nbafan

I think most people would agree that Sacramento is the deepest, most talented team in the league, with Dallas a close second. Talent is only one component of a championship team. The Lakers have won because they have two superstars that carry most of the scoring burden, with role players that make big shots, and they absolutely lock teams up defensively in the fourth quarter of big games. It happened repeatedly in the Sacramento series as well. The Western Conference will come down to the Kings and Lakers (barring injuries to either team) and will be determined by whether or not Sacramento can run their offense, make good shots in crunch time and play defense. I agree that the Lakers are a year older but Horry is 32 and Fox is 33, they both still have several years left. Shaq is still only 30. Let's not forget that one of the keys to the Kings run was the play of Vlade and he will be 35 during the season. When will those 3 packs a day finally catch up with him.

Just to name one: 2000 NBA Finals. Shaq fouls out and Kobe carries them in overtime including game winning rebound put back. 2001 Playoffs: Pick a game. Kobe carried that team through the early rounds before Shaq dominated the Finals. 2002 Playoffs: San Antonio Series Kobe took over the 4th quarter in almost every game. I not sure what you have been watching, but its not the same thing everybody else is.

Apparently in addition to lack of basketball knowledge, you have limited reading comprehension. I did not say Kobe is the best defensive player in the league. I said he is the best perimeter on the ball defender in the league. Blocked shots and steals do not measure this. (btw, Doug Collins, Bill Walton, and Jerry West all have made this statement) I did not say Kobe is the best player since Jordan. I said he is the most singlemindedly focused on becoming that. Whether you choose to believe it or not, Kobe rarely defended Bibby in the Sacremento series, Fisher did and the same was true with AI. They will put him on those guys for crucial possessions down the stretch or when Shaw is in the game. The Lakers are at best a .500 team without Shaq. This has no bearing on what kind of player Kobe is. The Lakers are not big enough to compete with even average teams with size if Shaq isn't in the lineup, even if Kobe scores 50. If you actually read my posts you would see that I have never said Kobe is better or worse than Duncan, KG, or TMac. I just find it amazing that someone who spends as much time focused on basketball as you seem to, believes that there are more than 1/2 dozen players in the league that are so much better than Kobe that there is no debate. You won't find a single GM or coach that would agree with you.

Let's state this simply: if you don't think Kobe Bryant would lead the league in scoring if he played for Orlando or Minnesota you don't know very much about basketball. Kobe is the best perimeter on the ball defender in the NBA (he is a mediocre post defender) He is as focused on being the best player in the league as anyone since Jordan. He is the only player you've mentioned who is required to sublimate his game (and stats) on a nightly basis and still is one of the top scorers in the league I think you can make a strong case for TMac or KG being the best player in the league, but if they are better than Kobe, the difference is very small.

It would be nice if you occasionally used facts to back up your assertions. Bibby did not "Bust Kobe's butt on national television". Kobe only played Bibby when he and Brian Shaw were on the floor together. Fischer had Bibby most of the time. Kobe and Jackson argued in the papers because Kobe wanted to guard him. Jackson was attempting to rest him because he was still taking fluids from the food poisoning and he was carrying a bigger offensive load because Shaq was playing fewer minutes because of his foot. I've already addressed the Portland series, apparently you don't understand enough about basketball to recognize a player's contribution to a basketball game, beyond what you read in the box score. Finally, you may not be a Kings fan, but the repeated whining about Sacramento being the better team, the referees favoring the Lakers, and Peja being hurt are pathetic. The Lakers had 4 starters with injuries/ailments that would have kept them out of regular season games. Aside from Shaq and Kobe, Samaki Walker had knee and elbow injuries that reduced his playoff numbers to half his regular season numbers and Rick Fox was playing with several leg, back, and shoulder injuries. Over the course of the series the number of free throws shot were nearly even, including one early series game where the Kings shot dramatically more than the Lakers. The Lakers played through this and handled the pressure down the stretch. The Kings did not. In the late 90's the Lakers talked about their talent and how Utah got all the calls, all the breaks, and didn't have injuries. When Jackson came on board they stopped whining and battled down the stretch. Maybe if the Kings would shut up and play, they might win something.

