Why are people acting like this is some outlandish opinion. Pau deserving FMVP was a very popular take at the point. Kobe glazers claiming otherwise is the definition of history revisionism. A lot of those old forums have been nuked but I'm pretty sure I can still find old threads with people saying Gasol deserved it.
They were neck and neck in terms of the Box Score
And Pau had more of an impact defensively and had had a better closeout game while Kobe nearly shot them out of it with that infamous 6-24 performance. When it's close likt that, they were obviously going to give it to the bigger star for marketing reasons but it wouldn't have been some big surprise if Pau won it.