People that say that Kobe doesn't make players on his team better are out of their mind. All you have to do is look at Pau to see how untrue that is. Pau was never an allstar before he came to the Lakers. His fg% has gone up drastically since he has come to the Lakers. People don't realize how much easier life is when Kobe is on the court drawing so much attention regardless of whether he is on or off that night. There is no doubt that the Lakers have surrounded him with a great cast but the only person to even make an all star team besides Gasol is Artest and he only made it one time and is not the same player he was back then. A younger Kobe might have been too selfish to make his teammates better but I think it is ridiculous to say that that is still the case.
I'm not saying Kobe isn't a bad defender, he's one of the best. I'm pointing that Kobe had way more help than Lebron so don't use the fact that the Cavs lost to Celtics against him because its not that "Kobe came up with the wins", its just that Kobe had a way better team. The only good defender on the Cavs was lebron. On the lakers you had Gasol (who clogged the paint), Odom and Artest.
have you seen the lakers play WITHOUT kobe? the lakers would still be a top 4 team in the west without him. what kobe provides for the lakers is that go-to perimeter player in the last 2-3 minutes of a game.
Moot point? How about a liar getting exposed? LeBron was more efficient, but wasn't every surround roster a perimeter shooter to open up in the middle for him? Of course the defense had to suck some. They had a team for his stat padding. Replace Odom and Artest with 2 sharp 3pt shooter and Kobe would immediately have better shooting % too. And if Rondo was so easy to guard, why were he unstoppable in that series? And Kobe didn't have to guard RA to make RA shoot below 40%. Coz he's good enough to make RA exhausted. Not LeBron.
So they won in the regular season but they didn't have a better team? This is getting old. If LeBron couldn't win in playoff because his teammates were bad and he couldn't make them better, shouldn't the league forfeit his MVPs because that's the reason he got them in regular season.
The referees will make sure a Kobe LeChoke Finals goes seven games, so it all comes down to Kobe needing just four quarters to overtake Jordan's legacy. Not that I'll bother watching. Unless the Heat play the Rockets, I plan to change channels whenever I see LeChoke on TV, whether that's a game or commercial or TV appearance makes no difference. I think he represents everything wrong in professional sports and everything wrong with what ESPN has done to professional sports. .
Playoffs are different from regular games. How many times did you see Tmac carry his team in the regular season but fail in the playoffs? It takes 5, especially in the playoffs. You can get away with a oneman show in the season but you won't get away with it in the playoffs. Most of those wins the Cavs had were on lesser teams, not teams like Boston or the Lakers.
1) open up the middle. they doubled/tripled team him all series. kobe didn't face a double team by the celtics until game 6. so again, i doubt that you even watched those series. 2) wow, are you even asking wy rondo was unstoppable in that series? goodness. but i'll tell you why. the lakers had gasol + odom + bynum in the middle to clog the paint. notice how many times rondo got BLOCKED or missed EASY LAYUPS playing the lakers (after he beat his man WITH EASE many times). and yea, that guy mo will guarded him too. 3) so now you're discounting derek fisher's defense. that's great. a real shutdown is when you dominate a player on one end, and shut him down on the other end yourself. lebron literally did that to paul pierce. but i guess you overlook that b/c the cavs lost. i mean, he scored 29 points. locked down the celts' best offensive player. grabbed rebounds. passed. but he didn't step up. i guess that's the standard when you are the best player in the L. for kobe, he can suck in a few games here and there for a series. but at least he "comes up with wins." i get your basketball logic. nowhere is pau gasol 20points, 11 boards, 2 blocks and 54% shooting come into effect. or ron artest shutting down the leading scorer to a tune of 35% shooting. and the lakers' big blocking shots and rebounds. -lakers were the 3rd best defensive team in terms of opp. fg% @ 43.6% -lakers outrebounded their opponents by 2.9 boards a game, 2nd best in playoffs. (including 12.8 offensive boards -> extra possessions, 2nd best) -lakers averaged 6.2 blocks (2nd best in playoffs) those were the primary reasons why te lakers won the championship. it's fine if you ignore those and say kobe "came up with wins."
so how many wins do you tink the cavs will get next year? lakers sans kobe went 4 or 5-1 last year and beating elite teams. are you predicting the cavs to be a top 4 team in the east as well? i mean, if the supporting cast was that good, losing lebron should hurt their playoffs chances right?
The 1st seeded Lakers only won 4 more games than the fourth seeded Nuggets last year. You think without Kobe Bryant they dont lose at least 4 more games??? The Lakers aren't that good without Kobe. 1st and 8th place last year was separated by 7 games. I don't think they would even be a definite LOCK to make the playoffs in the West & would probably be a 7-8th seed team at best. Kobe had 6 buzzer beaters last year. that's 6 wins that they probably don't get, just take that into perspective
LOL, it's really a moot point to argue with TMac fans. They just revised history the way they imagined.
really? in games kobe missed last year and these were the lakers' opponents. AT portland (emphasize on the road) - won convincingly 99-82. v. spurs - won 101-89 AT utah - won 96-81 v. warriors - won 104-94 v. celtics - lost 87-86 overall, they went 6-3 without kobe when i checked just now. they went 2-2 without kobe in april when he went in and out of the lineup due to the injury and he struggled mightily and that caused inconsistency in the minutes and lineups and all that. if the lakers had to play witout kobe and phil jackson had to adjust his offensive distribution, the lakers can do it. again, you take kobe's 6 game winners. but there are plenty of games where is offensive ineffiency and taking 25+ shots destroy the lakers and caused them to have "close" games. check te lakers' record when kobe shoots more than 20 shots a game and hence pau gasol complaining (yes, he did many instances throughout the year) and took shots at kobe.
uh watch the game. i was in the game thread and literally stated a bajillion times until game 6 the same statement: why is kobe having 1-on-1 defense all the damn time.
Obviously Doc River didn't watch the game. After Kobe had a miserable shooting in game 3. He mentioned Kobe still gave other guys space in his post game interview.
The rim seemed to stop him pretty well in the Finals. Luckily he had Gasol to bail him out time and time again. Now that Lebron has real teammates, he'll have that luxury too.
b/c im actually unbiased in this discussion right now and know the lakers will NOT win a championship without kobe. but they can win playoff games without him, just not a championship b/c he IS a top 2-3 player and he IS arguably the best closer in the game. i never trash kobe and say he wasn't great. i totally respect his game. it's common sense that kobe has a great supporting cast. the playoffs proved it. he played subpar many games (including game 7 of the finals where JVG questioned why kobe is playing that bad offensively) and the lakers were still able to pull out wins. for lebron, he has to play an A game for the cavs to have a chance 95% of the time. i just think lebron is the best player in the L and he did a ton for his team and still lost. and that should tell you about the depth of the team. the same way kobe was the best player in 05-06 when he averaged 35 points and didn't get past the first round. to me that year, he was the best player then despite the lack of playoff success.
Well, since his teammates were so great we should expect the Cavs to win a lot of games this year, right?
