Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant has won the NBA's MVP award for the first time, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Website on Friday.
Citing anonymous sources familiar with the outcome of voting by media members, it reported that Commissioner David Stern will be in Los Angeles this week to present the trophy to Bryant.
"We have not been told anything by the league," Lakers spokesman John Black said.
Bryant, who entered the season as the league's two-time defending scoring champion, had twice been third in MVP voting - after the 2002-03 campaign, when he averaged 30 points for the first time, and again last season, when Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki won the award.
Bryant averaged 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.84 steals while playing in all 82 games despite tearing a ligament in his right little finger in February. A hand specialist recommended surgery, but Bryant decided to put it off until after the Olympics this summer.
He led the Lakers to the best record in the Western Conference and a sweep of Denver in first round playoffs.
Bryant, second in the NBA in scoring behind Cleveland's LeBron James, will be the first Lakers player to win the MVP award since Shaquille O'Neal was a near-unanimous choice in 2000. Other previous Lakers to win the award dating to 1956, when it was first presented, were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, who won it thrice. Abdul-Jabbar also won three with the Milwaukee Bucks.
(Agencies via Shanghai Daily May 4, 2008)