well mutombo can speak English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and five African languages. and graduated with a B.A. in linguistics and diplomacy. Kobe didnt went to college. (tell me between these two who got a brighter future if they didnt play basketball) Other players, who seem smart are: Battier, Nash, Kidd, Duncan
I would actually say kevin johnson (the suns point guard in their finals run against the bulls for those who are too young to know him). Isn't he like a mayor or some political representative right now? Anyway that guys have some brains. To the arguement the college students are smarter, i don't actually agree. IQ and school grades do not equall. offcourse school degree is a indicator of possible iq, but i can argue and a lot of high iq people are not great students. Anyway KJ is to me right up there on the smartest player list
I'd like for you to point out a post where I had stated that Kobe was smarter than Mutombo. I'd really like to see that. "Kobe didn't went to college" Alllright.
Take away Kobe's basketball skills and he's nothing, pretty much. He shouldn't even be in this conversation. It has nothing to do with basketball. I'm sure two weeks ago, everyone would have said Tiger was the smartest person in golf, but recent events say otherwise. Best at playing golf, yes. Smartest person overall, not even close. It does get old, no matter what the question, 'best defender', best passer' 'highest iq', 'who looks coolest in their uniform', whatever, the Kobe fanboys gotta come out of the woodwork like Kanye at an award show.
It's quite funny how in all of my posts I have never used Kobe's basketball skills to defend my opinion that the guy could be pretty smart but you, on the other hand, love to bring up his basketball skills and say he's nothing without them. It's also funny that you would take Tiger down because of his stupid decision making with his penis. What if a Yale Graduate (who was also a Rhodes Scholar btw) messed up and slept with skanks too? Would you consider him an idiot?
Tiger is a bright guy. What he did may not have been admirable, but it doesn't mean that he is automatically an idiot. More people than you realize would cheat on their wives if they had as many opportunities as Tiger Woods does.
Shane Battier, Emeka Okafor, Dikembe Mutombo, Grant Hill come to mind I knew a bunch of people would mention Kobe because he speaks some languages. Keep in mind he was raised in Italy so it would not have been difficult to pick up the language. French and Spanish are very similar, most people who know one of the 3 know the others to some degree. I don't think he is dumb, but he is not as smart as many make him out to be.
how can you discount kobe? the guy is obviously a quick learner and a perfectionist. if i had to choose anyone in the nba to do surgery he would be near the top of that list. lebron near the bottom. he would expect a bailout when things got hairy.
These are NBA players we're talking about who play basketball, in real life for real money. Should we have a debate about the smartest physicist and ask people to consider their real life IQ and not their physics IQ?
i don't think anyone has mentioned that it's somewhat of a false dilemma to separate basketball iq from discerning one's overall intelligence. any quantifiable measure of iq must be somewhat arbitrary in the first place, like iq and sat scores, so it seems ludicrous to discount a player's ability to learn the ins and outs of a game and importantly, consistently good decision-making skills, as a reflection of their intellectual capability. i think the distinction people are trying to make is between natural skill, athleticism and instinct and general intelligence. on learning languages, i think it represents both a greater degree of acculturation as well as an aptitude for learning. it isn't easy picking one up, even as a kid acquiring a language involves active usage. but knowing foreign languages also widens the breadth of one's cultural perspective; in this way, i think it can be similar to a good education because one is able to reflect more critically on that which might ordinarily seem native/normal/the status quo. you are equipped with multiple perspectives with which to weigh a fact or opinion. jennings spoke about as much, without having even properly learned italian, on his eye-opening experience of living abroad. (this is probably not the best example since living in a foreign country says nothing about your intelligence). although i think this is sort of a ridiculous conversation, if only because it's impossible to say who is more intelligent or even what that means, kobe has to be given some due. the mere fact that he understands it isn't enough to be super talented, and works harder than most as a result, shows a lot of intelligence on his part, i think. he's arguably one of the most fundamentally sound players to play the game, and i think that's a tribute to not only his skill but work ethic. his work ethic demonstrates a drive and a grasp of what it takes to continue his high level of play. that said, i don't think he belongs in this discussion either. all that said, i think that point guards have the edge in any discussion of hypothetically most intelligent. they make the most decisions, and they're usually the leaders on the floor. nash and kidd come to mind, and since they're less athletic than paul and williams, they can't fall back on out-maneuvering their opponents as easily. i think morey wins though. he's making a lot of gms look really foolish right now by creating contextualized, advanced statistical methods of measuring efficiency. he's not only showing a grasp of the finer points of the game in the way, say, a coach would need for tactical evaluation, but he's finding ways to quantify these things, and thereby acquire handpicked talent that others overlook, players that fit specifically for his system. i mean, this is something nobody's really thought of for basketball, and he's doing it, and it works. i think we'll look back at him as changing the way talent is evaluated, and that's as good of a case you can make for most intelligent person in the nba. /pseudo-philosophical rambling
lack of talent? it's really odd here how so many of you believe that if a man doesn't score or make flashy plays he has no skills. shane battier has skills, skills that you will never possess on the basketball court. he didn't make it in to the nba for hit intelligence, he was a highly developed all around player that was a lottery pick, he has skills, stop choppin on batman he may not be ideal for this team, but if we keep him with yao coming back he is a great asset
Uh, deke is a good guy but I do not think he is the shrpest tool in the shed. lol. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/POkyWhh3Ihw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/POkyWhh3Ihw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
