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On June 01 2009 11:48 Ace wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2009 09:25 vol wrote:On June 01 2009 08:50 Ace wrote:On June 01 2009 05:43 vol wrote:On May 01 2009 12:25 vol wrote:]Magic dominated w/o Howard or Lee. Just another testament to the depth of the team. I bet the whole team is gonna sit around and watch Bulls/Celtics G7. On May 01 2009 12:31 Ace wrote:
Orlando doesn't have depth don't kid yourself. Their bench players are barely notable for delivering. On May 02 2009 01:05 vol wrote:
They actually have been noted many times for delivering on many occasions, in fact they have been noted by almost all the ESPN analysts as the main reason Orlando was able to keep one of the best records in the league. They get no attention in most national highlight shows because they happen to have one of the best players in the NBA on their team. I am in no way belittling Howard's contribution but it is definitely not a Wade/Heat situation (as proven by their records.) They showed what they are capable of last night so the more doubters the better position it puts us in anyways. On May 02 2009 01:14 Ace wrote:Ok I'll keep doubting then  I called it back on page 39. Keep on doubting and we will keep on winning. Orlando's bench still played like shit. What's your point? You just proved my point. Pretty cool when shitty teams win championships AMIRITE. what? that answer doesn't even make sense? How does that mean Orlando is a deep team? explain.
Why would I waste my time posting facts and linking to articles of "experts" on ESPN that will all argue my point when all you will say is... "nope." I know I am right and it will be/has been proven on the court. You think you are right and no matter what I say it won't change your viewpoint.
Which NBA have you even been watching this year?
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i don't think any coach is confident in a situation where their team is trailing with a shot to win or tie. kobe may offer some hope or rather an invitation to hope, but it's not like he wins every game. the few spectacular moments are just more impressive to the mind.
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United States10774 Posts
On June 01 2009 14:08 oneofthem wrote:
i don't think any coach is confident in a situation where their team is trailing with a shot to win or tie. kobe may offer some hope or rather an invitation to hope, but it's not like he wins every game. the few spectacular moments are just more impressive to the mind.
well obviously, how can a coach feel "confident" in that situation? lol we all know kobe isn't perfect :o
it's a 'who would you rather' question
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
On June 01 2009 13:30 Xeris wrote:
I'm well aware of Moses Malone. He wasn't as nationally hyped as much as Kobe was. Neither was KG... KG wasn't hyped much at all.
True.
The whole 'hype as merit' argument is silly. (not saying that you're saying this Xeris, I know you're arguing aginst it as well)
Kobe vs LeBron - my thoughts.
First of all - Kobe's 3 championships don't factor. He has never won a title as the best player on his team. He has never won as the leader of his squad. We look at Shaq now and see the death of Seven Seconds or Less, but remember remember:
Shaq 2000 Playoffs: 30.7 pts, 15.4 rbs, 3.1 ast
Shaq 2001 Playoffs: 30.4 - 15.4 - 3.2 (to be fair, Kobe averaged a ridiculous 29.4 - 7.3 - 6.1)
Shaq 2002 Playoffs: 28.5 - 12.6 - 2.8
So. Kobe gets credit for those three championships, but he doesn't get THE MAN credit. End that.
Now,
what makes the Kobe vs LeBron debate tricky is that they are excellent in different ways.
Kobe = Skill
LeBron = Ability
Kobe has a PhD in basketball, offense and defense. He has a scholarly approach to the game - Kobe studies moves, practices them, and then attains the situational awarenss to know when to use what moves. Ever summer he adds a new move to his game. Remember when he was aping Duncan's elbow bankshot jumper a few seasons back?
Because Kobe = Skill, Kobe needs to practice like a madman. And he does. That's how he stays at the highest level of basketball skill in the NBA. Kobe is an arsenal. He was blessed with just the right enough body to be effective in the NBA - everything from there on was Kobe's talent, hardwork, and drive.
LeBron is a basketball monster made in a lab. He is a Tight End who shoots jumpers and passes like Magic. His phyiscality allows him to do things that just weren't meant to be done on the court - no one is supposed to drive into the lane, meet 3 big men defenders, absorb the contact, somehow still rise further, and finish with a dunk/layup. That only happens because Lebron is the swingman Karl Malone.
Another of the God given abilities of LeBron is his court vision. The ability to read and pass is innate in him, just as much as his athletic ability.
So it's a difficult comparison.
Do you like the hard working genius who transcends through his human will?
or
Do you like the freak of nature who transcends by sheer force of being?
Well... we may like one or the other, but both are impressive, right?
That's why people try to find other ways to compare them.
Leadership? (hard to judge)
Attitude? (what the fuck do we know about playing in the NBA?)
