Wells lest not make a good comparison for petes sake. Mobley was our Second best player and did lead the team in scoring and put up over 21 ppg. And no, sorry. Cato, Francis, Mobley, Taylor is better then Parker, Brown, Bynam, Odom. See how that works...LOL
Excuse me? The Lakers made the playoffs last year, and almost pulled off a giant upset against a great team. Please inform me what Jordan did till Pip, and crew were in place With what every expert picked as the best team going into Last year with Shaq, and their offseason pickups. And TMac has had similar playoff runs. He just didnt have a Shaq at his side. Agree'd
Remember that both Mobley and Francis are still in their rookie seasons. And i do not agree cato+taylor+griffin + mobley is better than K.Brown + Bynam + Odem + Parker. K.Brown is the #1 pick, Bynam is considered as the next bigger man. Odem one of the few out there that average double double every night. If you think cato+taylor+griffin are better teammates, that's laughable. Look where are they and what are they doing now?
the comparison Kobe vs Mj reminds me of the the comparison now... of Sidney Crosby vs Wayne Gretzky in the NHL I think every generation wants to say... hey I got to watch Jordan, Gretzky, Tiger Woods, Greg Luganis, Edwin Moses and Lance Armstrong ply their crafts I myself am not your typical true sports team fan... I follow the players/people that may make a impact on the history of thier sport... I watched and cheered Joe Montana for the San Francisco 49rs... because many consider him to be the best Quarterback of his era... and maybe all time I watched and cheered Pavel Bure play for the Vancouver Canucks because he could have been the one to score most goals in a season...(still held by Gretzky) I watched and cheer Ichiro play for the Seattle Mariners because... he could have and did make history for most hits in season... I watch and cheer Shaq as he played for Orlando, Lakers and Heat..because he was considered the most dominant (but Wilt gets my nod) of all that I have watched... f or me... I would only put Roger Federer next to Jordan, Gretzky, Tiger Woods, Greg Luganis, Edwin Moses and Lance Armstrong because there is no doubt he is the greatest tennis player all time... still waiting for somone to come and say ... I say "I saw Jordan play from his rookie season...to Kobe playing now his 10th year" "Kobe is better"
I'm sorry but you lost all your credibility by this statement. I've been following NBA since 80's, there is no way Kobe is better at anything(unless your "outside threat" means 3 point shooting only) you mentioned compare to that 1987-1993 Jordan. Guees you were too young at that time.
What!? Everyone know Federer will pass Sampras's Grand Slam record in 2008. And Federer beated Sampras in their only meeting on grass in Wimbledon 2001.
This is a whole other discussion, but Federer is 25 now. So he will propably win some more GS. the only game they played against each other was 7-6 (7), 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5, And Federer WON. Federer was 20 at the time. not a convincing argument
Wade carried that Mia team to a championship. Ask Shaq. And in the finals Shaq actually sucked very bad. The Heat were a much better team with Zo on the floor because they went through Wade 100%--and that is how you attack that Dallas defense. Heck, the Shaq Kobe had a few years before and lost to Detroit in the finals was much better than the Shaq of last year (in fact Shaq tore up Detroit). Yet Detroit shut down Kobe in all but 1 game and held his shooting way down. Detroit never accomplished the same in 2 years versus Mia except for when Wade's got injured. You make try to break down all their individual skills you want, but Wade was able to accomplish something Kobe (nor Tmac) hasn't, and Wade in fact did have the closets to a Jordan-esk playoff run for anyone since Jordan. I also think Jordan's game is more like an enhanced Wade's and than enhanced Kobe's--more emphasis for causing havok inside 20feet and fewer settling for covered jumpshots. Now Kobe and Tmac can hit those covered jumpshots better than 99% of the league players--but that doesn't lead to an efficient or sustainable team offense.
I asked Wade and you know what he told Shaq, "If they are going to keep playing you like this, Im going to keep dominating" Im sorry but no having Shaq allowed Wade to conserve much of that energy to take over/close games. Without Shaq there is no title plain and simple. Either way no one is doubting that Wade carried that team but without Shaq there is no team to carry. The attention he recieved was key to Wades attack. Such a long meaningless paragraph answered in 2 easy sentences: 1) The Pistons played Shaq 1 on 1 and swarmed Kobe 2)The Mavs sent HARD Doubles (with 2 7-footers) anytime Shaq touched the ball, they never focused their defense on Wade for fear he would get Shaq going.
i dun care about the argument as to who is better skill wise...thats all BS.....the real factor that seperates the two is dominance. Clearly, jordan dominated the game and bryant has yet to do so. maybe...just maybe kobe is better skill wise, but definitely less dominant in their respective era.
this sampras/federer comparison simply doesn't work...sampras is famous and is american, but federer is more dominant than him in their respective era, and by a clear cut as well. kobe did not dominate in today's nba. end of discussion.
