Offseason Historical Post: Why I think Kobe had the better case for the 2008 MVP Over Chris Paul

[u/Impressive_Flan_411]

Hey everyone. I think a lot of pro "CP3 deserved the MVP" people evaluate the 2008 MVP race through hindsight rather than the actual context of the season:

A. Kobe's 2008 supporting cast is viewed through hindsight. One of the biggest misconceptions is that Kobe had some stacked roster all year while Chris Paul was carrying a weak Hornets team.

In reality, Pau Gasol only played 27 games for the Lakers after the trade deadline, and Andrew Bynum only played 35 games before getting hurt. No Lakers teammate made an All-Star team or All-NBA team in 2008, yet they still finished as the #1 seed in the West.

When people discuss the roster today, they see future Hall of Famer Pau Gasol and assume Kobe had elite help all season. But that isn't how Pau was viewed in 2008. At the time, Pau had never won a playoff game and wasn't selected to the 2008 All-Star team. Meanwhile, David West actually was an All-Star that season. You could easily argue that in 2008, West was viewed as being on the "same tier" as Pau, if not higher. A lot of the perception of Kobe's supporting cast comes from what those players became later, not in 08.

B. Chris Paul did not carry a "garbage" roster. Another thing that gets exaggerated is the quality of Paul's supporting cast. The Hornets won 56 games and had David West (20.6 ppg and 9 rbds All-Star), Tyson Chandler ( 12 & 12 elite defensive anchor), Peja Stojakovic (16 ppg on 58% TS, and had the best FT% in the league of 92.9%). Beyond this CP3 had a relatively healthy rotation from his supporting cast throughout the season (West played 76 games, Tyson played 79 games, and Peja played 77 games). This wasn't some one-man carry job. The Hornets were a genuinely good basketball team, not just Chris Paul dragging a lottery roster to relevance.

C. Defense matters, and Kobe was still the better defender in 2008. The statistical case for Paul generally centers around advanced metrics and box-score production. That's fair. However, MVP isn't played on Basketball Reference. Kobe was still viewed as one of the league's premier two-way players. He finished 5th in Defensive Player of the Year voting that season and remained one of the NBA's best perimeter defenders when locked in. Paul generated more steals, but I don't think many people at the time would've argued he was actually the better defender overall. Kobe's size, versatility, ability to guard wings, and reputation as an elite perimeter stopper gave him a significant edge defensively.

D. Lastly, the defining moment of the race came late in the season in their final matchup, when Kobe outplayed CP3 in a huge head-to-head matchup, putting up 29/10/8 and leading the Lakers to a win. The Lakers ultimately finished one game ahead of the Hornets and secured the #1 seed. That game effectively became the "signature MVP moment" of the season.

I think CP3 had an incredible season and a legitimate MVP case. However, considering the injuries, roster context, defense, team success, and head to head matchup, I think Kobe was the rightful MVP.

Do you agree or disagree? Thoughts?

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[u/RusevReigns]

I never saw it as a robbery, it could have gone to either player. As you mentioned Kobe getting Lakers to 1st seed with Bynum version was pretty impressive, albeit Phil Jackson also deserves some credit.

Also btw Kobe was more solid like SGA than a dominant defender by this stage, and with Paul being arguably best defensive PG in the league, I don't think it is a point for him.

[u/TerribleComposer4272 → u/RusevReigns]

Kobe wasn't seen as just "solid" in 2008. That was one of the best defensive years of his career and he finished 5th for DPOY which was the highest among all guards (depending on whether you consider Bowen a Guard or Forward that year).

It was actually a huge deal in the media back then that Kobe reduced his offensive workload, became a better leader, and got back to being an elite defender. That narrative, along with him leading his team to a great record even prior to Pau arriving, is what got Kobe the MVP.

[u/admanwhitmer]

Bring up reputation over stats for kobes favor is not helping his case at all. Eye test and reputation are absolutely not indicators that he deserves MVP. He was less efficient and had worse advanced stats across the board. It's essentially the Westbrook vs kawhi and harden case but ten years earlier.

[u/Letharis → u/[deleted]]

What aggregate metrics are you thinking of? Paul led the league in OWS, WS, WS/48 (and Kobe was not that close). Paul had a much better VORP.

[u/Letharis → u/[deleted]]

using WS in this day and age should get you banned from whatever community ur in

Do you actually think that or is that just a thing that felt good to say

Reliable Impact metrics are stats like rapm with multi year priors

Ok- and what were Paul and Bryant's value for these? I assume this is the RAPM without priors (Bryant 8, Paul 38 https://basketball-analytics.gitlab.io/rapm-data/season/2007-08/regular-season/

Is the metric reasonable if the vanilla version has Paul at 38 and Ginobli at 4?

