Kobe: Hypothetical Question - Had he stayed in Charlotte

Kobe won with Pau. Even if he has 3 fewer rings, that's proof to me that he would have gotten the job done at least once.

 

Why are you acting like Gasol was some scrub? Post-Shaq and pre-Gasol, the Lakers were straight trash. With the arrival of Gasol, the Lakers are suddenly strong contenders year-in, year-out and won two titles.

 

As someone who wasnt a fan of kobe, I would say he still absolutely would have won ring(s) had he been drafted by charlotte. I didn't like the guy, but dude was a beast and I was scared whenever he had the ball against my teams in the playoffs.

Kobe imo is the best scorer I've watch aside from Jordan. Rewatch his 81pts game vs the raptors or the 60 in 3 quarters. Crazy. Remember this was back in the nba when guards weren't routinely being guarded by big men in the perimeter or other mismatches due to switching. Dude was so quick, explosive and skilled. An mj clone. Was he selfish, an ass and difficult also? according to Phil jackson's book, yes!

So while i don't have kobe top 10 all time, the guy was undeniably great and would've been so anywhere. 2nd best all time sg behind Jordan. Maybe jerry west has an argument, but not imo.

 

I put Dream, Kareem, Wilt, and Bill Russell ahead of Sweeped Shaq.

 

Post-Palin Glen Rice.

 

Who cares. Kobe is dead because he was too important and and his time too valuable to travel on the freeway with the rest of us plebs. Time to move on!

 

The greatest poker play in NBA history, by the logo, as reported by CBS Sports

Once West decided that he wanted kobe, he and Tellem began orchestrating a series of skipped workouts and floating rumors in an all-out effort to deter any and all suitors. There was also something else working in their favor. Back then, Kevin Garnett had only rebroken the seal of high school players going straight to the NBA one year earlier, and there was still plenty of skepticism about an 18-year-old making that jump. Bryant was a risk. Guys like eventual top pick Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby and Ray Allen were seen as much safer, if not altogether better picks than Kobe.

The Lakers, of course, loved this. They felt like they knew something everyone else didn't. West had dynastic visions of growing Bryant alongside Shaquille O'Neal, the prized free agent of that summer whom West was intent on snatching from the Orlando Magic.

But in order to have the money to pay Shaq what he was clearly going to demand
on the open market, the Lakers couldn't pay Bryant top dollar right away. They had to
push him outside the lottery, where they would only have to pay him for that set salary slot.​

The first pick outside the lottery was the Hornets at No. 13. They needed a center. The Lakers had Vlade Divac. It was the perfect crime.

From June 26 to July 11, the Lakers, Hornets and Divac were at a stalemate. Vlade didn't want to leave L.A. He'd worked hard to become entrenched in that organization and the fans had fallen in love with him. He didn't want to go to the other side of the country to play for a decent Charlotte team. This, obviously, was going to blow up West's plan. The trade for Kobe couldn't be completed without Hornets GM Bob Bass getting a guarantee Divac would play.

In the end, Divac loved the Lakers so much that he didn't want to ruin West's plans for the franchise. He agreed to give it a shot in Charlotte. The trade went through on July 11. Seven days later, Shaq and the Lakers inked a seven-year, $120 million

 

Way to put words in my mouth. Pau is a HOFer. But he is not Shaq. As someone who thinks Kobe is barely in the top 10 all-time, I am not a Kobe stan. So if the argument against him is that he did play with a top 10 player and that's why he won 3 rings, the counter-argument is he did it with a guy who wasn't nearly as dominant - players of Pau's caliber are much easier to pair with than players of Shaq's caliber simply because there are more of them.

That isn't to say that Kobe/Pau was a Kobe one-man show. We saw what the Kobe one-man show did, and it wasn't impressive.

 

Kobe made his teammates better.

in the first yr of Pau/Kobe, the team reached the Finals. LaL won game 6 by ~ 20 pts to tie up the series. in Game 7, Pau was man-handled by Garnett, Celts won by ~ 20 pt.

Pau was complaining about the many cheap shots (elbors and knees) by that weren't called. Kobe publically said " this is the Finals, you ha"ve to put your BIG BOY pants on"
Pau got the message, went on the star in the next yr Finals against the Celts.

 

yes it is, as u had conveniently ignored Jerry West's role; he masterminded the whole process for Jelly Bean Bryant's son.


while u see the tree, ur oblivious to the whole forest

 

Bruh.... name 2

 

I'm not the poster of that comment, but I'll list some.

