Him taking only half as many post up shots as Kobe only reinforces my statement that he doesn't go in the post enough especially if he is so good at it. I clearly said Lebron would be the best post up player in the game if he went to it more but he doesn't. If he would work on it more during the game it would be even better and a more reliable and health saving scoring option than always driving. You don't have to be in the triangle to post up. Jordan was at his deadliest with his fade away. I never said that a lot of Kobe's points come off of screens I said that it is a part of his game and something he does better than Lebron. You are kidding yourself if you think Lebron is a better shooter than Kobe. Kobe takes more difficult shots than Lebron and it is part of the reason his shooting percentage is lower. The Bulls would for sure do better with Kobe than Lebron bc Kobe would play off of Rose much better than Lebron does. Kobe's game feels the one need that the Bulls need and wouldn't take away from Rose doing the majority of the ball handling. You are very blind to the way basketball works if you think style of play doesn't fit into how effectively a team works so Lebron is just automatically better on any team. A team with a true point guard would be better of with Kobe instead of Lebron. I'm pretty sure from the numbers from last year showed that Kobe was better down by 2 or something with a certain amount of time left but i don't feel like looking it up. Also, in case you haven't heard with a few seconds left with the game on the line the only kind of shots a star or almost anybody is going to get a majority of the time is a difficult one. My point was that Kobe is much better at quick catch and shoots than Lebron is. Go look up some Kobe catch and win game winners on youtube. The reason the clippers have such bad teams is because of Donald Sterling and bad management. Tons of talent have come through that team but nobody wants to stay because Sterling is out to make money and not win. Lebron would not have won 60 games in that west with that team. I won't say he wouldn't make the playoffs bc he is the best at making the most out of the least in the league.
Gasol is no better of an option than Westbrook and Durant is shooting just as much as Kobe with about the same percentage. In modern basketball 45% is a good number for a scoring 2 guard plain and simple. The fact that Kobe has Pau and Bynum doesn't mean his percentage should go up when he is the only real perimeter scorer on his team. Explain to me how Pau and Bynum should make his % go up. Kobe takes the tough shots that nobody else can. Comparing him to Ellis is ridiculous and I won't even discuss that.
I agree, Kobe takes the tough shots that nobody else can. That's not a good thing. When you have Bynum, Gasol, and Odom on your team (or Shaq before them), they need to be getting touches. Kobe takes twice as many shots as anyone else on his team. He shoots more per minute than anyone in the league. This would be OK if he didn't have other options but he does. Ever wonder why the Lakers don't suffer when Kobe is injured? Or when he sits out, how they don't skip a beat? It's only when the bigs are out that the Lakers look mortal. When you have great teammates, your percentages should go up because they are taking the defense off you. Bynum & Gasol demand attention in the post, which means Kobe can't be doubled as much. Ditto when Shaq was there. When the Lakers run the triangle properly, going inside-out, they are almost impossible to beat. But it doesn't make Kobe look as good because he doesn't get as many shots. So he has to freelance, get his numbers, and make things more difficult than they have to be. Why is it ridiculous? Swap Ellis and Kobe and nothing changes. They are the same type of player. This is not even a shot at Kobe, as Ellis is extremely good. It's just that there are a lot of very good swingmen on mediocre teams in the NBA.
LeBron is not even the best player on the Heat so how could he be the best in the NBA. Look who has been the go to guy during crunch time since the all star break.... not LeBron. And the Heat are having better success with Wade as the go to scorer late in games than they were with LeBron earlier in the season.
Driving is almost always better than posting up for a perimeter player. LBJ is the most efficient driver in the NBA so of course he isn't taking that many shots in the post. My point was that if you put him in a system where he did play the post more (eg, on Chicago), he'd be more efficient than Kobe. This is not that hard to understand. Yes, Kobe takes more difficult shots than LeBron. Again, that is a bad thing. Last I checked (I will try to find the link), LeBron's numbers were superior to Kobe's from just about every distance. Now perhaps in a 3point contest or something Kobe would shoot better, but that is not what the NBA is. Difficult shots count the same as easy shots. No way. Kobe needs the ball in his hands just as much as LeBron does. And LeBron is more efficient when he does get the ball. It really isn't close. I agree. With two seconds left, there is no player in the NBA I'd rather take a shot than Kobe, because he is the best difficult shot maker in probably NBA history. However, with LeBron, you will most likely not need to take a game winner because your team won't be in that situation. Kobe offsets his game winners by taking multiple bad shots to proceed them; without those, there is no hole. Trust me, you don't want to get into this debate with me.
You take Kobe off lakers, they are still a good team, but they have 0 championships. That is the difference that matters. You take lebron off whatever or add to whatever, he has 0 stilll.. lebron is the best fantasy player in the nba, he is a unique athletic specimen that can affect all parts of the game, its undeniable his impact to the game and that he is among the top players, but still its arguable to put him as the best, even on his team dwade could give him a run for his money
But that shows you the difference in the teams (I'm talking old Cavs here.. the Heat are a decent team even without LBJ and rightfully a contender this year). Kobe is replaceable-- you even said that without him the Lakers are very good. So imagine if the Lakers traded him. It would be similar to what Denver is experiencing via the Melo trade (another one-dimensional volume shooter, like Kobe)... they got better and no one saw it coming because of all of the hype surrounding marquee players. On the other hand, LeBron is not replaceable. As you can see with the Cavs this year, there is simply no one player (or even two players) you could put in place of LeBron to turn what is effectively a 20 win team into a contender. This is why people who criticized him for not winning are clueless about basketball.. he was never put in a position to succeed.