Clutchness? (flawed comparison - by nature, great players are all mostly "clutch" because they are given the ball in crunch situations)
Makes-Teammates-Better? (All great players make their teammates better)
Rise-to-the-moment-ness? (verrry difficult to judge - like judging rainbows or snowflakes)
Rape-Charges-in-Colorado-ness? (well.......)
The point is, other than blatant LA/Cleveland fanboyism, the player you think is better comes from which narrative you like more.
Kobe is the scholar, he is Inigo Montoya, the 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, Dickensian, Brainy, Japanese-sports-manga, Bruce Lee guy who beats you by being smarter and working harder.
LeBron is Cloverfield, the Encounter of the Third Kind, Plato's Achilles, the mythical beast, Hollywood Rambo, I'm Juggernaut BITCH! guy who beats you because he was born to beat you.
Kobe:LeBron
= Federer:Nadal
= Loki:Thor
= Batman:Superman
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well yea, but it is a part of the larger problem of evaluating players by their flashy and impressive moments out of the context of their entire impact on the game. yea, kobe can score 50, but how frequently can he do it, and is it something he can control?
i don't really have anything against kobe, just kobe fans and their terrible arguments.
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The Olympic argument isn't valid.
Carmelo, LeBron, Wade started playing international relatively young, they had no idea about euro-rules in international basketball and they always looked confused on the court because of that. Plus they had no real supporting cast like they had in 2008 All-Star team.
They got caught traveling all the time and the rules were bent for them in the 2008 Olympics. Travels didn't get called and the other euro rules were denied. Besides Wade dominated throughout the Olympics, not Kobe.
Thank God they finally got themselves coach K who made some of the rules clear to them and kept their egos balanced.
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United States10774 Posts
On June 01 2009 14:42 oneofthem wrote:
well yea, but it is a part of the larger problem of evaluating players by their flashy and impressive moments out of the context of their entire impact on the game. yea, kobe can score 50, but how frequently can he do it, and is it something he can control?
i don't really have anything against kobe, just kobe fans and their terrible arguments.
because there have been many, many games in the past where kobe willed his team to victory by stepping up in the fourth quarter? of course everybody can't always do that, but he can do it the most consistently. he has a killer instinct to elevate his game when he needs to, hence arguably the best closer in the game. again, can he always do it? no. does he have flaws when it comes to that? yes. is he the best at what he does? yes.
if a superstar can lead his team to the W at the end of the day, that's a job done. (stepping up when he's needed and called for) it's not evaluating them by their flashy moments, it's how consistently they can make his team win.
also, superstars like kobe and james aren't wholly evaluated by impressive moments and how many points they score. it's important to look at how many points their hands were involved in, number of turnovers, and of course, how efficient they were in getting those points. those guys can basically score 40 whenever they want to, but it's all about how many shots they take to achieve that. oh, how they face the challenge when their team needs them. that's how you evaluate players like kobe and his impact on the entire game.
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Well if you want to go by efficiency the EFF rating ... ;o
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United States10774 Posts
On June 01 2009 15:18 MYM.Testie wrote:
Well if you want to go by efficiency the EFF rating ... ;o
yes, that's a part of it. but that can only show so much. for instance, it doesn't show how a player can elevate into a whole another level when the game is really close, and practically win for the team. the rating also varies on some things that are naturally different between two players.
it's funny when you think about how kobe went 0/5 in the fourth quarter of game 5 vs the nuggets and the lakers still won. idk how well the rating shows his ability to perfectly read the defense and tear it up :o not all of them lead to direct assists
i think a player's overall impact on the game cannot be measured only by tangible numbers
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On June 01 2009 14:43 eStoniaNBoY wrote:
The Olympic argument isn't valid.
Carmelo, LeBron, Wade started playing international relatively young, they had no idea about euro-rules in international basketball and they always looked confused on the court because of that. Plus they had no real supporting cast like they had in 2008 All-Star team.
They got caught traveling all the time and the rules were bent for them in the 2008 Olympics. Travels didn't get called and the other euro rules were denied. Besides Wade dominated throughout the Olympics, not Kobe.
Thank God they finally got themselves coach K who made some of the rules clear to them and kept their egos balanced.
the problem is that the olympics is a vastly different game from the nba so that you can't really use a player's performance in one to evaluate him in another.
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United States4471 Posts
The only good arguments that have come out of this Kobe-Lebron debate are the ones that acknowledge that they're both the best players in the NBA right now and that picking one over the other is just a matter of taste. Not that different from the Magic-Jordan debates that used to go on (think about how that debate would've gone if Magic hadn't gotten HIV/AIDS).
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Hum, I seem to have a different recollection of history in KG not making much news but Kobe thundering onto the scene. I decided to do some research.