LeBron, Curry, KD, Giannis, Harden.

I realize the latter 2 haven't won a ring, but what they've done in their careers is already mind-blowing.

 

As much as Harden is the more skilled player, Kobe's playoff success counts for a lot. His greater athleticism gave him more versatility in playoff matchups, like how he decided to cover Iverson and then shut him down in the finals. Harden wouldn't be able to do that.

Still, Kobe really isn't in the GOAT conversation. He's perhaps the 2nd best SG, but the players with the biggest impact have almost all been unusually skilled players with more size: Jordan, Magic, Bird, Durant, LeBron, plus the centers that played under the old rules. There's a pretty good case that players like Kawhi, and maybe even Giannis and Doncic will end up ahead of him.

 

See the rest of the discussion with adoo. I disagree, but I'm mostly talking about primetime Shaq anyway, not his entire career. "Sweeped" Shaq was like 22 years old, and still the second best player in that series. You can't win a title when 70% of your team doesn't show up in the finals.

LeBron James, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Giannis, Curry, Chris Paul, Kawhi, and give it a minute or two, and Luka will be there, too. One or two of those are debatable, but the majority are solidly ahead of him in every meaningful, measurable way aside from TEH RINGZZZ or shots attempted.

For one, Pau was very good. As far as team success goes, he accomplished as much without a second all star as Kobe did: best player on some 40-50 win teams, and a few first-round exits in the WC. Secondly, that's a vast oversimplification/understatement of how good that team is/was. Lamar Odom, Artest/Ariza, Bynum... They also had one of the greatest coaches of all time on their side. It wasn't just Pau.

... Plus, it was LA. The biggest sports market in the world. There was no Scott Foster sniping any of their games... Quite the opposite.

Point being, sports fans constantly underestimate how many different factors go into winning rings. They give WAY too much credit (and blame) to the best player on the team.

 

You didnt watch Kobe, did you? KD who had to join gsw? Giannis with his plain bball? Harden blocked by Ginobli?

There is so much more(mind) to basketball than raw skill, and even there Kobe is top10 of alltime. His footwork was top3 ever.

 

Oh god now i understand why Harden gets excuses here, you dont even watched basketball 20years ago and i doubt you watch now. You are impressed in Hardens 36ppg in todays league? Guess what Kobe would score 40 easily with current rules. That mother****er put up 81 with way harder defensive rules and way worse spacing, without even shooting that many threes. Those players are amazing, LBJ is definetly up there, Curry almost but rest od the cats have a long ****ing way to Kobes achievements in the game of basketball

ps Kobe won without Shaq

 

And Kobe wouldn't be able to guard centers... This is a very subjective explanation of why Kobe's playoff success counts for anything. As much s*** as Harden gets for the Rockets failures, they are almost never his fault. Yes, he's had some bad games, but they're generally within statistical variance, not to mention the fact that EVERYbody shoots worse in the playoffs because you're playing the best defenses who are all playing for their lives. Kobe included. But Harden has also had some AMAZING playoff games, and when you put it all together, his overall playoff production is head-and-shoulders above Kobe so far, career-for-career. In almost every single measurable way.

The only inexplicably, inexcusably bad playoff game from Harden is 2017 Spurs game 6... I have no idea what happened there, and it's probably worse than any egg I remember Kobe laying, but even Kobe laid some in critical games. 2010 Boston game 7, 2006 Suns game 7...

 

KD is a good comparison. Kobe clearly had more mental toughness, but KDs freakish size combined with shooting and handles could never be replicated by Kobe. It is wildlly optimistic to think that Kobe could win a championship with Westbrook and a few role players as his supporting case. They'd be dominated by the same teams that destroyed KD.

 

Based on your typing skills, I might be younger than you, but I've been around a while.

- I know Kobe won without Shaq... with another stacked team. See the last part of my post that you just quoted.
- Kobe never could develop a 3-pt shot his entire career, which would hurt him just as much today
- People vastly overstate how easy it is to score with today's rules...
- Even if you just isolate players to their own contemporary periods, Kobe wasn't nearly as good relative to his own peers as people say. Harden every year is at or near the top of the NBA in every statistical category meant to measure overall impact on winning (both regular season and playoffs): PER, WS, VORP, BPM, RPM, TeamRtg... Kobe almost never was. Forget PPG and TS%, which are the two stats that you can argue are easier to inflate today, Harden was just measurably better at making his team better. Problem was he just never had as good of a team.