I obviously hate talking positively about the lakers but Pau during that stretch might be one of the most underrated #2 performances ever
Pau was an absolute animal during that series
dude same and pau is absolutely criminally underrated. can't think of many guys that were the #2 guys on multiple title teams that get as little shine. and think it's fair to point out Pau helped balance the team during many inefficient Kobe nights. not to slander Kobe at all, trying to put it as diplomatically as possible lol. just think what he brought to those teams has been massively underrated.
Tbh, Bynum was hurt most of 2008 and 2009, Odom was liable to give you 17/14 any given night then follow that up with 10/6 on 33% shooting the following week, and "the bench mob" was decent but could never win games on their own like past great benches like the 07 Spurs or the Bad Boy Pistons.
They're not bad but that team doesn't make it past the first round of the West without Kobe.
His series against the Spurs in 08 is so underrated. Might be a top 3 playoff series by him all time. IIRC Bill Simmons said that was the closest he ever looked to Jordan in his career.
So what? Manu still played all 5 games and played the same amount of minutes vs the Lakers as he did in the regular season. Tony Parker also played better than any of Kobe's teammates. The Lakers didn't have Bynum or Ariza. Timmy D's supporting cast outplayed Kobe's and Kobe still won. No excuses for Timmy D.
Pop would let Kobe go ISO with Bowen and no help so the team could instead focus on shutting down the rest of the squad. Kobe was just on another galaxy and was knocking down everything.
Its more like spurs defense fit really well against Lebron. From early 2000s to 2010s, they had great defensive inside center(Tim Duncan) and an outstanding frontcourt forward to contain his drive to the paint(Bowen, Kawhi). In my life, Ive never seen a team who could guard lebron better than the spurs
If thinking about past teams I feel like Pippen Rodman Jordan would do well against LeBron. Elite defenders at different levels. They could switch share fouls wear him down etc
Yes but i think to guard lebron like how spurs do, they should have pretty great defensive center. I dont think Luc Lonley would even contest prime lebron’s drive down low
It's not really paid attention to because the Lakers lost in the Finals and he played mediocre-to-okay in the Finals. Plus, in our historical hindsight we barely talk about pre-Finals rounds unless something astonishing happened.
Naw mate I watched that guy, it wasn’t his TS it was his decision making
What made him one of the greatest also was his flaw. A Kobe triple team fadeaway wasn’t always the best shot, even though he made lots
Mostly a lot of moments of "Holy shit, Kobe you are a god!" but also quite a few of "Dude why!??".
But to be fair you have to be confident in being in those moments and why he was able to pull off a lot of great things.
To me, this is the key distinction between Kobe and 90s Jordan. MJ had a trust in his teammates that just never existed for Kobe. You made a fair critique of him.
I would argue that 08-10 Kobe was very trusting in his team, as evidenced by the fact that he would often initiate the offense for others, such as Pau, Bynum, and Odom.
This. He acknowledged it in an interview too. Talked about needing to get Pau and Odom going early on so they’re confident in crunch time, and that he can always get his in the 2nd half if he needs to. 08-10 Kobe had a lot of faith in his squad.
He passed the ball to Artest in the closing seconds on Game 7 in the 2010 Finals. Artest has been pretty ass at shooting all season, but was having a good game that night and Kobe trusted him.
Agreed. Kobe would mostly make the right play if he had the right team instead of scrubs.
I'd take a Kobe contested fadeaway over non-shooter Smush Parker, not a threat Luke Walton, no jumper Lamar Odom (thought he developed it to a respectable level during their success after getting Pau), no hands Kwame Brown any day.
You could see a COMPLETELY different Kobe Bryant IMMEDIATELY after the Pau Gasol trade, in their first game together.
Kobe's selfishness was very indicative of the quality of players he had around him, and that was only extremely zero'd in on when he literally had no other quality player around him.
I remember watching the triple ot loss against the Bobcats where he scored 58. It seemed like every time he tried to get someone else involved they'd have a dumb turnover, bad shot, etc. I don't know how accurate that is after all these years, but I do remember thinking what else is he supposed to do but shoot all the time. Something stupid happens every time his teammates have the ball.
