well lets pretend Tmac said this. .everyone would be praising TMAC on how awesome he is.. and how much drive and heart he has to win the game and bash everyone that has called tmac heartless and that he doesnt ahve the will to win the game.. everyones blind hatred for kobe here is quite disturbing.. i dislike the guy but i have grown to respect him as a basketball player.. he has immense skillz and is a step above everyone right now. To the person above that says kobe isnt a great finisher like jordan and tmac.. well dunno about jordan but id say he's a better finisher than tmac right now.. kobe is clutch and i have seen him will the lakers to wins in the end of games all by him self. Dont get me wrong. i dont like kobe and id rather have tmac on this team any time.. . ahh but i do like his passion for the game and i wish some of the rocket players palyed with that kind of passion.. if it means being conceited then hell with it. . i wish all our players were conceited.. i just hope we got on some 10 game winning streak and turn this season around.. its gonna suck come june ... and we have nothing to watch....
i think kobe is still a very good finisher at the rim. i was just pointing out that it's much harder for him to hold onto the ball after getting fouled hard in the paint. he can't palm it properly. having said that, i agree he can finish better than mcgrady now in the paint, mainly because mcgrady can't really make it to the paint anymore due to injuries. mcgrady's stronger than he used to be, but he can't blow past his primary defender anymore. there was a time when mcgrady was far superior to kobe athletically and was unstoppable around the rim. i remember when he blocked kobe's turnaround jump shot in the all star game years ago (on the next play duncan blocked mcgrady's dunk attempt). it was a shock to everyone--no one had ever blocked kobe on a fadeaway before. seemingly.
Great posts gsd99rch And droxford, I thought you were joking too when you picked apart each pharse kobe said and tried to spin a negative on it. And for the record, Kobe didn't really run Shaq out of town. I'd like to see proof where Kobe said he didn't want to play with Shaq. Kobe didn't like the fact that Shaq was out of shap and clowned around all the time. Kobe doesn't hang out with his teammates, he isn't "one of the guys" because he's a serious person. If he isn't playing ball, he's practicing either physicall or mentally, or studying the game. He doesn't have time to "hang out with his teammates" as some of you put it. That isn't his personality. The Lakers made a business decision to trade away an older, banged up, overweight shaq with a huge contract, and keep the younger superstar, Bryant. It was a good business decision, but a bad trade. They could have and should have got more. BUT. If you remember, Shaq chose the team he wanted to go to, he chose Miami so the Lakers had to take what they could get.
No question. And banged up or not, his mere presence makes any team a contender...can't say that about many other healthy younger superstars in their primes. Shaq is Shaq, his value is his mere presence on the court and his sheer dominance in the post. He's worth every penny if one is to judge by how much extra revenue the Heat are making off his back.
i agree, he's still a great player. but the lakers train had reached the end of the line, so to speak. their three role players (horry, fisher, fox) were all becoming ineffective as starters, and were insufficient to compete against teams like detroit and san antonio. clearly, they weren't winning any more championships with shaq and kobe unless they completely rebuilt their supporting cast, which would have taken a couple of years. malone and payton were clearly shot (although payton is strangely making his three pointers again). even in the last championship year, their bench was pitiful due to salary cap constraints--the teams wasn't going to get any better. in the beginning years of the the shaq-kobe era (even before phil jackson), shaq was so physically dominant that you could count on fox, horry and fisher to just be solid. by the end, shaq was getting manhandled by ben wallace and rasheed wallace because he couldn't get off the ground without gathering himself. in past years, he would have thrown them aside. so the rationale was, in my opinion--keep shaq and get eliminated in the conference finals or finals for the next few years, or just accept the facts and blow up the team, and save some money in the long run. i think if malone and payton had held up better, they would have tried another couple of years.
actually, it was more kobe, van exel and eddie jones when del harris was the coach. and i keep forgetting about glen rice as a great shooter in the first championship hear. point being, nobody could contain shaq back then.
not to post to myself, but... i was thinking the parallels between the lakers and the 2nd version of the bulls championship teams were very similar. after the last championship, everyone criticized the bulls front office for chasing pippen and jackson out of town, breaking up the dynasty. in hindsight, though, i think jordan, pippen, and jackson knew that their time was up, judging by their last playoff run. i think jordan made 30 million that year, and jackson was about to ask for an outrageous contract (if i remember correctly). they barely got past the pacers (and even though i'm a jordan fan, the refs bailed him out in the last few minutes of game 7). pacers were the superior team, as the kings were superior to the lakers. jalen rose actually exposed jordan's decline in that series--he had become fatigued for the first time in his career, as was having trouble with younger players. if utah had pulled out game 6, they probably would have won the series as pippen was hurt by malone. he was only a decoy in the 2nd half of game 6. their bench was pitiful (again due to salary cap constraints of having pippen, jordan, and rodman), and wasn't going to get much better if the team was kept intact. in other words, even though jordan, pippen, and jackson would never admit it, they knew that last year they got by with some luck, and that their time of dominance was over. lakers eventually faced the same problems financially and personnel wise, but they didn't go out on top.
All fair points, I am not disagreeing with you. I too thought that Lakers team had its days numbered, and I do agree that letting Shaq go was the smart business decision, I just thought they didn't get enough in return; of course, how can you ever get "equal value" for Shaq? Most teams with young superstars would not have traded for Shaq because of his age and ailing body, and other teams just didn't have enough to offer back in quality of the players.
Well, it is on record, if Phil's book counts. Kobe was asked "will Shaq's presence on this team next year affect your decision on whether to remain with the Lakers". Kobe's response: "No question. I'm tired of being a sidekick".
hmm i sure see kobe with a lot of 3 pt plays.. i think he finishes fine. . i wish he didnt!! but he does.. damn it !
