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your an idiot for writing this article. kobe avg 35 points in a season and didnt get MVP . hes the best thing sense MJ in the nba, and the closest to him. HE WON THE WEST. paul didnt he choked in the last couple games. Pauls a pg im glad he gets a lot of assists a game he should thats his job. kobe could shut him down. 1 on 1 kobe would win 11-1. hed let him score cause he feels bad paul has a unibrow

kobe is a great player, an excellent player but he takes more shots than anyone else in the NBA... i dont think he deserves it... sometime later in his career but not this year. Chris Paul, Lebron James, or Dwight Howard.

Only the 8th player in the history of the NBA to average 20+ points 10+ assists in a season. First player since 91-92 to lead the league in both assists and steals. Paul shot a higher percentage from the floor, from 3 point range, and from the free throw line than Kobe.

This article relies heavily on the insinuation that statistics should decide the MVP award and that being the case, Chris Paul or Lebron are the more worthy candidates. I realize you're not bashing Kobe, but he plays in a triangle offense, so of course some of those statistics aren't going to be there with the others. On top of that, while Paul led the league in steals, he's no Bryant on defense and Lebron certainly isn't close yet. The argument that the Cavs were good for 20 fewer wins without Lebron may be true, but 45 wins in the East isn't exactly tearing it up. Lebron got the guys he wanted in trades with Seattle and Chicago yet they still remained a distant fourth in the league. Chris Paul and Kobe are a virtual toss up this year. They're both more deserving then Dirk was last year, or Nash in the previous two, but unfortunately only one can win it. New Orleans and LA played late in the season - the Hornets would have virtually locked up 1st with a win, but the Lakers took it and here they are. I'm taking Kobe. These are two of my favorite guys in the league, both as responsible as any for making the NBA worth watching again so kudos to both. I love that they're both playing absurdly good ball in the playoffs.

after reading this i'm convinced that you know nothing of basketball, nor do you know how to think.

"This is why you can make the same case for Paul right now, or even LeBron James. Without James, the Cleveland Cavaliers are maybe a 25-win team. With him, they won 45 games and are the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference. James averaged 30 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.2 assists - nearly Oscar Robertson-like numbers."

it no longer matters how the cavs would do with or without james because the benchmark has been set by kobe the last 2 seasons: if lebron this year can barely win more games in an infinitely weaker conference than kobe led the lakers to with a worse supporting cast in the western conference, that tells you who can do more with less already. not to mention that the lakers would also most likely be out of the playoffs and probably worse than 10th seed without kobe given how competitive it is in the west, even down to a few seeds past the 8th spot. so whatever argument you have for lebron related to how the team will do without him, kobe exceeds him.

not only this, it's futile to begin with to argue for lebron on the basis of stats, because kobe has already been there when he was making history with his statistical achievements the last 2 seasons, and the only knock on kobe was that his team didn't have enough wins, even though kobe's lakers making the playoffs is much more impressive than the cavs' being the #4 seed in the east this year.

plus, people need to realize that lebron's stats, as impressive as they are, are not some grand achievements. why? because in 2002-03, kobe averaged 30 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2.2 steals, and this is when the offense was still running through shaq. this is hardly worse than lebron's stats this year.

"Paul led the New Orleans Hornets to a No. 2 seed in the Western Conference and 56 wins. They were considered a lottery-bound team before the season began. His averages of 21.1 points, 11.6 assists and 4 rebounds were the best of any point guard in the league."

kobe led his team to the no. 1 seed (although i really believe ranking among the top 4 teams are pretty meaningless this year when the separation is so close). but more importantly, are you also forgetting what the preseason speculations were regarding the lakers by all major sports analysts? the lakers were also projected to MISS the playoffs completely, just like the hornets. please don't be deceptive by selectively presenting information.

"One thing that's important to examine when trying to select an MVP winner is how that candidate's team's offense flows. Obviously, the Lakers focus their offense around Bryant. But who has the ball when he doesn't? Is it Jordan Farmar or Derek Fisher bringing the ball up the floor? Bryant isn't starting the offensive set all the time. Does Bryant create baskets though for other players? This is where he differs from James and Paul. Bryant isn't a point guard, yet Paul and James are known to bring the ball up the floor at times, if not always.
When you watch Paul or James play, we see that they are scoring or creating much more than Bryant. And this is something so valuable to their offensive schemes. If you replaced Bryant with an average shooting guard, the Lakers are still going to score points, especially with Gasol on the floor. But if you replace Paul or James with just an average point guard (or in James' case, an average point guard, shooting guard, or small forward), it's a guarantee their offenses wouldn't be as productive. This is a huge factor to consider, and through that we can see that both Paul and James are more valuable to their teams than Bryant is to the Lakers."

this is where your lack of basketball knowledge is most prominently shown. first, chris paul is a point guard in the most traditional sense. second, the cavs employ the everything-through-lebron coaching scheme, so even though he's not technically a point guard, he dominates 99% of the possessions. keeping these in mind, it's important to realize that the lakers utilize the triangle offense. there is NO point guard in this scheme because it is designed for every player to be the facilitator. it promotes ball movement to create space and to weaken the defense so that anyone can be the assist maker/shot maker (although there will obviously be a heavier inclination towards players like michael jordan or kobe). so what kobe is doing is more healthful than what lebron is doing (holding on to the ball for most of the possession and going for the shot or the last second pass), and just as effective as what chris paul is doing (facilitating).

