Championships are what NBA is about. Why are you more obsessed of PER than Hollinger? In 1996-97, Karl Malone won the MVP, had higher PER than Jordan. And guess who's considered the better player at that time? Jordan because he was clearly the better player in previous years and he actually won and continued to win it all. You think the world is on your side but you are no better than a Jazz homer in that respect.
Championships are a team accomplishment. Wake me up when individual players start winning titles. Since you used a MJ example, MJ was considered the best player in basketball before he won a title.
Hes in the argument for GOAT, granted its not a very strong one but 11 rings ain't a joke either. Two sides to basketball and im sure if they kept steals and blocked shots stats back when he would've playing those would've jumped outta the charts
Its funny how the Lebron d1ckriders are actually doubting the fact that winning is a barometer to greatness LOL.
Oh god, here we go again in circles with the rings argument, thats where it always goes back to when the kobe worshippers run out of b.s. Ok, I'll play along, I'll see your Kobe Bryant, and raise you one Robert Horry. See what I did there?
No need to play dumb here. You know exactly what he meant. Rob is a role player who has the ability to hit clutch shots and plays just like Fisher..the Kobes, the Wades, etc are No. 1 options who carry your teams
It's unfortunate that we can't have a reasonable discussion of Kobe's place in league history because the Kobe fanboys keep popping up and saying that he's in the conversation for the #1 spot just because of his number of rings. He has never been as good a player as MJ, Bird, Magic, Hakeem, Duncan, or Shaq. I'm not even going to mention the old timers that are usually put near the top of the list that I never saw play (Oscar, Russell, Wilt, Kareem).
Wake up. Even LeQuit nutkisser T_mac1 didn't think LeQuit was the better player 2 season ago. He could argue all day but all he had was higher PER and regular season MVP for LeQuit the last 2 years, nothing else favored LeQuit. TD had higher PER than Shaq and MVP in 02, but no one took him over Shaq. Same for Malone in 07 compared to Jordan. It's not even close. He's so obsessed on his proof, it's an religion now but history said otherwise. Regular season MVP is an award for best player in best regular season team now. That doesn't translate to best player in the league. And I wonder if t_mac1 believed 2003, 2004 Lakers were Shaq's team, should he put $100 in tipjar now since Kobe had more MVP votings those years. Oh, wait, he believed world would be over had Jordan shot any less than 43% in any playoff series, and he should be a ghost no later than 1996. I mean, how could an ID continue to get slapped in the face, disappear for a few hours, and pretend he didn't say anything r****ded?
He's not, only because he played in an era without today's salary cap and draft rules. The celtics had an all star team, and there were far fewer teams at that time. Imagine if Russell won 11 since 1980, all as best or 2nd best player like he did in 60s. He's easily the GOAT.
wow, your logic just gets more twisted. i don't know when you started watching basketball. 1) lebron won those MVP in landslide fashion. nobody and their moms even question those wins. it was known who was going to win the MVP 1/3 through the season. that's how dominant lebron was. who can do that BUT the best player in the L? duncan and malone didn't win their MVPs in landslide fashion. people argued they gave it to malone b/c jordan won too many; same case with duncan that year. again, lebron won in LANDSLIDE fashion, and the result was basically known halfway through the season. him getting the MVP was a formality. 2) shaq was the more "dominant" player than duncan, but it was arguable duncan was the more consistent and "better" player during that era too due to shaq's games missed. 3) 03-04 DID become kobe's team -> and that was arguably their worst season as a duo, and got embarrassed in the finals b/c kobe took a more dominant role in that finals series, despite the team being much more talented. they self-destructed. here are the MVP shares of shaq and kobe during their great years: 99-00: shaq #1, kobe #12 (67 wins, 15 losses) 00-01: shaq #3, kobe #9 (56 wins, 26 losses) 01-02: shaq #3, kobe #5 (58 wins, 24 losses) 02-03: shaq #5, kobe #3 (50 wins, 32 losses) 03-04: shaq #6, kobe #5 (56 wins, 26 losses) now let's look closely at those #s. in 02-03, shaq was able to get #5 in MVP votes despite playing ONLY 67 games. kobe played all 82 games. shaq's injuries caused him to slip that year. shaq put up 27.5ppg, 11.1rpg, on 57% shooting that year, which was BETTER than what he did the previous year. like i said, 03-04 was more of kobe's year (a transition from shaq to kobe since their feud was even more public that year), and we all know what happened eventually. you notice the lakers become "less dominant" as a team the bigger role kobe takes during that era, as i posted in the wins and losses section. also, i'll take your bet. if you can pull the MAJORITY of LOS ANGELES LAKERS related article that claims kobe was THE MAN in LA during those years, i'll put a $100 in the tip jar. so i'm taking your bet, you do your part. i do admit, it's fun arguing with you.
I'm not joining this discussion, I have discussed it more than enough, we will see next year. But what I do want to add, is that is a poster only uses derogative nicknames for a player (for example LeQuit) he loses the discussion IMHO. Since apparently he thinks he needs it to win the discussion.
Summarizing these results, we see that during the Shaq/Kobe era: Lakers = Shaq's team -> championship Lakers = Kobe's team -> no championship
I agree. Anyone who calls Lebron LeQuit, LeTravel, LeDouche, etc. should automatically be banned from the discussion because they've already lost. Likewise, anyone who brings up "Kobe's a rapist" when we're having a basketball only discussion should be ignored.
Kobe wasn't a #1 option for 3 of those titles. So why are you touting his ring count? If LeBron wins 3 as a #1 option than will you consider him the better player?
He wasn't the no. 1 option for the 2000 championship, for the 01 and 02 rings they were 1a and 1b, if Shaq had taken a step back and let Kobe take more shots it wouldn't have made a difference they wouldv'e still won. Thats how they got past the Spurs who were the biggest obstacle. Can Shaq win with just an all star guard by his side? No. He didn't with Penny, he didn't with Eddie Jones, he didn't with Steve Nash, he did with Wade (lol with Mourning playing the 4th quarter mins instead of Shaq) and his only legit rings were with Kobe by his side so obviously Kobe is not replaceable In the other hand, Gasol was a borderline all star before he came here and theyve been to the finals 3 years in a row with Kobe by his side
You can say it wouldn't have made a difference, but the only evidence we have is that Kobe did become the #1 option in 2003 & 2004 and the Lakers stopped winning championships. In the 2004 Finals, Kobe was the #1 option. The Lakers were supposed to win because they had beaten the Spurs "who were the biggest obstacle," and yet Kobe shot them right out of the series. Shaq was well past his prime by the time he got Steve Nash and he played in a much tougher league when he was teamed with Penny (facing the Jordan Bulls and Hakeem Rockets). Nice revisionist history with Mourning playing instead of Shaq. Game 3: Shaq enters with 8:33 remaining and plays until Gary Payton replaces him with 1:02 remaining. That's 7:31 seconds for Shaq, 3:27 for Zo. Game 4: Shaq enters with 10:48 remaining and plays until Zo replaces him with 3:38 left. Zo is taken out with 1:08 left. That's 7:10 for Shaq and 2:30 for Zo. I can't find play-by-plays for Games 5 or 6, but from the boxscore, Mourning played a total of 4 minutes in game 5 and 14 minutes in game 6.
