NBA (whenever)...

[DarthFed]

Kobe > Lebron is an indefensible take.

I know we are on the same page here. I think a lot of people’s views on basketball more than any other sport is skewed on personal views and style of play. LeBron is the most hated athlete in America and reading the average person’s comments on the average thread about him are hilarious, and people actually say it enough that they seem to actually believe he sucks.

 

[DarthFed]

Oh I can defend it quite comfortably. It all depends on metrics you use or what you value in a player more. So , it is subjective I guess. because the only objective thing is the rings. But I am not picking Kobe over Bron because he won more rings. It is his mentality overall . Like I said Bron is a freak, deserves all the respect but I never quite gotten over the bad taste in my mouth when he "took his talents" to form a supergroup boy band in Miami in chase of a title. The players I respect the most , like Jordan, Magic, Bird, they wanted to BEAT their opponents, not join them for a ring.
Like I said, all subjective . If you want to look at stats, sure, Bron is God.

All the guys you mentioned except MJ were drafted onto a great team. And the Bulls started turning it around by MJ’s 5th year. LeBron was drafted to the worst team in the league and they did nothing to improve around him the 7 years he was there, as evidenced by the fact they went from 61 wins to a league-worst 19 the year he left. I don’t think anyone likes the fact LeBron teamed up with Wade and Bosh but it’s still worth mentioning that that team is still considerably worse than the teams Kobe, Magic and Bird were drafted to. That also was only 4 of his 23 years in the league. The Heat sucked after he left, then he went back to league worst Cleveland and did what he did and then they were again the worst team in the league after he left. Then he went to a crappy Lakers team that had missed the playoffs 6 or 7 years in a row and as a vampire he’s still been winning there. His path obviously looks different from other greats but you have to be blind not to see a common denominator here.

Kobe is often blessed with revisionist history since he passed away. He threatened to leave the Lakers multiple times when he had a bum team after he got Shaq traded. People don’t talk about that part enough…the guy got SHAQ traded because he was stealing his glory. This was after they had made the finals in 2004 and Kobe shat the bed. People will probably call that the Mamba mentality.

 

[DarthFed]

That's interesting. I mentioned I haven't followed the sport for 25 years but I did watch a few highlights of GSW in their halcyon days and thought Steph Curry was amazing. The annoyance comes from modern players ridiculing legends of the past. Lebron and Durant didn't do themselves any favours mocking Larry Bird. If you diminish Bird and the Celtics, then you diminish the Showtime Lakers, the Badboy Pistons who usurped them, the Bulls, and every subsequent championship team.

And that is why I don't think Lebron gets the Lakers.... Kobe did. Because if you trash Bird then by implication you trash the Showtime Lakers - Kareem, Magic, Cooper, Worthy et al.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard LeBron talk bad about Bird or Magic or really most greats. He is generally respectful of the greats before him. I googled it and the most they said is Stephen A Smith, who hates LeBron, reported that LeBron gave Bird a “side eye” at the 2025 All Star game.

As BS mentioned, the players of the previous generation often takes shots at the players today and naturally there is going to be a lot of push back. Currently there is one of MJ’s old teammates, Ron Harper, that has been saying crazy stuff about LeBron so no surprise that LeBron disrespected him back.

 

[DarthFed]

have we seen peak Jokic? The Wolves absolutely battered them in game 3. What's worse, I don't think Ant-Man has had any spectacular games yet.

PS, as much as I'm enjoying this series (and the Knicks-Hawks) I can't help feeling that this is all working out for OKC to just stroll to an easy defence of their title.

It’s clear the Wolves cause them a lot of problems. The loss to them 2 years ago was a shocker. You’d think it wouldn’t happen again but here we are…

 

[DarthFed]

and even when you look at stats you have to look at them without normalisation. Yes Lebron is at the top with number of points, but that's because he's been around for a million years. PPG is a better identifier of scoring proficiency. Same with assists, rebounds etc..

I honestly believe the rape accusation has had a lasting impact on Kobe's legacy. It's always amusing when some folks use Shaq to diminish Kobe, but don't talk about Kareem wrt Magic, or Magic wrt Kareem. Make it make sense!

