Tmac was great. 'Was' being the key word. He looked so energetic back then Now he's looks bored unless he has the ball.
No doubt T-Mac is very talented. If he isn't, he wouldn't be hated so much. He would just be another unheard of player in the NBA. It's too bad that such a talented player can't leave behind a better legacy due to injuries. His combination of size, court vision, ball handle, vertical, speed, and incredible basketball IQ is so rare to see even in a league of so many good players. The same goes for Yao.
And just to piss you off even more, since it always works: Tmac as an individual player is better than Kobe when both were in their primes. Championships aside, that was a valid argument. Get over your lame-ass hate.
Tell that to T-Mac when he says **** like "It's on me!" or "I imposed my will" Good players also get past the first round. The only time T-Mac saw the 2nd round was in street clothes. Kind of sad. A lot of Germans had thought the Holocaust was a good idea. I think we all know how that turned out. A crap load of people think Communism was a good idea. Point is, most people are sheep; stupid, mindless people easily swayed by public opinion. I agree that skillwise, T-Mac is infinitely better than Kobe and Lebron. Talent is useless if you are mentally weak, fragile, and lazy however. Kobe is still in the game and exploring new ways to improve the game. T-Mac settles for jump shots when people bumped him a few times.
T-Mac was more fun to watch than LeBron. I'd rather see a guy score in a variety of ways than one or two. LeBron is going to get dunks, lay-ups, or draw fouls. That's how he'll usually get his 30. T-Mac on the other hand would have a strong dunk or two, some finesse lay-ups, hit some free throws, get some jumpers off of screens and/or hit one or two contested threes per game.
Ridiculously good <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gW1MqKr0fxo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gW1MqKr0fxo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Kobe, when he had Shaq or Pau. Almost always stay on top of the conference. And every time first round will be favorable matchup. TMac, with Yao, couldn't get anything better than 4th record. That's the reason they didn't get favorable matchup. Wasn't that TMac's fault? What? You are supposed to be a contender and you can't do better than that in regular season?
If a player cant be better than another player for one instance in their career ever, why bother having All NBA Team selections? Its okay for players like Michael Redd to be better than Gilbert Arenas and vice/ versa.. But its not okay for someone to be better than Kobe for A season. In baseball, Jose Lima and Mike Hampton were better than Greg Maddux in the same year. Mike Scott was better than Nolan Ryan for a couple years. Fluke or not, it happens.
The only year TMac had better recognition than Kobe (MVP voting, all NBA team etc.) was 04-05. And Kobe still had better stats that year, his team sucked and he had significant injury and missed near 20 games. TMac never convincingly outperformed Kobe in any single year.
You forgot about 2001-2002 where T-Mac got more MVP votes. In 02-03 it was close. They were both all NBA first team. T-Mac had better stats than Kobe in 02-03
OK, I forgot that. But that's much due to Kobe shared the floor with O'Neal. Kobe was also in all defense team in 02, won NBA champion, he was discounted in MVP voting, for obvious reason. 02-03, TMac scored 2 points more than Kobe, that's the only stat he's better. Kobe had better rb and as. And the hot topic that season wasn't TMac averaged 32, but Kobe strung 9 40 points in a row. The consensus was Kobe could score more than TMac if Lakers had no Shaq, and he proved that in 05-06. Consider TMac never averaged more than 26 pts since he joined Rox. It's safe to say Kobe's a better scorer even for those years. Coupled with better defense and clutch performance in playoff. I would say Kobe's still better, although the gap's much smaller than later years.
