Winning a Finals MVP is just a cherry on top. While it's nice to have, it's not a necessity when the dessert (i.e. championship) is what makes the whole package. No one is going to measure his resume by the number of Finals MVP trophy. If that were the case, then would you consider Joe Dumars' career more "complete" than Clyde Drexler's?
Of course Finals MVPs are important. If Kobe wants to be considered a top player historically, every accolade counts. A lot of people invalidate his first three titles because he was a sidekick, although he did help. The Finals MVP says he wasn't just a sidekick. That said, Gasol deserves it so far this year.
Actually I agree with steddinotayto, Kobe is more focused on those rings and not the award.... If he gets great, if not great!!!!
Historians and media are gonna look back after Kobe's career is over and said that the championships after the Three peat featured him as the Lakers' best player. There's not going to be a lot of disagreement from anyone on that. This is HIS team and if having a Finals MVP under your belt helps, then he has one already. The problem I have isn't that the Finals MVP award has zero significance--it's the thought that Kobe is trying and shooting his way into winning the award when, in fact, he's trying and shooting his way into winning a championship. Therein lies the difference.
Well, you're assuming he's changed a lot since 2004, because if there were ever a case of trying to win Finals MVP at the sake of your team, that series was it. His grand chuckery in the Detroit series even put the game #3 debacle to shame. The sad thing is that kids all over the playgrounds emulate this guy and pretty much ruin pickup ball for the rest of us.
When you're mentioning the Finals vs. Detroit are you referring to: Game 1, where everyone on the Laker team not named Shaq was shooting less than 40%? (Bryant 10-27, George 2-5, Payton 1-4, Malone 2-9) Game 2, where Bryant shot 14-29 from the field? Game 3, where Bryant shot 3-14 from the field, Payton and George combined for 5-15 shooting? Game 4, where Bryant shot 8-25 from the field, and the other starters not named Shaq shot a combined 6-14? or Game 5, where Bryant shot 7-21 from the field, and the other shot 7-17? Other than Shaq, NO ONE on that Laker team faired any better than Kobe. If there were players that were shooting better, I would think "Yea they should have gotten the ball more than Kobe" but that Detroit Piston defense was so dominant, that it managed to shut down every Laker player except for Shaq. LOL. Volume shooters on the blacktop have been around waaaaay before Kobe came into the league. If you're going to pin the volume chuckers on one NBA player, why does Allen Iverson's name not pop up?
you can't get Finals MVP without winning the championship. people already are measuring his resume by the number of finals MVPs. this has been the argument for the duration of Kobe's championship career vs. past greats. We know he is capable of helping his team win it all. but the question is and always will be: can he do it as the first option on his team? this is what separates him from Bird, MJ, and others. I'm pretty sure Kobe cares about that.
I have never heard anyone measuring Kobe Bryant against Hall of Famers and/or All Time Greats by the number of Finals MVP he's won. That would be a first for me. Everyone wants to measure Kobe by his production and the number of rings he got. Like I said in an earlier example, when has anyone ever measured a player's greatness by how many Finals MVP he has won? Bird won it only twice but does that make him less of a player than Magic, who won it three times? And to remind you, yes, you CAN win a Finals MVP without winning the championship.
Now that was funny.... Actually, if you want to know the truth of the matter, a lot of old schoolers said that MJ and ESPN ruined basketball for the youngsters at the time. If I had to choose 2 players in the league right now for son to emualte on the court it would be Kobe and Rajon. They both play the game hard, play as a team and have a never say die attitude on the court... So I don't see how you can say that Kobe will ruin the game for kids.
Don't understand that statement.. He proved that last year when he won it without Shaq.... Everytime he wins a championship it will be KOBE and the Lakers... No matter how he wins it.
Exactly. So why did Kobe have way more FG attempts than Shaq? Why did he shoot more than all of the other players COMBINED? That series summarizes Kobe's fundamental flaw: he doesn't know when to stop chucking. Here's a hint: when your center is shooting 60+% and is being guarded by a 6'8" guy, maybe you should give the ball to him even if it means he'll get another Finals MVP. That series shouldn't have been even close, and it wasn't. Only Detroit wasn't supposed to win. Chucker24 is to blame for that one. Because AI isn't the face of the NBA. And I'm not saying Kobe is responsible for the era of streetball ballhoggery (MJ is the #1 culprit there as every kid in the 90s wanted to "be like Mike" even though they didn't have 1% of Mike's talent). He's not helping, though.