I'm just going to say it, you have no idea what the game of basketball is. You just hate on one player and find the say the most ridiculous things to justify it. Taking out a a player and then see how well the rest of the the squad play is NOT how you measure how good a player is. Every single team is build differently. The Cavaliers were build purely on Lebron's ability to Drive and create or pick n Roll. They put a 3 point shooter on point guard in Mo Williams, A solid 2 guard that shoots light out from three in Anthony Parker, who also plays good defense, Jamison a former all star who slashes and shoots very well from the outside, Hickson to rebound, Shaq in the middle to protect the lane. and Finally Varejao who plays great D, sets picks for Lebron and hustles his ass off on every play. But all their hinges on the ability for Lebron to bull his way to the rim and kick or hit the cutter when the defense collapses. They were really a tough tough defensive/hustle team that is also effective with Lebron as the sole creator on offense. No Shet when you take out the centerpiece you team is going to fold. Plus Varejao was injured, Shaq was out, Jamison finally declining after the years of wear and tear. And you take out the only person that creates for you on offense, no shet you can't win games. The reason they lost the series against the Bostons were matchup problems on offense. Jamison does not play comfortably when Garnett is being tough, Perkins can stop Shaq and Rondo plays good D on Mo. It's not that they were a bad team, but the lack of variety in their offense because of a dumbass Mike Brown that killed them in the series. And before anyone say they had a bad team because they lost to Boston, think about Orlando last year, they were at least top 2-3 coming out of the regular season, sweeping the first two rounds, only to get smashed by Boston because of bad Matchups. Point is, when you have jump shooting and unorthodox PF like Shard and Jamison, they will be neutralized by a great defensive PF like Garnett. And when you lose a top contributer, there's no way you can make that up with the rest of the players. To summarize my points, STFU about taking out Lebron and Cavs go to the lottery, therefore Lebron had a horrible supporting squad. That argument makes no sense.
Your opinion means nothing to me because I've never seen an original take from you. I would school the **** out of you in anything basketball related, whether it be knowledge or playing the game.
Yeah okay, when you can't come up with an argument, you can just play the internet world class athlete card.
Kobe does not take twice as many shots as Gasol. Gasol takes about 14 shots per game and Kobe takes 20. 20 shots for the star player in the triangle offense is perfectly normal. Jordan was taking 22 shots a game when the Bulls were winning. You act like Pau Gasol is some super scoring machine. The guy was only averaging 18-19 a game taking 13-14 shots when he was the star on the Griz and now he is averaging about the same with the Lakers. So how is Kobe taking more shots than he should in the triangle offense when he is taking less than Jordan ever was and still allowing the second best player on the team to get as many shots as he was when he was the star of a team. Also I didn't notice how well the Lakers play without Kobe bc he has only missed 9 games in the 4 seasons since they got Gasol and pretty much all of those were early in the season last year. Apparently you saw enough in those few games to decide that the Lakers are just fine without Kobe. So yes they only look mortal when the bigs are out bc Kobe is almost never out and Bynum stays hurt. However, I will agree that sometimes Kobe will lose focus and take horrible shots that hurt the team like he did in game 7 of the finals. He has come a long way from the selfish player he once was but he has moments where he will regress to his old self. The Lakers are running the triangle properly. Gasol has been getting 14 or so touches his whole career and that's the way it should be and it is when the Lakers are at their best. Do they sometimes get away from that? Sure they do but on average the shot distribution is where it should be in the triangle. During the Kobe/Shaq era the shooting split was about 50/50 and probably leaned towards Shaq when you factor in that many of his attempts didn't count because he was going to the line so often. Your belief that 20 shot attempts is way too many for Kobe in the triangle is incorrect. Let's see where to start. Kobe is bigger and a better defender. Kobe gets to the line a lot more than Ellis does. Kobe is a better 3 pt and ft shooter. Kobe is a much better scorer than Kobe. Monta Ellis basically does nothing better than Kobe does and is a much smaller player.
So seriously are you just making stuff up? The Lakers got Gasol in the 07-08 season and Kobe played all 82 games that year. In 08-09 he played in all 82 games. In 09-10 he missed 9 games and the Lakers went 6-3 beating a Blazers team with no Roy, Camby, or Oden, a healthy spurs and jazz team, a Warriors team with no ellis who is apparently the same as Kobe, the Twolves, and Sacramento. And then this year Kobe again played in all 82 games. You are telling me that those 6 wins over a 4 year span is enough to show time and time again that they can win without Kobe? Really?
The data sample is small in the Gasol era, but the Lakers have looked great when Kobe did sit out. One of the losses was to Boston by 1 and the other two were at the end of season "tank" when other top players also set. @Portland was a huge win because the Lakers hadn't won there in years, independent of the team (they lost w/ Kobe to an equally depleted squad earlier). But I'm not even talking about the games he necessarily is out of. Look at what happens when he sits. The team doesn't skip a beat unless the bigs also sit. You can plugin a complete scrub like Shannon Brown and the Lakers are fine. This is because they actually move the ball better when Kobe is out. And let's not forget there is a pretty big sample pre-Gasol. During the Shaq era, the Lakers had the same record when Kobe sat as when he played. Should that have really been the case if Kobe was so integral to the team?