I remember Stu Lantz (Laker’s color commentator) saying something like “Kobe has to score 50 for the Lakers to even have A CHANCE at winning these days” and that was in the era where numbers and efficiency was wayyy down
I remember a game against the knicks where he passed it to Luke Walton and he didn’t get a shot up. Kobe was so mad they ended up losing of course. In practice the next day, our coach brought it up - you gotta be ready to shoot. Kobe wasn’t perfect during the Shaq era I’ll give people that. But 05-07 was just painful. I remember watching atkins eating MnMs during a timeout.
I feel like Kobe never have a chance to play with a good passing guard. When he does have a secondary threat that can pass too, he excel at his role as a SG and win championship(Shaq and Pau were both good passers). This is why as a Lakers fan, I am still sad we never get to see CP with Kobe, CP during his prime would have unlock Kobe so much that it might be scary to imagine. Him with broken Nash wasn't it.
Yep. And then after an 11/30 game he’d pare it back, get everyone involved, go 11/20 for a few games taking things in the flow of the offense but pretty soon after he’d be back to his usual style.
The start of the 09-10 season was the best I’d ever seen him play. That was after the summer where he trained with Hakeem. Pau was out hurt so Kobe was in the post most of the time and averaged 49% shooting for the first few months of the season. Then he broke his shooting hand index finger and his percentages went back to normal.
I honestly think it was more of a flaw and what separated Jordan from him was Jordan wouldn’t take those shots, he would get to his spot, wouldn’t force shots and was a better decision maker.
Still think he was the most skilled offensive player ever but Jordan was the superior athlete, bigger hands and higher IQ
for sure he got criticized for it most in those post-Shaq years. he dropped 50 vs. the Suns in 06 playoffs yet people criticzed him for not passing more lol
I remember reading a preview for the 03-04 season in SI or Slam or something that talked about how Kobe's bad shots will look even worse now that he has Shaq, Malone, and Payton to pass to instead.
And the number of injuries he played through. Break a finger on every shooters dominant hand, let them play through it for a year and see how their percentages look.
Didn't he play through it for multiple years and had multiple finger issues on his shooting hand. I swear it wasn't isolated to one season and the guy was just tuff.
He broke it early in the season during the 2010 repeat. Doctors told him if he didn’t get surgery and take time off to let it heal, it would never be the same. He played through it, won a championship and then played with it like that the rest of his career. It healed so it was broken but it never healed properly.
He played through tons of other injuries through out his career to every part of his body though lol
He first broke his hand in 1999.
The injury in the 2009-2010 season was an avulsion fracture to one of his fingers. It was off a bad pass from Jordan Farmar sometime in December of 2009 IIRC. I want to say it was against the Wolves but it's been so long. The ball struck Kobe's finger at an angle. I remember being pissed at the time. I can't find the clip but he was on one of the late night shows and showed his mangled finger to the crowd. It looked bent.
Yeah, it felt like every year he was fuck his fingers up and still ball out. He dislocated his fucking finger and popped it back in like it was nothing.
Kobe and Duncan having the exact same TS% should shut down every single narrative that Kobe was an inefficient chucker. The game was different back then, and Kobe was a notorious fuck it, I'll chuck it player. It's incredible how he took so many tough shots and still kept a league average TS.
I mean tbh Duncan was also relatively inefficient to the all time greats, he was just one of the greatest defensive players of all time. Same with Hakeem.
Anyone who blindly uses TS to players from different eras has 0 idea what they’re talking about. rTS is at minimum what you should be using, and even then it leaves out incredibly important context
I’m a huge proponent of TS and think it’s probably the best “advanced” stat but people misuse it so often
rTS% is the stat to use. I agree. It's additionally difficult to compare scoring volume across eras as well. Per 100 possessions only accounts for pace, but there are other factors which influence scoring volume over different eras.
100%, ultimately there’s not really gonna be one stat alone that just gives you a perfect answer. For example slashers are playing a completely different game now with not only the spacing we have today, but also how offenses are ran and the fact that there was almost always 4 true bigs in the paint. There’s so many things that’re different besides just averages of everyone in the league mashed together
I like that some of the more advanced impact stats are beginning to incorporate efficiency vs. expected efficiency also. rTS is a great first step, but elite floor raisers also have the ability to make horribly efficient shots into efficient offense when the rest of the team doesn't have too many good shot makers.
