Kobe joined Shaq in the same year. Shaq was the most dominant center in the league at the time, Kobe was a scrub and was coming of the bench. If Kobe hadn't started his career with the most dominant center in the league, he probably would have been another Jerry Stackhouse
Shaq had Penny, had NVE and Jones and couldn't win ****. It was until Kobe's the closer they went over the top. Kobe's proven he doesn't need a top 3 talent to win it all. Shaq couldn't. LeBron gave up.
Whew man you sure are lost... Kobe was a raw rookie when he joined the Lakers. He was not a closer. He was a scrub who didn't even start until his second season. The guy was a ball hogging chucker that had to be benched
[aware of troll] What kind of a statement is this? Has it not been proven (to death, then back to life, then to death again) that you need a good team to win? No one does it by themselves. What was Kobe doing in between Shaq and Gasol? That's right: asking for a trade [/aware of troll]
I hope he can improve his clutch shot. A guy this good doesn't deserve to be this unclutched. With that said, he and Durant are slowly falling off the MVP race.
This is the same statement of how MJ, Magic criticized LeBron. Yes, everybody needs some help. But you don't go to another alpha dog and beg for help. You want to beat them up.
And what did Shaq win when Kobe's rookie or scrub? You are completely lost. Without Kobe, they wouldn't have come back from 15 in 4th quarter in WCF game 7 2000, wouldn't have a guy outscoring the entire Pacers in OT when Shaq fouled out. Shaq needs an all NBA first team caliber player to win it all, Kobe doesn't.
Yes, Kobe only needs Ron Artest and Gasol and Bynum and Odom to win it, he doesn't need any good players like shaq!
Kobe not only begged, he cried and moaned in 2007 to get an "alpha dog" Had the Gasol trade not gone down, there was a real chance that Kobe was going to join Jason Kidd in either Dallas or NJ if Kupchak ahd the guts to pull the trigger And BTW, Magic threatened the Bulls not to draft him in '79 or he was going to go back to M. State. He wanted to play with the "alpha dog" Abdul-Jabbar on the big stage in LA
What an original argument we have going on in here. This hasn't been discussed in 100+ pages worth of threads before. Lebron had an ok game last night (by his standards). He wasn't great in the clutch, but he wasn't terrible, either. For all those calling for Wade to get the ball more in crunch time, you must not have watched that game last night. Wade was garbage. As he's been every time the Heat have played the Celtics. And Lebron wasn't the guy who went 1-18 against the Bulls. When you essentially have a three man offense, all three of the guys actually need to show up.
This is not a thread about Kobe. You guys are missing the opportunity to discuss Lebron getting his shot blocked and then bricking a clutch 3. The heat continue to struggle when they have close ballgames. It will make the playoffs pretty interesting! (Also going into the playoffs with Dampier getting minutes at the 5, but that's for another thread.)
T-Mac is a very good example of what Kobe's career may have turned out like if he hadn't come into the league playing with an established superstar for the league's favorite franchise. How many rings did he win again?
Look, I can understand bashing LeBron but using Kobe as a standard is ridiculous. Kobe started his career with the most dominant center of his era and one of the top 50 of all time. To criticize LeBron for basically doing the same thing is absurd and the Kobe buttkissers dont want to accept that
You guys want to argue this out forever, fine. But get this straight first... Kobe ,even if he had negative rings, >>>>>>>>>>>>> Tmac