The “race” to win the NBA Most Valuable Player award is over. It was really over a while ago, when the conventional sports media came to a general consensus (in print) that Kobe Bryant deserves to be this year’s MVP. The actual votes will be counted, and the Maurice Podoloff Award handed out in June during the Finals.

We’re used to seeing newspaper editorials published in support of one presidential candidate or another. But what if only the newspaper editors were allowed to vote? From a betting standpoint, you’d have a pretty good idea who the winner would be just from reading the papers. That’s what has happened to the NBA MVP race – the voters are telling you whom they are going to vote for, and why.

Betting on the MVP should remain one of the hotter commodities on the NBA futures market. It’ll just be a shorter betting season, cut off by the MVP bandwagon.