In hindsight and in my opinion, if you replaced Kobe with any other wing during the 00-02 championship years, the Lakers would have at least 1 less championship banner. Hate on him all you want, you can't deny that he has played and is still playing at a high level. That's why he's still hasn't been forgotten while his contemporaries are already out of or on their way out of the league. Gotta respect the longevity.
don't know if somebody posted this but kobe bryant is actually jealous of ray allen because ray was 7 picks before kobe
I love TD but you can argue that Ginobili should have been the '05 finals MVP and Parker was the '07 finals MVP. He was great (easily the goat at his position and one of the greatest players ever) but I doubt he would have won without that team around him. Maybe I am biased because I lived in SoCal from 05-09 and watched Laker games regularly but Kobe was such a monster. That team was starting Kwame Brown/Brian Cook/Smush Parker (with a bench consisting of even worse players) and constantly making the postseason in a TOUGH Western Conference (the fact that they took a star studded team in the Suns to 7 games is remarkable imo). I don't think there is any other player like Kobe during that era who can single-handedly will his team into wins like Kobe did (the guy had a game in which he scored 81 points. How can anybody consider him not being the best player in the game at that point is arguable? Not saying points are everything but it really does reflect on how reliant the team was on him). As far as "LeBron being the best player after '08," all I have to say is SCOREBOARD. People say those Cavs teams were terrible w/o LBJ but come on, that supporting cast would eat the supporting casts which Kobe had ALIVE. They were made up of solid NBA rotation players (guys who were rotation players before playing with LeBron and the ones who are still playing are mostly rotation players now) while Kobe's supporting cast mostly consisted of Odom+undeveloped Bynum+D-Leaguers. They had an All-Star big in Z (later replaced with Shaq), an All-Star second option in Mo Williams. Kobe in the mid-2000s had NOTHING on that level. I don't think guys who think like you really saw Kobe play in that era.
Why would winning more rings change how good is he?? He is who is, he's talent would still be same.. He's not close to MJ talent wise, it doens't matter who has more rings..
Having your father murdered is a tragedy, but other than MJ I've never heard of other players retiring in their prime. Most people would take a leave off, not cut themselves off from the sport they love permanently. What was he going to do, stay in his dad's tombstone for the next 20 years? Also even if MJ's 1st retirement was excusable to his father's death, how do you explain the 2nd?
I wasn't speaking of you specifically. Just speaking in general about how folks try to take Kobe's dominance in the latter part of the decade and extend it all the way to the early 2000's. He wasn't considered the best player on the planet. Shaq and Duncan were. It became arguable towards the middle of the decade, and towards the end LeBron was arguably the games best player. Anyone arguing that Kobe was considered the games best player earlier on is recreating history. His own coach considered trading him at that time. Now what Kobe does have over Duncan and Shaq is his longevity, although he came into the league later than Shaq and younger than Duncan. But if you want to say he has sustained it longer I won't agree but folks are still trying to apply his later dominance to the early part of his career, just like folks apply him leading a team to titles in 09 and 10 as him doing the same for his first 3 titles (ie all the posts like Kobe 5, Magic 5, Duncan & Shaq 4, Bird 3....well those guys led their teams to more titles than Kobe did). And the Spurs beat the Lakers in the playoffs twice (99 and 03). But considering it was Kobe and Shaq vs Tim, I consider him beating that duo twice a big achievement. Especially with the team he had in 03 (no 2nd star).
Kobe's team did suck but his team was stacked in 04 and they got upset. The team was good enough to hold a 3-1 lead on the Suns in 06 and they blew it, with him quitting in G7. You can't say "scoreboard" to dismiss LeBron arguably being the best from 08 forward yet call Kobe the best from 04-07 even though they blew a Finals and he didn't get out of round 1 for 3 years, blowing a 3-1 lead one year. Stay consistent. I saw him play a lot. He plays for LA so how can any basketball fan not have seen them play a lot. But my memory is pretty good and the talk then was a number of other guards could do what he did (one of them played for our team) and he ultimately killed that talk. But the talk definately was not revolving around him clearly being the best player in basketball. The poster that said you could argue that he wasn't the best in any of those years has a very good point.
Well typically it's hard to argue you are on a dudes level or better than him when his accomplishments dwarf yours. That's like me arguing LeBron is better than Kobe even though he hasn't accomplished what he has. Or better yet, like me arguing Wade is better.
He had Rivals. They lost to Detroit and to a few other teams. Wade is probably gonna be gaining some rings soon after he already has a Championship. The Celtics and Detroit both beat the Lakers. They lost at times to the Spurs when Duncan was at his best.
