Help With Kobe-LeBron Article

You could include links to his pansie a** flopping compilations on YouTube.

 

Never respected the flopping lol. But I have to keep the reasons analytical.

 

Goes to the argument on mental strength.

When the largest and strongest athlete on the floor feels the need to flop and cheat in order to gain an advantage, then you know he is mentally weak. Kobe is known for exactly the opposite.

It’s why you have players like JoaKim Noah saying “you’re still a b**** though” and nobody has anything but reverence for Kobe

Also subjective, but very different types of leaders. One had supreme confidence and wanted the ball in his hands so he could shove it down your throat. The other hid behind the mask of “making the right play”

 

Good points. This actually ties into a section I'm working on about how LeBron actually doesn't make his teammates better. In fact I think he may make them worse. Consider what happened to Dwyane Wade, Tristan Thomspon, JR Smith, Kevin Love, etc. One year they were all essential pieces to a championship roster, the next year they suddenly became "trash"? Whereas with Kobe, every player he played with post Shaq besides Gasol and Ariza could not stay in the NBA for much longer after they left the Lakers. That includes Bynum, Walton, Fisher, Odom, Farmar, Vujacic, Mihm, Parker (lol), Radmonovic, Cook, etc... He made them look so much better than they were because of his gravity pulling defenders towards him, even when he didn't have the ball.

In fact that ties into another argument I am planning to make. Nobody in the history of the NBA other than Shaq has seen the defensive attention Kobe has. He's the only player I've ever seen doubled on the weakside perimeter (i.e. when he doesn't even have the ball on the opposite side of the court). I look at the single coverage LeBron got in the C Bags series with smaller guys and only wish a team did that to Kobe. He would have lit them up for 60.

 

I’m with you on most of those except Fish. He was 4 years older than Kobe I think, but he still had useful years playing for OKC

Always stayed in great shape and he was a solid locker room presence, but there is no doubt his best years were with the Lakers.

 

Fish was a weird case. He forced his way to OKC where he gave them a few useful minutes off the bench in the playoffs. And yes his age was the main reason he retired.

But he wouldn't have started on any team in the NBA towards the end of his tenure with the Lakers. His defense was that bad. Kobe had to defend Rondo and Westbrook in the 2010 playoffs once he got his knee drained, and that's the reason we didn't get knocked out of the first round.

 

One thing to remember to mention (sorry I haven’t read the full thread to see if it’s already has been but) is that Lebron’s game is and has been predicated on driving to the basket, catching lobs, and fast break dunks, while Kobe’s game was predicated on primarily jump shots, so the field goal percentages are going to be skewed in favor of Lebron.

 

Ok man all I can say is this. What Kobe had to kick off the 2009 run was:

Beat up Andrew Bynum (still a beast I know) couple blocks HUGE presence inside in his 29 mins. 14pts/8 reb
Odom 11/8/3 guy (good defender)
Fish 10/2/3 guy (a defensive hole but AS A VET pulled hustle plays like a guardian angel including timely 3's and hustle plays)
Ariza 9/2/2 good defender let's not got crazy here, way overrated 3 pt shooter then at 32%. still good for the defense .
Pau Gasol 20/10/3.5 FG%567 absolutely an underated defender. At least during the champ years in LA. Some moments in game 7 vs C Bags were historic. Dude defended when it was all on the line. He shut down the inside.
Phil filled out the rest with a hodge-podge combo of reserves that somehow worked. System guys. That's why Phil will never change until someone proves him wrong. I don't count NYN against Phil. Melo is a Jonah.

Of course these guys smoked Orlando but replace Artest with Ariza vs the C bags and it's the same team. Artest was clearly more aggressive and helped us cap off the C Bags (we all know how close that was credit to Artest/Vujacic) but these are not amazing teams minus Kobe.

 

These days, it’s hard to even suggest Kobe is better than LeBron. Almost get ridiculed when doing so.

I do think LeBron’s stats are inflated in today’s game. I don’t have the advanced stats to back it up but I bet the pace of play is much faster (number of possessions/FGA per game) and the NBA has gone much smaller in recent years. The Cavs system was literally a LeBron shot or a pass to a teammate for a shot, so he always racks up assists.

At the end of the day these arguments will go on forever. I’ll take prime Kobe over prime Bron any day of the week. Ask the next person and they’ll say LeBron. Neither one is the wrong answer.

 

GOAT discussions are truly fruitless, but can be entertaining. In the end, it’s highly subjective, and people rarely change their minds.