Garnett was picked #5 in 1995. Kobe was picked #13 in 1996.
I checked whether this was a fluke, as in a bad team making a bad gamble. Best I could find from back then is a usenet mock draft, not great, but we're checking general impressions.
http://www.ibiblio.org/craig/draft/1995_draft/1995_draft.html Garnett at #6
http://www.ibiblio.org/craig/draft/1996_draft/1996_draft.html Kobe at #13
http://www.ibiblio.org/craig/draft/1996_draft/scout/list.html Kobe at #15
Seems fairly accurate. And KG made the cover of SI for his prep to pro leap. They both won the McDonalds All American award. KG started once Flip Saunders becomes coach his rookie year. Kobe's a reserve his entire rookie year.
Jermaine O'Neal entered the 1996 draft because of how seamlessly Garnett did it.
The one thing that Kobe has in his favor is that Garnett didn't have good enough test scores to qualify for NCAA standards.
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When the lakers were 3 peating, a lot of people considered Shaq-Kobe to the be the #1 and #2 players in the league. When Shaq left and the lakers were winning 40-45 games a season, opinions of him dropped somewhat. When Kobe goes on his 40 point game streak and then his 3 quarter 60 point game, and his 81 point (2 assist) game, opinion goes up.
Now 2006 Kobe, he'd give 2009 Lebron a run for his money, and was the closest thing to the 2nd coming of MJ (or 4th coming if you count Jordan's two comebacks). But 2006 Kobe had bulked up to handle the load better, 2009 Kobe has slimmed down to save energy and reduce the wear on his body, as players entering their 30's do.
I think Kobe deserves to be a better player than lebron. People have mentioned he's polished every part of his basketball skillset. But it's so much deeper than that.
He seems to think on a meta level about winning:
Winners (Jordan) make their teammates better, Kobe starts talking about how he tries to give up shots to get his teammates involved earlier
Winners (Jordan) are great defensive players, Kobe tries to become a great perimeter defender
He's into watching videotapes of his opponents. I bet he started practicing shots with a hand in his face to deal with Battier.
He's a gym freak. His home is littered with lifting machines and racks. He's thinking about how can I be a more explosive player?
He's by far the most competitive player still playing. Simmons thinks lebron trained with Kobe, thought holy shit he does all this, and now by mimicking Kobe's work ethic Lebron reportedly wanted the title more than anyone.
He does everything I can possibly think of to win, except maybe statistical shot selection. If I had a basketball make a wish, I would love to learn exactly how he trains and discuss it with him. I think he deserves to win against players that don't care as much. However, I think Lebron, even without the videotaping, the metagame, and the hypercompetitiveness, has a much stronger impact on each game he plays.
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Kobe:LeBron
= Federer:Nadal
= Loki:Thor
= Batman:Superman
haha that is so true its beautiful
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here's a discussion on kobe/lebron. i assume they have some idea what they're talking about since they managed to get on espns website. they seem to come to the conclusion that as a player lebron isbetter but there's plenty of reasons why kobe is more pleasing from a fans pov and why he still commands more respect due to what he's done
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-40-80/The-State-of-the-Great-Debate--Kobe-vs--LeBron-2009.html
particularly relevant i thought is when they mention stats which, though not everything, are the best thing we have when it comes to a truly objective viewpoint. here's a quote which i assume is true cos it's on espn's website:
If you're going to try and compare these guys with any sort of advanced statistical analysis, LeBron's just going to blow Kobe away ... Kobe's PER this year, when he finished second in the MVP race and was probably two wins away from making a real run at the award, was slightly lower than LeBron's in 2006-07, his worst regular season other than his rookie year. It's not just PER either, win shares, +/- rating, you name it. For years, pretty much any way people have come up with to use numbers to distill a basketball player's value, LeBron James has been at or right at the top.
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United States22883 Posts
On June 01 2009 21:36 no_comprender wrote:particularly relevant i thought is when they mention stats which, though not everything, are the best thing we have when it comes to a truly objective viewpoint. here's a quote which i assume is true cos it's on espn's website: Show nested quote +
If you're going to try and compare these guys with any sort of advanced statistical analysis, LeBron's just going to blow Kobe away ... Kobe's PER this year, when he finished second in the MVP race and was probably two wins away from making a real run at the award, was slightly lower than LeBron's in 2006-07, his worst regular season other than his rookie year. It's not just PER either, win shares, +/- rating, you name it. For years, pretty much any way people have come up with to use numbers to distill a basketball player's value, LeBron James has been at or right at the top.
I'd hardly say those are objective. All it shows is how poor a job numbers do at "distilling" a player's value.
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United States37500 Posts
I agree with Jibba. But still, it was an interesting read.
