Gasol consistently shot 5% or better for FG% in Lakers than in Grizzles. His fg% took a dip last year, when Kobe was struggling with finger injury, couldn't draw as much attention and Gasol himself had to create more offense. It's not rocket science.
There's something called injury. Like how Rockets didn't make playoff in 06. Kobe was out for 16 games, rushed back for the remainder of the season not 100%. Odom was out for 18 games too. It was not like they had a big cushion to make playoff to begin with, as evident in 06 and 07.
You can blame it on injury if you want, but the fact is that 1) the Lakers didn't have a quality big, and 2) the Lakers didn't have the best coach in NBA history. And that reduced Kobe from "all time great" to merely "NBA superstar". Only Kobe nutriders would consider that to be an insult, when what it really is is the facts: your NBA legacy is defined by both your talent and your team. Dominique Wilkins and Clyde Drexler are not that far behind Kobe in an objective sense, but only people who actually understand the game get this.
That is correct. That's 34 games missing one of your two best players; especially after a major trade and Caron Butler was still a scrub (they used to make jokes on who was more insignificant on the Heat Rasual Butler or Caron Butler) :grin: 40% of the season lost to injury, valid reason to miss the Playoffs.
Right now Gasol is playing like the best player in the game but I doubt this will last too much longer. But I have to give him credit didnt think he could play at this level.
Well, most superstars that won a championship are dominant big men. But if you look at the championships in the last twenty years, obviously you have MJ winning with no superstar bigs, the two-peat Pistons and the recent squad, even the late-era Lakers with an aging Kareem.
You're out of your bloody mind, those Memphis teams outside of Gasol were terrible. Kobe at least had Odom
Umm no, they did have a crap team. If you changed it around and said " I'm not sure what this nonsense about LeBron having a crap team during his time in Cleveland is" then I'd understand. Seriously dude- Chucky Atkins, Tierre Brown, Tony Bobbitt, Aging Vlade, Slaavaa Med-ve-denko, Mihm, Vujacic, Brian Grant, Devean George and Brian Cook. Seriously? That's not a **** team to you?? Even when you include Caron, Luke Walton and Lamar, that team still reeks of cow dung. Also, 2004-2008 Lamar is not the same player as 2009 onward Lamar Odom.
Umm no. Pau in 2004 had Jwill, Earl Watson, (Better than any PG's Kobe's Lakers had), Battier and Dahntay Jones Mike Miller, James Posey and Bonzi Wells(Pre Bonzi destruction) Stro Swift, Lorenzen Wright, Brian Cardinal. I'd take that Memphis roster Pau had easily any day over the Lakers roster before Pau.
I didn't necessarily mean first option superstars had to have bigs. I was just saying that superstars had to have other superstars in order to win.
I already told Stevie Franchise to go look it up. Ferrari listed them out. That roster Pau had pwns Smush, Kwamay Brown, Luke Walton and Lamar Odom.
Superstars don't necessarily need other superstars to win. Hakeem did it on his own, and I'd argue that Isiah did too. A lot depends on the state of the league at that time. Generally though, to be considered a top player of all time, you at least have to be the defacto superstar on your squad. Kobe was that for one of his titles (2009). The reason the Kobe nuthuggers have their panties in a bunch is that this article is implying that Kobe isn't even the best player on his own team (just like during the first threepeat) right now. That is a severe hit to his legacy.
Lol, I don't even know who these guys are. I do know Kobe had a junk team for years but still won Playoff Games. Pau had guys like JWill, Mike Miller, Posey, Battier and still couldn't even win 1 game? 0-12? That is why he earned "Ga SOFT" before he played with Kobe.
Gasols defense is pretty good. He is a good shotblocker and his man on man and help side defense is very solid.
Some of those players are pretty good, but you're really stretching with some of them. Dahntay Jones? Really? He averaged 4 points per game for the Grizzlies in 2006. Bonzi Wells wasn't on the team in 2006, when they won 49 games, more than the Lakers won that year. Is this the same Stro Swift that the Rockets had to give up a lottery pick to get rid of? Lorenzen Wright was even worse than Kwame, and you're also mentioning Brian Cardinal, who shot 40% and averaged 3 points per game in 11 minutes (and only 36 games) in 2006?
