Scorer and physical size he is better. Tmac was the better all around player in everything else. Westbrook is the equivalent of Steve Francis however. That is the problem. Ball dominating PG, shoot first, tad better passer, dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot. Steve Francis.
Just gonna point out that Derrick Rose is considered an MVP when he is shooting 40.2% in the playoffs and is a worse playmaker than T-Mac. He also gets less rebounds and is not considered to be the greatest of defenders (T-Mac could guard if needed).
It's different, Robert Horry didn't lead any team in the playoff run, he's the 3rd best guy at best. Who would you rather take, Yao at 2007 or Westbrook at 2011? Now explain me why Thunders are in WCF and Rox didn't pass first round.
Overall better team. Other than Yao, that team was pretty thin. How come Kobe got swept even though he had Gasol, Bynum, and Odom?
Not sure about championship, but they certainly will pass first round. If Artest can do that with Yao, Kobe should have no problem.
It happened, and there's no excuse. But Kobe has won enough to make it a non-story. I don't think many people expect Lakers to 3peat when they got Gasol, they came close. That's called "meet or exceed expectation". It's how many you win and not how many you lose that matters. Shaq was swept 4 times by 2000, and he still called himself MDP. Back to Rox, when SF3 was traded for TMac, what's the expectation?
Expectation is one thing. Reality another. That supporting cast sucked. AND I also agree TMac was overrated because people overlooked his inefficiency.
Your having revisionist history if you are saying TMac single handily carried us in the play offs. There was a 7'6" player putting up some pretty big numbers as well... especially in that series agains the Mavs (despite unfair treatment by officials).
A prime T-Mac, I would argue, was better than prime Kobe. The guy had phenomenal skills. If only he had Kobe's work ethic, he might have been on the same level as Jordan. Back when Tmac played defense (when he choose to), he completely locked opponents down.
Looking back trading Francis was the correct thing to do, sure Tmac threw people under the bus, but Steve fell off the map. What do you think of the people here who think that Tmac > Kobe?
McGrady quit playing defense by his third year in Orlando. Hell, he tried to fight and then had Horace Grant kicked off the Magic for dogging his defense and practice habits to SI. The regular season MVP isn't given out or taken back based on postseason play. Rose shot 45%, put up 25-8-4 as a PG, and led the Bulls to the top record in the league despite Boozer and Noah missing about a third of the season each. Only in the 22-win streak year and his "feels good to make the second round" year in Orlando did McGrady come close to putting up a season like that. In the end, McGrady struggled to combine personal stats and winning.
Kobe threw people under the bus, and it actually worked. The difference between the two was that Kobe actually had a decent structured team. The only time in TMac's tenure in Houston that he actually had a structured team was when Artest was here. Every year before that our Roster had too many holes to be able to compete in the play-offs. Especially against the teams we were playing. We always matched up with the team that could expose us the most. Jazz-Very Deep, Mavs-Very Deep ect. When it came to Playoff time all we had was TMAC. Kobe had no success when it was just Him. He never led the Lakers to anything when it was just him. He always needed a solid supporting cast, just like any superstar in the league. When you put aside everything that is off of the court and Judge him solely on his on-court performance. He pretty much trumps all active players
Really? I think LeBron, Dwade, Dirk, Durant, Kobe, D Rose, even Ginobli is vastly better. Kobe and Tmac are basically the same age. Kobe was vastly superior this year and last year to Tmac. And yes, Injuries count. There's no banner called "If he wasn't hurt, he'd have something hanging here" in any arena.
