Arguement with my friend, will Kobe surpass Jordan as a player?

Kobe is better than Pippen. When Jordan retired for the first time, Pippen's stats without Jordan weren't that good. Kobe's stats, with Shaq are pretty awesome.

 

Pippen 93-94 without jordan
.491 FG .320 3pt .660 FT 8.7 rebounds 5.6 assists 22.0 pts

Kobe 01-02
.469 FG .250 3pt .829 FT 5.5 rebounds 5.5 assists 25.2 pts

Jordan career
.500 FG .328 3pt .836 FT 6.2 rebounds 5.4 assists 31.0 pts

Jordan rookie year at 22 years old
.515 FG .173 3pt .845 FT 6.5 rebounds 5.9 assists 28.2 pts


Kobe is closer to Pippen than he is to Jordan. The only thing that Kobe can do better than Pippen is create his own shot.

Kobe is not even close to Jordan on either side of the ball. Jordan almost shutdown Clyde during the finals who was one of the top 5 shooting guards of all time. Kobe can't even shut down bibby or T-mac. Didn't Starbury light Kobe up for over 50 pts once. I'm sure no player ever did that to Jordan.

 

Kobe is better then Pippen ever was right now and Kobe will continue to get better. I think that Kobe is a little bit overrated, but I still think that Kobe is currently better then Pippen was in his prime.

 

Hmm... thanks for posting those numbers. I know stats aren't everything, but this has change my opinion slightly on Pippen and Kobe.

 

I also think that TMac is better then Pippen was in his prime. McGrady is only 22 and he in putting up incredible stats.

 

Put it this way, is T-mac good enough right now to be put in the top 50 players of all time?
Well, Pippen was perceived good enough in '96 to be put on that illustrious list. Now in hindsight, we can see that it was a mistake, but that's how good he was perceived to be.

Give T-mac several more years before you compare him to any all-time greats. 2 terrific years is not enough.

 

No doubt Kobe is better than Pippen. I'm just saying Kobe is closer to Kobe than he is to Jordan. Everybody is saying Kobe will get better. I'm not sure that he will. His numbers this year are not any better than last. What part of his game will get better? I just don't see it.

I think Kobe's ceiling is not as high as Jordans because he is not as athletically gifted as Jordan and he never will be. Jordan almost never got blocked even with all the great centers that he played against. Kobe gets blocked almost every game by guys who are covering him. The reason everyone compared VC to Jordan is because of the athletism. That is something Kobe just can't develop.

Jordan had it all, the fire, the athletism, the determination, and the calls from the refs. There wasn't any weaknesses in his game on either side of the ball.

 

Then you have definitely allowed Pippen's more recent performance fog your mind.

Besides his rookie season, Pippen has never averaged less than 5 rebounds a game. He averaged over 5 assists a game for season after season, and put up some great scoring numbers. On the difference in PPG, you have to consider shots per game...Despite Kobe's only being in the league for 6 seasons, he has put up more shots, in the last three seasons, than Pippen ever did per game. You say all these guys are putting up "incredible stats", but they all shoot way more than Scottie ever shot. And there's nothing wrong with that, but Pippen was able to be part of the offense without taking shots all the time. Heck, I will still give Kobe the slight edge on the offensive side. But, Scottie did some great stuff on the defensive side...

A night against Jordan and Pippen meant an off night for your guards. That is why the teams that matched up best with the Bulls were the teams with dominant big men and guards that could at least hold their own(Rockets). There are of course exceptions(Pistons, who relied on a defensive system called the "Jordan Rules"). Pippen, despite being the jackass that he is and his recent performances, is a hall-of-famer in my book.

That said, Kobe will probably develop to be a better player than Pippen. But if Kobe were never to develop further, I would probably take the Pippen of the Jordan Bulls over Kobe.

 

mabe be, he already has 1/2 of the rings mj has, he might be better..na kobe is no where near as fast as mj was.i don't know.

 

Don't ever mention this topic again it should be taboo too put someone on Jordan's level basketball wise. Forget about it, and by the way Kobe will stop winning rings and won't reach 6 championships either, mark my words.

 

i don't think so. When i watched Jordan and the game was on the line, i knew the Bulls would win. He was unstopable. With the lakers you think there a gonna win with the game on the line is because they have Horry. Jordan was great when the game was close, bryant hasn't proven himself without Shaq.

 

Kobe will never surpass Jordan as a player.

1. Kobe doesn't have the stats
Just look at the numbers posted above. I don't see Kobe getting MJ's nubers, esp. in the scoring department, ever.
For those who say the difference in pts results from being second fiddle to Jordan : just look at the fg% and forget it. In all likeliness, his fg% will go _down_ when he has to carry the team w/o Shaq, so I can't see him getting close to over 30ppg with a fg% >50.


