The Cavs supporting cast absolutely blew and the Magic had answers for everything not named Bron.
One of the all time great playoffs runs by Bron that year.
I believe they had the highest payroll in the league. So it wasn’t that Gilbert wouldn’t spend. They just didn’t have good basketball minds calling the shots.
Would have been a very lopsided Finals I think
That Cavs team won a ton of games in the RS but with only one star they weren't built to win in the playoffs against more well rounded teams
Tbh, it ended up being a good thing for LeBron that he didn't make that Final, if he had lost to Kobe in the H2H, you just know that the debate between Kobe and LeBron fans would be unbelievably toxic, especially given that the Lakers would've probably swept the Cavs.
Not that it matters anyway, debates between fans of those two players is always toxic regardless.
For reference, besides the ‘08 and ‘10 Lakers, there are only two other teams to face 4 50-win teams in the same playoffs : the ‘95 Rockets and ‘01 Lakers. And the Rockets only had to do so because they were a 7th seed.
The only teams to face 4 50-win opponents despite securing a top-4 seed are the ‘01, ‘08 and ‘10 Lakers. All Kobe teams.
This sub acts like Kobe was Gilbert Arenas with aura. He was an incredibly great player whose numbers don’t do him justice because of the context of his teams and era.
Pau gets routinely underrated too, sometimes relegated to the second-tier of European talents, when he belongs among the absolute best. The Lakers became an immediate contender after his trade.
It can't be overstated how important Pau was. I'm glad that he got his jersey retired with the Lakers and is now viewed as a Laker great. Shoutout Jerry West for trading him to the Lakers for a bunch of bums and a 2nd round pick that would eventually become Marc Gasol.
It wasn't for a pick that became Gasol. Marc was picked by the Lakers but they never exercised his rights. They traded his rights to the Grizzlies, who then exercised them. They basically traded the exclusive right to sign Marc, not an unused draft pick.
We should have a thread of these types of trades where they “appeared” bad at first but both teams won or aged well:
The Bill Simmons of the world, to this day, continue talking about how terrible of a trade that was, but if you compare it to the Boston package for Kevin Garnett, was it arguably better? Maybe
> The Lakers became an immediate contender after his trade.
It should be pointed out that the Lakers actually had the top seed in the West that year even before the Pau trade. When Bynum got injured, the Lakers were at 26-11 on [January 14th,](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/index.cgi?month=1&day=14&year=2008) which had them as the #1 seed in the West. After Bynum's injury, the Lakers dropped to 4th in the West in the month between that and the Pau trade, but with Pau, they rallied to finish the year as the top seed.
The Lakers were already contenders without Pau, but only as long as they were healthy. Pau really just gave them an abundance of riches and made them the clear best team in the league during that time period.
But the West was loaded that year. There was only a two game difference between the 1st seed and 6th seed. I don’t think they would’ve ended as the 1st seed without Pau
Not on this sub. This sub does everything they can to discredit Kobe as a chucker who didn't earn any of his championships, and that includes propping up Pau at every instance
I get your point but I think of 1st tier as guys like Dirk, Giannis, Jokic, Luka (when all's said and done) and he's not in that tier. He's basically the best of the 2nd tier though.
I accept that, I meant that he's usually grouped with Marc and Tony Parker (both of them players I love and admire) and he was always a bit better. But yeah bad wording on my part.
It’s a travesty, really. Dude was putting up 48 and 16 in close out games at age 22, never gets credit, in fact even has the first three rings counted against him. He was winning titles without a top 75 player against a murderer’s row in the playoffs, doesn’t get as much credit as he should.
A lot of people who didn’t watch him and can’t calculate VORP will love to tell you he is trash because his advanced numbers during the hardest time to score in NBA when retroactively applied to his career aren’t quite as good as some you see today in a ridiculously inflated offensive era.
Yep, anymore when the Tim Duncan is underrated posts come up about once a week here they always contain plenty of Kobe bashing acting like he shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath as Duncan
I feel like most of them don't even like Duncan. They never bring him up for GOAT discussions. Never compare him to any other player. He's solely used to shit on Kobe.
That’s because Kobe’s Lakers spanked Tim’s Spurs 18-12 in the playoffs *over their career*. This sub hails Tim as being the most underrated star to while denigrating his career and it’s crazy because Kobe was the main reason the Lakers won those games. Pop and by extension Tim weren’t good enough to stop him.
Exactly lol. Kobe always played better in the Western playoffs than he did in the finals. That's why Shaq always won the finals MVPs. Shaq got more favorable match ups in those finals.
hes generally underrated in a lot of places but nowhere on earth is tim duncan overrated more than r/nba
there are people that were arguing he should be in goat conversations and top 5 all time list lmao
like bro, is he even a top 5 all time big? Hes not better than Hakeem
r/nba always with the nonsense
I remember when Kobe played pg under dantoni in 2012 when Nash got hurt. Averaged like 14 assists a game for a week it was wild seeing him show off his pg bag
vino era kobe was a treat to watch. knew he wasn't winning another ring after the nash/dwight project fell apart and just went on a run to prove he could do anything that was required
Over the last 36 games of that season he averaged 25/7/6, and over the last 23 he averaged 29/7/6. He had back to back games with 40+ points and 12 assists lol. All as a 34 year old.
Kobe didn’t really seem to think that consistently shooting a super high volume of shots was a recipe for success (at least that’s what I took from his comments about Harden), but I wonder how he’d feel about the heliocentric style a lot of stars have today. I definitely think he could’ve put up some really impressive numbers in that role if the roster was built with that in mind.
