Anyone who says they can take any NBA player 1-on-1 is either a borderline pro himself, or delusional.
Ok. It seems like you guys are making it sound like NBA players are not beatable. I was subbing for high school gym class the other day and this 14 yr old had game. He was dunking, fallaways, 3pt shots. Made me wonder if that kid was in the league could he take on a scrub right now. Someone like Ryan Bowen, Bruce Bowen, heck even chris Dudley. Basically any scrub with limited athletic ability, not a great finisher, and not a great shooter.
Dude there is not a 14 year old on earth who is going to score over Bruce Bowen (or likely Ryan Bowen either). The gap between your 14 year old and the Bowens is way way wider than the gap between Kobe and the Bowens.
lol at the OP thinking he could beat moochie norris or jj reddick. talk about a disjointed sense of reality. for my own part, i shared a court with matt maloney a couple of years back. he was single-handedly the greatest player i've ever seen in person (outside of an NBA game). i remember when i saw him, thinking 'wow, that's matt maloney.' he was absolutely incredible. he had three guys draped on him on any given play, and he was still unconsciously draining three's a few feet inside the halfcourt mark. on one play, he stole the ball and threw it off the backboard from beyond the 3 point line and threw down the self-alley with authority. i remember being in awe. i said to myself 'wow, i didn't know matt maloney could dunk.' i think he scored all of his team's points that game and only missed once when we slapped his forearm. after the game i caught up with him and asked if he had ever visited clutchfans. he said he didn't care much for the team after the break-up with rudy's daughter but that he logged in once in a while since his brother was a moderator here. true story.
when I was at UT I played against a couple of guys who played pro ball, you could score on a couple if they relaxed not beat any of them now I will tell you what was impossible. scoring against pro cornerbacks. when I was a freshman, ut had a senior who played in the nfl for the lions, van malone. he was a first round draft pick i believe. I played a pick up game against him one time, it had to be the most frustrating basketball experience of my entire life. dude would not let me even catch the ball. and he wasn't physical, he was just the fastest person I have ever played against.
The guys in the NBA are amazing. You don't realize it until you actually step on the court and play against them. I played against Royal Ivey and John Lucas III once and some college players before too. None of them were even trying hard and they were killing us. There's no way we could beat an NBA player 1 on 1 unless you find one that lacks any real basketball skills, quickness, and size. Although he's extremely strong, Chuck Hayes, as an undersized pf, who is not particularly quick, and doesn't have any real basketball skills, is somebody I would be confident going 1 on 1 against.
Ryan Bowen shut down Dirk in a playoff game...do you really think you or the 14 year old would be able to score on him? Bruce Bowen? He can slow down Kobe. And for those talking about unathletic, slow centers...yes, they are slow...compared to Carlos Boozer, Dwight Howard, etc... They are still very athletic, despite what it looks like when they play other NBA talent. This topic is so ridiculous.
Lol, that's the only thing that worry me. With his strength, I think if I even bumped into him, I would go flying off in the other direction. I probably wouldn't even challenge him for a rebound either. It would be a close game!
Well, I did have the opportunity to play at a couple of small colleges but declined, and I fairly regularly have people ask me if I play(ed) college ball. So unless 2 or 3 people out of every 10 that post here actually played college ball somewhere, I'm pretty sure "one of the better players" is a fair assessment. Again, it's just a guess that I feel confident about, not a declaration.
How can you be so sure? I know no one could beat Lebron, but Ryan Bowen you never know. Just because you're not in the NBA doesn't mean you can't ball.
Maybe you can ball at the park or HS or Intramurals or maybe college , but there is reason they are in the NBA.
There are thousands of college "ballers"...a very small percentage of them move on to the next level. I think its not being understood how gifted you have to be to make it to the NBA. The crappiest NBA player in history would dominate all of us, unless you played competitively post high school.