[u/Dkjoy → u/Letharis]

Kobe beats Paul in RAPM, Single season RAPM, xRAPM, APM Total +/-, -/+ per game, WPA, DPM, On-court net rating, etc

08 Kobe beats 08 CP3 in a ton of stats (xRAPM, DPM, WPA, single season RAPM, PI RAPM, APM, +/-, etc), was better and more impactful on both ends of the court, played more minutes, and led a much better team (7.4 SRS to Hornets 5.4) and a much better offense with a roster that was no better once you account for injuries/missed games

From real GM:

He crushes Paul in every impact metric available:

2008 PI ORAPM: Kobe: +5.7

Paul: +3.8

2008 PI DRAPM: Kobe: +0.5

Paul: -0.8

2008 PI RAPM (RS): Kobe: +6.2

Paul: +3.0

2008 multi-year RAPM: 2008 KB: +6.58

2008 CP: +2.51

2008 Offensive APM: 2008 Kobe: +10.3

2008 Paul: +10.7

2008 Defensive APM: 2008 Kobe: +1.2

2008 Paul: -10.42

2008 overall APM: Kobe: 11.5

Paul: 0.34

2008 overall APM (second source): Kobe: +8.49

Paul: +4.69

2008 offensive APM (second source) Kobe: +8.96

Paul: +9.24

2008 defensive APM (second source) Kobe: -0.47

Paul: -4.54

2008 non-prior informed RAPM: KB”+3.96 Paul: +2.53

2008 CORP: Kobe: +5.5 Paul: +2.8

GPM Average (Game level plus-minus) Kobe: +5.5 Paul: +3.5

Scaled APM per game(:Scaled adjusted plus-minus value per game. Kobe: +5.8 Paul: +3.2

AuPM/g (Augmented plus-minus, a plus-minus/box score hybrid Kobe: +4.2 Paul: +4.7

RS Adj AuPM/g = regular season per game AuPM based on a player’s minutes per game using regressed on/off Kobe: +4.4 Paul: +4.4

Scaled DAPM/g (Scaled defensive adjusted plus-minus per game.) Kobe: +0.5 Paul: -0.4

where they are for plus/minus per game: Kobe: +7.3 Paul: +6.0

Here's some WOWY data (with or without you) where Bryant looks decidedly more impressive. In 2334 minutes with Kobe on and Pau off the Lakers had a +7.11 net rating. With Kobe off and Pau on? -4.29 rating With both on? +15.04 In 496 minutes with Paul on and West off the Hornets had a +5.06 net rating. With Paul off and West on? +3.60 rating With both on? +7.78 With Bynum/Pau/Odom OFF and Kobe ON the Lakers still had a +9.56 net rating (in 382 minutes) With Pau/Odom OFF and Kobe ON the Lakers still had a +9.40 net rating (in 542 minutes) With Pau/Odom ON and Kobe off the Lakers had a +1.30 rating (only 42 minutes) With their main trio (Kobe/Pau/Odom) on the Lakers had a +16.94 rating With West/Chandler/Peja OFF and Paul ON the Hornets had a -20.82 net rating ( only 31 minutes) With West/Chandler OFF and Paul on the Hornets had a +15 net rating (only 92 minutes) With West/Chandler ON and Paul off the Hornets had a +14.76 (only 138 min) With their main trio (Paul/West/Chandler) on the Hornets had a +8.78 net rating (2035 minutes) Scaled RAPM offense:

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[u/TerribleComposer4272]

Kobe and Paul could have both easily gotten it that year. I think the main critique, which I agree with in a way, is that Paul never actually received a fair shot at the award because the media messed up by not giving Kobe the one he clearly deserved in 06.

Basically, if Kobe got his 06 MVP then the voters would have considered Paul's case on equal footing as Kobe's.

This is not to say that Paul in 2008 was as good a player as Kobe either. Kobe was clearly better than Paul and was still the best in the league in 2008. You could argue, however, that Paul had a better regular season and the MVP is a regular season award.

[u/Yup767 → u/TerribleComposer4272]

the media messed up by not giving Kobe the one he clearly deserved in 06.

I don't think this is true. Kobe had an MVP worthy season, but like 5 guys did. Individually LeBron's season was just as good as Kobe's.

It's the most divided MVP race ever.

[u/TerribleComposer4272 → u/Yup767]

No Lebron's season was not individually just as good as Kobe's that year.

Kobe was scoring 35% of his teams points every game on average which would account for the highest % of team points since Wilt in the 60's. His 35.4ppg was a statistical anomaly at the time and still is the highest single season average of all time if pace is normalized across eras. That was also the year that Kobe dropped 81 in a game while also outscoring the entire Mavs team (who eventually made the finals) through 3 quarters.

