One was in the East. Kobe had a team in which Smush Parker and Kwame Brown was starting. LBJ never had anything that bad.
oh snap! for me, it's obvious based on playoff performances recently. Even if Kobe is having a bad night shooting, he's gunning at the end to win. What leBron did in the Celtics series, you would never see a MJ or Bird or Dream or Magic do.
Take Pau out of that team lets see how far they go. The fact those Laker teams (before acquiring Pau/Fisher, before the emergence of Bynum. Back when they had Kwame & Smush) were making postseasons in the West is nothing short of a miracle.
People forgot Cavs won 50 games in year 2007, would be No.6 seed against No.3 seed Spurs in the first round had they been in west. See the huge difference between bounced in first round and finals, it only takes a different conference. Their record against 50 wins team is 1w5l. Lakers had to beat three 50 wins team to be in finals alone.
Why? Kobe at least had a good sidekick in Lamar Odom. That's better than anyone Pau had when he took his team to 50 wins. Better thaan anyone Lebron had when he took his Cavs to the Finals. Let's not make Kobe out to be some kind of savior. He has always had tremendous teams outside of three years when he did nothing.
LBJ > Kobe He already has more MVP's than Kobe and his individual accolades will dwarf Kobe's when it's all said and done. Luck has a lot to do with rings and the Lakers have had great depth. If it's all about rings -- then Robert Horry > Kobe. See what I did there?
Big Z's numbers have been comparable to Odom's over the those years. Odom is a slightly better rebounder, while Z's a better scorer. However, Z is more consistent. There's a reason Z's an all star and Odom wasn't.
Clippy. No offense, but you are a biased idiot. That finals team had players like Daniel Gibson, Sasha Pavlovic, Wally Sczczerbiak coming up HUGE in the postseason. Look at the 2005-2006 Lakers which lost to the Suns in the 1st round IN SEVEN GAMES. http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2006.html PG: Smush Parker (ugh) SG: Kobe Bryant SF: Lamar Odom (out of position) PF: Brian Cook/ Kwame Brown (ugh) C: Kwame Brown/ Chris Mihm (ugh)
BFD. It's a crappy team, but it's not any worse than the other 7/8 seeds that make the playoffs EVERY year. The fact is that Odom is much better than anyone Lebron had when he took his team to the FINALS (beating a similar Detroit team that destroyed the Lakers 4 HOFers a few years prior). Are you seriously trying to hype up Gibson and Pavlovic? Are those guys even in the league anymore?
That Laker team had no business being in the postseason that year yet they are pushing a contending Suns team to 7 games. Did you even watch the postseason where LBJ went to the finals? I am going to have to assume you did not. Here is a boxscore from game 7 of the Cavaliers/Pistons series in 2007- http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=270602005 Gibson scored 31 while LBJ was near nonexistent (he had an amazing game 6, but was nowhere near the same in game 7, the team did not really need him in game 7).
to CLIPPY-- Why even make that comment bro, you know you would take Kobe in a heartbeat over any other cat in the league. Kobe is the best out there, hands down,its a no brainer. I may not like him at times, but he is a damn good basketball player. He carried the team thru the entire playoffs. Thats why they have people like Ron Ron and Pau to help with the load.
