Kevin Love says Kobe is the best player in the game

WTF? So finals in 2000-2002 didn't count? Kobe had an aweful finals in 2000 due to his sprained ankle, still managed to win a game single-handed in game 4 when Shaq was fouled out. Kobe did fine in 2001, outperformed Shaq in 3 west series, and they went to Shaq in finals. Then Kobe had superstar performance in 2002 finals. The only bad series Kobe had was 2004, when he had a pending rape case and didn't get any training in the entire offseason, and Malone went down in finals, he still managed to perform better than LeBron's any finals, hit a big shot at buzzer to tie the game and got the only win out of the series. 2008 finals, Kobe did fine. He had to guard Rondo on end and went against a rotation of Allen/Allen/Pierce. Still manged to score more points than LeBron ever did.

Out of 7 finals Kobe played, only the 00 and 04 are comparable to LeBron's. And don't forget in 2011 finals, the Mavs defense was focused on Wade, they used their best defensive man Marion on Wade because Wade destroyed them in game 1. You don't compare LePippen to Kobe's finals in 08-10, simple as that. In fact, if LePippen was as good as Pippen in the finals, he'd at least have one ring by now. Check my signature for a proof.

 

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Throughout the playoff, Wade had better stats, Wade was the chosen closer, and Wade performed way better in the biggest stage. Not to mention LeBron joined Wade and Bosh's coattail. And still somehow you are taking that the team is built around LeBron like it's granted.

This is Wade's team until LeBron proved otherwise in playoff, simple as that.

 

don't forget something that didn't happen? marion was the primary defender on lebron. kidd was the primary guy on wade. and every time lebron thought of going into the paint they would slide as many defenders as necessary over to keep him from driving (which is why lebron was't driving and why combined with his lack of faith in his jumper is why he was passive). which is why he still had pretty good assist numbers for the series. because the mavs would just leave people open and hope they would miss. they simply didn't do that as much with wade.

if wade was the chosen closer throughout the playoffs then why was lebron the one closing out the games against boston and chicago, the 2 big series that they won? 2 series where 7 of the 8 wins were close in the 4th quarter and lebron was big in all 7 of those 4th quarters/OTs? i mean wouldn't the chosen closer be the one closing those games, instead of not closing those games? or is it like an honorary title for wade or something?

and since they didn't win the dallas series, it's kind of hard to say wade closed that one out, wouldn't you say?

at least stick to trolling the opinion-based stuff, not the stuff we can actually say happened/didn't happen.

 

Not in a discussion revolving around who the best player in basketball is. Not in a discussion where folks are blasting LeBron for "riding coattails" and not being the man on his team. Kobe was an integral, can't do without him piece on the 3-peat team. So was Pau Gasol on the last 2 LA title teams. Neither one led their team to titles that year.

 

Shaq led the team in scoring because he was hitting around 60% of his shots. For some strange reason, a guard shooting in the low 30% range took almost 30 more shots than him that series (close to 6 per game).

 

This is true and no one is denying that. The point is Kobe had Finals flops where he tried to lead and failed miserably before he finally got it right. The very thing y'all are blasting LeBron for. As another poster mentioned, we can point to plenty of great players and moments where they blew it in the postseason. He has time to rebound just like they did is all I'm trying to say. If Dirk can recover from what happened in 07 anything is possible.

 

Actually throughout the playoffs Wade did not have better stats. LeBron was leading the team in almost every category prior to the Finals, and he had a miserable Finals. Wade has a beastly Finals and finished with better numbers. But he was not better than LeBron for the other 3 series.

Throughout the playoffs Wade was not the chosen closer. Another poster has already broken down who close what games each series. It was mainly LeBron until the Finals.

LeBron did choke in the Finals.

Blah blah blah to the rest of your repeated regurgitation.

 

Doesn't make it Kobe's team. It was a bad finals by Kobe no argument from me but that wasn't a team built for and led by Kobe Bryant plain and simple. Westbrook takes more shots than Durant even when he shouldn't but the Thunder are Durant's team. Stop being stubborn.

 

the funny thing is, the very fg% lebron shot in the finals that goodbug has in his signature, kobe shot worse than that fg% in 5 of his 7 finals. apparently it's to kobe's credit that he was willing to keep hurting his team by firing away at those sub-41.7% clips. the only good shooting finals he ever had was the 4-0 sweep over new jersey where any of us in this thread could have played shooting guard and the lakers would have won.

 

Kobe shot 43%/36% in 2009 which in the finals is good for a jump shooter taking as many shots and playing as many minutes as he does. Oh and before you try and jump in and say it isn't good keep in mind that in his second 3 peat Jordan shot 41/31 45/32 and 42/30 and I don't think anybody would argue he was hurting his team with his 41 and 42 clip. 2010 was also a good shooting series as a whole for Kobe but game 7 was so bad that it skewed his series stats. Kobe deserves hate for some of his bad finals performance but 2009 and 2010 definitely aren't in the group and 2008 probably shouldn't be either but I won't argue for it.