with regards to how the cavs would do with an average player, this only proves that his team mates are not as good as kobe's this year; however, kobe's team mates the last 2 years were worse than lebron ever had, so we're back again to how james fails to even measure up to what kobe did the last 2 seasons when he didn't even win the mvp. this is the first year kobe's team mates are finally better than lebron's, but it doesn't change how valuable kobe is to the team because once again the lakers wouldn't even make the playoffs then. the hornets, however, have a better supporting cast surrounding chris paul than lebron, so although their offense would stall a bit, it wouldn't be drastically hurt because of extremely solid scorers on the team, but i suspect that they would probably miss the playoffs too.

so you can probably deduce now that lebron james doesn't even deserve a mention as an mvp candidate this season, and it should wind down to chris paul and kobe bryant. it would be a close call if this were the end of the story, but there's more, and that involves kobe leading his team to the top of the grueling west while suffering injuries to himself and his team, something chris paul has not faced at all. 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; 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 got to play 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-110408#comment_72270

taking all of this into consideration, it's easy to see why kobe deserves the mvp over chris paul, and more importantly deserves it based on his accomplishments THIS season regardless of how great his past seasons have been. hence, anyone who believes that kobe's potential mvp would be a "lifetime achievement award" is refusing to face the facts.

mandude said " kobe is a great player, an excellent player but he takes more shots than anyone else in the NBA"

for your information, lebron james shot the most this season, and i suspect if gilbert arenas played he would have averaged more than kobe, too. and here's something else: kobe and jordan essentially average the same amount of shots per game (around 23).

brodude said "Only the 8th player in the history of the NBA to average 20+ points 10+ assists in a season. First player since 91-92 to lead the league in both assists and steals. Paul shot a higher percentage from the floor, from 3 point range, and from the free throw line than Kobe."

pure field goal % is misleading because it does not take into consideration free throws and 3 point shots. true shooting percentage is a more accurate metric, and both chris paul and kobe have the same percentage. and wow, i'm impressed by chris paul beating kobe by 0.001 in 3 point % and by 0.01 in free throw %. congratulations paul. furthermore, chris paul may lead the league in steals, but kobe is an infinitely better defender (remember, steals and blocks aren't equivalent to good defense. deron williams plays better defense than chris paul)

Just because Kobe doesn't bring the ball up the court, doesn't mean he can't. The Lakers--unlike the Cavs--have an excellent starting PG.

If Kobe did bring the ball up the court he'd have more assists for sure. However, Jackson believes in the triangle offense, and the SG bringing the ball up the court kind of interferes with that.

The only reason Kobe did not get the MVP last year was because Dallas was the number one seed last year Kobe had great number but this year the MVP is Kobe with his unselfish play this year and the number one seed in the west. Kobe is the MVP this year chir play had great number but kobe has better

Hey dummy that posted the long paragraph. MVP is most valuable Player or Most Valuable Paul. Worse off team without kobe and paul is obviosly the hornets. Lakers do have more depth and better players. If you go by stats, paul averaged more period in the season, and is killin kobe in the playoffs. add assists and points together which both convert into baskets. Paul is averaging ruffly 15 or more than kobe. If kobe's finger needed immediate surgery why hasn't he immediatly done it? Obviosly its not an immediate need huh? Yes the lakers made it to number one in the west but by how much? a game. Good job. Take gasol out of the picture, a key trade for the lakers and kobe's team is not number 1 in the west. 2 kobe shoots more and his totals are high but efficiency drop another 25%. New orleans made a greater jump in terms of wins and success from last year without adding a gasol. The difference between kobe and paul is this. paul dealt with what he had, didn't demand big name trade, averaged higher in more stats than kobe. taken his team further, and the biggest part yet: make everyone on his team team ten times better. gasol was gasol in mephis, fisher was fisher when he won in the shaq and kobe era, and he has no doubtedly the best coach in the NBA PHIL JACKSON. Let paul play shooting guard for the lakers and bryant point for new orleans. New orleans goes nowhere and lakers still playoff final potential. Game over. Paul is more valauble to his team than kobe is to the lakers.

Oh and this too. The starters for the lakers when the went to the playoffs last year are now on the bench considering the acquistion of gasol and fisher, so thats 2 key added players, starters, good legitamate players that were added. so what does that say about the starters from last year that are now backups???? hmmmm...so lets talk about the hornets. What big names did they add? who has better depth and overall a better team now?

"Oh and this too. The starters for the lakers when the went to the playoffs last year are now on the bench considering the acquistion of gasol and fisher, so thats 2 key added players, starters, good legitamate players that were added. so what does that say about the starters from last year that are now backups???? hmmmm...so lets talk about the hornets. What big names did they add? who has better depth and overall a better team now?"

once again this is already resolved above. having a little problem with reading comprehension?

and for my promised response to your "biggest part yet":

this hype about chris paul making his team mates better needs to be put to rest.

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 last season he missed almost the entire season, so any stat from that year is very unrepresentative since the sample space is small. nevertheless, 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.

game over

The is always some reason that some Jack*ss sports writer wants to take the MVP from Kobs. STOP HATING!!!!!! KOBE RULES ALL. Kobe scored 81 last year. He has been the MVP for about 5 years now!

Kobe Bryant is deserving the MVP because he is the most valuable to his teams this year. He lead his team to first place overall in the super Western Conference. Even though Chris Paul led his team to the second overall position, he did not help his team win games that would solidified the Hornets as the first place team during the last few weeks of the NBA season. Writers from across the nation waited until the last regular season game to determine between Kobe or Paul for the MVP by whichever team being first place. Without a doubt Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant are MVPs in any other year, but this year is Kobe's year, and it is not a life achievement award for Kobe.

Dont say that Kobe does not deserve to be MVP... Paul and Kobe deserves to be called such. thats why they are called the legitimate candidates for the award... even your mama knows it, boy.... whoever wins the award i'll be glad to accept it cos they deserve it.

What about deron williams and the season the jazz have had? they have the best home record. he deserves a shot at mvp.