The basis for your assertion that Kobe is not a top 5 player is that he has never had to carry the Lakers without Shaq and that when they have played without Shaq they are a .500 team. You also contrast that with TMac, Payton, KG, Kidd who have "carried" a team. So it appears that you elevate a player's status if he is the leader of a mediocre team. None of these guys have ever lead a really good team (sorry the Nets are a 5 or 6 seed if they played in the West). So using your argument, if the Lakers play .500 ball without Shaq, Kobe would have proven himself in some way that he didn't by being selected all NBA and winning 3 titles. Also, as I've said in previous posts, you can't evaluate a player's performance solely on statistics. You can't say definitively that swapping Kobe and KG would still lead to Laker titles. KG would need to play almost exclusively facing the basket and would have to integrate his game with Shaq's. Who knows if that would happen. I have no problem with your top 5 list. Those guys are all great players, but your arguments against Kobe are ridiculous. BTW, you must have been watching a different Portland/Lakers series in 2000. Portland did a great job defensively on Shaq (he had 1 basket through 3 qtrs in game 7). The Lakers scrapped the triangle for large portions of the games and used Kobe's ability to break down his defender and get in the lane to set up other players. He did not have huge scoring games but they would not have won without him.

So using your argument, Magic was overrated because he played with Kareem, Kevin McHale doesn't belong in the hall of fame because he played with Bird, West played with Chamberlain so we'll leave him out, and on and on. How much of Kobe's game do you think he has to sublimate because he plays with a hall of famer. I've already said that I believe Kobe and McGrady are comparable players (although I would take Kobe), so I'm not debating that with you. You have made the statement that Kobe has it easy because he plays with Shaq, I suggest that the other guys have it easy because they are playing with no expectations of winning and can hoist shot after shot and are lauded for the statistics they post regardless of the fact they haven't won anything. Kobe's pressure is completely different. The Laker franchise has the expectation that they will compete for a championship every year. Utah raises division title banners, The Lakers only raise NBA Championship banners. It is generally agreed inside the Lakers that Kobe's lowpoint as a member of the team was the game against Golden State where he and Jamison got into a 50+ point shoot out. Would Iverson, TMac, or Carter be universally hammered for such a performance? NO! The expectation is that Kobe must play a role that fits the team, not his individual achievement. None of the other guys have that restriction. Your comments about the number of times they are doubled are meaningless. How many games do those teams play that don't matter? Is there ever a Laker game that the opponent isn't up and motivated and the arena sold out? Do you honestly think that Kobe's scoring numbers wouldn't go up if he played for a team without Shaq? I am not making the argument that Kobe is better than Michael or that he will be the best player ever. I'm simply saying that he has unbelievable talent, has made tremendous sacrifices in terms of personal achievement for the benefit of the team, is the guy that carries the Lakers in the last 5 minutes of every big game, is still the hardest working Laker, is only 23, and Shaq never won a title without Kobe either.

You Said: "Problem. It's just speculation of what Kobe can do. He needs Shaq like a fish needs water. Secondly, everybody talks about Kobe being the top SG in the game. How would anybody know how good he is until he has faced the pressures that Tmac, Iverson, and Vince Carter face... That pressure is being their teams' main scorer and facing double teams all the time. " Now its clear to me that you don't watch many Laker games and have decided your position regardless of any reality to the contrary. I agree that Kobe plays for a much better team than any of the above. But Kobe is doubled regularly early in the game and is doubled by every team on every important posession late in games. Early in the playoffs last year, when Shaq was barely able to run, Kobe took over at the end of every game with teams sending two and three players at him. Doug Collins has said he is the best perimeter player in the game, the third best player in the game behind Shaq, and that if he and Iverson switched teams Philly would be a better team and Kobe would lead the league in scoring every year. I think a case can be made that TMac is as good as Kobe. He does everything on the court and is a clutch player, he just plays on a bad team. If McGrady played the system as well as Kobe (Big If) the Lakers would be just as good with TMac. There is no comparison between Kobe and Iverson/Carter. Carter is a talented highlight reel that disappears at the end of games, doesn't want the big shot and, in my opinion much like Chris Webber, is a second option player - not your leader. As I went through in my last post, the Lakers outside of Shaq and Kobe are limited role players that require the two main cogs to be successful. They are not built to work with one of them. They are better without Kobe and without Shaq because they are built around Shaq and are not big enough to compete without him, regardless of what Kobe does. If you took out Shaq and replaced him with Pippen and Grant quality players, this Kobe-centric team would be one of the best in the league.

