If Kobe gets his ring this year, how is he not the GREATEST?

I like the Stan reference because thats exactly what he is

 

What all time NBA Statistic does Kobe lead in.............?...........

 

So Kobe had the benefit of playing alongside the most dominant physical force at the center position this game has ever seen against Finals opponents without any good big men. This doesn't help the OP's argument.

And, yes, look at the stats in the WC playoffs. What you'll find is that Kobe had some very good series in the 2001 playoffs against SAS and SAC, so that it was more of a 1a, 1b situation then. Otherwise, Shaq was clearly the main guy.

 

so now semi-finals stats mean more in terms of greatness that FINALS stats?

lmfao.

kobe stans really reaching now.

disregard kobe playing bad in the finals but he had some good semifinals match ups tho.

LOL

 

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meant to put conference finals*

 

Well....

...Kobe Bean Bryant can't be the greatest player of all time....

...because there are more than ten players ahead of him that could lay much more compelling claims to that title.

Wilt Chamberlain is perhaps the best basketball player of all time, from a purely statistical standpoint. "Wilt the Stilt" has records and accomplishments that will never be broken, if even approached. When Kobe had that 81-point game a few seasons ago, he still needed almost 20 points MORE in order to TIE Wilt's 100 point game. Chamberlain averaged 50 points a game for a SEASON once. On a dare, I believe.

A SEASON. Ridiculous. You couldn't do something like that playing a video game with all the game cheats activated.

Chamberlain may be the only player in league history whom championships (or actually, LACK of championships—he has only two) actually have no bearing on his greatness. Wilt could have won one title or ten—with the statistical dominance he had over entire seasons, he is perhaps as unique an individual performer as you may ever see (and I didn't get to see Wilt play...I was 5 or six years old when he retired).

The rules of the game, as we currently know most of them, were changed to limit Wilt's impact on the game. There were several seasons where dunking the basketball was ILLEGAL because of Wilt. Alley-oop plays were not legal because of Wilt. The lane was widened in order to give defenders the opportunity to push Wilt further out from the basket, and establish a "post" position that supposedly made scoring the ball more difficult for Wilt ALONE.

The league could have handed out MVP trophies to Chamberlain like parking tickets...but no one else would have won any, so they skewed alot of their voting in order to give other people a chance to win them.

People talk about the hand-to-hand combat Michael Jordan faced in his heyday (and he did....I've got some of the blood from some of those battles in a jar in my garage)...imagine the league ENCOURAGING overly physical, even borderline dirty or outright illegal tactics against any player, just to keep him from embarrassing your entire TEAM.

That was what Wilt Chamberlain endured as player.

Michael Jordan will probably tell you himself that Chamberlain was the greatest player of all time, and has on more than one occasion.

Kobe will be fortunate, no matter how many championships he manages to win (and I would say he has a realistic chance at two or three more, tops), if he even rates among the top ten greatest players in NBA history, to me.

My top ten list (in no particular order):

1)Michael Jordan
2)Wilt Chamberlain
3)Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (the man was DOMINANT at the collegiate and pro levels, under both names—and never had a losing season ANYWHERE. Think about that.)
4)Magic Johnson
5)Larry Bird
6)Oscar Robertson
7)Julius Erving (it's difficult for people today to understand "Dr. J's impact on the NBA—think "Allen Iverson" times about...oh...100)
8) Jerry West (the man is the Association's "Logo" for a reason—go check him out)
9) Hakeem Olajuwon (what The Dream accomplished with largely unheralded and nondescript players during his title runs says it all—not to mention garnering the league and Finals MVP awards and defensive player of the year awards in the same season—STILL the only player to ever do that)
10) Tim Duncan (people won't realize how good Duncan is until he's gone, and he did have more help than people realize).

Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant are top-fifteen all time players, to me. You could make strong cases for either of them being number eleven or twelve.
The only players I'd rank ahead of them would be Elgin Baylor (another guy you had to see play in order to understand how good he was) and the immortal Bill Russell (nobody's going to WIN the way Russell did, EVER).....

These types of arguments are fun. But I always have a habit of making a mess out of fun things like this with pesky facts and perspective.....

Nuts.

I need some friends.....

 

If he wins to more rings as the top dog I think it will only be fair for him to be in the top five. He would have six rings and three without Shaq yes I know he has Pau, but Kobe is the main guy on that team. I mean if the guy keep winning as the best player on his team he have to keep moving up on the all time list.

 

I think Jerry West was high when he said that.

 

He won 3 as the second option.

To be the greatest, he has to win 5 more as the first option...

 

SAS and SAC would beat those eastern conference teams too.
They had the best record in the league and had HCA vs. Lakers. We all know it's harder to win without HCA. It's fair to say championships were won in those series. Had those been finals series, Kobe would have won 1 or 2 FMVP and we wouldn't have this conversation.

No one denies Shaq was dominant, but Kobe was not Fisher/Horry, or Pippen in terms of contribution.

 

You don't have to agree, but beating the regular season championship would be more challenging than an undersize eastern team that took every series to 7 games.

Gasol once didn't play the world championship game and was awarded MVP nonetheless. Just saying.

 

Jordan was more consistently great in his title runs than Kobe Bryant. He was clearly more valuable to his team as well, given his production and how much they relied on him to perform series by series. Your hypothetical, fantasy scenario of Kobe winning an extra Finals MVP if we made the WCF count as the championship round and ignore the actual Finals doesn't change that.

 

http://findarticles.com/p/news-arti...63/is_20060621/shaq-wade-player/ai_n51922256/

"He's (Wade) the best player ever," said Heat center Shaquille O'Neal

Wow...if Shaq said it it must be true.

 

NBA doesn't seed the entire league on records. And final series ain't necessarily the toughest series. It's so obvious even a caveman should figure it out.

 

I find it funny that your list of Top 10 All-Time has more to do with their legendary status than what they brought to the court. No one in their right mind is going to pick an in-his-prime Jerry West over an in-his-prime Shaq even if he's the "logo of the association". Hell, I doubt many would pick an in-his-prime West of an in-his-prime Olajuwon for that matter.

As for Dr.J? What impact did he have on the game today? I mean, I wasn't born during the 70s and was too young to watch and understand his game in the 80s so I'm finding it hard to believe Erving had that much of an impact. So please enlighten me on this.

 

but they didn't.

if they beat the spurs, whose to say they would have beat the mavericks or nets?

that's all speculation.

i deal with facts. and the facts show kobe has been subpar in the nba finals compaed to jordan.

 

Kareem has more titles that Jordan? Jabbar won titles in 1971, '80, '82, '85, '87, '88. Jordan also won 6. The last 5 of those Laker titles were mostly due to a guy named Ervin Johnson.

Jabbar also scored more points because he played longer. Jabbar's career pts/game was 24.6 while Jordan's was 30.1. That's a pretty large difference. BTW, Jordan's career average of 30.1 is the highest in NBA history.

 

Per wikipedia:

Is it safe to assume Jabbar's 6 rings is > than Jordan's?

 

What he said.