A few days ago, when Paul, the main star of the Suns, was interviewed by the media, he talked about the 2008 NBA league regular season MVP battle. As we all know, Paul, who played for the Hornets that year, averaged 21.1 points, 4 rebounds and 11.6 assists per game in the season, while leading the team to a good record of 56 wins and 26 losses in the regular season. However, in the final MVP selection battle, Paul was helpless to beat the Lakers star Kobe Bryant, thus regretting that he could not successfully win the MVP trophy of that year. As for the brush with the MVP trophy that year, Paul still has his own views.
"I thought I was going to win MVP that year [2008], and seriously, I thought I was going to get MVP." Paul recalls. Paul called himself the NBA league's regular season assist and steal king at the time, but the league seemed to pay more attention to the player's scoring data, so players with higher scoring data tended to be more likely to gain MVP. Obviously, Paul felt that the reason why he failed to beat Bryant to win the MVP trophy in 2008 was that his regular season scoring data was not as important as Kobe Bryant's.
Compared with Paul, who averaged 21+4+11 per game in the season, Kobe Bryant's NBA regular season statistics in the 07-08 season were 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists, and the scoring data was undoubtedly much higher than that of Paul, who averaged 21 points per game. In addition, in terms of the team's NBA regular season record win rate, Bryant's team performance is also better, and the Lakers won 57 wins and 25 losses in the NBA regular season that year. Therefore, whether it is the player's regular season data or the team's regular season record, Kobe Bryant is obviously able to compete with Paul, so in the end Kobe Bryant also got the highest MVP selection score in the league, and Paul is ranked second in the list after Kobe.
It is worth mentioning that the MVP selection in 2008 is very important for Paul and Kobe, because in Kobe's entire NBA career, he only won this MVP trophy in the end, so if the MVP selection lost to Paul that year, then Kobe Bryant may lack the hard goods honor of the regular season MVP throughout his career. The same is true of Paul, since the MVP scramble lost to Kobe Bryant in 2008, Paul also did not have the impact to win the MVP trophy, and now Paul is undoubtedly the end of his NBA career, and now he is basically impossible to win the MVP trophy honor in today's league!