no way. I am pretty sure I covered that one above. Second your reasoning for CP3 winning is also fuzzy, again covered above. If you would like to address those two things specifically, then as you said "we can have that argument" Again, no problem with the conclusion, just how you got there.....
4 months ago
John -- you're probably correct. I should have stressed more that he (Paul) had one of the best seasons for a point guard in NBA history, which he did.
Also, my point in saying LeBron or CP3 deserved the award was this -- if someone was going to look at the year Paul had, and still say the award deserved to go to Kobe... I figured a large portion of their argument would center around the fact that Kobe is a better scorer. SO, I threw in LeBron to negate that argument, since he lead the League in scoring.
Do I seriously think LeBron should have won over Kobe? No way! Just CP3.
4 months ago
"My point was not to recognize the Hornet's playoff success while ignoring the Lakers success."
this may not be your intention, but that is the logic you presented, which is incorrect.
"The original point in my article was that Pau Gasol is a much better second option than anyone the Hornet's currently have for CP3."
please look at west.
"The Lakers should be having this success,"
please look at west, peja, and chandler. the hornets should be having this success.
"But he never won a MVP award when he had Shaq... "
winning or not winning in the past doesn't define or reflect what a player's value is. one can easily argue why kobe was also deserving of mvp's even when he was playing with shaq. despite the popular notion that kobe was robin to shaq's batman, if one carefully looks at what kobe did, both kobe and shaq were "batman" figures. the lakers' being shaq's team was only nominal. but this is another story.
"I do want to ask you this, Jeff. Why is Kobe the MVP, in your mind?"
i already did.
"If you can discount the fact that Chris Paul has made everyone on him a better player, then I can do the same for Kobe."
never did i say kobe made his team mates better. i in fact staunchly disagree with the catch-phrase of "making one's team mates better". i really believe when people say this, they have no idea of what it actually means. it is nothing but a crutch statement to over-rate certain players and under-rate others. i truly believe kobe is not really doing anything different than his past years. the only big difference is that his team mates have improved, which is a huge reason for the lakers' being on top. there's no "making team mates better"- it's simply whether you have good team mates or not, and both chris and kobe have that. this was explained above when i showed chris doesn't make his team mates better, he just has good team mates.
"Kobe didn't lead the NBA in any major category, while Paul lead in both steals and assists."
i never knew that one had to be a leader in statistical categories in order to be the most deserving of mvps. the fact is that for the last 2 seasons when kobe led the league in scoring, the only knock on him was that his team didn't win enough games. the voters said that it wasn't enough to put up astronomical numbers, even if kobe led the lakers farther than anyone else could have in his place. so this year, he sacrificed his stats to share the ball with his team mates because his team mates improved (kobe didn't make them better, they became better players). and despite the fact that his stats have dropped, they still remain at mvp while his team is thriving. leading in a statistical category does not carry as much weight as simply having mvp numbers for mvp candidacy, and kobe had mvp numbers, whether they were league-leading or not.
"Is it solely based on the fact that Kobe is a better scorer?"
you're right, kobe is a better scorer, but when was that ever used to support his case? you seem to have the impression that people think he's the mvp because kobe's a better scorer, but that's not what is being said. what i have given (and will explain in more detail) are arguments that embody many of kobe's contributions. you are quick to dismiss the scoring facet of kobe, yet you maintain that the central reasons why you believe chris paul is the mvp is because he's a better "assist-maker" and "stealer" than kobe- that is hypocritical.
you use his assist average to claim he "makes his team mates" better and "steals" to deduce that he is a great defender. i won't get into the details now, but the offense the hornets and lakers run are very different: the triangle offense of the lakers promote ball movement and multiple passes to create space and opportunities for anyone to score; there is no traditional point guard in this system. however, the entire offense is run through chris because he plays the traditional point guard role. when he passes a ball, it is almost always expected to be shot, whereas when kobe passes the ball, at times it is for a direct shot, and others it is designed to be a part of the passing system that will eventually lead to the shot, which is why kobe would have a tremendous amount of "hockey-assists". so even if you used the assists as an argument for chris, because of the disparity of the team offensive schemes, kobe's assist-making as a shooting guard within the triangle offense is not hugely worse than chris' production.
furthermore, being a good stealer does not translate to being a good defender. iverson was a great stealer, but he never played defense. kobe is a superior defender to chris paul, and in addition to that, he averaged only 1 less steal than chris paul. there's really nothing much to say here.
"If that's your argument, then LeBron deserved it more than Kobe -- LeBron lead the league in scoring."
lebron is automatically dropped from the mvp race. why? because when kobe was leading the league in scoring for 2 seasons, he led the lakers to essentially the same record as lebron did this season, but in a much more difficult conference. what lebron did this year is pretty much the same as what kobe did, but is much more inferior in quality when considering the context that surrounds him. if kobe didn't win it those 2 years, then lebron doesn't deserve it this year. i don't have a problem if you believe lebron should have won it, but if you say lebron deserved it this year, then you must agree that kobe should have won them the last 2 years.
"Maybe you'd say Kobe plays with less than Paul. Really? If you gave any NBA Exec the option of Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Vladamir Radmanovic, Sasha Vujacic, and Luke Walton or Hilton Armstrong, Jannero Pargo, Tyson Chandler, David West, Peja Stojakovic, and Morris Peterson... 9 times out of 10, they'd take the Lakers roll players."
i really wish you would spend time reading my posts. if you recall, i specifically said (check above) that the full laker roster is a better team than a full hornets roster. however, i pointed out the disparity of the laker roster and the laker team that actually played this season. if you compare the laker team that played this season to the hornets team that played this season, then you will find that they are essentially similar in quality. so the only thing you said here is basically the laker roster is better than the hornets, which is what i said, too. unfortunately, the laker team that played this year is vastly different from what is on paper. if you also look above again (the article and my post discussing the injuries), you will also find how much more adversity than chris that kobe had to endure, yet the lakers still ended up being number 1. so yes, kobe does play with similar talent as chris paul in addition to facing more trying conditions.
"Secondly, the point of the article is being overlooked. The MVP should not be an award given to the best scorer, best rebounder, etc. It is an award that should be given to the most VALUABLE player to his team in the NBA. If you want to argue that Kobe was more valuable to the Lakers than CP3 was to the Hornets this season, then lets have that argument."
again, you are making a phantom argument here. nobody (or at least i) never even used the fact that kobe is a better scorer to argue that he deserves the mvp. i think the only overlooking that is being done here is your overlooking all the points i have made so far. you ask me why kobe deserves the mvp, and i have already explained it. this is like when the scientists in the past proved to the people that the earth is round, yet even when looking at the evidence, the people still dare "you need show me that the earth is not flat". not much one can do in this situation.
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