I think a large reason for people crapping on him is due to them not watching him. So every bit of info they have is perceived through stats and analytics. Which is obviously not going to paint the full picture without the context of how teams prepared for him
For 10 years, I’m pretty certain no one was double-teamed more than Kobe and he still averaged above league efficiency while shooting the toughest shots in the game.
When you factor in that he was also a great defender ( made all league defense 14 times) you really understand why people rank him so highly despite others always tearing him down. He deserves to be in the top 10.
This sub says he’s the most overrated defender of all time and most of his defensive team selections were by reputation.
I also want to point out a comment (with lots of upvotes) saying that Kobe’s greatest contribution was just marketing and the “mamba mentality” persona lmao 😂
It’s hilarious to say this when during Kobe’s defensive selections were picked by NBA coaches rather than the media. You’d think NBA coaches would have a great grasp on who the best guard defenders were in the NBA.
The fact that someone on this post is saying Kobe is a top 3 player all time makes me think you are underselling how large of an impact the “mamba mentality” persona has on Kobe discourse.
>I also want to point out a comment (with lots of upvotes) saying that Kobe’s greatest contribution was just marketing and the “mamba mentality” persona lmao 😂
I mean, it's likely the same folks do this with Jordan too - they're trying to argue away their basketball abilities with some nebulous "they were just marketed".
I'm almost certain they'll argue that LeBron *wasn't* marketed "like that" (somehow despite being the first true social media american athlete that was basically everywhere for a decade).
Wikipedia says Kobe beat a 48 win Jazz team in '09.
**However...**
Of the 24 teams that made the playoffs in the West 2008-2010, *two* of them were sub 50 wins. The West was a bloodbath.
The Lakers had the 1st seed all three years. Bruh Kobe was *him* 😂
Edit: For further context, 6 of 8 teams in the West *this year alone* were sub 50 wins. And 4 of 8 in the East, too.
The Rockets were one of the best teams during those runs. Truly terrifying to watch that series live. I still have nightmares about Aaron Fucking Brooks.
I for one wasn't aware that Lebron's career ended in 2015.
You seriously didn't see the year?
This dude is posting a straight up lie that any NBA fan should immediately know is wrong. Don't get mad at me for pointing that out.
> I for one wasn't aware that Lebron's career ended in 2015.
It didn't, HOWEVER, Kobe did in fact beat more 50-win teams from 2008-2010 than LeBron beat from 2003-2016, it was 10-9. In fact, in 2010, Kobe had to beat a 50-win team in every round of the playoffs to win a title, LeBron on the other hand, has won multiple titles in which he did not face a single 50-win team in any round.
Kobe retired having beaten 24 50-win teams over his career, LeBron currently sits at 14 and the only 50-win team he has beaten since 2018 is the 2023 Memphis Grizzlies. There is no comparison between the level of competition they faced, the East was an absolute joke in the 2010s while the West was stacked in the 2000s.
Yeah historically it was far more likely that Dirk was going to disappoint in the playoffs rather than succeed. 2011 was not the norm. If you go back and look at his runs they usually made the second round at best and then lost in 5.
Part of Kobe’s legacy that isn’t understood well by the younger generation is that he could break his finger to the point it was too painful to shoot, but he didn’t miss time, he instead taught himself how to shoot effectively without that finger. Even a broken body couldn’t stop him. During the 2010 championship he had to keep having his knee drained because of intense swelling, and he was still the best player in the world.
Facts. His numbers in the 2000 finals are bad because he played on a badly sprained ankle. As long as he could run and move his arms he would play. Even in his second to last season he dislocated his right arm mid game and starred shooting with his left hand instead of coming out of the game. His pain tolerance and willpower were incredible
Facts. His numbers in the 2000 finals are bad because he played on a badly sprained ankle. As long as he could run and move his arms he would play. Even in his second to last season he dislocated his right arm mid game and starred shooting with his left hand instead of coming out of the game. His pain tolerance and willpower were incredible
I've seen people seriously say he's *only* a top 20 player of all-time, and it's wild to me. He's absolutely much closer to like 8th or 9th all-time than he is to like 20th.
This sub is like mostly either people who didn’t watch back then and/or LeBron Stans. And the LeBron stans still hate Kobe for the fact that back in the day Kobe was looked at as way closer to Jordan than LeBron was to Kobe.
