28.3 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 5.4 APG, and 57 wins later, Kobe Bryant is your 2008 NBA MVP.
2008 MVP Voting (based on the NBA's MVP voting points system):
1. Kobe Bryant - 1,105 (82 first place votes)
2. Chris Paul - 889 (28 first place votes)
3. Kevin Garnett - 670
4. LeBron James - 439
5. Dwight Howard - 60
Longest-Tenured Winners*
Kobe Bryant - won following his 12th season
Karl Malone - 12th season
Hakeem Olajuwon - 10th season
Charles Barkley - 9th season
Kevin Garnett - 9th season
Steve Nash - 9th season
Dirk Nowitzki - 9th season
Magic Johnson - 8th season
Shaquille O'Neal - 8th season
Bob Cousy - 7th season
*First MVP Award
The press conference was terrific. Here are some notable quotes:
"Since you said that you couldn't have won this award without your teammates, are you going to be getting your teammates any sort of gifts?" - Luke Walton "How do you like the triangle?" - Tex Winter
And this one from Bill Plaschke: "Kobe, would you like to be a Laker for the rest of your career? Can you say that now?""I would like to. Absolutely."
Here's the full audio of the acceptance speech as well as the press conference, courtesy of myself.
The RING is much more harder to get, but since Kobe and the Lakers are now tune to play good ball and can do selfless sacrifices to achieve a given goal then the Championship will never be distant possibility.
Well deserved and very overdue in my opinion. Congrats to KB24 for this award. Now it's time to get a ring without Shaq if for no other reason but to prove the nay sayers wrong.
I'm a realistic observer of the vast world that surrounds the Los Angeles Lakers. You can thank Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, Cedric Ceballos, and Vlade Divac for making that possible. The greatest person of all time is Francis Dayle "Chick" Hearn. There's no getting around that. Me? I'm eighteen years old and working my way to a journalism degree.