He was talking about individual players. Also, I think he was talking about more throughout his entire career. Some guy who was drafted around the same time as him who he would face constantly (Chaimberlin/Russell, Magic/Bird, MJ/Isiah, Shaq/Zo, etc)
i was largely rooting for kobe in the post-shaq years up through the first title and defended him probably more than about 95% of this board that now all apparently loved him that whole time. i saw him plenty. the suns were definitely a better team and shouldn't have let it get to 7, but that was the year amare was injured. they were handled pretty easily by the suns the following year. yeah, those 2 statements don't really work together. when others have scoreboard on kobe it's "but kobe scored 81 so he's the best." when lebron is significantly better than kobe it's "scoreboard so kobe's the best." if you wanna boil it down to one thing like scoring average or team playoff success, you have to stick with that one thing. kobe certainly has no claim over shaq until at least 2003-04 and then only in the regular season is it an argument. and he certainly didn't beat duncan's 2004-05 season. kobe's best argument for being the best player in a season is probably the 2005-06 to 2007-2008 stretch. in 2005-06 he scored 35 ppg. he got knocked out in the 1st round and quit in game 7 (though fairly understandably) but he was still spectacular and relentless in the regular season, carrying a team with smush and kwame in the starting lineup to a 45-37 record. he and lebron had very similar PER and WS/48 (about 28 and .23 for both) in the regular season but kobe's numbers took a big dip in the playoffs and lebron beat him out fairly handily. and while duncan was way behind in the regular season (23/.187) he had a huge playoffs (30/.252). dirk had a huge 28/.275 regular season and 26.8/.263 playoffs and beat duncan in the playoffs. and wade had a 27.6/.239 and went crazy in the ECF and Finals to finish with a 26.9/.240 playoffs where he beat dirk and won the title. so it was a fairly close race that year but it should be between dirk and wade if anybody. in 2006-2007 he and lebron were very close in PER and WS/48 in regular season and playoffs except lebron won WS/48 in the playoffs .200 to .12 and made the finals while kobe lost in the first round so lebron has to get that year. and duncan beat them both in PER and WS/48 in the regular season and playoffs and won the title so he would have to get the year i guess (typing the last 2 paragraphs just made me rethink duncan's whole career). in 2007-2008 lebron easily won the regular season (29/.242 to 24.4/.208) and they had similar playoff numbers while kobe lost in the finals and lebron was knocked out in the 2nd round. so that would be close. so he's got 1 close argument (2007-08), 1 spectacular season where it would be hard to argue for him (2005-06) for best player and a definite no in 2006-07. no year since does kobe have an argument over lebron from an individual "best player in the game" perspective. and lebron went to the finals and ECF while kobe didn't pass the first round so it's not like lebron didn't get better results with his better supporting cast.
No that doesn't even put him on the same level. Jordan is just a whole tier above him, in that zone only a few players can transcend to. The guy avgd 27ppg his rookie year, never lost a finals series and was the MVP everytime.
Lol what a buttmunch. So when he was agitating for a trade circa 2006-2007 because he was getting smoked and was noncompetitive was that because of the impact that Wade and Lebron were having or.... Wade is too young. Kobe is 33, meanwhile Wade is 22. And Wade won his first ring SIX YEARS ago when Kobe was 27... On the other hand Duncan who is every bit his contemporary isn't a rival because he is Shaq's rival... although using Kobe's own logic, Duncan is necessarily "too young" to ever be considered Shaq's rival. But I guess Duncan's 4 rings and fact that he carried his team to some rings wouldn't make being compared to TD too attractive a prospect for Kobe This guy is an assclown. His "rival" should be an LA team without Gasol or Shaq... and what Kobe could do against that rival.
+ During his first season in the NBA, Jordan averaged 28.2 ppg on 51.5% shooting. I don't like the guy either, he may be one of the biggest douches, but just like T-Mac was no Kobe, Kobe is no Jordan. It doesn't just come down to level of skill But that composure and confidence. Kobe's gotten rattled pretty bad sometimes and has succumbed, like the finals in 08 vs the celtics.
Since he did come back, it obviously wasn't permanent and was essentially an extended (1.5 year) leave. He had accomplished everything he could. Won the championship in the last six full seasons he played in. And his GM was intent on completely dismantling a team that had just won a third consecutive championship (they were letting Pippen, Rodman, and Jackson go regardless of what Jordan wanted).
Kobe deserves his due, no doubt, but he also had a top 50 player in his prime playing while he got the chance to learn. He never had to pack a team for 4 quarters when he was in his prime. If not for the gasol trade,he wouldnt have any rings past what he had with shaq.
First one he retired and went to his first love, which was baseball and also the sport his father wanted to play, so it was more of a tribute...it just made perfect sense in that tragedy the second time he was 36 years old, with those miles nad rings, he had plenty of reason to retire when the franchise especially said they aren't bringing the coach back
You do realize that before the Gasol trade, Lakers were number 1 in the west that year in a very competitive contest. No player wins alone, not MJ, not Kobe, not duncan, basketball is ateam game, but who is the leader and closer of these games the guy who is the engine. Many of the greats talk about the reason michael and kobe made teams better weren't because of them assisting them for baskets was because the culture they set, when your best and most talented player is working harder than everyone else and is obsessed with winning, that raises the bar for the entire team. That is something that can't be statistically measured but have a profound impact on why there are so many great players(Dominique, t-mac, etc) who statistically you can say oh replace him with this player they will match it, but the impact htey make doesn't take them over the top.
Are you aware that right before the Gasol trade, Bynum went down with a season-ending injury? Had the Gasol trade not happened, the Lakers might have missed the playoffs.
