LOS ANGELES — It was an emotional event, but not in the usual teary-eyed, choked-up sense of the term.

No, Tuesday's media event — you can't quite call it a news conference since the "news" involved was 5 days old, since the NBA leaks like a rotting rowboat — to confirm Kobe Bryant's selection as Most Valuable Player was emotional in that it covered a huge range of emotions.

Bryant was frequently serious, occasionally dutiful (in that sense of saying the right thing, rather than the revealing one), often generous (in thanking his teammates for their role in the award), and at times mirthful — when the media session was interrupted by "questions" from Luke Walton and Tex Winter, which (happily) threatened to turn the event into a roast.

This was all highly appropriate, given the emotional range of a season that began in turbulence and retains the potential to end in transcendence, a year that began with Bryant looking for a way out of Los Angeles and is winding down with him proclaiming, as he did Tuesday, that he'd like to spend the rest of his career as a Laker.

"Obviously, there are a lot of things I would have done differently," Bryant said, looking back at the year, after joking "I was right the whole time."

More than that, the way the event bounced from serious to humorous, from smiling to sober, reflected the entire 12-year saga that has taken Bryant from straight-outta-high-school rookie to the dais at an L.A. airport hotel.

Bumpy? Sure. But really, how could it have been any other way? Could you have gone from high school to a spotlight position on one of the most storied teams in professional sports in a matter of months?

"It's just crazy that Kobe has grown up in front of everyone," said Lamar Odom, considering the maturation process that had to precede Bryant's MVP award. "He's been in the public eye since he was 17, so all his mistakes, his ups and downs were in front of everyone. It just so happens that sometimes the best is saved for last."

Not that Odom, or anyone else with the Lakers, has any reason to believe this marks some kind of final chapter for Bryant. Instead, this was a celebration of not just Bryant, but of the revival of a franchise that faltered after its divorce from Shaquille O'Neal, and threatened to completely implode when Bryant, fearing a future as a championship also-ran, made it clear he wanted out, too.

Since, then, of course, Andrew Bynum has emerged as a potential star, Pau Gasol has joined the fold and the Lakers have actually become a team, rather than a collection of players.

It's impossible to determine whether winning breeds chemistry or chemistry breeds winning, but it's not at all difficult to see that this group enjoys a harmony the three-peat team of 2000-02 never did. Every member of the team was present and accounted for at Tuesday's event.

More than that, they were cheerfully engaged in the moment, with Walton taking the microphone to ask if — given the way Bryant was crediting his teammates for their part in the award — he was planning on getting the rest of the roster any kind of a thank-you gift. ("That's a typical spoiled athlete these days," Bryant responded, smiling.)

And none of them seemed in any hurry to leave after the event was over, staying to chat with members of the organization, reporters, a handful of autograph seekers who found their way in, or anyone else who approached.

"We are all proud of this accomplishment," said Gasol, as he lingered to talk. "We're all happy for Kobe and wanted to be here for his emotional day."

Gasol, who has talked a lot about the on-court chemistry he enjoys with Bryant, admitted to being "happily surprised how well everybody got along" when he joined the team.

"This is hard, on a team like this with such great talent, for the individual egos to accept their roles and to know how to do it," he said. "Guys here accept their role, and know what they have to do, and are mature enough to deal with that."

That maturity doesn't end with No. 24, but it certainly had to be there on his part for everything else — the team success, the chemistry, and the MVP trophy — to follow.

"I think this is a special day for the Lakers as a team," said Odom, "as an organization, for everything he's been through, to have this happen."

After the session was over, a few of us found ourselves standing with Lakers trainer Gary Vitti, kidding him in an affable sort of way about not being mentioned in Bryant's thank yous.

"That's OK," Vitti said. "I have nothing to do with it."

"He works harder than everyone else, he's tough, he's talented and he's competitive. No one's more competitive. So he's got it all."

Including that MVP trophy, and the teammates who both made it possible and meaningful.

— Contact columnist David Lassen at dlassen@VenturaCountyStar.com. For more on Tuesday's presentation, check his blog at http://blogs.venturacountystar.com/vcs/lassen.