Never trolling. I openly gave Lebron his kudos on winning a ring. The point is Kobe has six. After his 1st 3 rings critics said "Kobe cant win a ring without Shaq". So he went out and got 2 more as the main go to guy and closer. Why dont you hold Lebron to that? It's only fair.
I dont hate Lebron, he's a great talent. But I refuse to give him certain titles he hasnt earned like most of you guys do. First off, the fact you're comparing a player CLEARLY past his prime to Lebron who's still young with no serious injuries or surgeries says more about Kobe than LBJ. Secondly, even with his historic numbers, you still cant explain why he isnt the closer on his team. The best player in the league cant consistently close games for his team? Baffling Let's not ignore the fact Wade & Bosh's contributions collectively were HUGE in Miami in the finals. Even with the injuries, dont act like both these guys arent HOF caliber talents. Dont act like Lebron didnt benefit all season long from having these guys. Are you telling me having two HOF in Wade & Bosh combined is equivalent to Pau Gasol???
Since we wanna go off If's, if they are in the West then Bosh doesn't get hurt in the Eastern semis, right? So they have the same full team that beat OKC 4-1, right??!?
If I'm holding him to Kobe's 5 (not 6) then should I also hold him to Horry's 7? Since we are just counting titles and not considering the role. Does he need 1 more title to catch Gasol and David Robinson? Are he and Kobe chasing Pippen?
Was Horry the main guy? No. Im not sure you're point. Lebron won a ring and im sure you're happy for him. But he needed the best supporting cast in league to help. Has he done it as the main guy? Absolutely not. Until he does his legacy isn't touching Kobe
And neither was Kobe for the first 3. So why does LeBron need more than 2 to catch him? If LeBron didn't do it as the main guy last postseason than Kobe never has, considering he had a better playoff run than Kobe has ever had.
What does that even mean? During which playoff run did Kobe do better than LeBron this year? He's never had a Finals even close to as good for sure.
Yet he still has won 4 more finals than Lebron as a major contributor or as the main guy. Lebron may or may not pass up Kobe but he hasn't come close as of now.
I cannot for the life of me believe that people are still trying to find excuses for the Heat winning the championship...OKC playing the Heat without Bosh?? are you serious? Ok let's just take Ibaka and Harden off of OKC's roster if we are playing what ifs.. They won. They were expected to win and were the favourites. Get over it.
If you only look at rings, sure, it's very possible LeBron may never get as many as Kobe (I think he'll get at least three or four more though). But that's stupid, because, although rings are the ultimate goal, they are a team accomplishment, and Kobe has spent his entire NBA career outside of three years on stacked teams. LeBron has spent his entire NBA career outside of two years on crappy teams. It's like saying that McHale was better than Barkley, or Manu better than 'Nique, or any of these other nonsensical ring-based arguments. LeBron is the best player in the NBA and has been for at least five years, and probably will be for at least three or four more years. He came to Miami and did exactly what one would expect (except maybe one year too late.. although getting to the Finals in year one is still a pretty good accomplishment considering so many had them losing to the Celtics & Bulls). He's doing the same thing Jordan did once his supporting cast started to blossom, only he gets hate because it's with a new team. But, unlike Jordan, his old team was not likely to improve because they were unable to acquire real assets through the draft or free agency (aka no one good ever wanting to come to Cleveland). So he made the right decision, no matter what the haters want to say.
Baffling? What's baffling is you keep on harping about closers and rings when RObert Horry has more rings and is unarguably the best closer in NBA history. Dude kept on burying 3 pointers and breaking other team's backs for years, and he has won rings on different championship teams who undoubtedly wouldn't have won if he hadn't been there to deliver dagger after dagger. Is Horry better than Kobe? By your definition of rings and closers then he definitely is. What, he's not a main guy? But he's a closer and he has more rings! Isn't this your same argument about Kobe over Lebron? Fact is, Lebron averaged 30-10-5. Take your closer BS and burn it somewhere. If Kobe was such a great closer how come he didn't close enough to win a ring this year? Where's his closing skills now? Again, if Bosh and Wade's contributions were so amazing why did Lebron have to average 30-10-5 to win a ring? You're not looking at the facts dude, if everyone on your team is amazing you don't have to do a lot, look at team USA, no one on that team scored 30 pts consistently because all of them played like 20-30 mins tops. Who cares who the other players are, the question is did you have to put up a lot of effort to win a ring? With Lebron, the answer is yes. With Kobe, he scored 40% FG and still won a ring. Put it another way, if Kobe averaged 30-10-5 would the Lakers still win? Yes. If Lebron scored 40% FG would Miami win a ring? Hell no. I'm not taking anything from Kobe, he's had a good run and you're right, its to his credit he's being compared to Lebron James when his generation is actually with Vince Carter, Tmac and Allen Iverson, all of whom are now out of the league or otherwise irrelevant. But, the fact that he's amazing doesn't really matter because LBJ's even more amazing, and to be quite honest as good as Kobe is LBJ has already surpassed him, current LBJ is so much better than Kobe ever was. If the two of them had switched places in history I'm pretty sure Lebron would have won just as much or even more rings than Kobe.
