Kobe Bryant won his first NBA player of the year award Tuesday after leading the Los Angeles Lakers to the best record in the league's Western Conference. Bryant was challenged for the honor by star turns from some of the NBA's top talents, including NBA scoring champion LeBron James of Cleveland, New Orleans guard Chris Paul and Kevin Garnett, who led Boston to the NBA's best record. “It's Hollywood, it's a movie script. The perfect ending would be for us to hold a championship trophy at the end of it,” Bryant said at a news conference attended by his teammates, club officials, his wife and two daughters. “This is an award I couldn't have won on my own. I can't thank these guys (his teammates) enough. These are my guys, these are my brothers. Let's get ready for tomorrow.” Bryant entered the season as the league's two-time defending scoring champion but had finished only as high as third in voting for the Most Valuable Player award. He averaged 28.3 points while playing all 82 games despite tearing a pinkie ligament in February. This season there was no denying the Lakers' star. Los Angeles rose to the top of the West despite key injuries and following Bryant's trade demands last spring when his team was eliminated in the first round by Phoenix for the second straight year. Bryant averaged 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.84 steals while playing all 82 games despite tearing a ligament in his right pinkie in February. He put off surgery until after the Olympics. The knock on the 29-year-old Bryant had been that he didn't make those around him better - not anymore. “He's deserving in this particular season with all of the question marks and everything going on coming into the season and the uncertainty,” teammate Derek Fisher said. “Not only did he statistically have an MVP type of season, everybody can reasonably say they were better this year because of what he did. He met the so-called criteria, elevating his teammates' games.” When the Lakers made a February trade for Spanish big man Pau Gasol from Memphis, Bryant became a much more complete all-around player. The Lakers missed the playoffs in 2005, the season after Shaquille O'Neal departed for Miami after a feud with Bryant, and were ousted in the first round in each of the past two seasons. Bryant, second in the NBA in scoring behind James, is the first Laker to win the MVP award since Shaquille O'Neal in 2000. Other Lakers to win since the award was first presented in 1956 were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson - each times. Abdul-Jabbar also won three with Milwaukee.