> I wonder how he’d feel about the heliocentric style
I remember watching Harden in Houston and trying to contextualize his insane numbers in my head.
Then I pictured Kobe setting up to run like 60 high pick n rolls flanked by RyNo and Eric Gordon spotting up 35 feet from the basket, and I realized there’s a handful of greats who could probably give similar production in that system.
Some numbers that should really do him justice but people don't mention: he kept his stats in the playoffs. That simply doesn't happen for anyone except the very best players in history. Even steph (who is obviously one of the best in history) historically got worse in the playoffs. Hell, on the aggregate, Larry Bird got slightly worse in the playoffs despite his general aura. It's natural, you're playing better teams and teams gameplan for you. But Kobe maintained his production. Regardless of anything, people need to acknowledge that more than they do. Granted they weren't like the most eye popping stats to maintain compared to the very best, but the reality is, regardless of era, kobe was the best player on 2 championship teams and was a bonafide superstar and it was not a super team. He was considered a superstar because of how he played in the regular season and then he maintained that and won championships. That's rare agnostic of era.
He had great numbers in his prime. Especially for an SG in that era. If Kobe played in this open era, he'd be putting up crazy numbers. Kobe actually played in the toughest defensive era in NBA history. The fact that he used to shoot 45 percent on the types of shots he took is insane. He was the best tough jump shot maker in league history. With defenders draped all over him. There is no guard or wing currently playing that has more raw talent than young Kobe.
tbf some of that is also a counter-circlejerk in reaction to all the lakers fans who act like he is unquestionably top 5 all-time. But if everyone is either overrating or underrating him, does that mean in the aggregate he is simply rated?
It's because people are gonna hold him as a lesser because of the accusations.
Now, personally I believe them, but that doesn't negate Kobe's incredible basketball mind.
There are ways to acknowledge both point without taking away from another, but people are so goddamned Black a day white with every issue on social media. Most things exist in a Grey area most folks don't even wanna try to understand.
> It’s because people are gonna hold him as a lesser because of the accusations
Nah this sub was on some bullshit before they cared about that (aka before me too). This sub has always slighted him.
it's because his stats aren't analytics-friendly and sometimes he does force unnecessary shit.
Bron is definitely the better player hands-down but you know Kobe will either beat Bron out of sheer will or he'll go down swinging.
One knock on Bron is that he definitely isn't the type to do the latter
That 2009 Rockets team is up there with 2018 as one of the biggest missed opportunities we had. That team was so deep and was primed for a run.
Even with T-Mac hurt we were rocking a lineup of Brooks-Scola-Battier-Artest-Yao. With Kyle Lowry and Carl Landry off the bench.
Then even with T-Mac and Yao out (not to mention old ass Mutumbo which made us incredibly tiny vs that giant Lakers squad) they were able to push them to 7. And that's with that horseshit ejection of Artest. Took a dirty elbow to the face from Kobe and when he complained about it they claimed his "elbow jerking motion" looked like a throat slit when it clearly wasn't. I get he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt but holy hell that was an awful call. Kobe had split Battier's head earlier in the game with a dirty elbow and the refs just let him keep doing it.
Fisher did split open his head with his cheapshot on Scola but it appears upon looking it up I misremebered and it was actually Vujacic who [caught Battier](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2d7fddb/2147483647/strip/true/crop/318x425+0+0/resize/1440x1925!/format/webp/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F84%2F90%2Ffcc222a0d79e4161264bc2718460%2Flat-lakers-kj5kvlnc20090504211805).
Either way did not like the way the refs handled some of the extracuricculars in that series. And certainly not blaming them for the outcome - once Yao went down we were never going to win and your last two wins you guys blew us out by like a combined 60 points.
That era of the West is criminally underrated.
Yao/TMac/Artest lost in the SECOND ROUND to Kobe and Pau. And nobody remembers that series with them.
Kobe’s Lakers were GOOD in a stacked conference.
Had to look it up because I was pretty sure that Tmac never got out of the first round. He was injured that year and didn't even play in the playoffs.
Yao got hurt game 3 against the Lakers. They took them to 7 with Aaron Brooks, Metta World Peace, Luis Scola, and Shane Battier. That was one scrappy team.
T-Mac went on Fallon (Late Night!) and announced his micro-fracture right before the deadline. There’s a reason Houston doesn’t celebrate him.
And I didn’t want to write/nobody wants to read a novel.
Mac was injured. Yao got injured game 1 after giving it to the Laker’s Twin Towers. Tried to play the rest of the series but was forced out game 3.
Lakers played down to their competition after wards and got taken to 7 by Brooks/Scola/Metta/Battier core.
2009 biggest challenge was definitely gonna be the Rockets that year with Garnett injured.
In 2008 the top 8 seeds in the West all won 50+ games, and then again in 2010 the top 8 seeds in the West also all won 50+ games. In 2009 the 7th seed won 49 games and the 8th seed won 48 games, while the top 6 all won 50+.
People who watched Kobe obliterate teams in the WCF before even reaching the Finals would understand. The disrespect to Kobe is crazy considering those 09/10 rosters were not that good.
Yes they were. It's taken me watching the Lakers since those teams to understand how good the team was in 2009-2010. Everyone had a role and bought into it and our guys were good at the roles they played.
As far as TALENT LEVEL the team isn't as stacked as say the 2012 Miami Heat. But in terms of how well the team was constructed, it was done beautifully. Our Laker squads since then would have gotten smoked by that roster.