LOL... nice avoidance... Every NBA player out there whines about something... Re-read what I wrote.. I want my son to play hard every game, every minute..
1. Kobe had "way more" attempts than Shaq Game 1: Shaq had 16 FGA vs. 27 for Kobe Game 2: Shaq had 20 FGA vs. 27 for Kobe Game 3: Shaq had 14 FGA vs. 13 for Kobe Game 4: Shaq had 21 FGA vs. 25 for Kobe Game 5: Shaq had 13 FGA vs. 21 for Kobe Other than Games 1 and 5, I don't see where the "way more" occurred. 2. Why did he have more FGA than the other players combined? I didn't think I needed to go into this since I gave you the benefit of the doubt as being an NBA fan but I'll try my best. 1st Round Against the Rockets: Gary Payton: Shot 17 for 46 for 37% Karl Malone: Shot 37 for 75 for 49.3% Kobe: Shot 39 for 101 for 38.7% 2nd Round Against the Spurs: Gary Payton: Shot 20 for 59 for 33.9% Karl Malone: Shot 23 for 52 44.2% Kobe: Shot 60 for 130 for 46.2% WCF Against the Wolves: Gary Payton: Shot 22 for 53 for 41.5% Karl Malone: Shot 30 for 67 for 44.7% Kobe: Shot 48 for 116 for 41.4% So, to answer your question as to why Kobe had more FGA than the other two (former) All-Stars? Well, other than Malone playing fairly well (more on this later), the other Lakers weren't doing any better than Bryant himself. And as far as which Laker outside of Shaq had a better chance of getting hot, would you bet on Kobe, a washed up Payton, or a past-his-prime Malone? Which brings this up: Are you kidding me? Sure 90% of the viewing world thought the Lakers would win that year, including myself, but that Laker team was in such disarray that if they had actually won it all that year, it would have been a miracle. 1. The Pistons had the 2nd best defensive rating that year and only won TWO games less than the Big Four Lakers (54 games vs. 56 games). They took out BOTH division champs, this includes the 61 win Pacers. 2. Back to Malone for point #2. Malone's injury pretty much crippled any chances of the Lakers coming back from a 3-1 deficit. If you dismiss this reasoning, I'd like to ask which PF would you rather have: a hobbled Malone or his replacement, Mdvendenko? That Laker team, if you followed them at all that season, was always on the verge of detonation. Shaq v. Kobe. Kobe v. Shaq. Malone v. Kobe. Everyone was waiting on when the team would implode and, unfortunately for them, it happened in the Finals against a very good defensive team. If the Lakers had went up against the Pacers then I would have bet the farm on the Lakers winning it all. The Lakers DID feed Shaq and Shaq responded with 30+ a night. So which is it: that Kobe's the cause for kids ALL over the playgrounds being a chucker or is Kobe just one of many NBA stars kids want to emulate?
How can you post these numbers and not agree with me? Kobe shot 29 more FGs than Shaq in 5 games, despite shooting under 40% and Shaq shooting over 60%. Shouldn't it have been reversed? Why would he take "any more" much less "way more" (and yes, 6 FG/game is "way more"). It's weird that you keep posting numbers that back my case. I was actually only talking about the Finals, where Kobe was terrible; I didn't realize he was garbage in two of the other rounds too. And by your numbers Malone was a much better option. Maybe Payton not so much, fine. The main thing is, get Shaq more shots! Jesus. You could make the same argument for any of the teams in the threepeat. Even those crappy East coast teams that make the Finals have to be doing something right to get there. To give you an idea, the Lakers in 2002 swept the Nets. That same Nets team took this "tough" Pistons squad to 7. EVERYONE watching figured the Lakers would beat the Pistons in 4 or 5. Come on, don't rewrite history. And they should have fed him more and let him respond with 40+ as he did during the threepeat. He was being single-covered by Ben Wallace for most of the series. That was LBs plan because he knew Kobe was going to want to get his. Huh? All over the playground there are kids emulating Kobe, and MJ before him. There are other players, obviously, but these guys are the face of the NBA so they get the most hype. This kind of hero worship is ultimately harmful to the game because it breeds ballhogging instead of sharing the ball. If you ever play pickup ball it's pretty obvious.
