There is no after this year. TiMVP has been the better player. Multiple MVPS, better defense, better team player and a top 10 all time great
just as many rings as kobe more finals mvps than kobe more mvp than kobe higher career PER than kobe higher career playoff PER than kobe higher career ws/48 than kobe hgher career playoff ws/48 than kobe
"After this year" THIS is what's wrong with sports culture right now. Tim Duncan winning a championship this year didn't just magically boost his ability as a basketball player. Either you're better than someone or you aren't. Winning rings builds your resume and validates you, but is a separate discussion from being a better player. What if Tony Parker sprained his ankle and couldn't play in the Finals? All of the sudden Miami wins and LeBron is a 3 time champ, all of the sudden people say he boost up some imaginary ranking system now.
Pretty much. Duncan has always been better than Kobe from a "who do you build your team around?" and "who is the better individual player?" standpoint. Kobe is a more prolific scorer than Duncan, and since scoring is the most glamorous thing for most casual fans this is what casual fans stick to. Duncan is a more than capable isolation scorer (in his prime), except he brings a host of other important things like a willingness to share the ball, rebounding, blocks, and general rim protection.
No players gets dissed more than Kobe during his first three rings. Everyone just discredits his contribution because Shaq was also on the team. I would say in the first title, Shaq was deserving of Finals MVP, but the second and third title were a toss up and Shaq got it due to his priority due to NBA tenure. I would consider Kobe more important during those two runs because he owned the 4th quarter which, if you ask Magic, is winning time. In fact, even in their first title run, there was a key game vs the Blazers where Shaq fouled out and Kobe took over and the Lakers won. Without that win, they would have lost to the Blazers in the series. Kobe and Duncan play different positions so you can pretty much split up the stats and make a case for either. Kobe is not just a scorer like Harden...in his prime, he would defensively check the best offensive player on the other team which is key to their playoff runs. You can also argue that if you were down by 2 with limited time in the 4th quarter, most coaches would rather have Kobe with the ball in his hand than Duncan. It seems with so much Kobe hate that he is among the most underrated players. Both players are relatively equal in greatness in my opinion, but Kobe has a potential factor that produces several outlier moments in the NBA. There are certain athletes that put up numbers that nobody believes like Babe Ruth or Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe falls into that category. The game where he had 62 points vs the Dallas Mavs in 2005 was even more amazing because the Mavs only had 61 points total for their entire team. Also, there was the 81 point night vs Raptors. The biggest Kobe hater of course could discredit that as Kobe being a ball hog, but the truth is, the Lakers were down at halftime vs the Raptors and, in my opinion, Phil Jackson just said F#$% it...Kobe, just take this game over. He came out and completely owned the Raptors like he was possessed. And unlike Michael Jordan in his well chronicled 63 point game vs Celtics, the Lakers won the game Kobe scored 81 points. Although Tim Duncan is among the greatest players of all time, he plays within a system and is among the most reliable players ever, but Kobe is the wildcard and should be applauded as possibly the most amazing player ever. I consider Kobe's 81 points vs NBA talent post 2000 compared to Wilt's 100 points vs the talent he played against. In a Top Gun analogy, I would say Duncan is Ice Man and Kobe is Maverick.
There is so much wrong with this post that I don't even know where to begin. Well, we could start with the idea that two regular season games indicate a whole lot one way or the other about Kobe. As for the OP's topic, Duncan by far, and the 5th ring is just the cherry on top.
Duncan has greater longevity and can play in different systems with almost any player because of his attitude. Replace Kobe with Duncan on those early 2000s Lakers, and Shaq never leaves. Maybe, maybe, if I'm picking a team for only one or two seasons, I choose '09 or '10 Kobe over prime Duncan- but otherwise Duncan > Kobe.
well first off...Kobe is not even close to the best player ever. His statistics are not even close to those of LeBron or Jordan... Next, to address your point of the finals MVPs in the second and 3rd championship... I posted this in another thread and I am going to repost it here. These are the stats from the finals during their first 4 finals appearances. Shaq was on another level than Kobe and it wasn't even close. I don't want to hear that 4th quarter garbage... if shaq isn't there they aren't even in the games...Kobe would have been replaceable by any of the top wing players of the time (which arguably would have performed better than Kobe in those finals), shaq was irreplaceable. Shaq vs Kobe: 1999-2000 vs Indiana Pacers Shaq 38ppg 16rpg 2apg 61%FG Kobe 15ppg 4rpg 4apg 36%FG 2000-2001 vs Philadelphia Shaq 33ppg 15rpg 4apg 57%FG Kobe 24ppg 7rpg 5apg 41%FG 2001-2002 vs New Jersey Nets Shaq 36ppg 12rpg 3apg 59%FG Kobe 26ppg 5rpg 5apg 51%FG 2003-2004 vs Detroit Pistons Shaq 26.6 ppg 10.8 rpg 1.6 apg 63.1%FG Kobe 22.6 ppg 2.8 rpg 4.4 apg 38.1%FG Kobe nearly as many turnovers (18) as assists (22) as Detroit romped in five games. Shaq has 3 of the top 10 Finals performances ever: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playof...Performances-1 Kobe has not ever had a finals performance in the top 50 Top 10 Worst NBA Finals Performances: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playof...ormances-Worst NBA Finals MVP during those 4 finals: Shaq: 3 Kobe: 0
Good lord. Imagine Prime Duncan and Prime Shaq on the same team. Would that be the best PF/C duo in the history of the NBA?
As much as Kobe and Shaq did not agree on direction of the team, it was Shaq's fallout with Jerry Buss that led to him being traded to the Heat. When Buss passed away, he even said he regretted how he behaved in his dealings with Buss. Whatever the case, Shaq wanted a 5 year max deal when there was no way he was going to even get halfway through that before his decline. They say it's always good to trade a player one year too early than one year too late. Shaq started his decline two years into his five year deal and his decline was very steep.
I don't know what a Ducan is, but I know Tim Duncan has had a better basketball career than Kobe Bryant, and that was true even before Kobe's injury and Duncan's latest title.
Does it matter? millions of kids grew up watching those two play. Pick whoever you want. I'm more concerned about the nasty trend of threads aimed at discrediting Kobe now that he is at the finale of his career. It's almost as if some people were too afraid to voice criticism when he was winning. Now that he is nearing retirement, all the haters, whether justified or not come crawling out of the wood works. The man had a legendary career. That's that. TD won a ring? Good for him. LBJ went back to CLE? Good story. Leave your Kobe hate out of it.
If you ever want to make a kobe fan mad just say Shaq was the more important player than him on those Lakers teams. They start spouting off numbers and blah blah. Its hilarious seeing how the NBA had to change the rules for him, but hey lets give the 1 time MVP all the credit.
It's not Kobe that people "hate." It's the hordes of Kobe fans who routinely make him out to be more than he is. The man is just shrouded in myths. Myth #1: you want Kobe taking the last shot of a game given how "clutch" he is. That's hogwash. He takes a bunch of shots in end of game situations. He misses a bunch of them, and no one remembers his misses. Statistically there were a host of players who were vastly more clutch than Kobe during his era.
Here's what Kobe excels at - if you're obliged to play 1 on 2 or 1 on 3 basketball, then you want Kobe taking your shots. He'll give you a solid 35% FG% in those situations when the average player won't break 30. That's what he excels at, but it's not good basketball.