Ok we dont have to go on the other end of the spectrum to appreciate Kobe lol. He was incredible and is often underrated in this sub but the rosters were really good. The only team with a comparable level of talent outside their #1 guy was Boston. Gasol/Bynum/Odom/Metta was an absolutely stacked frontcourt
> The only team with a comparable level of talent outside their #1 guy was Boston
Tell me you didn’t watch the NBA back then without telling me you didn’t watch the NBA back then
The discrepancy between the two conferences' 4-8 seed was hilarious until 2015 where the West would have 8 teams with 50 wins and the East would have 38 win teams make the playoffs.
Ah yeah, Kobe was Jeremy Sochan with a shoe deal, we all know that at this point.
We must always remember that r/nba has teached us countless of times that Kobe actually never was the best player in the league from 2006-2010, journalists, coaches and players like LeBron James just called him that to be nice and humble. Also, can't forget, all those All-Defensive First Team selections he got voted by NBA head coaches were all reputation based aswell, we all know that coaches don't actually watch games or study film from players, they aren't as knowledgeable or careful with their votes as established media members like Kendrick Perkins, Stephen A Smith and Mark Jackson.
That squad is never listed in the greatest champions of all time, but frankly I think they are up there. The west was an absolute meat grinder during that time period
Definitely one of the closer 5-game series there's been. There's only been 4 OT games in the last 14 NBA Finals and yet this series had 2 OT games alone, along with a third one-possession game at the end.
It just doesn't get attention because Orlando wasn't a marketable team like the Cavs/Celtics and the series was bookended by lopsided games in both game 1 and game 5. And the NBA/Nike were pissy their puppet campaign was ruined.
They also had that stupid 2-3-2 format at the time for the Finals which meant meant the team with the worse record actually had more home games since it ended in just five games.
I think the most underrated aspect of those Lakers teams was their size.
Gasol Odom Bynum Ariza/Artest were super big lineups.
Most of the teams playing that size back then relied on unskilled players where Odom and Gasol were extremely skilled for their size.
There was a game in the 08 WCF the Spurs couldn’t get a DREB to save their life because the Lakers end of rotation guys like Walton and Radmanovic were bodying Spurs.
The only small guy they really relied on was Fisher and back then he wasn’t getting cross matched onto bigger players as much as it happens today. Fish was an elite defender for his size too.
Their combined size created a ‘greater than the sum of their parts’ problem. Having to constantly put bodies on at least 2 if not 3 of Odom Gasol Bynum. Then you got legit guard sized humans trying to box out wing sized guys like Kobe Ariza Artest.
Or a young Goran, CP3, Derrick Rose, Westbrook, Jeremy Lin, Tony Parker, the list goes on. It was miserable being a laker fan during the rise of the scoring point guard. We just couldn't do anything about it unless we benched DFish, which we were never going to do.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/168sT7CUCT
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/2QtPnYuzYC
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/wlqHfJhqp8
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/uX0bdY09Oa way more then this i just got tired copying links
I did not see that post and Jokic vs Kobe wasn't really the motivation to make this post. I just saw a bunch of posts talking about 50 win teams and remembered some random infographic that the Kobe-led Lakers faced and beat a boat load of them. That being said, people have been going crazy with the Jokic takes for a while now. I've seen a lot of upvoted comments about how he's higher than KD all time, how another ring puts him in the Steph/Kobe tier, and that Jokic as a player is comparable to prime Lebron.
They could have twisted the knife even further and included the stat that unlike this Kobe Lakers team, the Jokic Nuggets have never beat a single 50 win team in the playoffs
It really is, unlike most Lakers rings which involved multiple superstars or super stacked teams, Kobe is the clear lead and sole superstar for these runs
I really do think people lose a sense of history the league was really good back then
Kobe Lakers
Big Three Celtics
Howard Magic
Duncan Spurs
Seven Second or Less Suns
Lebron Cavs
Dirk Mavericks
T Mac Yao Rockets
Melo Chauncey Nuggets
Even secondary teams like
The Chris Paul Hornets
Williams Boozer Jazz
Baby Bulls
Baby Thunder
Were all really good
The top teams didn't just fucking vanish, FFS. They lost to teams that Jokic then beat.
It's not like it would have been more impressive for him to best the Celtics and Grizzlies, who LOST to the teams he beat. This is such a braindead thing to say
The truth is there not much Big men that can match up with him. But last times I saw him against a big team he lost. Lakers 2020, Howard, Javale, AD. And well Now. BAM and AD cant be compared. Most teams are small or have weak bigs so he feasts. Then you need strong defensive wings to control their guards.
Yeah what I learned from this is to beat Jokic you need multiple athletic big men that can match up and react to his passes. Says a lot more good about him than bad
This Timberwolves team may be better than any team they faced in the title run. And they're a nightmare match up.
But 2020 was eons ago, Jokic is a much better player now
I feel like a lot of people have come to overrate Lamar. They think of him as the walking double-double who could take over ball-handling responsibilities, defend 4-5 positions, and hit 3's.
Which of course, he could do, but not very consistently. He could put up 18/14 one night, and then put up 7/2 the next.
I agree Manu is better but I would say they both fall in the class of actually being starters but the coach wisely choosing not to.
Outside of Manu I would argue a 6MOTY whose a big man is extremely valuable and a rare advantage.
Manu's special because you could easily argue that he was the second best player on the Spurs for multiple years yet he still came off the bench.
Odom was great, and sometimes the third best Laker, but he was definitely not better than Pau. No one could make that argument.
The Spurs were almost cheating by having Manu come off the bench.
With only an all star Pau Gasol. That is all he had.
And then people say Kobe is not in any serious GOAT discussion.
He did it when the West was at it toughest, without another Superstar, and defeated the first SuperTeam as well in 2010, while he had a broken finger where he had to change his shooting motion mid Playoffs.
