Kobe Bryant Discussion: Mamba Out!

Here you go Ras. Highlights.



This is First Take the following morning.



There's some others on ESPN.com, but I can't find the links.

 

Surprised Skip Baseless gave Kobe credit. A day earlier he said 81 was overrated.

 

Tell us how you really feel.

Couldn't agree more with what you said. Haters will always hate, I just ignore them.

 

Was watching some highlights from the 2009 West Finals. Man it was great seeing Kobe and Melo the two very close going at it and competing. I know Melo gets a lot of flack, but he was a scoring machine in his prime. Still impressive how he always made the playoffs in the West without ever really playing with a secondary star. Injuries have starting to catch up to him the last few years, but he was a terrific player in his day.

 

I feel like I already knew this but Kobe's last game convinced me that if he really wanted to and the circumstances presented themselves, he could have easily scored over 100 in a game back between 05-07.

 

Lol easily was not the word I meant to use. I was more of trying to say I am totally convinced he would have been able to score 100, I mean if broke down Kobe taking 50 shots could have done it, I'm sure prime Kobe could have under the right conditions.

 

Melo and the Nuggets were fantastic on 2009. I mean, of course, Kobe and the Lakers were better, but if not for us, Melo's career would look so much better. He would've won a ring in 2009 (I'm sure the Nuggets would've beaten the Magic) and he probably would've stayed in Denver, which is a much, much better franchise than New York (I know, who isn't). I remember Melo, in those very same Playoffs, absolutely annihilating Chris Paul and the Hornets... I'll never forget that game they won by 58 points. That was crazy. That battle with Kobe in the WCF was fantastic, both guys going at it very strongly. I loved those battles between Kobe and Melo just to gain position, without any of them having the ball. Like in most of our titles, in 2009, our true challenge was the WCF, not the Finals. The only real exception is 2010. I feel even in 2001 the WCF was tougher, even if we lost our only game in the Finals against Philly... that was Iverson being one of the best players in the planet, but for the most part, I think both Sacramento and San Antonio where better... ha, but no one was nearly close to us. We had a mediocre regular season record (in comparison to what we should had), but we crushed the opposition i the Playoff, and those weren't easy opponents. I feel the 2001 Lakers would destroy the 1996 Bulls or even the the 2016 Warriors.

 

Man up!

 

I remember against the Hornets (now Pelicans) in 2013 we had an amazing comeback (finished with a 25-2 run and I believe 18-0) where Kobe almost went perfect through the whole 4th quarter. He just missed a shot during the first couple of possesions of that fourth quarter and never missed again afterwards. Jodie Meeks was fantastic also. He didn't do much more than shooting really open threes from Kobe passes, but he did make I believe 4 out of 5. That comeback was really impressive. Kobe must've ended the quarter 6/6 or 7/7.

 

You know what the pelicans coach said at the end of that game?
"We gave up 33 when we needed to get stops and that is hard to swallow and that is all on my shoulders. There is nobody else to look at but me."
Now if only we had a coach that could accept responsibility.

 

Just rewatched the game (thanks to the jet lag I can't sleep anyway ) and noticed Jack saying jokingly he might retire with him ... maybe Jack can threaten the FO to clean the House haha you never know ...