How far would the Lakers go if they didn't have Kobe?

without kobe entirely?


Replace kobe with Pierce/granger/durant even martin/redd/tmac you still have a championship team.

Use his salary to fill the huge hole at PG that is acceptable because kobe controls the ball?

harder to determine but still a good team.

 

They wouldnt have any guards...they'd be starting Derek Fisher and Sasha Vujacic. Is that really such a great idea?

 

The griz with pau. Maybe make it as the 8th seed and get swept.

 

Without pau, lakers don't get to the finals and kobe would be giving more interviews to kids, only this time at the video arcade.

 

probably not very far.

i love the trio of gasol/odom/kobe though. all so skilled and versatile as they can play multiple positions.

idk how important bynum is but he seems expendable and overpaid.

 

Without Kobe, I think the Lakers could still be fighting for homecourt in the first round, and they'd have a decent chance to win a playoff series, but no realistic shot at a championship.

 

They're good on paper, but their heart is paper thin w/o Kobe.

 

Hell no

 

Well depends, who would they have in place of Kobe?

Just going by no Kobe...they would be middle to low tier. I wouldn't even consider them a play-off contender. How many games has he single-handedly won for them this season alone?

To think LO, Pau, or Artest could give the same production is laughable. The Lakers would be laughable.

 

i'd say they're a 50 win team, not a championship team though.

 

Pau is overated

 

i love ur dream line up

 

Agreed! I hate to use the word "HATE". However, I do "despise" Kobe, simply for the person he is. As for the bb player, he's the only Laker that gives 110% 24/7. Without Kobe last year, the Lakers would't have extended us to a 7 game series & we would be WC champions.

 

yea this is getting ridiculous, even espn gave trimester mvp to pau gasol..lakers won fine without him, kobe is averaging 30 ppg on efficient scoring, hes killing em out there and pau plays less games and as good as he is, theres melo, kobe, even lebron, and a couple others btu they gave it to paul to slap kobe in the face since espn is lebron's network....they are like the fox channel of sports

anyways... lakers would be contenders or just as good without 30 points and the main focus of defense for all the other teams off which just him being on the court takes pressure and defense off of others? ...please

 

Here's where I stand on this, if you replace him with a Wade, or another player of similar ilk at shooting guard, then yes, they can still win. If you replace him with a player like Bruce Bowen however, then it'll be lights out and they won't sniff the same success. It all depends on who you replace him with is my take. I always felt that Shaq could have taken a lot of people to the finals.

 

Without Kobe, the Lakers really have Gasol. Bynum has improved offensively since he started, but his moves are still limited, and he's not a significant defensive threat. Our bench > their bench. They wouldn't make it past the first round.

 

Anybody who saw Lakers/Warriors last night will understand how important Kobe is to the Lakers. They wouldn't come close to sniffing a championship without him. They have talent on that team but they are completely dependent on Kobe when the going gets tough. When the opposition doesn't put up a fight, the Lakers can look like the Dream Team. But when the other team punches them in the mouth, Kobe becomes 90% of their offense and is often responsible for raising their defensive intensity.

Last night, they were helpless on defense and would have lost by 15 points or more if Kobe hadn't gone ballistic. Without him destroying single-coverage and attracting double-teams, the Lakers offense would crash, burn and fizzle.

 

I tend to think that without Kobe, this Lakers side would fall apart very quickly.

 

The NBA Finals. Lakers still without Kobe are the best team out west.