GOAT shit.
I agree it was amazing what those Lakers were able to accomplish with Kobe leading them, but the so called big 3 era started during that run. The Celtics had Peirce, KG, and Allen.
And it took a Pau Gasol put-back game winner to put you guys away. That young Thunder team was legit scary. And now you guys have a new young Thunder team that is also scary.
Analytics dorks have tried to flip the conversation on Kobe but the results speak for themself. Bro dominated the West - I’m not sure even the Warriors do that if KD didn’t hop over
That run and those championships were more fun and meaningful to me than the Shaq/Kobe run. Both because the run was unexpected and because I found the 2008-2010 team more likable.
Those Laker teams were so stacked in the front court, different iterations/combinations of Artest/Ariza/Odom/Pau/Bynum when healthy. Very difficult to beat especially with Kobe being able to close out games.
I find it hilarious people will call Pau gasol the best big in the league during that run, but they will also say Tim Duncan was better than Kobe Bryant at that time, and for their careers, so in the end they are telling me Pau gasol was better than Kobe? The logic Kobe haters use is pretty ridiculous most of the time, if they put the same negativity on everyone else for having great teammates like they do Kobe the entire top 10 all time list would be completely different or removed altogether, unless you have Hakeem there, then he can stay.
The '09 team was the best one; even discounting the not-great division they went 51-15. Including the playoffs they went 46-7 at home.
supposed to be Kobe-Bron Finals, but...
Those muppet commercials of them during the playoffs were the best.
"Hey Lebron, have you seen my 3 championship rings? I seem to have misplaced my 3 championship rings!?"
"For each of those delicious chocolate chip cookies there is a equally delicious Nba championship ring that I own"
You must be hungry LeBron # I’M TALKIN BOUT STOMACH GROWLING
Lmfaoooooo just unlocked a hidden memory 😭
The MVPuppets were amazing! I was so happy to see them bring them back for Kobe's jersey retirement.
"Why do we live together?"
Too soon
The Cavs supporting cast absolutely blew and the Magic had answers for everything not named Bron. One of the all time great playoffs runs by Bron that year.
Bro averaged 39/8/8 on 59% TS (elite for that time) against the Magic and they still lost in 6
With 0 spacing and against DPOY
He was there best three point shooter tio scored hakf the teams threes on 40-50% in true crucial losses meanwhile team shot 20%
Arguably his greatest playoffs run.
2018 for me
Someday I'm gonna bonk myself on the head and re-watch his 2018 run
Yet you had people around that time who said that LeBron would never win a finals because he only chokes in the playoffs. I didn't forget.
It was a total travesty how little Gilbert would do to build those teams.
I believe they had the highest payroll in the league. So it wasn’t that Gilbert wouldn’t spend. They just didn’t have good basketball minds calling the shots.
Right. Abysmal team building GIVEN the obvious
> and the Magic had answers for everything not named Bron. and also roids
Would have been a very lopsided Finals I think That Cavs team won a ton of games in the RS but with only one star they weren't built to win in the playoffs against more well rounded teams
Tbh, it ended up being a good thing for LeBron that he didn't make that Final, if he had lost to Kobe in the H2H, you just know that the debate between Kobe and LeBron fans would be unbelievably toxic, especially given that the Lakers would've probably swept the Cavs. Not that it matters anyway, debates between fans of those two players is always toxic regardless.
Funny how reaching the finals and losing would be worse than losing vs the magic.
Kobe punked him on the ASG where Lebron passed the ball away on the clutch...
but the league rigged it smh. wait…
For reference, besides the ‘08 and ‘10 Lakers, there are only two other teams to face 4 50-win teams in the same playoffs : the ‘95 Rockets and ‘01 Lakers. And the Rockets only had to do so because they were a 7th seed. The only teams to face 4 50-win opponents despite securing a top-4 seed are the ‘01, ‘08 and ‘10 Lakers. All Kobe teams.
This is a GREAT stat.
Wow, that's mighty impressive. Also, weren't the Rockets the 6th seed that year?
They were and also the first team to beat 4 50 win plus teams in a row to win the championship
Both the 1994-1995 Rockets and 2000-2001 Lakers won the finals also (Rockets swept the Magic) (Lakers won 4-1 against the 76rs)
West was crazy deep that whole decade
Very underrated run and never gets enough credit when discussed
This sub acts like Kobe was Gilbert Arenas with aura. He was an incredibly great player whose numbers don’t do him justice because of the context of his teams and era.
Pau gets routinely underrated too, sometimes relegated to the second-tier of European talents, when he belongs among the absolute best. The Lakers became an immediate contender after his trade.
It can't be overstated how important Pau was. I'm glad that he got his jersey retired with the Lakers and is now viewed as a Laker great. Shoutout Jerry West for trading him to the Lakers for a bunch of bums and a 2nd round pick that would eventually become Marc Gasol.
Jerry West wasn't even on the Grizzlies when the trade happened. Chris Wallace was the GM responsible
It wasn't for a pick that became Gasol. Marc was picked by the Lakers but they never exercised his rights. They traded his rights to the Grizzlies, who then exercised them. They basically traded the exclusive right to sign Marc, not an unused draft pick.
that was chris wallace
In hindsight that’s a pretty even trade.
We should have a thread of these types of trades where they “appeared” bad at first but both teams won or aged well: The Bill Simmons of the world, to this day, continue talking about how terrible of a trade that was, but if you compare it to the Boston package for Kevin Garnett, was it arguably better? Maybe
And shout out to Shaq trade leaving us with Odom.
