With Kobe in the twilight of his career....

[shindo03]

I want all the NBA fans to tell me why they think that Kobe and Shaq won only 1 MVP during their whole careers (slim chance Kobe gets one before he retires at this point hahaha). Share your thoughts and opinions! Thanks in advance.

[dasiegel]

it's why when people say things like "lebron has 4 mvps" i don't care. i wanna see rings, stats and other intangibles. fortunate for lebron, he has those too. but in general, nobody is better to me because a bunch of guys found ways to give people other than the best player in the league the award. jordan should have about 10 of those.

[xavieronly1]

Shaq:

Shaq and Penny split the votes in Magic. Kobe and Shaq split the votes in their Lakers time. So, Shaq couldn't get enough MVP votes. Then Shaq often played 65ish game. It is hard to win MVP with less than 70 games.

Kobe:
Same reason as above. Kobe and Shaq split the votes. Then Lakers went on no playoff without Shaq. So, there was hard for Kobe to win MVP. I actually think he deserved another MVP when Nash won it.

[JasonM32]

This is not what you asked but my only comments are that the MVP award is voted on by the press. As such, it's not super important to me.

The press has their own biases and their own way of thinking when it comes to these awards. The narrative that they can build is as important if not more important than how a guy is playing. They also frequently get voter fatigue and start spreading MVP awards around rather than voting for the same(deserving) guys every year.

I'm no fan of Lebron but he should win that award every year. I think it's absurd to suggest otherwise.

[xavieronly1]

This is not what you asked but my only comments are that the MVP award is voted on by the press. As such, it's not super important to me.

The press has their own biases and their own way of thinking when it comes to these awards. The narrative that they can build is as important if not more important than how a guy is playing. They also frequently get voter fatigue and start spreading MVP awards around rather than voting for the same(deserving) guys every year.

I'm no fan of Lebron but he should win that award every year. I think it's absurd to suggest otherwise.

Is there a player who deserves to win the MVP, but out of the top 3 voting?

I don't think the voting is that far off base.

[shindo03]

This is not what you asked but my only comments are that the MVP award is voted on by the press. As such, it's not super important to me.

The press has their own biases and their own way of thinking when it comes to these awards. The narrative that they can build is as important if not more important than how a guy is playing. They also frequently get voter fatigue and start spreading MVP awards around rather than voting for the same(deserving) guys every year.

I'm no fan of Lebron but he should win that award every year. I think it's absurd to suggest otherwise.

I dunno Russell and Stephen Curry were doing some crazy things last year. But, I definitely see your point.

[bigsmooth]

Shaq:

Shaq and Penny split the votes in Magic. Kobe and Shaq split the votes in their Lakers time. So, Shaq couldn't get enough MVP votes. Then Shaq often played 65ish game. It is hard to win MVP with less than 70 games.

Kobe:
Same reason as above. Kobe and Shaq split the votes. Then Lakers went on no playoff without Shaq. So, there was hard for Kobe to win MVP. I actually think he deserved another MVP when Nash won it.

I actually went back and checked the voting results on basketball-reference.com to see if Shaq/Penny, Shaq/Kobe, or Kobe/Shaq split each others votes for the MVP award.

As it turns out, there were not enough votes in any of the seasons where they would have given them the MVP award.

I agree though, Shaq should have won the MVP over Nash in 04-05. You were partially correct though, DWade took just enough votes from Shaq to where he should have won it that year.

[byronscott4ever]

I feel like players with great teammates usually get fewer votes than they should

[BestRCs]

I want all the NBA fans to tell me why they think that Kobe and Shaq won only 1 MVP during their whole careers (slim chance Kobe gets one before he retires at this point hahaha). Share your thoughts and opinions! Thanks in advance.

When Shaq was shaqing up the league I remember he used to take the regular seasons off at times. One of the reasons kobe wasn't too happy with the big fellah. I remember one year he had surgery on something right before the season started when he could've had it in the off season. And missed a bunch of games. He even conceded he wasn't getting paid to have surgeries in his own time. And he mostly ramped it up for the playoffs.

For kobe. It was Shaq team when Shaq was there there was no way he was going to get votes over Shaq. And then he was a one man show there for a while after Shaq left. It's hard to win games, especially back then in the west with a starting lineup that had Kwame brown. Shannon brown. Smush Parker. And Vlad Radmonovic.

It was after kobe threatened to play on Pluto that they decided they shouldn't be wasting kobes prime anymore but by then he was getting closer to the end of his career and Lebron had arrived

[rats60]

Is there a player who deserves to win the MVP, but out of the top 3 voting?

I don't think the voting is that far off base.

Sure there is. Shaq should have won in 98-99, but finished 6th. In 04-05 when Nash won, it should have gone to Duncan 4th or Nowitzki 3rd. Kobe should have won in 05-06 and finished 4th.