Duncan has been with the Spurs for 19 years and didn't miss almost 2 of them to injury. His team was great every single one of those years.
Overrated player, horrible team mate and a scumbag of a human. At least he stopped being fake to the media over the last year or so. People claiming he is a top 10 player of all time better all be 25 or younger so they can claim ignorance.
That's a good point, and question. My first thought upon hearing the analysis about his place in his generation of players was "how to define the generation"? With time, you seem able to compartmentalize generations easier. Magic/Bird are slightly ahead of MJ/Hakeem/Ewing/DRob, etc. Without abiding by any formal rules, in my head, we have +/- 5 year windows. And Shaq is a generation before Kobe, and Lebron is a generation after. Shaq came into the league 4 years earlier, Lebron 7 (?) years later.
Gotta love the internet generation. Where anyone can claim to know a person without actually knowing him. I don't mean to upset you. But it sounds like you have some personal issues there, Dave.
I dunno if possible but if he joined the TNT crew (Shaq, Barkley, Smith), that would be ratings through the roof every single night. Some executive out there has to be thinking this right now.
Current players ranking: WAR: 1)Duncan 2)Nowitzki 3)Garnett 4)James 5)Kobe VORP: 1)James (He's going to pass MJ this season for #1) 2)Garnett 3)Duncan 4)Kobe I think Garnett > Kobe, though very close, with Nowitzki pretty even with Kobe.
Stats can say a lot of different things but the only scoreboard that actually counts is championships. Kobe has 5 rings and Dirk and Garnett both only have 1. And you can say Kobe was on better teams or have some stat that justifies why he isn't better than certain players, but if these players are so good on paper, why don't they win more championships? Kobe is also the #3 all time leading scorer and is the only player in NBA history with over 30,000 points and 6000 assists. He also has over 6800 rebounds. I mean, all the Kobe hate actually makes him one of the most underrated players in NBA history. Duncan is the only player in his generation that is comparable in greatness, but although Duncan has comparable accolades, I would bet that Nike would take Kobe any day of the week as a front man for their product. Kobe was definitely the more popular player because of his more exciting style of play and is the player of his generation for that reason more than any. If you polled NBA players in their 20's, I'd venture to guess that more wanted to be like Kobe than Duncan. Paul George even said Kobe is his MJ and I'd bet that a lot of others feel exactly the same.
Kobe is certainly one of the all time greats. Deserves the respect. I think that, had he retired earlier, he would have looked better. The last years were not glorious as they should have. Nevertheless, you got to respect his input in the NBA.
Never liked playing against him but some people are delusional in here. Kind of like the Harden homers in the GARM.
Borderline rapist at best but the biggest douche there was a great player though but also selfish shooter and below average shooter when not in clutch situations (and even then)
I am not saying that Garnett is better than Kobe (since I do value championships). But saying the only scoreboard that count are championships is not a good argument. In that case Horry and Kerr are better players than Kobe (which they clearly are not). I do believe championships are important, but it is also very important what role you had in those championships. To me the first championships of Kobe do not count as much as the last 2 since he was not the best player on that team. Yes he was important But Shaq was clearly the best player. To me those championships count as much As Pippens championships (he has 6 being the second best player). They are important. To me Kobe is an all time great. However he is not the best player of his generation. When you look at the last 15 years Shaq, and Duncan are better players. Lebron is debatable. Lets see if he wins more championships, but . One thing that Kobe has working against him in his all time ranking is that there is not really a time in his career were he was clearly the best player in the NBA.