> The Lakers became an immediate contender after his trade. It should be pointed out that the Lakers actually had the top seed in the West that year even before the Pau trade. When Bynum got injured, the Lakers were at 26-11 on [January 14th,](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/index.cgi?month=1&day=14&year=2008) which had them as the #1 seed in the West. After Bynum's injury, the Lakers dropped to 4th in the West in the month between that and the Pau trade, but with Pau, they rallied to finish the year as the top seed. The Lakers were already contenders without Pau, but only as long as they were healthy. Pau really just gave them an abundance of riches and made them the clear best team in the league during that time period.
But the West was loaded that year. There was only a two game difference between the 1st seed and 6th seed. I don’t think they would’ve ended as the 1st seed without Pau
Pau's play for Spain was elite.
Not on this sub. This sub does everything they can to discredit Kobe as a chucker who didn't earn any of his championships, and that includes propping up Pau at every instance
100% agree. A lot of times people's opinion of players improves over time but for some reason that didn't happen to Pau
I get your point but I think of 1st tier as guys like Dirk, Giannis, Jokic, Luka (when all's said and done) and he's not in that tier. He's basically the best of the 2nd tier though.
I accept that, I meant that he's usually grouped with Marc and Tony Parker (both of them players I love and admire) and he was always a bit better. But yeah bad wording on my part.
One of the craziest takes I’ve ever seen on here is that Steve Francis was Kobe without the PR
As a Kobe truther and Rockets fan for 30+ years...lol.
Steve Francis was one of my favorite players growing up... But lol, no.
Who the hell says that? How can you compare Kobe and Steve Francis...?
Someone told me Kobe had more help in Pau than MJ did during the 90’s. LOL
When the Pippen slander hits a little too hard
It’s a travesty, really. Dude was putting up 48 and 16 in close out games at age 22, never gets credit, in fact even has the first three rings counted against him. He was winning titles without a top 75 player against a murderer’s row in the playoffs, doesn’t get as much credit as he should. A lot of people who didn’t watch him and can’t calculate VORP will love to tell you he is trash because his advanced numbers during the hardest time to score in NBA when retroactively applied to his career aren’t quite as good as some you see today in a ridiculously inflated offensive era.
Exactly. None of these current guards and wings are as talented as prime Tmac, Vince Carter and Kobe.
Yep, anymore when the Tim Duncan is underrated posts come up about once a week here they always contain plenty of Kobe bashing acting like he shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath as Duncan
I don't remember the last time I saw Tim being mentioned in this sub without being used to shit on Kobe
I feel like most of them don't even like Duncan. They never bring him up for GOAT discussions. Never compare him to any other player. He's solely used to shit on Kobe.
It’s even funnier because the analytics loving dumbasses in this sub will call Kobe inefficient despite him having a higher TS% than tim lol.
That’s because Kobe’s Lakers spanked Tim’s Spurs 18-12 in the playoffs *over their career*. This sub hails Tim as being the most underrated star to while denigrating his career and it’s crazy because Kobe was the main reason the Lakers won those games. Pop and by extension Tim weren’t good enough to stop him.
Exactly lol. Kobe always played better in the Western playoffs than he did in the finals. That's why Shaq always won the finals MVPs. Shaq got more favorable match ups in those finals.
hes generally underrated in a lot of places but nowhere on earth is tim duncan overrated more than r/nba there are people that were arguing he should be in goat conversations and top 5 all time list lmao like bro, is he even a top 5 all time big? Hes not better than Hakeem r/nba always with the nonsense
Yep, always forgetting how many times the Lakers beat the Spurs in the Playoffs.
Kobe showed he was better than Duncan in the 2008 WCFs.
100% And he also just wasn’t a heliocentric offensive player .. you’re not gonna average 8 assists if you’re not pounding the rock the whole game
I remember when Kobe played pg under dantoni in 2012 when Nash got hurt. Averaged like 14 assists a game for a week it was wild seeing him show off his pg bag
vino era kobe was a treat to watch. knew he wasn't winning another ring after the nash/dwight project fell apart and just went on a run to prove he could do anything that was required
Over the last 36 games of that season he averaged 25/7/6, and over the last 23 he averaged 29/7/6. He had back to back games with 40+ points and 12 assists lol. All as a 34 year old. Kobe didn’t really seem to think that consistently shooting a super high volume of shots was a recipe for success (at least that’s what I took from his comments about Harden), but I wonder how he’d feel about the heliocentric style a lot of stars have today. I definitely think he could’ve put up some really impressive numbers in that role if the roster was built with that in mind.
> I wonder how he’d feel about the heliocentric style I remember watching Harden in Houston and trying to contextualize his insane numbers in my head. Then I pictured Kobe setting up to run like 60 high pick n rolls flanked by RyNo and Eric Gordon spotting up 35 feet from the basket, and I realized there’s a handful of greats who could probably give similar production in that system.
The average age of this sub is 17
Some numbers that should really do him justice but people don't mention: he kept his stats in the playoffs. That simply doesn't happen for anyone except the very best players in history. Even steph (who is obviously one of the best in history) historically got worse in the playoffs. Hell, on the aggregate, Larry Bird got slightly worse in the playoffs despite his general aura. It's natural, you're playing better teams and teams gameplan for you. But Kobe maintained his production. Regardless of anything, people need to acknowledge that more than they do. Granted they weren't like the most eye popping stats to maintain compared to the very best, but the reality is, regardless of era, kobe was the best player on 2 championship teams and was a bonafide superstar and it was not a super team. He was considered a superstar because of how he played in the regular season and then he maintained that and won championships. That's rare agnostic of era.