LeBron destroys Kobe and Curry in per game stats, accolades, analytics, etc in both regular season and playoffs.

People rightfully point out that Kobe was second banana those first few titles. It is definitely relevant I’d say. And let’s not act like people don’t try to diminish LeBron with Wade and other sidekicks.

 

[Federberg]

That's interesting. I mentioned I haven't followed the sport for 25 years but I did watch a few highlights of GSW in their halcyon days and thought Steph Curry was amazing. The annoyance comes from modern players ridiculing legends of the past. Lebron and Durant didn't do themselves any favours mocking Larry Bird. If you diminish Bird and the Celtics, then you diminish the Showtime Lakers, the Badboy Pistons who usurped them, the Bulls, and every subsequent championship team.

And that is why I don't think Lebron gets the Lakers.... Kobe did. Because if you trash Bird then by implication you trash the Showtime Lakers - Kareem, Magic, Cooper, Worthy et al.

1000% The problem is that Lebron has boxed himself in now. He can't catch MJ. His only choice, the only choice of his minions, is to bring MJ down. They have to do that directly, diminishing MJ, and indirectly, diminishing the era that MJ played in. But you can't do that without bringing down the whole infrastructure upon which all the legacies are built. My personal favourite of the absurd things Lebron-stans try to say is that Lebron is a better scorer than Mike. How can anyone be a better scorer than a guy who won the scoring title two thirds of the time he was in the league?? Make it make sense!

 

[DarthFed]

I haven't followed Basketball for years - the last time I was into it was when Kobe/Shaq had to coalesce to see off the Sacramento Kings over a 2-3 year period around 25 years ago. When the Kings had the likes of Bibby, Divac and Chris Webber on the roster... and even that perio was after a major break from the Jordan years following the Piston years following the Celtic/Lakers rivalry (The Magic years as a Laker fan).

The strangest thing for me was the player greatness ranking. Kareem obviously had the history and was captain, but nobody in 1988 (for example) would put Kareem above Magic. Kareem has aged like a fine wine purely on stats. A few years ago some morons had elevated him above MJ... he wasn't above Magic 35 years ago, so how did some elevate him above MJ? Ridiculous. Jordan took the sport to a new level.

I don't like Lebron too much and haven't watched the Lakers while he has been there. At least Kobe recognised the heritage of the Lakers. Lebron and Durant's bullshit rants about Larry Bird did it for me. The NBA was built on the shoulders of predecessors... Bird and Magic were pioneers of the modern NBA, and these morons are the beneficiaries... with no gratitude.

I’m sure no one was saying Kareem was a better player than Magic in 1988 but all-time? If they were putting Magic ahead at that point it was clearly recency bias. Kareem’s body of work has him as a top 3 player ever in pretty much any list I’ve seen.

 

[Federberg]

LeBron destroys Kobe and Curry in per game stats, accolades, analytics, etc in both regular season and playoffs.

People rightfully point out that Kobe was second banana those first few titles. It is definitely relevant I’d say. And let’s not act like people don’t try to diminish LeBron with Wade and other sidekicks.

this will surprise you... the one thing I defend Lebron in is the number of finals he went to. For me to try to diminish that achievement is like claiming that Federer wasn't a good clay courter, just because he only won one French Open. The man went to 5 finals! Only Rafa, Novak and Borg went to more! Mind you.. I still maintain that the Eastern Conference was so much weaker than the West (look at who won All NBA in that period) that I won't die in a ditch to defend Lebron on this.

But, for me, the over reliance on stats is really problematic, particularly for a guy who clearly has often prioritised his stats over winning. Both Kobe and Steph were/are all about winning often to the detriment of their personal stats. I'll never forget the clip of Ty Lue going at LeBron in the 2016 finals, and LeBron's default defence was that his stats were good! That for me says it all.

As for Kobe, it's very interesting to me that people will use that against Kobe, but not a peep about the early years for Magic. That trope is used selectively in my opinion, and the fact that Kobe clearly took it to heart and tried to prove that he could do it without Shaq should neutralise that opinion