NBA '08 Playoff Thread

Fixed just for you ;D

 

Well-played.

 

funny, i did look at their pro stats.
kobe has never shot better than .469 from the field.
walter? .511 for an entire career.

i really forgot how good a shooter WD was. shot .563 in '79-'80.

 

There ya go - I submit that Walter Davis would have been a better player than Kobe for Jackson's triangle offense.

 

Here are my reasons for not having Kobe higher on my list.

1. I don't care how many game winners he has in the regular season. The entire point of the draft and free agency is to build a team that wins a title. You don't build a team just to win a playoff series once in a while.

Kobe, in his prime mind you, is not winning jack. From the ages of 26-29 (his prime) Kobe's Lakers have won three playoff series.

Bird's Celtics was 12-2 in the same time (26-29) frame with two titles.
Magic's Lakers were 13-2 with two titles.
Isiah's Pistons were 13-2 with two titles.

Kobe has had all-stars on his roster. He ran one off (Shaq) and could not figure out how to play with the others (Butler, Odom). Maybe they have not been as strong as what some of the other's had, but why would a free agent come to a team when I make point #2.

2. Kobe is one of the all time gunners and ball hogs in basketball history. He has taken over 2100 shots in a season before. Jordan at his apex never took that many, not even close, and Bird was taking about 400-500 less perseason.

Also, Kobe was taking 700, 900 and 1100 more shots that the next highest person on the team. This is unheard of.

So I ask, how does jacking this many shots make his teammates better?

3. No way would Kobe on the Celtics of the 80s make Parrish and McHale better players. No way. They were great players, but Larry Bird had a lot to do with that as well.

Scoring 32 points might make it look like the team is better, but you are cutting off your nose to spite your face by doing this.

Good basketball is a group of players moving the ball around to find the open man. It is not one player pounding the ball for 10 seconds and taking a jumper with a man draped on him. Team basketball will always beat individual one-on-one basketball. If people cannot understand this, I cannot help them. 2100 shots is not team basketball.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2006.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1986.html

Would playing college ball taught Kobe to be a better team player? I think so. Many of you do not.

 

Um, you're ripping Kobe for not leading teams to titles and being a ballhog?

And you've got Iverson and Ewing ahead of him on your list.

 

1997: Iverson 640 shots more than closest teammate
1999: 1,047
2000: 1.099 (and played five fewer games than No. 2)
2001: 831 (in 21! fewer games)
2002: 988
2003: missed half the year
2004: 1,087

 

There's SO much wrong with this list, I wouldn't even know where to start picking it apart. Ewing, Iverson, Maravich, Thompson, Archibald, Robinson, Frazier, Barkley, Dennis Johnson, Monroe, West, Nique, Hill, Pierce, McHale, Hayes, Baylor, Gervin, Monroe and Billups were all truly great players, but their careers don't come close to measuring up to to Kobe's by any OBJECTIVE measure--not rings, statistics, awards etc.--nothing. The only way you can claim any of those guys were better than Kobe is unsupported personal opinion, because the FACTS will not back you up.

And guys like Mikan, Cousy, and Pettit played in such a completely different era I'm not sure how you even make the comparison. Whenever I watch footage from the 50s and 60s the first thing I always think is: gawdalmighty what would guys like Jordan, Kobe, or Lebron have done against these slow-ass defenses?

But, BTW, there are two guys I believe have been repeatedly underrated on this thread: Moses Malone and John Stockton. Malone won THREE MVPs, was the league's dominant big man throughout the late 70s and early 80s, and carried the Sixers to the 83 title. And Stockton holds all the all-time assist and steal records by a margin that's so large it's laughable, all while maintaining fantastic shooting percentages and assist to turnover ratios, and was a dominant point guard for nearly 20 years from the mid 80s to early 00s--a run unmatched by any other guard in history. Statistically, he appears to be best pure point guard ever--all he's missing are the rings. Those 2 guys haven't been getting the props they deserve on this thread--yet I still don't know that I'd trade Kobe for either one of em.

 

To compare Kobe's shot selection with Iverson's is not doing Bryant any favors.

Honestly, I see the two of them as equals. I know I placed Iverson higher, but the two are a lot closer than some people think.

Stoney, so in 30 years, we are going to talk about Jordan as a dated player who could not compete against the players of 2038? Do you honestly believe that?

 

Outing alert Boom 70 is Elgin Baylor

 

JC, I wouldn't trade Kobe for King, but for a span of 2-3 years in the 80s, King was a dominating force, and he might of been the best player (or at least tied with Bird and Magic) in the 1983-84 playoffs.

He tallied 35 a game and shot at a 57% clip. His Knicks took the eventual champion Celtics to seven games before being elimnated.

 

If I "honestly" believed that, I would have said it. But since I didn't say anything like that, you can take it that I don't.

And the question is unanswerable because I've no idea what the game and players will look like in 2038 compared to today. However, I do have an idea what it looked like during the Mikan era compared to today, because that is the past and we can actually see the footage, and the answer is: AMAZINGLY different.