[timzerofive]

The question is did YOU watch the games? If you did, you know who the MVP is. Without Kobe being double/tripple teamed constantly, without him spacing out the defense, without him facilitating the shots, without him running the offense, without his leadership, you think anyone on that team could've done what they did? Look at their starting 5: Odom, the underachiever throughout his career; Kwame, one of the biggest draft flops up to this point of his career, discarded by Wizards; Smush, bench warmer discarded by Suns; Luc, who? If you want to talk about stats alone, how about Kobe leading in assists. If you want to talk about clutch, he did it twice in a span of 6 min. And I know we don't even have to talk about scoring, because unless you want to bring wilt chamberlin out of retirement, that 81 is the most anyone in the world will score for a long while. Disregarding all these facts, let's go back to what you just said... kobe not being the mvp of his team in this series... without Kobe, this team would've been swept out of this series already.

Edit: To add to what's been said, this series was definitely won by the TEAM, not Kobe alone. Lame-r definitely was a major factor, but so was Luke, and Sasha, and Smush, and Kwame, and Cookie, and George. I would argue that Kwame being more of a factor then odom. Odom's stats didn't really pick up till this last game. But the most valuable player on this Laker team, is Kobe. No one in their right mind would trade Kobe for someone else, but arguably, Lamar is trade-able.

A quote from LA Time's article:
"...Said Luke Walton: "An amazing player, but an even better leader. He makes us better. All game long, he made us better."

Said Smush Parker: "And then, in the end, he won it for us. Just like you knew he would win it for us.""