This is one of the dumbest paragraphs I've read on the BBS, and I've been here a long time. So prepare for some light reading below... Basketball is a team sport. This isn't that hard to comprehend. Judging players by championships, therefore, is moronic. It's part of the equation, but nowhere near the biggest part. It's completely nonsensical to say "kobe was on better teams" to follow it up with "why don't the win more championships?". Since it is apparently a difficult concept for you to understand, let me lay it out for you again. Basketball is a TEAM SPORT. Garnett and Dirk, for example, don't have as many championships as Kobe, because they were consistently and regularly on teams with WAY LESS talent. Guess what... when those players were surrounded by better talent, they made multiple and regular deep playoff runs and won a title. Not five... but so? Dirk led his team to two Finals and one title with a team that was nowhere near as close to as talented as Kobe's teams. How did Kobe do leading a team with less talent?? Oh, not that great, eh? Including a random game where he effectively quit on his team, IN THE PLAYOFFS! And oh btw, the Mavs were screwed out of their first finals appearance by being unable to breathe on Wade without a foul being called... while on the other hand Kobe and the Lakers, by virtue of being the Lakers, benefit from things like the game 6 Lakers/Kings 4th quarter fiasco, which is, BAR NONE, the worst and most biased quarter of NBA referee'ing I've ever seen (right in the middle of the NBA ref gambling era, mind you). All of which isn't to say what happened didn't happen. Kobe has 5 rings. Dirk, or Garnett, have 1. But it is to say, I'm not going to put much stock in that. You then go on to point to a bunch of accumulation stats and then conclude that Kobe is one of the most underrated players in NBA history?? Um... no, not even close. Want a GREAT example of an underrated player? Hakeem Olajuwon. Perhaps the best 5 tool player in NBA history (points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals... all with efficiency). The guy the consensus #1 player of all time (MJ) would pick as his ultimate center running mate. Yet, consistently ranked below someone like Shaq - who had brute force dominance, but was a liability down the stretch and a could be a liability in PnR defense... or below someone like Tim Duncan, who has masqueraded for years as a PF - despite being a center - and who the eye test for anyone who watched both players careers over the last 25 years would know wasn't quite the overall player Hakeem was. THAT'S an underrated player. Kobe is a highly regarded and respected player. Entertainment value has been top notch. And the best volume scorer and player in the last 2 decades. But it's moronic to look past that volume. Kobe has led the league in usage 3 times... which is part of the reason why he's also missed more FGs than anyone in league history. Now Jordan led the league in usage 8 times, but he also led the league in PER 7 times. And WS/48 8 times. And had 4 years with a TS% over 60%. And led the league in Value over Replacement Player 7 times. Etc, etc. All things Kobe has never done. He's led the league in usage, not any other relevant advanced stats category once in his career. I haven't even got into the Kobe is clutch fallacy. So I'll just point you here... http://swishnba.com/tag/the-truth-about-kobe-in-the-clutch/ It is what it is. He's a great player. An all-time great. I put him as 2nd best in his "generation" behind Duncan. But I also think Dirk and Garnett are much closer to him than others might think. And I further think there's no way Kobe is a top 10 player all time. Not with that inefficiency. Here's one for you. I'll take Steph Curry at his prime over Kobe at his prime. Steph's best year... last year, I'll take over Kobe's best year. His apples to apples, same # of possession stats, are very comparable, and in fact better in certain categories, he was part of a #1 defense in the league, he was the MVP, he had a 28 PER, which matches Kobe's best, and he did it with a TS% of 64%, way higher than Kobe's best ever (58%). And btw he led his team to a title, in a more competitive Western Conference, with unquestionably less talent than Kobe ever had around him in his championship years. If Steph keeps up this year's pace, than it's a no brainer ... Steph's prime is better than Kobe's. (but it seems crazy that Steph would keep this up... a 34 PER, a 69% TS%, a historic, lossless start, etc.) Even the people who don't like Kobe rarely base that non-liking in actual, factual, logical performance. They don't like him as a person, what he did in Colorado, how he ran Shaq out of town, his aloofness, etc. They don't point to what I pointed to. I don't give a crap about any of that other stuff. I know, unquestionably, it's all stuff that I would EASILY look past if Kobe was on my team. But I can't look past the actual results on the court. Which ABSOLUTELY DO make him an all time great, but not quite the legend some think he is.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-version="6" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50.0% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAAGFBMVEUiIiI9PT0eHh4gIB4hIBkcHBwcHBwcHBydr+JQAAAACHRSTlMABA4YHyQsM5jtaMwAAADfSURBVDjL7ZVBEgMhCAQBAf//42xcNbpAqakcM0ftUmFAAIBE81IqBJdS3lS6zs3bIpB9WED3YYXFPmHRfT8sgyrCP1x8uEUxLMzNWElFOYCV6mHWWwMzdPEKHlhLw7NWJqkHc4uIZphavDzA2JPzUDsBZziNae2S6owH8xPmX8G7zzgKEOPUoYHvGz1TBCxMkd3kwNVbU0gKHkx+iZILf77IofhrY1nYFnB/lQPb79drWOyJVa/DAvg9B/rLB4cC+Nqgdz/TvBbBnr6GBReqn/nRmDgaQEej7WhonozjF+Y2I/fZou/qAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div><p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/-vjIGKHDJO/" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">A video posted by Rydel (@rydel26)</a> on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2015-12-01T08:44:42+00:00">Dec 1, 2015 at 12:44am PST</time></p></div></blockquote> <script async defer src="//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script>
