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LOS
ANGELES—Finally, a Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for
Kobe Bryant.
Regarded
as the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) best
player for several years but never its most valuable,
Bryant earned the honor at last on Tuesday after leading
the Los Angeles Lakers to the best record in the Western
Conference. He called the award a blessing and an honor
and emphasized he wants another trophy this year.
“It’s
Hollywood, it’s a movie script. The perfect ending would
be for us to hold a championship trophy at the end of
it,” Bryant said at a news conference attended by his
teammates, club officials, his wife and two daughters.
“This is
an award I couldn’t have won on my own. I can’t thank
these guys [his teammates] enough. These are my guys,
these are my brothers. Let’s get ready for tomorrow.”
The
Lakers try to take a 2-0 lead against Utah in their
conference semifinal on Wednesday night. Bryant will
receive the MVP trophy from commissioner David Stern
before the game.
Bryant
entered the season as the league’s two-time defending
scoring champion. He had finished as high as third in
the MVP voting twice—after the 2002-03 season, when he
averaged 30 points for the first time, and last year
when Dallas’s Dirk Nowitzki won.
“I don’t
know anybody who’s ever deserved this trophy more. I
don’t know anybody who’s ever worked as hard to
accomplish what he’s accomplished,” said Lakers coach
Phil Jackson, who had five-time MVP Michael Jordan with
Chicago and was at the Lakers’ helm when Shaquille
O’Neal won the award in 2000.
Bryant
received 82 first-place votes and 1,100 points in the
media vote. He was followed by
New Orleans’s
Chris Paul (28 and 894), Boston’s Kevin Garnett (15 and
670) and Cleveland’s LeBron James (one and 438).
“I’ve
said since two, three years ago that Kobe Bryant is the
best player in the league,” James said before the
Cavaliers faced the Celtics in Game One of their Eastern
Conference semifinal series. “He’s been the best player
the last five, six years. I’m glad he won it. His team
had a great year, finishing first in the West.”
This
season there was no denying the Lakers’ six-foot-six
star. Los Angeles rose to the top of the West despite
key injuries and following Bryant’s trade demands last
spring when his team was eliminated in the first round
by Phoenix for the second-straight year.
Bryant
averaged 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.84
steals while playing all 82 games despite tearing a
ligament in his right pinkie in February. He put off
surgery until after the Olympics.
The
knock on the 29-year-old Bryant had been that he didn’t
make those around him better—not anymore.
“He’s
deserving in this particular season, with all of the
question marks and everything going on coming into the
season and the uncertainty,” teammate Derek Fisher said.
“Not only did he statistically have an MVP type of
season, everybody can reasonably say they were better
this year because of what he did. He met the so-called
criteria, elevating his teammates’ games.”
Word
leaked on Friday night that Bryant had won the award.
Bryant,
second in the NBA in scoring behind James, is the first
Laker to win the MVP award since O’Neal. Other Lakers to
win since the award was first presented in 1956 were
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson—each three times.
Abdul-Jabbar also won three with
Milwaukee.
“I
didn’t expect this award would come to me,” Bryant said.
“I’m surprised. I’ve played pretty well in other
seasons. Our team hasn’t been as good. Things just fell
into place.”
Bryant
and O’Neal led the Lakers to three consecutive
championships, from 2000 to 2002, and a berth in the
finals in 2004. The Lakers hadn’t won a playoff series
since until sweeping
Denver
in the first round last month.
Bryant
and O’Neal were often at odds during their eight years
together. Assistant coach Brian Shaw, who played for the
Lakers from 1999 to 2003, has noticed a big difference
in Bryant.
“He’s a
much better teammate now than he was in the championship
days. That’s a credit to his maturation. There were
definitely times when he was not a good teammate. No one
worked harder than he did. The same is true today,” Shaw
said.
“In
terms of connecting with his teammates off the court, he
didn’t do that very much. Now, from what I hear, he goes
out to dinner with them all the time. Who knows? Maybe
he likes these teammates better than us,” Shaw added
with a laugh.
Bryant
has said this was his best regular season and his most
enjoyable—very different from his feelings last spring.
First, he challenged the Lakers to upgrade their roster,
then demanded a trade.
Things
quieted down and Bryant said all the right things during
training camp until Lakers owner Jerry Buss said he
would listen to trade offers. That upset Bryant again,
but he promised he would focus on basketball once the
season began.
And so
he did.
After a
9-8 start, the Lakers put it together. The most obvious
upgrades were Fisher and Pau Gasol, acquired February 1
from Memphis. The Lakers already had Andrew Bynum,
Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic—all former first-round
draft choices—when Bryant had his tirade last spring.
All three, especially the 20-year-old Bynum, showed
great improvement, but the seven-footer hasn’t played
since injuring his left knee January 13.
Another
talented newcomer, Trevor Ariza, has been sidelined
since breaking his right foot January 20. Gasol missed
nine games late in the season because of a sprained
ankle.
Through
it all, led by their MVP, the Lakers kept winning. And
now they appear to have as good a chance as any team to
win another NBA championship.
--AP |
