How dare you rank Kobe Bryant ahead of Magic Johnson...

Thing is 20-30 years from now there will be some new Laker star that has won a few rings and a MVP or two and people will say. "How dare you compare him to Kobe!"

Nostalgia does that.

 

I know right??

 

Every Rockets fan needs to study this tape before they even think about uttering that type of nonsense.

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look at the way he dominated the best centers in the league.

Robinson? Dominated
Shaq? Dominated
Kareem? Dominated
Ewing? Dominated

All that in the playoffs, not just regular season.

Hakeem is the GOAT and if it hadn't been for injuries to Sampson, he would have had easily 2-3 more rings.

Dream Shake > Sky Hook.

 

Wilt had no competition at that time. It was him and Russell at the center spot and thats it.

Hakeem dominated the center spot at a time when arguably the center spot was at it's prime.

Hakeem strength was so underrated IMO.

 

My claim was that MJ didn't learn to make his teammates better until later, not that he was one-dimensional and didn't have many assists. Marbury had plenty of assists, but he didn't make his team better (and no, I'm not saying Marbury is anywhere close to MJ). The first few years of his career, MJ tended to dominate the offense. He became unstoppable when he learned to trust his teammates and really shape the offense. Magic understood intuitively how to put everyone else on the court where they would be best, but he also could score from the outside or with his back to the basket. I think it's debatable who was better offensively--depends on what you think matters. But overall, I think MJ was a better player than Magic given his defense.

 

We could take that further and say rating players itself is idiotic. It is one thing to say this guy was great and I think that is the best way to say it. To start throwing out top 10-5 list from people with different eras, different teams, different styles, different opponents, there are just too many factors and systems that change things around which don't allow statistics to tell the whole story and you aren't comparing apples with apples when you compare the results so on when they play at different times, for different coaches, with different teammates since every ball player knows those are all incredible factors. So it is a subjective, flawed process in itself, yet it is still an obsession to do by many, even if misguided. The only safe thing to say is that Kobe is great and among the greatest lakers and is a winner and Magic Johnson could be described the same way. Kobe is an attacker, scorer, and finisher who is a tenacious defender and competitor. Magic Johnson was a PG who could score when needed but got the ball and created for all his teammates and also was a tenacious defender with a unique bodytype for a pg. That is that, that is where we have to leave it. You start arguing whose better, everyone will ahve their answer and frankly they all have holes in it.

 

Pretty much.

I try not to get too much involved in era debates because it's all hard to do.

It's not really fair to the players either, Jordan is GOAT IMO but if someone else (probably older than me) says Russel or Wilt can't really argue that...and years from now this generation of fans may say "Lebron was the best" or Kobe or Duncan because they never saw Jordan and never cared for him. Just like how Big O was/is forgotten a lot of times.

It's just hard to compare players from different eras. It's just better to say that Kobe is a great player legendary first ballot HOF player. Now if you want to argue about Lebron vs Kobe that's fair game since they have played against each other numerous times while both in their primes.

 

Magic was one of the top 3 players of all time. Kobe ain't close.

 

because Shaq said so

 

When I read thing like this, I think you are either a homer, or you don't understand how good Kareem and Wilt were. Kareem won the highest title every year he played high school and college ball. He then went to the NBA and won 6 titles and 6 MVPs. No one else has done that. In his prime he was an absolute beast on offense and defense, and that isn't even taking the Sky Hook into account. Add in that he had one of the most effective shots that has ever been used and it makes no sense to compare Hakeem to him.

Wilt was in a tier all by himself. They had to radically change the rulebook to try to slow him down, doing things like outlawing dunks. The man averaged more rebounds per game in two seasons than Hakeem's career single game high. He still holds the season and single game marks in several categories. Five of the top six seasons in PPG are Wilt's (his number one season at 50.36 is more than 13 points per game higher than his closest competitor Jordan's number 5 showing at 37.09). He has 6 of the top 7 single season rebounding averages and between him and Bill Russell 19 of the top 20. He has the top two PER seasons and 4 of the top 8 win share seasons (Kareem has 3 of the others in the top 8). You can throw in the 100 point game and the season when he led the NBA in assists, the only center ever to have done so. Really it is hard to find a player that was more dominant at any sport than Wilt was at basketball, and there are certainly no basketball players who were more dominant.

 

but Kobe dated moesha! So kobe> Magic. Who cares if Magic could play every positon on the court at an elite level!

 

I think Russell is a good example of modern hindsight, I never saw him or Wilt play but I do know that Wilt was pretty much universally considered the better player, which has been redacted in this era of championships matter most.

 

Do people realize that Kareem was 37 when Hakeem first entered the NBA? How well was Hakeem playing when he was 37? Perspective people.

 

This is a joke. There has been 10's of Kobe's. Only one Magic, one Bird, and one Olajuwon. Everything else is just bs

 

So does having one of the best managed franchises in professional sports.

 

Well, at least people are coming around to at least where they are comparing Kobe to Magic and not saying he ruined the Lakers and ran Shaq out of town and the Lakers were stupid for trading Shaq instead of Kobe. The internet is coming around. This is promising.

 

This X 1,000.

I don't care that it was the 60's. The guy averaged this over his first 5 years in the NBA.

PPG: 30.3
RPG: 10.4
APG: 10.6

And 25.7/7.5/9.5 for his career.

But then you don't hear about ??? much either when it comes to top players ever.

Career shooting % over .500
PPG: 24.2
RPG: 8.5
APG: 4.2
SPG: 2.0
BPG: 1.7

Guy wasn't a PF/C or even a PG and put up those numbers over a 16 year career.

 

I answered get a brains morans because I thought it meant that it's so stupid to say that Kobe is better than Magic. I didn't know it was pro Kobe. And to clarify my name "lakersuck" only refers to the Lakers of this century. Magic rules.