Kobe Bryant Discussion: Mamba Out!

The amount of analysts who have said some player is better than Kobe is astounding, and yet somehow they all still use him as a bar to show how good someone is.

 

Hahahahahahaha

 

I’ve always been of the thought that Kobe actually carried Shaq. Shaq was a liability at the free throw line and was often in foul trouble late. Without Kobe the Lakers maybe get one championship if any at all imo.

If the Lakers were a competently run team and actually gave Kobe some real basketball players during his prime, who knows how many championships we could have won, but to me Shaq was as good as he was because he had Kobe to fall back on. If Shaq was Superman, Kobe was more Batman than a sidekick imo.

 

Kob's a LakerLegend and deserves a ton of credit!

Big up Kob...cool
s***ting on Shaq to do it...da f***?!?

Without Shaq, does a young Kobe ascending into his prime get the coverage/attention he got? Who do you think drew more double teams...Shaq or Kobe?

Switch TMac with Kob...does that dynamic duo prematurely break-up? Does T-Mac extend his playing days?

Kob's a killer and there isn't anyone like him when it comes to mentality...but come'n man. Y'all act like Shaq type players were common currency back in the day. A select few teams probably had Kobe stoppers...but make no mistake, each team had a platoon of token big men to stop Shaq...heck the NBA had to introduce a zone defense so that teams could load the paint. Maybe, Dantoni's longball didn't kill basketball...Shaq did, with the Shaq-stopper defense aka the zone defense.

Zone was introduced in 2001/02 season, the season after the Lakers ran the table going 15-1 in the playoffs...and incidentally, the 3peat Lakers won their last title that season and then proceeded to get dismantled by the Piston's zone when they got back to the Finals again.

Again, I don't want to derail or take anything away from Kob, but Shaq in his prime was unstoppable. Shaq needed a killer like Kob (see Penny and his Orlando stint), but Kob needed a dominant player like Shaq too.

Btw, I love Kawhi, but Kob he ain't till he earns more accolades. If you want to compare mentality, then maybe thats a far better comparison. He can't really put too much load on his body like Kob did, but maybe that's better seeing how that was kind of Kob's weakness...not knowing when to live to fight another day (see shredding his Achilles for a MDA/Dwight team).

 

Shaq in his prime was dominate. But almost every road playoff game, Shaq had 2 fouls in the 1st quarter. It was egg shells with Shaq's fouls. Kobe covered him on his free throws and when he had to sit. Shaq does not win one of those titles without Kobe.

 

Max=Boxing Analyst
SAS=loud mouth duche writer

BOTH become NBA analyst on ESPN lol, credible indeed

 

Yet. People keep posting their trash here.

 

I was watching these Kobe highlights from 2008, which I'm sharing just for enjoyment for all, but what I the thing I wanted to say is that this reminded me of how rough where those Playoffs for him. Had he had a third of the calls guys like James Harden gets, we'd now be the team with the most championships.

I went to the stats for all games he played starting the WCF until the end of the Finals and Kobe barely shot FTs really, considering he was obviously our main offense by far.

vs Spurs GM1: 4 FTA, 43 mins played (W)
vs Spurs GM2: 1 FTA, 36 mins played (W)
@ Spurs GM3: 1 FTA, 38 mins played (L)
@ Spurs GM4: 0 FTA, 41 mins played (W)
vs Spurs GM5: 5 FTA, 42 mins played (W)

@ Boston GM1: 6 FTA, 42 mins played (L)
@Boston GM2: 7 FTA, 40 mins played (L)
vs Boston GM3: 18 FTA, 45 mins played (W) -the one game where he actually shot a ton of them
vs Boston GM4: 6 FTA, 43 mins played (L)
vs Boston GM5: 7 FTA, 44 mins played (W)
@ Boston GM6: 5 FTA, 43 mins played (L)

The numbers on that Spurs series are ridiculously low for a guy who completely dominated through the series and while higher, Boston's numbers might be even worse because I remember how they defended Kobe through the series, which was very, very physical.

 

Hey thanks for bringing back these memories!

I do remember those Spur's defenses with Tim Duncan were quite good at not fouling! But the numbers against Boston are shocking too! Imagine Kobe in isolation with a fully spaced court! It would be tough to stop!!

 

Yeah! Happy for Kobe and for her and Mom. Kinda too bad she's the only one so far but would be willing to bet they all excel going forward at whatever they choose. Doubt Kobe will rip Gianna out of HS and future college scholarship if he is unhappy with how the coach uses her. The administration will take care of the fool if he is dumb.

 

Sick side by side

 

Love it!

 

I always felt Gianna would be the one to play basketball like her father. I know Kobe probably still wants a little boy, a mini Kobe, but Gianna is his mini me. I know he's ecstatic seeing his daughter play. She could become the best WNBA player ever and break some of those records.