Kobe Bryant: Is the Laker Great the Fourth Best Player In the League?

It came as no surprise that Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James won his second straight MVP award.

James was clearly the best player on the league's best team.

But that is not the story.

Those who voted for the annual award symbolically told us that Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is the fourth best player in the NBA. That's right, the Black Mamba does not even get a Bronze.

Sure, Bryant finished third in the overall voting tally, but the reigning NBA Finals MVP did not receive a single first-place vote.

Oklahoma City Thunder scoring champion Kevin Durant garnered four votes and NBA Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic got three.

While an examination of the vote total on the surface might be much to do about nothing, considering James was a near unanimous selection, but for one of the greatest players in the history of the sport not to place in the winners category at all while still at the peak of his ability is shocking.

Two seasons ago, Bryant was the league MVP and helped lead the Lakers to the NBA Finals. Not to mention he was a Gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, had finished off back-to-back NBA All-Star Game MVP honors, and was entrenched as an All-Defensive First Team member.

Now Bryant is not even as valuable as Howard who averaged 9.3 points, 9.8 rebounds and was in constant foul trouble during the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series against the undermanned Charlotte Bobcats?

Through a myriad of injuries, which forced Bryant to adjust his jumper, miss quarters, halves and even entire games, he performed admirably.

He drained multiple buzzer beaters during the regular season, which placed him in the MVP discussion to begin with.

The 31-year-old Bryant is much older than that in basketball years for an athlete who started his pro career at 18 in the mid-90s.

But yet there has been no significant decline in his play, even when after several years of carrying average Laker teams to the postseason with no Robin to the Batman he once had in Shaquille O'Neal.

Bryant's resume was once compared to that of Michael Jordan. Then it graduated to this mano-y-mano commercialized battle with James.

NBA prognosticators have jettisoned Bryant behind a trio of 20-somethings between the heights of 6'11" and 6'8", who are freakishly athletic and were last seen dominating the glass, in-game H.O.R.S.E. contests and everywhere else in between.

There has even been whispers than Durant is already better than Bryant in just his third season removed from a one-and-done stint at the University of Texas. 

Certainly the torch is on its way in being passed from Bryant to James. But some seem ready to put the Lakers' legend in the basketball hospice with the outcome of the latest MVP returns.

This could be another example of how Bryant is probably the most under appreciated great athlete in NBA history.

I have a feeling Bryant is not done just yet.