I know your not, but the point is your putting Kobe on too high a pedestal Of course you dont, since there is no way of proving it all we can do is bring up facts. Here are the facts, MJ was averaging 24.3 5.5 and 6 with an impressively low turnover rate as a starter. At the age of 39 years old BEFORE his knees started giving him trouble. And this was BEFORE the handchecking rule was implemented, Wizards MJ was not even close to prime time MJ. Why do you think people are constantly saying MJ would avg 40 in this league, I know Id rather have the ability to get by my defender without him touching me than have to worry about running away from a double team. Prove how Kobe gets more double teams than MJ, sure they were different types of doubles but in MJ's case it was harder for him to get by his man. Dont use the whole teams will double him off the ball because if youve seen the numbers (synergy sports had them) doubles off the ball are the rarest occurrence in basketball. All that proves is that your not a complete Homer Slasher NO, Defender NO, pound for pound GOD NO, Outside threat yes, pure scorer yes, when it comes to Kobes BEST individual scoring no one can touch him but hes not as consistantly dominant in a weaker era of defense. Didnt see this one coming [/QUOTE] But the man can put up 80 points while being legally triple teamed, is just nuts.[/QUOTE] Watch the game again, there was no triple team, rarely did they double. Even Jalen admitted he was watching the whole time. [/QUOTE] No way does Jordan pull this off. If your talking purely on a talent level, Kobe is better then Jordan. As for the better team player...of course thats Jordan.[/QUOTE] Im talking about as a better basketball player, thats MJ [/QUOTE] As for the Wade Arguement. Umm, why does Kobe get a pass for winning with Shaq, whilst Wade doesnt? [/QUOTE] Im sorry I dont know if this argument is geared towards me but Ill answer it anyway, Shaq then wasnt Shaq now, the mere fact that you asked this question speaks volumes about your basketball IQ. [/QUOTE] The Heat had about the same record as the Lakers while Shaq was out. And Id say that the Heat still had better talent. The Wade led Heat look less then average in the weak Eastern Conference. Nope, not buying the Wade argument. [/QUOTE] Thats alil true but you have to remember that when Shaq was out, someone was either hurt, fat, or the coach was missing. Either way Wade isnt on MJ's level either. [/QUOTE]I think 99 percent of the GMs if starting a team would pick Kobe over Wade. Wade has NO where near Kobe's Range, or defensive abilities.[/QUOTE] I would take Kobe but only by a nuthair, now ask those same GM's who they would build a franchise around and Lebron is the choice.
When will I be able to edit my own posts? Either way Dreamshake you know which words are yours so just fill in the blanks please, and when I said BEFORE his knees gave him troubles I shouldve said WITH his knees giving him troubles.
Of course they wouldn't have won without Shaq. They wouldn't have won the championship without JW, Payton, AW and Posey either. The margin of error wasn't that big, like most years. But against the Mavs, Wade and Zo were better than Wade and Shaq. Mia played different with Zo in there because Dallas was swarming and Shaq was turning the ball over. And if you remember Dallas was trying everything to stop Wade. Doubles, triples, etc. Wade accounted for one of the highest % of his teams offense in a finals in a really, really long time. Or Mr Smart guy there is an even simplier explanation. Larry Brown hates doubles period. Prince/Hamilton were simply more effective versus Kobe in that finals in isolation than trying it against Wade in their playoffs. LB isn't stupid, he wouldn't give the lesser (Mia) Shaq more attention when his team is realing than the superior Shaq (LAL) he had faced before. If you think LB payed more attention to Kobe than Shaq in that finals I suggest you rewatch. The game plan was to single everyone and Shaq did a ton of damage, just not enough. Except for a brief spell in game 2, Kobe was relatively ineffective, at least for what a superstar is supposed to do. Last year, though Flip's team, again showed Det had nobody to handle Wade. Shaq again was good against them (much better than he was versus Dallas), but Wade was dominant and spectacular. Again, just in case you missed it in me being longwinded, is the obvious and simple explanation is Wade was tougher for Detroit to handle.
Fair enough but I remember that series perfectly I have the entire finals on a dvd set, and the type of defense Shaq faced was not as tough as the defense they played on Wade. Thats all I was getting at, and your logic that the Heat played better with Zo in place of Shaq is incorrect, if synergy sports was still open to the public they had the quality of players on the floor when Shaq was out was not as strong as the quality of players Shaq had.
Your logic is flawed becuse your assuming LA had a healthy squad compared to what Miami had. He swarmed Kobe, I'll try and get the games to show you each of Kobes possessions. I agree Kobe wasnt able to handle the defense the same way Wade could, but you have to agree Kobe didnt have the tools around him Wade had to stretch the defense. Posey, Walker, JWILL, would be more equipped to handle the oppertunities Wade created for them than anyone the Lakers had on their squad. Kobe choked Ill admit that because regardless Shaq shouldve had alot more touches, but in that series Shaq wasnt as dominant on the boards as he was against Detroit in the Heats series. Wade had the benifit of having a healthy squad, and didnt see the type of defense Kobe faced. Either way Ill agree that if you put Wade in Kobes place that series the Lakers might win an extra game but they still wouldve lost. Not enough help. Agreed, but he also had better teammates and the willingness/trust to pass to those teammates to make Detroit pay for any of sort of overplay.