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On June 01 2009 14:35 HonestTea wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2009 13:30 Xeris wrote:
I'm well aware of Moses Malone. He wasn't as nationally hyped as much as Kobe was. Neither was KG... KG wasn't hyped much at all. True. The whole 'hype as merit' argument is silly. (not saying that you're saying this Xeris, I know you're arguing aginst it as well) Kobe vs LeBron - my thoughts. First of all - Kobe's 3 championships don't factor. He has never won a title as the best player on his team. He has never won as the leader of his squad. We look at Shaq now and see the death of Seven Seconds or Less, but remember remember: Shaq 2000 Playoffs: 30.7 pts, 15.4 rbs, 3.1 ast Shaq 2001 Playoffs: 30.4 - 15.4 - 3.2 (to be fair, Kobe averaged a ridiculous 29.4 - 7.3 - 6.1) Shaq 2002 Playoffs: 28.5 - 12.6 - 2.8 So. Kobe gets credit for those three championships, but he doesn't get THE MAN credit. End that. Now, what makes the Kobe vs LeBron debate tricky is that they are excellent in different ways. Kobe = Skill LeBron = Ability Kobe has a PhD in basketball, offense and defense. He has a scholarly approach to the game - Kobe studies moves, practices them, and then attains the situational awarenss to know when to use what moves. Ever summer he adds a new move to his game. Remember when he was aping Duncan's elbow bankshot jumper a few seasons back? Because Kobe = Skill, Kobe needs to practice like a madman. And he does. That's how he stays at the highest level of basketball skill in the NBA. Kobe is an arsenal. He was blessed with just the right enough body to be effective in the NBA - everything from there on was Kobe's talent, hardwork, and drive. LeBron is a basketball monster made in a lab. He is a Tight End who shoots jumpers and passes like Magic. His phyiscality allows him to do things that just weren't meant to be done on the court - no one is supposed to drive into the lane, meet 3 big men defenders, absorb the contact, somehow still rise further, and finish with a dunk/layup. That only happens because Lebron is the swingman Karl Malone. Another of the God given abilities of LeBron is his court vision. The ability to read and pass is innate in him, just as much as his athletic ability. So it's a difficult comparison. Do you like the hard working genius who transcends through his human will? or Do you like the freak of nature who transcends by sheer force of being? Well... we may like one or the other, but both are impressive, right? That's why people try to find other ways to compare them. Leadership? (hard to judge) Attitude? (what the fuck do we know about playing in the NBA?) Clutchness? (flawed comparison - by nature, great players are all mostly "clutch" because they are given the ball in crunch situations) Makes-Teammates-Better? (All great players make their teammates better) Rise-to-the-moment-ness? (verrry difficult to judge - like judging rainbows or snowflakes) Rape-Charges-in-Colorado-ness? (well.......) The point is, other than blatant LA/Cleveland fanboyism, the player you think is better comes from which narrative you like more. Kobe is the scholar, he is Inigo Montoya, the 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, Dickensian, Brainy, Japanese-sports-manga, Bruce Lee guy who beats you by being smarter and working harder. LeBron is Cloverfield, the Encounter of the Third Kind, Plato's Achilles, the mythical beast, Hollywood Rambo, I'm Juggernaut BITCH! guy who beats you because he was born to beat you. Kobe:LeBron = Federer:Nadal = Loki:Thor = Batman:Superman
You're just wrong on so many levels dude it isn't even funny.
Batman clearly kicks Superman's ass.
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On June 01 2009 21:48 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2009 21:36 no_comprender wrote:particularly relevant i thought is when they mention stats which, though not everything, are the best thing we have when it comes to a truly objective viewpoint. here's a quote which i assume is true cos it's on espn's website:
If you're going to try and compare these guys with any sort of advanced statistical analysis, LeBron's just going to blow Kobe away ... Kobe's PER this year, when he finished second in the MVP race and was probably two wins away from making a real run at the award, was slightly lower than LeBron's in 2006-07, his worst regular season other than his rookie year. It's not just PER either, win shares, +/- rating, you name it. For years, pretty much any way people have come up with to use numbers to distill a basketball player's value, LeBron James has been at or right at the top.
I'd hardly say those are objective. All it shows is how poor a job numbers do at "distilling" a player's value. how is actual raw data not objective. i assume your angle is that the choosing of which data to use is not objective. but how and why would data somehow favor lebron over kobe? he claims that the vast majority of statistical analysis say lebron is the best, it's not as if the lebron is better statistical argument is based on a specific method that accentuates lebrons specific strengths. either that or you're just saying that because the numbers don't support the kobe>lebron hypothesis they must be wrong
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EPT![[image loading]](http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/intel/08/04/08_labron_lgl.jpg)