 

This was the main point I was trying to make in the Lebron thread about him “not having help” and the similarities between the 2018 Cavs and that 09 team. People here were highly overrating our team (even saying that without Kobe they would have still made the Finals and/or even won it all).

To refer back to the OP’s post, if you put Lebron on that team, they don’t win back to back championships, put Kobe on the 2018 Cavs team and they win the championship, no doubt in my mind. I believe this for a couple of key reasons.

1) Kobe is a closer, Lebron needs a closer. The Cavs needed a closer on their team, which Lebron is not. You know Kobe would have closed the deal in Games 1 and 3. You just can’t get that close and lose. Having the closer mentality built into you is a big factor to greatness and winning.

2) Kobe instilled a mentality defensively that his teammates bought into. If you disregard the analytics and look at the eye test I would tell you that Kobe’s teammates played the best defense of their career (team and individual) while playing alongside him because of the standard he set for himself and them. I believe if Lebron had set that standard of hard nosed defense in exchange for his inflated stats and instilled that into his teammates while leading by example, they would have beaten the Warriors no question. The Warriors are good, but they are very beatable.

And to be fair to Lebron, needing a closer doesn’t diminish your greatness, but it does effect you when you are trying to be compared to players that had it.

 

Curious question to the OP @bfc1125roy

Are you a YouTuber? You sound vaguely familiar?

 

These are great points, thanks! I am still digging through the evidence to show that Kobe is a better clutch player/closer. It's obvious to those who watched, but I feel like a majority of people who watched the NBA today have only seen Curry/Westbrook/Harden/James and judge Kobe off basketballreference.com

No I'm not a YouTuber. But been around the online Laker communities for ages. Been pulling content from all over so maybe I've said something you recognized.

 

Why do you have Kobe over LeBron? Just curious

I do have LeBron in the top 5. I put him over Magic just because of his dominance in his 15th season, moreso than Kobe (who spent almost all of it injured). But Kobe was very, very dominant in his 17th season, especially when he got to play in a non Triangle (and non 4 out 1 in offense that Mike Brown installed) offense, and it remains to be seen if LeBron can do that as well.

 

Pace is very true. This is a factor I have yet to explore in depth, but obviously it makes sense. Most people's counterargument to that would be that LeBron put up better stats than Kobe pre 2010. Back then the typical rebuttal was Kobe is more skilled on the perimeter and has a post game, but times have changed.

I would definitely take prime Kobe, but there is also a good argument for prime LeBron. I 100% agree with you that neither is wrong. But most people think Kobe over LeBron is... to put it one way... blasphemous.

 

Yeah Kobe's team was not that impressive. Sans Pau, it was pretty much the same squad in 2006-2007. Not to s*** on any of those guys, but Odom was always f***ing inconsistent and a perpetual "borderline" allstar that never made the jump. Walton, Vujacic, Farmar, Fisher etc were all matadors on defense. Floor spacing was terrible because only Fisher could really shoot from outside. But because of the insane level Kobe was playing at, and the amount of defensive attention he commanded even on the perimeter, he made everyone else look WAY better.

People look back and overrate those Lakers teams a fair bit. Acting like Pau Gasol was some incredible player and Odom always was a 6th man of the year type guy. It's not at all true. I hate to take away from our own squad, but it's ridiculous to act like LeBron played with trash while Kobe was playing with a bunch of all stars. We all remember how frustrating Gasol was. The guy was a horrible primary option, never averaged more than 15 FGA a game even in Memphis where he got the ball whenever he wanted (also never won a playoff game either). Bynum was also was barely on the floor during both of our championship runs, and didn't even reach all-star status until Mike Brown idiotically designed our offense to feed him every time down (4 out 1 in, same thing they ran in San Antonio with Duncan and Robinson), and it resulted in us getting bounced out of the 2nd round. That left Ariza/Artest, and Fisher. Along with a bench that I won't even get into.

The team played well because of Phil Jackson coaching and Kobe's skill level at the time. But if you had given Kobe guys like Wade and Bosh, or even a competent point guard like Irving and a big man who could actually do something as a primary option (Kevin Love), you would have seen much different results.

You're going to see a lot of reasoning like this in the final article. I've actually compiled a lot of good info to show how LeBron's teams from 2007-2010 were not as bad as people made them out to be. They weren't amazing, but the system Brown (or rather Kuester) ran didn't require 4 other all stars. It's just that most people don't have the depth of understanding with respect to NBA offenses to see that right off the bat.