The Arizona Republic's NBA/Suns beat writer, Paul Coro, did exhaustive research on the voting, polling 106 of 127 media members with a vote before the announcement.

After there were claims that Nash won because of his skin color, the Arizona Republic looked through the list of minority media members we had polled: African-American, Hispanic and Asian. Their votes were nearly split right down the middle, with Nash having a slight edge - just as he did in the overall voting.

They then identified 10 voters in their poll who have been covering the NBA for at least 15 years - most of them far longer - and who are White men.

Seven of them voted for Shaq. Only three picked Nash.