Kobe Bryant for MVP 2007Published April 18th, 2007 in nba, lakers, mavericks, suns and Noteworthy. Tags: 2007, basketball, dirk nowitzki, gilbert arenas, kobe bryant, lakers, mvp, nba, steve nash, tim duncan.
Kobe Bryant is the MVP of the league and that’s final! I know, if your read my about me page you will see that yes I am a Laker fan, but that has nothing to do with it. I compiled a list a couple of weeks back that had Kobe in third place with Steve Nash second and Dirk Nowitzki first (I had Duncan and Arenas rounding out the list but they are long gone now). It’s amazing what a few weeks can do. Why the sudden change? Simple, what Kobe has shown me over the last few weeks is nothing short of amazing when he went crazy with those 50 point games (now up to 10). I saw a Jordanesque quality that a lot of people have doubted before. He has simply been unbelievable.
He put the weight of that team on his shoulders (and he got them in the playoffs) this is one of the few times in team sports history where you can comfortably say “him and him alone.” But please let’s not forget the way he started the season - distributing the ball and trying to get teammates involved, and all they did was let him down. He was forced to take matters into his own hands when nobody else came to play ball and what seems like half the team was out with injuries. I think there are a lot of valid reasons for both Dirk and Nash to be MVP this season and I expect many people to debate this with me. However, I want those people to tell me that Kobe Bryant is not the hardest working man on the court this season, every game he’s played he’s left it all on the hardwood.
What’s the criteria for MVP? Well we know it doesn’t necessarily go to the scoring king, unless of course the league loves you and we all know they can’t stand Kobe. What prompted me to write this article was I got into and argument debate with someone about this who pointed me to 82 games citing that the Mavericks and the Suns are better off when their star players are on the court. Yeah yeah, so what? I’m pretty comfortable in saying that both the Suns and Mavericks would make the playoffs if both Nash and Dirk were out for the season; I mean seriously both teams have multiple all-stars. It is also a telling fact in my opinion about what the fans think when the two leading MVP candidates don’t make the all-star starting lineup.
My reasoning for Kobe to win comes down to this, the Lakers are crap without Kobe look at the numbers 31, 5 and 5 playing about 42 minutes. But with him they made the playoffs; there are no other one man teams in either conference in the playoffs… name one! He has solidified his claim to the MVP trophy with that latest 50 point performance against Seattle on Sunday. Can you imagine if Kobe wasn’t there; the only decision the Lakers would have to make this post season is whether to go with Durant or Oden in the draft.