 

And don't we kill Westbrook when he does that? Isn't there a thread on here flaming Westbrook for trying to take over and not realizing Durant needs the rock? You are the one being stubborn. The bottom line is Kobe tricked off two Finals when he tried to be mroe than a 2nd option. Cool, it wasn't his team. Did he not try to take over in those Finals? Do you not agree that he tricked off the 2004 and 2008 Finals, even if you want to make excuses for him? Did he not choke and blow a 3-1 playoff lead in between those two Finals? The team wasn't good enough to win that year but you aren't sposed to blow 3-1 leads. Didn't he blow it last postseason, since they weren't supposed to lose to Dallas? Didn't two of those game come down to him being unclutch at the end, while being checked by Jason Kidd (going off memory but I think it was 2 games...def 1 for sure)? That's the bottom line.

Yes, LeBron has been horrible in two Finals or other playoff moments. So have other great players. They rebounded. So can he. Yes, he played like **** in the prior Finals. But my memory isn't short and I can recall other great players that we call oh so clutch doing the same thing.

 

This is the 2nd time that you have made this comparison. If you wanna know why no one knocks Jordan for his poor shooting performances then look no further than the 97 Finals.

In the 97 Finals Jordan made a free throw to tie the game and hit the game winning jumper in G1, shooting 48% and dropping 31/4/8; shot 55% in G2 dropping 38/13/9; flu game in G5, shooting 48% dropping 38/7/5 including 15 4th qtr points...a game tying FT and the game clinching 3 pointer with 25 seconds left; game winning assist to Kerr in G6. So no, no one is going to clown you when you shoot like garbage in a 6 game series but make the game-winning play in 3 of the wins and drop 38 on a good shooting night in the 4th win. It's not exactly the same. Those poor shooting Finals from Jordan are filled with multiple games like that where he was still making defining game winning plays, hitting game winners or Finals winners. When you think of those plays from 09 and 10, you think of Fisher and Ron Artest. If Kobe shot like garbage but make game-winning playes in 3 of the 4 games then no one would knock him. Hell, they already say he is the clutchest dude since Mike even when he goes 6-24.

Not trying to argue that Kobe wasn't the one carrying them to the title but let's not make that comparison again.

 

That's all I wanted. This current debate started from you saying Lebron will lead team to a ring before Kobe and I thought that was unfair given that Lebron played the lead role while Kobe didn't get a real shot at being the lead until 04-05. At that point your tried to dance around the issue of when Kobe began to lead his team even though its clear that it started in 04-05 and he lead his team to a ring 5 years later. Lebron has been leading for much longer than that so to say he will lead a team to a ring before Kobe will is misleading and I stand by that. All the other mess you put into this post was either put to rest several posts ago or not discussed between us at all. Thank you for admitting when Kobe got his team and have a good night.

 

You still aren't acknowlodging that Kobe tried to play the lead in the 04 Finals and it was one of the main reasons they lost that series. He's tricked off 2 Finals, same as LeBron. When Kobe finally got championship talent on "his team" he lost in the 1st year, where he was miserable in the Finals, and won in the 2nd. This is LeBron's 2nd season with the same type of talent, so let's see what he does.

Goodnight.

 

Why not when the whole point of putting the numbers up is to show that they don't tell the whole story. Kobe had several good games in 2010 but people look at his shooting percentage and say he played terrible. You pretty much made the argument I was trying to make to the guy by showing that Jordan had a great series as a whole while not ending up with great shooting numbers.

 

2003-2004 wasn't his team but he tried to make it his team because Kobe is an egomaniac like that. I will never argue against him not being that type of selfish star but I wasn't even discussing that part of it.

 

I said Jordan had a great series because in the 4 wins, he made the game-winning play in 3 of them and had a great game in their other win. That isn't exactly the case for Kobe, although I do agree with your assessment that you can't just look at the FG %. Just saying there was a clear level of disparity between those 2 players in the Finals where they both shot poorly. There is no series where the majority of game winning moments are coming down to what Kobe does, as far as the win.

Hope that clears it up. Goodnight.

 

If you are agree with that what is the rest of this post about. I just said I'm only using Jordan to show that looking at the fg% doesn't tell the whole story. You couldn't just say I agree with that and move on?

 

Because that's a poor comparison. Jordan shot poorly. At the end of those games he was as clutch as clutch can be. He took over 3 of those 4 games down the stretch. The game he didn't take over he was dominant in a blowout. That's not the case for Kobe in those series where he shot poorly. He shot bad, but teammates stepped up to hit big shots. Those series don't have "clutch Kobe" written all over them. Jordan shot bad but at the end of the day he was typically the one stepping up to make all the clutch plays.

I mean, isn't this thread revolving around the clutch factor that makes Kobe the best and which prevents LeBron from being that? If so, then that's a poor comparison and it's one folks love to make. "Yeah Kobe shot bad but so did Mike". No, it's way more to it than that. My bad for lumping you into that group, but I just think that's a poor comparison to make which folks make often.

 

Lebron will have 4-5 championships when it's all said and done with and guess what? You STILL won't give him any credit so what's the point of discussing it?