In this case you don't know what you are talking about. Kobe does not play the same role as Jordan did in the triangle. Jordan played the wing position that is played by Rick Fox on the current Lakers. Kobe is asked to assume the Pippen role of initiating the offense with Shaq as the first option (In fact Phil Jackson has said that he has given responsibilty to Kobe that he never gave to Michael). Everything works on an initial attempt to get the ball to Shaq, either at the high or low post depending on the initial action. Kobe is an option off that action. The Bulls used Jordan as the initial option on the Triangle side of the floor. Kobe sometimes plays the Jordan role when Brian Shaw is in the game because he can initiate the offense. Just because the two teams run the same offense does not mean that they are trying to get the same action as a primary option. The Lakers want to get the ball to Shaq in the post, the Bulls wanted Jordan operating in space on the wing. The Lakers are not trying to get Fox operating in space and the bulls were not trying to get Longley in the post as initial options even though they play the same position as Shaq and Jordan. There is no doubt that the Lakers are built on the offensive end around skills that will keep teams from triple teaming Shaq and on the defensive end around big interchangable players that eliminate other teams ability to create matchup problems through screens. Phil has also said that both the Bulls and Lakers do things that the other one could not stop and he couldn't give a tremendous advantage to one over the other. Although he did say that Shaq is the single greatest matchup problem in the game, even beyond Michael. If he can't definitively say which was the better team, how can you. I don't think you can say who would win a game between the two teams. I do think the Bulls have far greater achievements than the Lakers. Until the Lakers win 6 titles and post 60 plus over most of a decade you have to consider the Bulls as a better team.

The knock on Kobe is always that the Lakers are a .500 team without Shaq. This is true, however its misleading to use this stat to evaluate Kobe's ability to carry a team. The Lakers are a team built around Shaq. They are very small up front without him. Other than Kobe and Shaq nobody on the team can create his own shot. They are spot up shooters. If you take Shaq off this team they can't match up defensively with any big team, even a poor one and they don't have enough scorers. As I've said before, you win in the NBA by playing defense and having each player understand and execute on their role. Without Shaq, the roles that Horry, Fox, Fisher, etc. play are not enough to beat playoff NBA teams regularly, even if Kobe goes for 35,8, & 8. When Shaq retires you will see the Lakers build a different team around Kobe. They will add more athletisism, a big defensive minded Center, and at least one more guy who can initiate the offense. I would expect them to run more than they do now. Given a reasonable level of talent and a redesign of the supporting cast, I have no doubt that Kobe could lead a top NBA team.

Who cares about the media accounts. Most of those bobble heads have no idea about the importance of team chemistry and systems that create and exploit matchups. There is a big difference between trying to assess the most talented team and the best basketball team. The Del Harris Lakers in 1996 were a much more talented team than the current Lakers. They weren't even close as a basketball team. Sacremento is more talented and deeper than the Lakers. The Lakers are a better basketball team. Which Bulls team are you asking about? The earlier teams were much more athletic and had more talent. The later teams won a lot like the current Lakers, by applying the defensive clamps late in the game. I have no idea whether this Laker team could beat the Bulls teams. Both teams are similarly constructed, A lot of 6'7 plus guys that are interchangable defensively. The bulls had nobody to guard Shaq and clearly nobody can stop Jordan. It would be a low scoring game decided by defensive stops late. I expect this season to be a lot like the last. The Kings will win the Pacific division, in part because Shaq will probably miss the first month of the season, and the championship will be decided by the Kings/Lakers playoff series. If the Lakers are healthy, I like their chances.

It's absolutely ridiculous to call the 3 time defending NBA champions overrated. You may be unhappy that a team you thought was deeper and more talented could not beat the Lakers, but that is a reflection on your judgement, not the Lakers. To be overrated you have to underachieve on expectations; the Lakers did not. It's a valid argument that Sacremento played the series without a healthy Peja (although Fox completely shut him down the year before). But you can't discount that Shaq played with an injury that made him less than 70% on offense (he could not even dunk the basketball jumping off his injured foot; look at his attempted putback on the shot before Horry's game winning 3. Healthy Shaq explodes through Vlade to dunk that) and much less than that on defense. Also to say that Kobe was only affected in one game is flat out wrong. He took IV fluids in the first 3 games of the series and didn't have his usual on the ball defensive quickness until game 4. You could also make the argument that Mike Bibby had the series of his life, in part because of no Peja. As for the argument that the Lakers are older and the Kings are better: The Kings may be better: If Bibby continues to play anywhere close to playoff form, Webber stays out of jail, and Vlade has another year left. The Lakers will be better if the playoffs start with a healthy Shaq and Kobe. As for the rest of the team, they have young talent in George, Medvedenko, and Rush that needs to develop. If that happens they will be dramatically better. The critical thing to understand is that you can only play 5 guys at a time and the NBA is about matchups. The Lakers win because they have two guys who can get a good shot anytime they want it and they are one of the best fourth quarter defensive teams in the history of the league. Adding Keon Clark certainly doesn't change either one of those things.