I broke down each game for a reason and that reason points to the FG discrepency not being as balanced out and as easy to say as Kobe taking 6 more FGs PER game. There are a few games where he ballhogged, yes, but to say he did it EVERY SINGLE game is kind of a fallacy, no? It's logical to have a player shooting 60% shoot the most shots I'll agree but when has that ever been the case all the time? We had McGrady shooting more than Yao year-in and year-out while his % is lower than Yao's but the coaches still went to McGrady anyways. My numbers don't back your case if you actually look at what happened. I posted in detail as much as a I can to show you it's not easy as "oh Kobe shot way too much". Payton was a non-factor, we can agree on, but Malone? The dude ran out of gas (and eventually had a season-ending injury ) when he got to the Finals. If your 4th best player was a non-factor and your 3rd best player didn't have enough to cross the finish line (to be fair, he went up against Duncan, Garnett, and Rasheed Wallace that year in the playoffs/Finals), who else are you going to rely on? Your 1st and 2nd option. Are you really insinuating that the Laker team that lost to the Pistons was on par to any of those Threepeat teams? If that's what you're saying, you really didn't watch those Laker teams as close as I thought you would have. Where did I rewrite history? I said that 90% of the population thought the Lakers would have won, including myself. What happened was the Laker team had their 2nd most efficient player (Malone) go down, Payton was a non-factor, the Pistons played grind-it-out defense and were simply much much hungrier. When we all watched, we were jaded by all the All Stars the Lakers had collected and forgot: 1. How much Payton sucked 2. How much Kobe hated Shaq 3. How much Shaq hated Kobe 4. How much Malone wanted to bang Kobe's wife (my personal favorite) I don't think there's been an NBA champion in the past 15 years that had more internal strife and chemistry issues than the pre-crowned 2004 Lakers. And, in the end, that's why they lost. Or Larry Brown also knew that no one outside of Shaq was playing great that year in the playoffs. I don't remember Shaq averaging 40+ during the threepeat but I'll agree with you in the sense that that's what the Lakers needed from O'Neal to win the championship that year. So having someone you look up to and admire in athletics is harmful to the game? No kid is going to go out onto the basketball court and yell out "I want to be the best role player ever!" or "I want to share the ball as much as I can because it's the right thing to do!". They ALL want to go out there and try to emulate and be the best...whether that's Jordan, Kobe, LeBron, etc. I don't see how emulating Kobe breeds bad ballplayers. If a kid takes the time to watch and learn Kobe's game, there's nothing flashy about it. And to answer any questions you may have, yes I've played basketball since I was 8 and have played in intramural leagues at UT and UH. You have your ballhoggers but that's because they're either really good or really in denial. I've never heard either type say "Hey, I'm trying to be Kobe Bryant here! I gotta keep on chucking!".
The 2002 Lakers and Nets were nothing like the 2004 though. steddinotayto already took care of showing how the Lakers were nowhere near the level they showed during their three-peat. But also, don't forget that the starting center for the Nets in 2002 was TODD MACCULLOCH. That was a matchup hell for the Nets every time they played a team with a half decent center, he got walked all over by Shaq in the Finals. By 2003, they added a fellow named Dikembe Mutombo, whom I hear is quite popular in this board. They took the Spurs to 6 games in 2003 and the Pistons to 7 in 2004. So the fact that the Nets got swept by the Lakers in '02 means nothing when you are arguing that the 2004 Pistons team wasn't all that.
Uh, the same Dikembe Mutombo that was on Philly in 2001? The one Shaq abused for like 40ppg in route to a Lakers 4-1 backdoor sweep? Give me a break. If Kobe just played the offense and fed Shaq against the Pistons, it would have been an easy Laker title. The 2004 Lakers didn't look great in the regular season but they were dominant in the playoffs (beating the #2 Spurs and #1 Wolves). They were a lot like this year's Celtics. The Pistons had no business even being in the series with them, and that's what everyone was saying before it happened. No revisionist history please.
That's fine. Relative to his peers, Russell was a good shooter. But regardless what era you're in, shooting 44% for a big man is subpar. Imagine a free throw contest with 4 of your friends. All of your friends go 0-10 and you go 3-10. Compared to them, you're a good free throw shooter. But shooting 30% from the line is still terrible.
You're worried about the "entire" story? That's fine, you're right, stats dont tell the entire story. If that's been your argument this entire time, then your point is so obvious its meaningless. What you should be worried about is whether or not statistics are enough to make a compelling argument. And they are. Using your logic, you can't confidently say that Magic was a better player than Aaron Brooks. After all, they didn't play at the same time so we can't know for sure. And since statistics don't tell the entire story, you can't say with 100% certainty that Magic was better.
