That happens when you have a hard-nosed hockey guy as the GM. He likes Francis the Fighter. By the way, Magic did nothing to keep Shaq too.
well ptw1 with that argument I guess Shaq is garbage? This is very interesting discussion.. i wondered this alot myself. If the situations were reversed would Kobe have been able to carry the Magic? People say Kobe has the fire (competitiveness) that Tmac doesnt I dont see that. If you look at the Lakers record with our without Kobe this season they actually win more. But without Shaq and Kobe as the #1 option they actually losed more games .. I cant remember the exact numbers but they were discussing that with Shaq in an ESPN interview. The difference was staggering. Kobe will still have a better team this year than TMac has ever had with the Magic.. but we will see how well they do without Shaq. (Vlade is no Shaq) Tmac will have a chance to play with a dominating big man (becomes more dominating because Shaq moved East) and we will see if he can adjust his game to play this way. I dont see them having any problems because Tmac came to the Rox to play with Yao. He wouldnt come all the way over here to freeze Yao out. back to the question... who is the best 2 in the game right now? sorry to say it has to be Kobe.. even though Tmac appears to be more talented and more athletic Kobe has won championships to back that up. In the end thats what people will look at... I read somewhere else about Nique/Jordan at the time both being explosive and great scorers but Jordan is the remembered as the greateses because of his championships.. (well you get the meaning) until you win something in this league you will be considered great but not maybe the best. J
Now you're just being silly. Shaq walked away in a free agent year after Shaq told him he would stay, just the previous season. Shaq wanted to go to LaLa land no matter what the Magic did.
I remember there were several reasons of Shaq's leaving 1) he was offended by the critism of fans, 80% of them voted to let shaq go 2) he wanted Hollywood Magic was so stupid not to get any compensation for Shaq.
Just to point out, if you unabbreviate what pgabriel wrote, it'll turn out to be "I think we have our first T-Mac only fan fan." As you can see, the second instance of "fan" is clearly redundant. Placing the period after "TMOF" and omitting "fan" should prevent such an occurance from happening again in future posts by any member.
Put Kobe in the position where he is surrounded by little talent and lets see if the organization begins to want to trade him. I think they would because they would be so desparate to get some other solid players to build around. The Magic pretty much had no real tradable parts besides McGrady so there was no real way for them to improve other than relying upon draft picks to better themselves.
iirc, tmac was tripled quite a few times by detroit during last years playoffs and still played VERY well. we know what detroit did to kobe with just single coverage from prince. besides, when your team's option numero uno is an aloof loner, would you really want to play hard for him? that's probably why the lakers have such a bad record when shaq is out. simple fact: kobe is very good but his status has been elevated due to the team he plays for (media adulation, better teammates). in fact, tmac and kobe are very similar players, yet if you google both their names its like a 10-1 ratio in favor of bryant. "but bryant wins chamionships," i hear you whine. well, horry has 5 rings. and about the lakers keeping kobe instead of shaq, didnt any of you read that article describing buss and kobe's relationship compared to buss and shaq. after reading that, the whole situation made a little more sense to me... btw, anyone have their stats against one another???? that article describing tmac yanking bryants jumpshots out of midair got me curious.
Bryant's record without Shaq is still over .500 and playoff bound if stretched out into an entire season, that's with teammates with strengths that work better with Shaq. If this poll was done anywhere else Kobe Bryant would come out on top 95% of the time. Forget the championships, Tracy still isn't on par with Bryant in anything but scoring, that's about it though, Bryant is better virtually everwhere else.
This will be one of the great debates in the NBA for many years to come. Kobe backers will emphasize his rings, defense and clutch shooting. All of these factors were helped by the Big Diesel in the middle. The big test for Kobe is the upcoming season and beyond without his "Super" nemesis. Can the lakers win? Can Kobe make his team mates better? Will Kobe just hog the ball? What about T-MAC? He has been a one man gang for most of his career. He is constantly hounded by double and triple teams. Can McGrady rise up to the #1 status with Yao? I think you have to give the edge to Kobe. However, we have the player that can take the crown and the gold out of LA.
You konw Kobe vs TMac is an interesting debate. The poll will be 50-50 in a general NBA site a year ago. Now it may be 65 - 35. No way Bryant would won 95 - 5. Both of them have a large group of fans that hate the other. In fact, TMac is way popular than a lot of clutch fans thought.
I meant 95% of most other forums would have Bryant leading, I'm not sure how much though, 65-35 is probably about right I guess. My top 5 SGs... 1. Kobe Bryant 2. Allen Iverson (when healthy) 3a.Tracy McGrady 3b.Paul Pierce 5. Vince Carter
do you have a link to this stat? i looked everywhere for it... btw, the 95% thing only confirms my assertion about the media hype. and players that work better with shaq? wouldnt they all be great jumpshooters then? christ, kobe "i will not pass to shaq" bryant was supposed to be one of those players.
Nope, I just remember seeing it once and it was something like a 54% winning clip, the big difference everyone sees is that the Lakers winning clip without Bryant is around 70%.
Funny how people keep assuming Kobe can't possibly lead a team to a bad record, when he did EXACTLY just that when Shaq was out last year(3-9 record I believe). As for T-Mac's team being the worst, it was also a playoff team for three years before. This upcoming season will certainly do a lot to settle this debate. Kobe has some decent talent around him. And if the Lakers don't make the playoffs or get a quick 1st round exit, then no one should ever use the "championship experience" and "clutchness" to make him seem superior. On the other hand, if T-Mac doesn't gel with Yao and remains a ballhog, then all the flak he's been taking about selfishness and whining would be justified.