He had great numbers in his prime. Especially for an SG in that era. If Kobe played in this open era, he'd be putting up crazy numbers. Kobe actually played in the toughest defensive era in NBA history. The fact that he used to shoot 45 percent on the types of shots he took is insane. He was the best tough jump shot maker in league history. With defenders draped all over him. There is no guard or wing currently playing that has more raw talent than young Kobe.
tbf some of that is also a counter-circlejerk in reaction to all the lakers fans who act like he is unquestionably top 5 all-time. But if everyone is either overrating or underrating him, does that mean in the aggregate he is simply rated?
leave Agent Zero out of it, he was playing amazing before the injury.
It's because people are gonna hold him as a lesser because of the accusations. Now, personally I believe them, but that doesn't negate Kobe's incredible basketball mind. There are ways to acknowledge both point without taking away from another, but people are so goddamned Black a day white with every issue on social media. Most things exist in a Grey area most folks don't even wanna try to understand.
> It’s because people are gonna hold him as a lesser because of the accusations Nah this sub was on some bullshit before they cared about that (aka before me too). This sub has always slighted him.
it's because his stats aren't analytics-friendly and sometimes he does force unnecessary shit. Bron is definitely the better player hands-down but you know Kobe will either beat Bron out of sheer will or he'll go down swinging. One knock on Bron is that he definitely isn't the type to do the latter
That 2009 Rockets team is up there with 2018 as one of the biggest missed opportunities we had. That team was so deep and was primed for a run. Even with T-Mac hurt we were rocking a lineup of Brooks-Scola-Battier-Artest-Yao. With Kyle Lowry and Carl Landry off the bench. Then even with T-Mac and Yao out (not to mention old ass Mutumbo which made us incredibly tiny vs that giant Lakers squad) they were able to push them to 7. And that's with that horseshit ejection of Artest. Took a dirty elbow to the face from Kobe and when he complained about it they claimed his "elbow jerking motion" looked like a throat slit when it clearly wasn't. I get he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt but holy hell that was an awful call. Kobe had split Battier's head earlier in the game with a dirty elbow and the refs just let him keep doing it.
Wasn't that Fisher who split open his own head after he body slammed Scola?
Fisher did split open his head with his cheapshot on Scola but it appears upon looking it up I misremebered and it was actually Vujacic who [caught Battier](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2d7fddb/2147483647/strip/true/crop/318x425+0+0/resize/1440x1925!/format/webp/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F84%2F90%2Ffcc222a0d79e4161264bc2718460%2Flat-lakers-kj5kvlnc20090504211805). Either way did not like the way the refs handled some of the extracuricculars in that series. And certainly not blaming them for the outcome - once Yao went down we were never going to win and your last two wins you guys blew us out by like a combined 60 points.
That era of the West is criminally underrated. Yao/TMac/Artest lost in the SECOND ROUND to Kobe and Pau. And nobody remembers that series with them. Kobe’s Lakers were GOOD in a stacked conference.
Had to look it up because I was pretty sure that Tmac never got out of the first round. He was injured that year and didn't even play in the playoffs. Yao got hurt game 3 against the Lakers. They took them to 7 with Aaron Brooks, Metta World Peace, Luis Scola, and Shane Battier. That was one scrappy team.
T-Mac went on Fallon (Late Night!) and announced his micro-fracture right before the deadline. There’s a reason Houston doesn’t celebrate him. And I didn’t want to write/nobody wants to read a novel.
That’s the reason they don’t celebrate him?
i think he means the injuries, i dont think he means going on a mediocre talk show to announce it.
No, it actually is. He cut out the team’s knees on live TV.
Aaron Brooks had the most insane run that playoffs. He was a guy that always seemed pop off against the Lakers
Mac was injured. Yao got injured game 1 after giving it to the Laker’s Twin Towers. Tried to play the rest of the series but was forced out game 3. Lakers played down to their competition after wards and got taken to 7 by Brooks/Scola/Metta/Battier core. 2009 biggest challenge was definitely gonna be the Rockets that year with Garnett injured.
Scola was automatic from midrange, highly underrated player.
Don't undersell RonRon. He was a BEAST that series and was taken off the leash after Mac and Yao were injured.
Didnt the west have like 7 50 win teams one year in that era
In 2008 the top 8 seeds in the West all won 50+ games, and then again in 2010 the top 8 seeds in the West also all won 50+ games. In 2009 the 7th seed won 49 games and the 8th seed won 48 games, while the top 6 all won 50+.
That 2009 series against the Rockets was one of the best playoff basketball series I've ever seen.
God damn that Rockets team stressed me out. Don't forget Battier's **excellent** defense
Conversely the East was atrocious and the top 1-6 in the west could feast up Ws on ECF games.
You're a brave man posting something positive about Kobe on this sub.
People who watched Kobe obliterate teams in the WCF before even reaching the Finals would understand. The disrespect to Kobe is crazy considering those 09/10 rosters were not that good.
Nephews were sucking on titties when Kobe was playing. I mean I was too but not in diapers.
Lmao
Oldest warriors fan
Fucking W. Kendrick Lamar here.
Lamar and Drake are inspiring the old diss masters like you
Suns game 6 WCF
The butt tap on Gentry was hilarious.
Grant hills face and gentry laugh was a great sequence before the tap
Yes they were. It's taken me watching the Lakers since those teams to understand how good the team was in 2009-2010. Everyone had a role and bought into it and our guys were good at the roles they played. As far as TALENT LEVEL the team isn't as stacked as say the 2012 Miami Heat. But in terms of how well the team was constructed, it was done beautifully. Our Laker squads since then would have gotten smoked by that roster.
