First off, Pippen didn't secretly decide to team up with MJ during the season. He didn't plot with the Bulls to join them. He was DRAFTED as a relatively unknown rookie by Chicago. Gasol isn't close to being in the category of Wade, Bosh, Pippen, Kareem, Worthy or any of the GOAT supporting cast players. Kobe carried that team. The difference is Lebron keeps switching teams every time he doesn't get his way. That should eliminate him from any GOAT conversation You can't be over 30 with comments like this. Lebron is not top 5. Yes he's a great boxscore player. Yes he's physically a phenom. But looking at his path to success, it's clear he took the shortcut. It's clear he doesn't have the ability to single handedly impose his will on a series. GS is the better team, but Lebron should be going NUTS trying to keep his team competitive in this series. 22pts? That's it?. I've never thought he was top 5 GOAT and after this series he will never be
This is dumb. Kobe took a team with a starting lineup of Smush Parker, Kwame Brown, Chris Mihm to the playoffs in the WESTERN CONFERENCE (w/ Brian Cook coming off the bench). In Kobe's last 2 championship teams, name a player better than Kyrie? Gasol? Nope. Bynum? Nope. Also, Kobe would've had a FIELD DAY playing in the eastern conference. You can't be serious
You'd take Gasol/Bynum over Kyrie/Love? LMAO Yea the Kobe hatred has clouded ur basketball judgement I see. Kevin Love & Kyrie Irving have BOTH previously been cornerstone franchise players. Pau Gasol was a great 2nd option on championship built contender. How exactly has Andrew Bynum's career went?
Lebron is probably the most gifted player to ever walk on a court. Teams he ran against were just better
Pippen didn't have unrestricted free agency like LeBron did, hence him being underpaid until our big contract with him. Why are you making this comparison? We have no idea what anyone with unrestricted free agency would have done. Yet his production when he helped Kobe win titles was greater than Wade's production from 2012-2014.
Cornerstone players to lottery teams? I wouldn't call those franchise players so much. I don't get the LeBron hate. The Warriors just had the best regular season in NBA history. They were the heavy favorite to win this series and they're winning the series. So...?
Fixed Someone mentioned "Well Jordan had Pippen". Its a fact Pippen was drafted by Chicago and was unknown before coming to Chicago. MJ pushed Pippen into a superstar just Kobe pushed Gasol/Bynum. Wade was already a superstar before Miami, and so was Bosh. Ofcourse it was, he's playing with a 3rd superstar in Chris Bosh. Miami had more overall talent than the Lakers did on any of their championship teams. Wade is a FAR overall better player than Gasol, so is Chris Bosh
Gasol led that team in OWS, DWS and WS regular season and playoffs while he played with Kobe. Only the first year where Gasol was traded in the middle of the season did Kobe lead in any category. Gasol is a lock for HOF and a top 20 PF of all time. I still don't get the hate for him. Maybe it's just Kobe fans trying to build Kobe up by putting Gasol down much like LeBron fans did to Wade, Bosh and now Irving and Love. Gasol turned the Lakers into Finals worthy team just about instantly. He arguably should have been FMVP both times. But, scoring a bunch of points even if inefficient always wins FMVP over the do it all guys.
WTF are people here actually saying Kobe is better than Lebron? By what metric exactly? In terms of stats and individual accolades, Kobe in his wildest dreams can't even reach what Lebron has done, how many MVPs does Kobe have? What are his playoff stats? Lebron just put up 41/16/7 this game has Kobe even come close to that even once? In terms of being a team mate, guys who've played with Lebron haven't complained about him as much as guys have with Kobe, in fact Kobe actively destroyed his relationship with Shaq because he wanted to be the no 1 man, and then started crying when he couldn't do it with just Lamar Odom. While MJ pushed guys like Pippen to become great, Kobe was pushing guys like Bynum off the team remember his rant when the Lakers turned down a Bynum for Jermaine O' Neal deal? In terms of having teammates, Kobe has been one of the luckiest players ever as a rookie he just came on the team and instantly got 3 rings, as dominant as Shaq was replace a young Kobe with a young Vince Carter, Tmac, Paul Pierce etc. these guys were pretty much all at the same level starting out so any good scorer would've had the same results, it was only in the later years where Kobe's work ethic and self-discipline separated him from the rest of his contemporaries. Pau Gasol gets criminally underrated by Kobe fanboys but the guy is a legit perennial all star, he brought the Memphis Grizzlies to the playoffs consistently despite having Shane Battier and Slowmile Swift as his two next best players. Bynum was a double double machine and Lamar Odom was in his prime and didn't have any problems guarding the other team's best player, who cares what happened to them afterwards the point is during the Laker's 5 year run these guys were amazing. Kobe shot 40% one series and they still won a ring, that's how good the cast were even with Kobe shooting them out of the game they can still win. On the other hand, here in Cleveland we have "cornerstone" Kevin Love scoring 3 pts and 2 rebs in 30 mins. Wow
Oh, and hats off to Lebron tonight. Played fearless, just fearles. Irving a big help. Unfortunate they both can't play that good again, on Thursday.
Hmmm. Far cry from what you posted in the other thread that Irving won and LeBron did not. Be consistent bro, LeBron got lucky and Irving bailed his ass out. Lmfao at the passive aggressiveness.
Sorry I was wrong it was actually 2 pts and 3 rebs.... and 1 assist. Anyway I hope this is a lesson on Lebron to just focus on playing his best instead of trying to put his hand everywhere. Actually I think the "new" mgt in Cleveland is way better than the old FO they used to have, their GM made some dumb draft picks but Tristan Thompson turned out way better than expected, the trade for Mozghov was great, hiring Blatt was great and signing JRich was such a good move he's been indespensable for them this playoffs. Just like MJ before him, Lebron needs to trust his GM and coach to do their jobs and focus on just playing on the court.
Damn right, not just lotto teams, but bottom feeders at that. How dare you not take stat stuffers on complete garbage teams over someone like Gasol who transformed weak teams into 50 win teams in the WESTERN CONFERENCE or Bynum who had a solid 15 and 8 while playing good D.
