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Originally Posted by itvnetop
Kobe is the most feared scorer in the league right now... possibly the past five years.
But Kobe is not a legend like many laker fans are already proclaiming after his single greatest performance of the past decade. MJ, Magic, and Bird made their teammates better. Kobe's teammates stand around and watch him more than 40 percent of the game. He can score 45 a game, but as long as his team hovers around .500 he'll never get the same kind of respect as the real legends. You have to elevate the players around you- even though MJ had pippen, i still remember the names of hodges, paxson, and cartright. Odom can be as effective as Pippen offensively (defensively, Pippen was the man) as his Miami days proved. Yet his game has regressed next to Kobe. Don't tell me Lamar sucks and that's not Kobe's fault... Lamar was at the top of his game next to Wade.
I'd go so far as to say Lebron and Wade are players I'd rather have on my team than Kobe. Those two elevate the play of their teammates, they don't elicit star-watching from their other 4 guys on the court. Oh yeah, Miami's in second without shaq, so no mention of the big fella when talkin' bout Wade. Even before shaq, miami came within a game of making it to the Eastern finals the year before. Odom and Butler are good, but the team never went anywhere until Wade's rookie season.
The players go to the team with the guy they know they can 1) win with and 2) increase their marketabililty with. Not one significant FA went to LA before this season to play with Kobe. 3 significant FAs went to Cleveland to play with Lebron- Hughes, Marshall, and Jones (albeit Hughes' contract was a big factor). We're talking about Cleveland here! Not many people would normally pick the city of cleveland over LA, much less professional ball players. Well, it's because Lebron will make you look better. In doing so, you will increase your visibility and endorsement potential. You're not getting any of that watching Kobe get off for 50 a night. Maybe there is a reason why kobe is "forced" to shoot 41 times a game- no one wants to play with him!
Kobe better find a way to get his sidekicks involved or else they ain't getting out of the first round in the west. Or else, he's gotta lure some FAs to LA to play with him... but like i said, no one is coming to LA if he keeps playing like he's playing.
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well as faras free agents, the lakers had zero money to bring in free agents this past season as they had a bit of dead money destroying their cap. and I really liked the trade to bring in odom and butler, really didn't like getting rid of butler for brown
, but lets not make odom out to be an offensive machine as his career average before he came to the lakers is only 15.72 pts/game and since he's joined the lakers his average has only dropped by .87 points a game. Kobe's still averaging 4.3 assists a game this season (only .1 less than his career average) despite jacking up as many shots as he does and the guy has 14-15 triple doubles so he's shown in the past he's not just a scorer. Plus with the comparison between Lebron and Kobe it boils down to the fact that Lebron is more of a PG than a SG and his outside game is nothing even close to what Kobe does on a regular basis as most of Lebrons game is on cuts and slashes to the basket. And Wade definitely has had quite a bit of talent around him which makes it easier for him to pass the ball off when someone's open. And something for some people to think about as far as how many shots Kobe is taking: Kobe only averages 8 more shots a game than Wade, 7 more than Arenas, 6 more than McGrady, 5 more shots than Lebron, and only 2 more shots a game than AI, but yet where's the media and fans saying something about that. A lot of people just like to hate and Tony and Mike had it dead on yesterday on PTI that if Jordan had done this, the celebration would have been overwhelming.