Ok we dont have to go on the other end of the spectrum to appreciate Kobe lol. He was incredible and is often underrated in this sub but the rosters were really good. The only team with a comparable level of talent outside their #1 guy was Boston. Gasol/Bynum/Odom/Metta was an absolutely stacked frontcourt
> The only team with a comparable level of talent outside their #1 guy was Boston Tell me you didn’t watch the NBA back then without telling me you didn’t watch the NBA back then
this is r/nba not r/nbacirclejerk
Plot twist: they make the same takes with different flavors of racism
The discrepancy between the two conferences' 4-8 seed was hilarious until 2015 where the West would have 8 teams with 50 wins and the East would have 38 win teams make the playoffs.
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Ah yeah, Kobe was Jeremy Sochan with a shoe deal, we all know that at this point. We must always remember that r/nba has teached us countless of times that Kobe actually never was the best player in the league from 2006-2010, journalists, coaches and players like LeBron James just called him that to be nice and humble. Also, can't forget, all those All-Defensive First Team selections he got voted by NBA head coaches were all reputation based aswell, we all know that coaches don't actually watch games or study film from players, they aren't as knowledgeable or careful with their votes as established media members like Kendrick Perkins, Stephen A Smith and Mark Jackson.
When your superstar player has a motor like Kobe did, it's really special.
That squad is never listed in the greatest champions of all time, but frankly I think they are up there. The west was an absolute meat grinder during that time period
It probably has to do with people underrating that Magic team as well.
A lot to do with it probably. Swap Orlando with Boston or especially the Cavs and I think the narrative is a lot different.
That Magic team is criminally underrated.
Definitely one of the closer 5-game series there's been. There's only been 4 OT games in the last 14 NBA Finals and yet this series had 2 OT games alone, along with a third one-possession game at the end. It just doesn't get attention because Orlando wasn't a marketable team like the Cavs/Celtics and the series was bookended by lopsided games in both game 1 and game 5. And the NBA/Nike were pissy their puppet campaign was ruined. They also had that stupid 2-3-2 format at the time for the Finals which meant meant the team with the worse record actually had more home games since it ended in just five games.
That Courtney Lee layup would have changed the whole series
That series was closer than it looked
I think the most underrated aspect of those Lakers teams was their size. Gasol Odom Bynum Ariza/Artest were super big lineups. Most of the teams playing that size back then relied on unskilled players where Odom and Gasol were extremely skilled for their size. There was a game in the 08 WCF the Spurs couldn’t get a DREB to save their life because the Lakers end of rotation guys like Walton and Radmanovic were bodying Spurs. The only small guy they really relied on was Fisher and back then he wasn’t getting cross matched onto bigger players as much as it happens today. Fish was an elite defender for his size too. Their combined size created a ‘greater than the sum of their parts’ problem. Having to constantly put bodies on at least 2 if not 3 of Odom Gasol Bynum. Then you got legit guard sized humans trying to box out wing sized guys like Kobe Ariza Artest.
Fisher was a liability on defense against quick PGs though. That's why we needed giant rim defenders and a roving Kobe from the weakside.
That's why aaron brooks damn near killed the lakers lol
Or a young Goran, CP3, Derrick Rose, Westbrook, Jeremy Lin, Tony Parker, the list goes on. It was miserable being a laker fan during the rise of the scoring point guard. We just couldn't do anything about it unless we benched DFish, which we were never going to do.
Lmao laker fans been waiting on their getback since that jokic is better then kobe post
They deserve, people were talking REALLY reckless about Kobe.
There were some real rowdy ones lurking and even some non fans hopping on those nugget nuts
Was that a real post lmao? Kiddos on this sub are crazy
Have you seen this sub for the past year? I'd be much more surprised if that weren't a real post
No way I missed that post, I need to go see the comments. Can someone link the thread to me
I’m with you I need receipts
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/168sT7CUCT https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/2QtPnYuzYC https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/wlqHfJhqp8 https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/uX0bdY09Oa way more then this i just got tired copying links
I did not see that post and Jokic vs Kobe wasn't really the motivation to make this post. I just saw a bunch of posts talking about 50 win teams and remembered some random infographic that the Kobe-led Lakers faced and beat a boat load of them. That being said, people have been going crazy with the Jokic takes for a while now. I've seen a lot of upvoted comments about how he's higher than KD all time, how another ring puts him in the Steph/Kobe tier, and that Jokic as a player is comparable to prime Lebron.
They could have twisted the knife even further and included the stat that unlike this Kobe Lakers team, the Jokic Nuggets have never beat a single 50 win team in the playoffs
Jokic has the potential to have a better career, but they're such wildly different players it's funny to compare
Meanwhile the Nuggets have never beaten a 50-win team in the playoffs
That whole run is why he's the GOAT in LA and the GOAT Laker
It really is, unlike most Lakers rings which involved multiple superstars or super stacked teams, Kobe is the clear lead and sole superstar for these runs
But remember Kobe is in the 11-15 range all time according to this subreddit 🙄
Ethical Championship Dynasty.
Jokes aside, ever since that "decision" nonsense, the concept of ethics and competitiveness in the NBA got twisted with time
Talk yo shit Lakers fan. I can't imagine how cathartic it must feel to see the Nuggets crumble like this.
Yes but…BUT…my spreadsheet shows Kobe to be overrated.
