Who's your MVP prediction for the 05-6 season??

[DB]

Kobe Bryant for sure.

[Little_Big_Man]

Kobe! Kobe! Kobe! I can hear the chants already. Kobe has the Lakers at 3-1 so far and playing great basketball. So far Phil has find a great mix of a lot of Kobe and winning. Kobe is shooting over 50% and averaging 36ppg! He is going nuts on the league and if he averages over 30ppg 6rpg 4apg and the Lakers make the playoffs he should be a lock. No one expected the Lakers to do as well as they have and so far this year its been all Kobe and Smush. They play better together than Lamar and Kobe do. Smush is shooting well over 50% as well. I can see the Lakers going as high as 4-6th in the West and winning as much as 50+ games. If they do and Kobe doesn't win MVP it would be a travesty.

[cyanide]

...

It's only 4 games into the season. There's 78 games left to be played. There's no lock that Kobe will average over 30 ppg, and there's no lock the Lakers will make the playoffs. Wasn't there a point where Kobe scored over 35 points in like 10 consecutive games or something? I don't recall him winning an MVP that season, and if they made the playoffs, Shaq probably had something to do with it

[DB]

02-03: 9 straight 40+/- games (no shaq and winning most of those games),
12 threes in a game (nba record), averaging 30.0ppg 6.9rpg 5.9apg 2.21spg.
I think Kobe was a lock for MVP that year but hey ripped him off,
but it won't happen again this year.

No question Duncan deserved it in that season...but Kobe deserved it more.

[putodelagoa]

I see the Lakers surprising every prognosticators ( a sure fire way to win an MVP is being the best player in a surprising team - see - Nash, Iverson, ). There's no way the the truly deserving MVP's will win anytime soon (Duncan, O'Neal).

I understand the Duncan part but not really he Shaq part. I dont even believe he is the best player on his team much less the MVP. His game in on the downslide and if he wasnt winning them every year before then I see no chance of him winning it now. He's a great player to have, dont get me wrong, but if you gave me a choice between him and lets say an Amare, I would choose Amare.

If you're looking to the future, then yes, Amare might be your man, but right now, and even if his game is on the downslide, Shaq is still the best center out there. Rasheed Wallace can defend Duncan effectively, but not Shaq.
I've no doubt he's still the best player in Miami. Dwayne Wade has long ways to go to become the elite player he will eventually be. Anyway, teams don't need to make so many adjustments to contain wade as they do to keep Shaq from doing much harm. Besides, at this point of his career, his mere presence on the floor makes the game easier for his teammates. And, just for the sake of argument, if he plays like last season, chipping in 25ppg and 10rbds, that's clearly less impressive than his career highs, but MVP deserving, nonetheless.