Top 5 teams in the NBA last season: Chicago-50 Spurs -50 Indiana -42 Lakers-41 Grizzlies-41 Atlanta-40 Boston-40 Clips-40 Yeah, I'm sorry but as top teams go the power level between the East and West were pretty open last season. Its not like the West was so much better, previous powerhouses like NO, Houston (lol), Dallas and PHX have become shells of their former selves while previous crap teams like Pacers and Sixers have actually become competitive. So no, your BS about the east being weak shows just how ignorant you are about the NBA. As far as top teams were concerned the strength was pretty even. Rose and Granger being injured doesn't really matter, Rose was 100% last year and LBJ straight up embarrassed him.
Robert Horry is not a playmaker So being a closer doesnt count anymore? You're best player is scared to take the last shot but you're convincing me his "legacy" has surpassed Kobe's? Lmao. C'mon now FYI. You're comparing Kobe vs Lebron and Kobe's been in the league 15 YEARS with 5 rings. That basically speaks for itself You're comparing two different players on two different teams. What you're not mentioning is the SPACING Lebron had with Wade and Bosh out there. Didn't you watch the finals? OKC couldnt double team hard which opened the floor for Lebron to operate freely. You're trying to give him ALL the credit when he clearly benefited from having two other superstars to open the floor. Hell no. You put Lebron on the team with Shaq and the team would be a terrible 4th quarter team. First off, you're no longer in the weak eastern conference. Secondly, who's getting the ball in the clutch? Shaq? Nope. Lebron? Nope. All teams would do is back off Lebron and make him take a jumpshot in which he'd either brick or pass it to Brian Shaw. If you put Kobe on the Heat you can argue they'll be just as good. No argument...... At end of the day, stop trying to prematurely thrust Lebron into categories he doesnt belong
West still won nearly 60% of inter-conference games last year. When you have those bottom feeders in east, your automatically won more games. Particularly in short season when inter-conference games are reduced more than inner-conference games.
Making the correct basketball play is different from being afraid to take the last shot. That's a more respectable mindset than Kobe's penchant for taking "hero" shots that he forces himself into. Yeah. It means that Kobe has been on some pretty stacked teams. But if you look at their careers from an individual standpoint, Lebron's is better. Didn't you watch the finals? How can Wade provide spacing if he's such a poor perimeter shooter? The Heat role players (Battier/Jones/Cole/Chalmers/Miller) created the spacing with their 3 point threat. Absolutely right. But it's a moot point since they'd be up by 30 going into the 4th. It's sad that Kobe fans refuse to accept reality. You spend so much time trying to mitigate Lebron's accomplishments without realizing people can say the same thing about Kobe. You think Lebron had a stacked team? Kobe's only won titles when he's had the best frontcourt in the league. You think Lebron isn't a closer? Look at Kobe's finals' performances. Underwhelming at best. What do you have to say about Lebron's 3 MVP's to Kobe's 1? Or superior statistics? Lebron has been the best player in the league for the past four years now, and he's led some scrubby Cavalier rosters to the league's best record and deep into the playoffs. For the few years that Kobe was the league's best player, where did he take the Lakers? Missing the playoffs and first round losses? The problem isn't that people are overrating Lebron. It's that you're overrating Kobe.
Lol at major contributor. So how many rings does LeBron need to catch Pippen? He was a major contributor on all 6 title teams? What about Hondo? He was a major contributor on more title teams than Kobe and also led a team to a title. Kobe has led a team to a title twice. LeBron needs to do it one more time to "catch him" in that regard. Kobe needs to do it 4 more times to catch Jordan.
