True, there is a reason why he's never guarding the other teams best defender; it's because he's never HAD to... Rick Fox, Devin George, Trevor Ariza, Ron Artest.
Kobe a great defender? LOL! I know I hate Kobe, but I can admit he is one of the great talents of all time. One of the three best players of the last decade. But one thing he is not or has never been is a great defender. He was a really good defender for a short while early on in his career, but thats it. I swear to god, if he wasn't a ****ing laker nobody would even give a **** about this rapist.
10-11 all defensive team selections, never found guilty on rape, and hmmmm no one gives a ... abt kobe? lol
Maybe if you took your head out of Kobes ass for a sec you might be able to read? I said if he wasn't a Laker.
continue ur pointless personal insults, very typical of immature fans, and yes, I did read, note kobe is kobe, regardless which team he is on, again, no one gives abt kobe? seems you are awfully concerned abt him
He's a good defender....at times. Problem is that he gambles too much, and sometimes think he can block every jumpshot, which leads to him picking up needless fouls. When he's locked in D, though, it can be very very hard to go up against him, unless your name is Wade or LeRobin (lol). <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QBu28UwDzps?fs=1&hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QBu28UwDzps?fs=1&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
Listen. I know that you are biased against Kobe, but as a basketball fan, I really don't know why you keep pressing that he's a horrible defender. Arenas was crazy good during that one season, and he went off during that one game a la Kobe-raining-jumpers-mode, simple as that. As for Kobe letting avg to scrub players go off, of all the years I've followed Lakers basketball, I certainly can't say that I've seen too many of that. In addition, if he plays good defense once in a blue moon as you suggest, why is there a nine-minute video of him playing excelent D under this post? Point is, he's a decent defensive player who has faults, but not glaring ones, and you should watch more of him before you make a judgement steming more from personal biase than logic. <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2VCVP9L25vk?fs=1&hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2VCVP9L25vk?fs=1&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
Nice. A nine-minute youtube video is definite proof that Kobe playing excellent defense is not a rarity. FYI, a basketball game is 48 minutes long. Kobe typically plays about 36 of those minutes, 18 of which are spent on defense. So Kobe has played about 23,000 minutes of defense in his career. A youtube compilation shows him playing 9 minutes of excellent defense. From that, we can conclude that Kobe plays excellent defense at least 0.04% of the time (ignoring the fact that the video shows the same clips multiple times and in slow motion)! If all those plays really come from his MVP season, that raises his excellent defense percentage to 0.24%!!!!! On a related note, look out NBA. Hasheem Thabeet is going to be a beast in this league, as evidenced by the fact that there is a youtube highlight video of him: <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LROagZx4vsM?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LROagZx4vsM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Kobe has played almost 50,000 minutes in his career. Do you think it's really that big of a stretch to make a 9 minute highlight reel? I bet you could make a 9 minute highlight reel showing what an awesome shooter Ben Wallace is; it doesn't mean it's true. Obviously when I'm talking about Kobe Bryant I'm going to exaggerate a bit to offset the general bias of his "greatness" that perpetuates casual NBA fans. Kobe is not the worst defender in the league but he's definitely below average at this point in his career, and at his peak he was only a little above average. Yet he continues to receive accolades for his work on that end of the floor, which is a complete joke.
Maybe not this year because its clear Kobe is getting older by the second but a prime Kobe Im taking hands down.
Okay.......I don't see how that is relevant. Basketball is a team game, its about what your team does not what you do as an individual. Kobe's team has done more and at the end of the day that is what matters. Besides Wade is a superstar caliber player, he should be better than a player approaching his mid 30s with plenty of basketball mileage.
Man...there's no convincing you guys is there? That video was only one out of many, and I put it there to show Kobe's versatility on D. It's by no means an exhaustive collection of all his great defensive plays-That would probably exceed the youtube upload limit, as would the vid of any DECENT defender whose been in the league close to one and a half decade. Also, if you're going to argue that he's SOOOOO bad on D, why don't you dig up a nine-minute vid of his horrid defense? Look, I'm not saying that he deserves those awards (many players don't deserve their awards in this league). But to say that he's below average (and I'm not sure what your average would be), you'll have to find some solid evidence to back that statement up...meanwhile, there is only these vids, his awards (which must mean something, cuz you don't see Brian Cook winning the MVP, do ya?), and my experiences watching Laker games all these years.
Who takes the time to make long highlight videos of star players playing bad defense? I'm sure there is nine minutes of footage of Kobe playing bad defense, but you'd have to look up other player's offensive highlight reels to assemble such a video. Personally, I've never said Kobe was a below average defender. I said he is an incredibly overrated defender. There's a big difference. I think he's average most of the time. Against certain types of players, he'll struggle. And against certain other players he can play very well when he's motivated to do so.
That last bit was more directed towards clippy....aside from that, I don't really disagree anything you said there. Point is, as long as he makes the defensive plays to win games, noone will call out, and justifiably so, his D. Frankly, if some player on the opposing team at SG scores 40 pts, yet the Lakers still win by twenty, then Kobe, along with all the fans and writers will not give two cents about it (unless Kobe is getting his ankles broken or something on each play). Many elite players have aspects of their game overrated, so I don't see what the fuss is here. It's not like Kobe won the DPOY, right? Don't hate, appreciate.