2. Kobe doesn't have the story
MJ was the man on the Bulls from day one. For that reason, all the team's success was attributed to MJ even though Pippen, Kukoc, Rodman were added later and contributed significantly.
I know that there was a small, obscure sect of NBA fans that considered Pippen the motor behind the success, but because Pip didn't know when to quit, this sect lost just about all of its followers.
The greater the enemies, the greater the fame : MJ played against some of basketballs greatest legends, Bird, E-John (j/k, Magic), Abdul-Jabbar, etc. That also contributes, and I don't see how CWebb, TMac, Pre-Drag, Duncan, Kidd, AI etc are supposed to measure up against those names from the 80's (Duncan maybe, but that's it).
MJ's story was only improved by the fact at the beginning that there were times when you could suffer with him - him being so good but losing in the first round because of the horrible team. Finally, the baseball episode and the comeback set his biography apart from all other basketball superstars and made him a legend.

Even though Kobe has at least a decade ahead of him, I can't see how he will ever catch up in the story department. He came on Shaqs team, won a few championships. Sounds more like Pip's story to me.


3. Don't tell me about the rings
Yes, Kobe already has three rings. He might be able to win more championships than MJ. But since rings never made anybody believe that Russel was greater than Chamberlain, I can't see how Kobe can surpass Jordan just by winning more titles.

 

I've always been amazed by how people compare greatness by the number of rings won. By that logic, Robert Horry is better than Larry Bird, and Dennis Rodman is better than Charles Barkley.

 

The only difference is that Jordan redefined the game. He elevated it to a new level. Kobe hasn't done anything that other players like T-mac can't do. He hasn't taken the game to the next level. That's what Jordan did.

Ironically, I think Yao is the only player that has the potential to change the game. He could redefine the Center position and the game of basketball. Not only by his ability to dominate, but by also by touching China and about a trillion new fans that will adore him.

Remember, Jordan won the fans because he redefined the game.

Yao could do the same thing in China at a whole new level.

 

I don't mean to dis Yao, but it is highly unlikely that he redefines the game the way Jordan did.

2-guards weren't supposed to dominate games like Jordan did. And when they do, it's amazing, because they are the small guys on the court.
People can also more easily identify with the smaller guards than with centers who are so obviously different from themselves because of their gigantic size. It's a David vs Goliath situation. And as Chamberlain once said when asked for the reasons for his relative unpopularity "Nobody identifies with Goliath."

Wilt, Kareem, Hakeem, Shaq : there have been quite a few extremely dominant centers over the years. Hard to imagine that Yao redifines the game by reaching completely new levels of dominance an center.

 

Along the line of your argument, Soy, Yao will have to be a center who can do some "guard things" real well and still be peerless in doing the "center things" to redifine the game. Things like beating your man facing the basket off the dribble. Things like draining 3s with regularity. Things like driving the lane and dishing off to your teammate for a dunk.

Dream used to try to do that. I remember hearing him saying that he learned many of his moves from guards. He didn't do it often enough to be effective. Maybe he was too good at his "center things" so the coaches wouldn't let him waste time doing guard things.

Garnett and Nowitzki, IMO are doing that. They have redefined somewhat how a 7-footer can dominate in basketball. But maybe they are still too "small" compared to Yao. So Yao can redefine the game by demonstrating that a 7-6 guy can play all five positions and be effective at each.

 

But "changing the way the position is played" only makes you a legend if it goes along with complete dominance. Magic already could do almost all the things you described including playing the five (remember his first season, last game of the NBA finals?), but that alone wouldn't have been enough, hadn't he played it at such a high, dominating level.

A guy like Nowitzki won't become one of the greats as long as a "traditional" player like Duncan plays his position better.

 

Magic did redefine the game, IMO. If he didn't retire before his time was up, he might have won a couple more rings out of MJ's championship years. Who knows, without Magic's HIV thing, MJ might not be such a clear cut "greatest player ever."

I am no Magic fan. But I've always felt that Magic was the only one that could have challenged MJ's "best ever" title.

 

Well, Magic certainly had a shot at best ever; he was more versatile than Jordan, but lacked the D.

Stat-wise one could make a strong argument for Chamberlain.

But the best-ever thing is somewhat moot in that way, that it's very difficult or even impossible to compare players from completely different eras.

How many points / rbs would Wilt have if he played now? How about Jordan? How many rings would MJ have, had he entered the league in '79 instead '84, being forced to compete against Larry and Magic for his whole career?? Nobody will ever know.

 

Nope. Nothing beats the original.

Rox 93/94>Rox 94/95