Printable View
@Defiance excellent read on that article. This comparison has been going on forever between everyone I know who watches basketball.
Kobe can't make others better...I totally agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Friendly Fire
I guess everyone I entitled to have an off night, but Kobe had a bad one tonight. Lakers beat my Memphis of all teams..worst team in the NBA.
And who did the media blame for the loss, of course the Lakers superstar Kobe.
I just read that article and i found it really bad. It's a bunch of personal opinions unsubstantiated by any facts. Even worse, it's so full of wrong concepts that it's almost offensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by DefianceX
The NBA is tougher now? It would be good to know why. I could talk about the detroit, new york or miami teams of the past, among others. And i should remind that the nba has a handcheck rule that wasnt present then. At minimal contact a whistle is blown. Kobe, Wade, LeBron shoot so many ft.
Seven-footers weren't launching 3s back then? Aside from it beeing irrelevant for the discussion (and not entirely true), what else should an Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Parish, etc be doing else than bang inside. I guess they were too busy dominating inside to do anything else. It wouldnt take him long to list the great centers of that time compared to the ones today.
Phoenix, Dallas and San Antonio are all better than the Utah, Portland and the Charles Barkley-led Phoenix team that Michael met in the NBA Finals? The article writer has got to be kidding me. Aside from all the great teams they faced before reaching the finals (the east was harder then), those teams were in no way inferior to the ones today. It's totally ridiculous to assume that.
Trying to pass Vince Carter or McGrady as imposing defenders is beyond pathetic. And like there werent fisical types or great athletes then. There's so much wrong "information" in that article that i dont know how can something like that be published.
All in all is just another Kobe worshiping article. He obviously didnt compare individual or collective stats or accomplishments or awards, why bother. Just someone saying Kobe is better than Jordan because...he thinks that Kobe is better than Jordan, making up facts along the way. Not the biggest endorsement to a journalist.
I have to agree with the writer when she says that players now are more physically superior than players of the past. So yes that makes them more imposing defenders as well. That goes with any sport if you think about it. Even sports commentators who were former players preach the same thing over and over when comparing players now to when it was their heyday. If you compare the physical makeup of this generation to those in the past, you would find that players now are more muscular and fitter just because of the ample of trainers available for them plus the fact that as humans, its also very well substantiated that we've grown bigger as time went on.
The writer was just saying that when it was Jordan's time, he was godlike compared to the other players with his abilities. Very few players had the physical means to guard him one on one if any at all. Kobe meanwhile has to deal with players of the same physical prowess as him.
Having said that, I still say you can't put Kobe in the same pedestal as MJ until he's won championships without a dominant center.
I think you are comparing different things. Defense is not about physical prowess. Best perimeter defenders today are Artest, Bowen, Bell, Battier. They are not phisical speciments. You could make a case for Artest, but he's a different kind of athlete. The athleticism of a Carter or McGrady mostly defines them offensively. It doesnt make them more imposing in the defensive end.
Carter, McGrady, Carmelo are soft in defense. They'll never be in the defensive all nba team. It's just how they are regardless of how amazing athletes they are. Even LeBron is not a great defender (at least no yet).
You cant make a case of them being great defenders just because they are world class athletes. They wont stop Kobe just like Drexler wouldnt stop Jordan. And Drexler was one hell of an athlete. There were great athletes then also and great defenders just the same. It's not exclusive of our time.
In what i agree with you is that the difference between Jordan and the others was bigger than of today between Kobe and the others.
I dont doubt that phisical training has improved and everything evolves. But we're talking about 15 years of the game. It hasnt changed that much.
I admit you got me there :)
Jordan didn't make players better until the early 90's.. took him some 5-6 years. You'll see.. Now that Bryant doesn't have a big-shot next to him, he will eventually figure out how to make the others help the team excel. Another interesting thing is that in quite a few of the games Kobe scored like crazy, he also managed to dish out 7-8-9 assists too, something you would rarely see him do in past years...
Jordan also didn't have Pippen till much later.Quote:
Originally Posted by tralalala
Kobe got Shaq pretty quickly. Keep in mind Shaq had gone to Championship early one before Hakeem schooled him (and he had Hardaway).
Well, Bryant is a awesome player, But the diffrence between him and Jordan, Is that Jordan brought some cups to his teams. Bryant in his top level now, can't bring a cup to the LAs. that shows something about him, dont you think?
Bryant is a star, but sadly enough he knows that and acts like that. He's a one man team. A spoiled brat that needs the spotlights on HIM. He isn't capable of making other players better. He isn't capable of helping other players in the game. They're just there to give him the ball as soon as they got it.
That's one of the differences between Kobe en Michael Jordan.
Jordan gave other players the chance to get in the game, to be a star. Even if they were just role players. He controled his own team. With Jordan it were five players playing like they were with six in the game. Kobe's teams are (since Shaq left)with 3,5 players. No other player as Kobe plays to his full capacity.
There is another big difference and that's mentality (hope that's the correct english word). Where Kobe like's to get into the head of the opponent and tries to hard, Jordan always was in the heads before the game even started. He was the king of the mental game.
WTF?Quote:
Originally Posted by liranbg