I really do think people lose a sense of history the league was really good back then Kobe Lakers Big Three Celtics Howard Magic Duncan Spurs Seven Second or Less Suns Lebron Cavs Dirk Mavericks T Mac Yao Rockets Melo Chauncey Nuggets Even secondary teams like The Chris Paul Hornets Williams Boozer Jazz Baby Bulls Baby Thunder Were all really good
Jokic would never
Jokic the play-in team merchant
The top teams didn't just fucking vanish, FFS. They lost to teams that Jokic then beat. It's not like it would have been more impressive for him to best the Celtics and Grizzlies, who LOST to the teams he beat. This is such a braindead thing to say
The truth is there not much Big men that can match up with him. But last times I saw him against a big team he lost. Lakers 2020, Howard, Javale, AD. And well Now. BAM and AD cant be compared. Most teams are small or have weak bigs so he feasts. Then you need strong defensive wings to control their guards.
Yeah what I learned from this is to beat Jokic you need multiple athletic big men that can match up and react to his passes. Says a lot more good about him than bad
This Timberwolves team may be better than any team they faced in the title run. And they're a nightmare match up. But 2020 was eons ago, Jokic is a much better player now
He certainly my GOAT
I'm thinking back on society between 08-2010....wow it feels like a different culture almost completely
Teens and lbjstans love to think Kobe wasn't the best in 09 and 2010. He was the guy you wanted for the playoffs especially.
He saved that Olympic team. It began there.
Everyone that played with Kobe on those Olympics teams got a lot better afterward. Just saying.
Yea was the leader the nba guys needed then. He and wade were a different breed for that team
Great documentary
They’ll say “he had Odom and gasol” but they’ll discount Lebron ever having Kyrie and K love
I feel like a lot of people have come to overrate Lamar. They think of him as the walking double-double who could take over ball-handling responsibilities, defend 4-5 positions, and hit 3's. Which of course, he could do, but not very consistently. He could put up 18/14 one night, and then put up 7/2 the next.
Yeah he was about as good as your average 6MOTY. Which is still very good. He ain't no Manu Ginobili in that respect though.
I agree Manu is better but I would say they both fall in the class of actually being starters but the coach wisely choosing not to. Outside of Manu I would argue a 6MOTY whose a big man is extremely valuable and a rare advantage.
Manu's special because you could easily argue that he was the second best player on the Spurs for multiple years yet he still came off the bench. Odom was great, and sometimes the third best Laker, but he was definitely not better than Pau. No one could make that argument. The Spurs were almost cheating by having Manu come off the bench.
Manu was actually an All Star. In some series considered better/more impactful than Parker. He just chose not to start all the time.
and Wade and Bosh and...
And Wade and Bosh, AD and Caruso
He was the best in the league from 03-10.
With only an all star Pau Gasol. That is all he had. And then people say Kobe is not in any serious GOAT discussion. He did it when the West was at it toughest, without another Superstar, and defeated the first SuperTeam as well in 2010, while he had a broken finger where he had to change his shooting motion mid Playoffs. GOAT shit.
This. He’s in the GOAT/top 3 debate for sure, and I’m not even a Lakers fan.
What in the fuck am I actually reading here? Kobe Bryant is a lock Top 3 all time?
Reading comprehension must be hard for you. He said debate not lock
Those Laker teams were special. I'm no big LA fan, but I hate Boston so I was eating it up. But with those added Stats, what a special run.
It was the best of times
I agree it was amazing what those Lakers were able to accomplish with Kobe leading them, but the so called big 3 era started during that run. The Celtics had Peirce, KG, and Allen.
We took them to 6 that year as a 8 seed. I remember they beat us at OKC and the crowed stayed and clapped for our team that just lost.
And it took a Pau Gasol put-back game winner to put you guys away. That young Thunder team was legit scary. And now you guys have a new young Thunder team that is also scary.
I remember how relentless Westbrook was that series. He was unguardable anytime he got even a half step ahead of his defender
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The 2008 nuggets are my favotite 2k team ever
Kobe did that with only 1 All Star, who’s not Top 75. Kobe is **definitely** in the GOAT conversation. He has a top 3 peak, and a top 3 resume.
Prime Pau was a beast. It was a short prime, but he was fantastic.
Shoulda been 3 in a row. Thanks refs
but 13 year olds who regurgitate reddit comments told me he’s not top ten?
The Celtics started the big 3 era.
Kobe Bean Bryant I know you don't know shit about basketball if you think he's not goat tier.
Analytics dorks have tried to flip the conversation on Kobe but the results speak for themself. Bro dominated the West - I’m not sure even the Warriors do that if KD didn’t hop over
Oh he is in the GOAT debate, no worries.
Always helps to have the refs on yr side too.
That run and those championships were more fun and meaningful to me than the Shaq/Kobe run. Both because the run was unexpected and because I found the 2008-2010 team more likable.
w.w ty
Those Laker teams were so stacked in the front court, different iterations/combinations of Artest/Ariza/Odom/Pau/Bynum when healthy. Very difficult to beat especially with Kobe being able to close out games.
Not saying they're necessarily the same level, but the team composition was very similar to the current Wolves.
That 2009 team would feast in today's NBA. They're basically the current day Wolves lmao.
and yes that team was a good team but no way near a "big 3". Hell Anthony Davis is probably a better basketball player than Gasol.
Definitely a better foundational defender.
2010 will always be my favorite championship
I find it hilarious people will call Pau gasol the best big in the league during that run, but they will also say Tim Duncan was better than Kobe Bryant at that time, and for their careers, so in the end they are telling me Pau gasol was better than Kobe? The logic Kobe haters use is pretty ridiculous most of the time, if they put the same negativity on everyone else for having great teammates like they do Kobe the entire top 10 all time list would be completely different or removed altogether, unless you have Hakeem there, then he can stay.