lol, at Kobe bandwagoners. The guy is barely fit to polish MJ's shoes. Go watch some old basketball games dude.
Somehow... I feel that your first/second second sentence contradict one another. Every player mentioned here is because they were successful on the team level, and all of them could not do it by themselves. If Duncan never won those championships, he would merely be mentioned in the same breath as Karl Malone/Barkley and a host of many other great players that are currently in the hall of fame but was never considered the best. Shaq has always played beside a HOF/elite level 2 guards all his career. You think he would of had 4 rings if not for Kobe/Wade? I think of recent history, the Dream was really about the only player that I could consider as the one that carried their team to the championship, and even then, his teammates stepped up for him when it mattered.
Your logic totally eludes me. Are you saying that how great a player is depends on what kind of teammates he has? Shaq had the luck of playing with two of the best 2 guards in NBA history, and that makes him a greater player than Hakeem?
hell nah, last time i checked 6 is more than 5.. Jordan will always be the goat wtf are u talkin about?
No, stupid thread, takes more than just rings to be the greatest. For the longest time Wilt was considered the greatest and he "only" had 2 rings. Why do people open these stupid threads with stupid questions that end up being made by stupid people. Just stop it....
PER is a stat by a guy who has never played basketball in his life. I put more weight in OPS in baseball than PER and "true shooting". Stop inventing stats and just watch the games....
As long as the following players still exist (or played) in our universe: Magic Johnson Michael Jordan Wilt Chamberlain Kareem Abdul Jabbar Larry Bird Hakeem Olajuwon Oscar Robertson I'll even throw in Moses Malone, Tim Duncan, and Jerry West. And lastly . . . Shaquille O'Neal. Tell me how does Kobe surpass all of those players with 5 rings, no way he is better or more beneficial to a team than any of those centers. He's not as good as MJ, and he has never been as well rounded or had the same impact on the league as Bird or Magic.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/scoreboards/1998/03/27/preview.atlanta.chicago.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association_Nielsen_ratings#Record_highs I doubt Kobe will have exit like this.
True shooting is more or less analogous to OPS in basketball -- how many points you score per scoring attempt.
Ultimately, to differentiate great players, it comes down to his personal accolades in the context of his team's sucess. The comparison of Bill Russell to Wilt Chamberlain comes to mind. If MJ only won 1-2 championships instead of 6, will he still be such a clear cut candidate for the GOAT? I think the argument would then become a lot more debatable. MJ won 6 championships is a function of his personal greatness as well as the fact that he played in great teams and coach. Even though Shaq is considered the most dominant, I would still put Hakeem ahead of him because I have never seen a player dominant both sides of the court so thoroughly. However, because Hakeem only won 2 championships instead of Duncan's 4, his name is not even mentioned among the GOAT candidates, while Duncan's is. I am ultimately agreeing with you that the team's success does not equate to how great a player is, but in the previous post, you initiated the notion, yet contradicted it subsequently by saying that Kobe didn't do crap without Shaq/Pau... Yet not only was he the 1b offensive option (usually the closer) during the championship runs, but achieved the individual allocades that previously elluded him because of being overshadowed by Shaq. I feel that most discredit his greatness because he missed the playoffs one year and got knocked off by the great Sun's team in the next few because he had NBDL talent playing with him.
All I will say is Lakers fans are gonna lose a lot of money come playoff time. All they see is Bynum Gasol Artest Kobe Fisher/Odom and think "all in."