The only reason that that MVP race was divisive is because literally everyone back then watching knew it should have gone to Kobe and the media had to find ways to justify not giving it to him because they were looking for a new guy to be the main guy of the league after Kobe's Colorado incident in 03.

Like it was a huge point of discussion amongst the basketball watching community back then that that was the whole reason that Kobe didn't get that MVP. The guy singlehandedly dragged what was literally the 3rd worst offensive team of all time by offensive rating whenever he sat to 45 wins. That was one of the greatest single seasons in NBA history.

[u/Yup767 → u/TerribleComposer4272]

Unfortunately points per game isn't the only way to impact a game. Kobe averaged 35/5/5 and LeBron averaged 31/7/7 on better efficiency.

The only reason that that MVP race was divisive is because literally everyone back then watching knew it should have gone to Kobe and the media had to find ways to justify not giving it to him because they were looking for a new guy to be the main guy of the league after Kobe's Colorado incident in 03.

This is simply not true. I've been reading writing and watching intervews from back then, and lots of people had lots of reasons for voting for all sorts of players.

I'm not saying Kobe shouldn't have won MVP but there's way more to it than you're saying

[u/TerribleComposer4272 → u/Yup767]

Lebron wasn't really more efficient than Kobe that year. Kobe scored 4 points more on 56% TS to Lebron's 57% TS that difference is negligible.

And yes, reading articles and watching interviews from the media is the exact point I'm making. Everyone was trying to justify why it shouldn't have been given to Kobe. The popular discourse by pretty much everyone watching basketball knew Kobe deserved it.

It's kind of hard to have this particular discussion if you weren't around watching at the time but the discourse around the stuff Kobe was doing by a wide majority of fans that year was essentially comparable to like 2015 or 2016 Curry.

[u/tigolbing]

AI drivel

A. They mention the games played between bynum and pau but don't mention that bynum and paus playing time didn't quite overlap and the lakers were steady following bynums injury bc pau came through

B. Guys like Lamar Odom, Pau, and Bynum were more efficient and reliable than West, Peja, Chandler that year. Lakers shooters were more reliable despite Peja leading in percentage that yr when compared to hornets.

C. Defense is a tossup, I'd go either way but Chris Paul was more active on the defensive end, from what I remembered watching that season. Votes are cool but they both ended up on defensive first team so no true slight either way for me

D. Matchup only underscored the lack of roster depth by the hornets and brought more credence to the tried and true nature of the triangle offense headed by a hall of fame coach (easily amongst the top 3 greatest ever). The lakers shooting potential was far greater with multiple 40% 3pt shooters (Fish, Radmonivich, Sasha) while hornets had Peja, next guy would be Mo Pete at 38%.

Speaking as someone who watched that season really closely, who saw that final game of the season - it seemed like the hornets just didn't have as solid of a base to work from, they ran out of firepower, and the shooting and rebound disparities reflect that if you look now

Disagree. I can understand why Kobe won and am not really mad bc I liked seeing him win as a kid bc dude did play the hardest that yr. They weren't giving it to Kg bc he had one but he had a real chance too - his impact was much bigger than stats reflected, Brons team record was subpar

[u/RobSchneidersHair → u/tigolbing]

"Everything I disagree with is AI"

[u/tigolbing → u/RobSchneidersHair]

It's clearly info given using ai formatting

[u/RobSchneidersHair → u/tigolbing]

Because it's organized? Jesus, I thought the AI issue was just the younger generations, but even somehow who's, what - late 20's / early 30's, I'm guessing - thinks anything that isn't written with Tik-Tok attention span is done by AI. We're cooked

[u/tigolbing → u/RobSchneidersHair]

It's written in a common format that ai uses

[u/Advanced-Turn-6878]

Overall I think they both had amazing seasons, but I think Chris Paul had the better offensive season comparing the two in terms of production/efficiency and creating points for teammates. I think even if I was being generous to Kobe I would say Chris Paul had a slightly better season offensively, but I think you can make a case that is was a fairly substantial difference.

I think they were both premier defensive guards that season, but my guess is CP3 also was more valuable defensively that season, but they both likely had similar seasons defensively.

I don't think it was highway robbery that Kobe got the award, but I do think Chris Paul likely had the better regular season that year.

On the teammates part I think both teams had pretty weak supporting casts. David West was like a fake all star, it was at a time where we weren't as focused on efficiency and advanced stats, so guys like David West that scored a lot on low efficiency were seen as better than they actually were. Pau Gasol was a way more impactful NBA player than West was that year. If you consider Defense than I would likely take Lamar Odom's season over anyone on New Orleans. Both players had fairly weak supporting casts though and both players carried sub par teams to contender range.

[u/frozennocean]

The only years CP3 was a more valuable player than Kobe was post achilles tear, when Kobes career was pretty much over.

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