NBA MVP Voters Deprive Kobe of His Legacy

Regardless of who wins the NBA MVP Award this year, one thing is certain: These voters have done Kobe Bryant a disservice.

Yes, Bryant may yet win the award this year (I doubt it), but voters have dwindled away his legacy.

A player of his caliber—a perennial All-Star, a fixture on the all-defense team, three championship rings, one of the league’s biggest stars, and perhaps the most popular player in the world—should have multiple MVP titles at this point.

Sadly, he only has one.

Awards should reflect the reality on the court

Bryant, some experts will tell you, is the best player in the game and has been for years. Yet, if you look at the awards over the past decade, you would think Steve Nash was the best player in basketball.

Nash, if you recall, won two consecutive MVP Awards and came inexplicably close to a third. During those seasons, Tim Duncan also racked up two awards—though not consecutively.

Duncan is worthy of multiple NBA awards and voters have honored his legacy. However, Nash should not have more individual awards than Bryant.

Nor should Bryant have received the award for the same reason as Dirk Nowitzki. Bryant won the award last year in the very pedestrian role of being the best player on the best team.

Is that really what the voters think of Kobe?

He is a transcendent player, like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, or Michael Jordan, and the voters should honor his legacy accordingly.

When it comes to MVP voting amongst the major American professional sports, certain facts ring true.

The NFL voters lack imagination, always giving the league MVP to a quarterback, unless a running back sets a new rushing/scoring record.

MLB voters seem to always get it just right—except in 1986 when roger Clemens won the AL MVP as a pitcher. I admit that am not astute enough to make a comment on the NHL voting.

NBA voters, however, lack consistency in the reasoning behind their picks. In the NBA, the MVP criteria seems to change each year.

In each of the last two years, it was the best-player-on-the-best-team-category, which is qualitatively less impressive than being the best player in the league.

The year before that, it was the reigning-MVP-did-even-better-this-year category when voters rewarded Nash with a second MVP. In this category, if the player has stats better than his MVP year, regardless of team performance, he is automatically rewarded.

When all is said and done, Bryant will be an also-ran amongst the players of his era. Not because of anything he has done wrong on the court, but because the NBA MVP voters never gave him the awards or respect that he so richly deserves.

I think LeBron James should win the MVP this year, and should have won it in ’06 as well.

But James' candidacy notwithstanding, I want to wish Bryant the best of luck in the MVP voting this year. He certainly deserve more than what has been given.