yea, the last to seasons he hasn't been great...but there was a stretch of his career where he was unbelievable dangerous...i remember watching one close game against the rockets and i knew he got the ball (inbounds play) it was going in and sure enough he drills it from three...
It's a pretty small sample size so it doesn't mean much. Of course, when Wade and Lebron had similar numbers in their first year together, it was displayed before, during, and after every single game.
Of course that's the game you remember. But you don't remember any of the games where you knew it was going in "for sure" but he missed. That's how memory works.
oh yea i understand that but this was the year that he was going crazy with buzzer beaters (i think it was 2009)...every other shot was a buzzer beater and he was unbelievable clutch... <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F0dLxjd9ewk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I'm just saying we shouldn't just go off of this years performance...
another very important point is... let's remember who was drawing up a majority of these plays for kobe... Mike Brown is one of the most hilariously bad coachs of all time lol. Kobe rarely got the ball where he usually operated in those clutch moments. It was almost as if Mike Brown hadn't watched him before lol. Obviously some of it has to do with kobe falling off after so many years in the league but Brown also is one of the worst play callers ever. He literally used Kobe like he was Lebron in late game and had him come off screens from the top of the key. Kobe has never operated like that late game, it has always mostly been isolation one on ones. With his lack of agility now those pick in rolls and screens will only work against him.
Kobe is one of the worst out of the "big stars" for hitting clutch shots (last 5 minutes/OT/last 24 seconds) over the last 10 years not just the last 2. There are plenty of varied stats out there that shows this.
Kobe has never been very efficient at clutch shots except for a stretch of about a season or so when he hit a lot of game tying or winning shots. But you still see people, even coaches, say that they would pick Kobe over anybody else if they had to make a last second shot. This is just pure perception with no rational basis. Kobe did make a lot of memorable tough shots. That's why people remember them. But he also missed more than anybody else, which was quickly forgotten. Anyway, there are relatively so few game winning/tying shots, the sample sizes are necessarily small. So I have always felt that the "clutchness" thing is overrated if you define it as end game shot to tie or to win. Luck has a lot to do with it. The only thing it proves is that the player is not afraid to shoot it.
He's also quite old. Kobe's fearless though and can get his shot off against anybody. I'd take my chances with him hoisting up the last shot unless Lebron, Durant, or Melo were on the same team.
Phil was definitely smoking something if he really said that. Kobe isn't as clutch as Jordan. Jordan was just an assassin, playoffs or regular season in crunch time.
It was a psychologically motivating comment by the Zen Master. Phil knows Kobe is the 4th best SG behind Jordan, West and Wade. Soon to be 5th behind Harden when all is said and done.
hate him but will take him over anybody in the league to give me a gamewinner. durant is getting up there though.
Exactly, there have been threads like this every couple of years. This is not news. You must enjoy losing then. Totally agreed. The horrible shooting percentage is not a result of Kobe not being "clutch" as in coldblooded. It's a result of him making dumb plays (= shooting no matter what). He actually decreases his team's chance of winning. In this most important sense he is not clutch, and I would take plenty of people over him if I needed a last second basket.