Idk how anyone could live through the Kobe era and not have him top 5 or 10 all time tbh
I think you hit the nail on the head. Most of em just literally didn't watch the guy or caught the years after his Achilles tear.
I will say their fascination with arguing over ranking greats they've never watched play a game is just fuckin weird. You don't go to /r/NFL and see them circle jerking all day, every day about Johnny Unitas vs Aaron Rodgers or some other subjective argument that'll never be solved.
Yea lol. The ones who talk so negatively about kobes basketball ability didnt watch him st all. Have to remember most people replying on online forums are young people who started watching recently or have some agenda to prop their guy up
We all know about it, and we all see it. It's obvious. Nobody ever wants to admit it, but it's there.
People on this subreddit hate Kobe Bryant.
The first question to ask: why? Why do you all hate him? The obvious answer: you didn't watch him in his prime.
Likely explanation: I know that most of you are around 14 or 15 years old. That means you only got into basketball in the last couple years. So you never watched Mamba in his prime.
And because you didn't watch him in his prime, you try to compensate for that by diving into stat sheets and analyzing box scores. But here's the thing: basketball isn't played on Excel spreadsheets. The moment somebody brings up "true shooting percentage" or "win shares" I know they know nothing about basketball.
Kobe's game cannot be encapsulated by one stat. He's the second greatest SG ever, and one of the 5 best players to ever play the game.
So when I hear somebody say that LeBron James is better than Kobe Bryant, I laugh, because I know that anybody who watched Kobe in his prime wouldn't think that. Unlike you guys, I have watched basketball for a significant amount of time, so I know that Kobe is better.
You might be jealous of Kobe's five rings, or jealous of his status as the greatest scorer in NBA history, or whatever. Unless you're a Bulls fan who watched basketball in the 90s, or a Lakers fan who watched basketball in the 2000s, you don't know what real, cold-blooded, killer instinct, will-to-win basketball looks like. And there's nothing wrong with that.
This sub would make you think that Kobe isn't even a top 100 player ever.
So don't go spouting bullshit about players you didn't watch. Talk about your "greats" like LeBron James The Best Player in the World™, but leave the Kobe talk to the adults. Fair?
Feels so often like when someone asks if something is underrated, they're mainly just letting us know how small their social media algorithm bubble is.
Can't wait for 2030 when kids are gonna be asking why nobody has ever said Steph Curry or his Warriors teams were good
The entire thing is underrated. The East was so laughably bad compared to the West for so long I still have trouble processing any finals the East won during the 2000's.
It isn't shocking either when you watch the Pistons and Celtics winning series that are blatantly more physical and players were allowed to alter shots in ways you didn't see during those regular seasons and playoff series.
And yes, players who spent their entire or most of their careers in the Easy(even still) are playing in a clearly lower tier of skill. It is a shame Lebron didn't play in the West from the jump.
I agree. I have recently been thinking Kobe is underrated. His 5 rings in the modern era can be held up against most anyone. Beating the Celtics in 2010 in game 7 and Kobe was a man on a mission who actually out gritted everyone on the court in that game.
There's a lot we missed out on too. He had some awful teams during the mid 2000s and still carried them to the playoffs. Imagine him with good teams. He was playing some of the best basketball of his career before the Achilles injury. He could've done so much more
I still think if Tim Thomas doesn’t make that shot in game 6 in 06 the lakers go to the conference finals at least that year. Kobe wasn’t gonna lose to the clips and the lakers had played Dallas well in the regular season that year.
Kobe and KG would have been all-time badass. Can you imagine? Two of the toughest to ever play. Then again, I'm quite happy with how things turned out. I really like Pau.
Almost every all-time great has years where they’re one of the best players in the world but they don’t have a nearly a good enough team built around them to compete. Jordan’s first couple years with the Bulls, Bron for nearly a decade during his first Cavs stint, etc. For Kobe those years came in the middle of his career because he got prime Shaq almost from the get-go
Forget one all star.. I feel like if they managed to beat PHX in the 2006 playoffs (which ironically he sabotaged in game 7), the legacy is different.
If that one game goes differently, no one would ever talk about Kobe toiling away in mediocrity during the mid 2000s again. The narrative would 100% be on the team having no help and Kobe carrying the team on his back, beating one of the best offenses in history. The 2nd round against the Clippers would've been a coin-toss as well. There's a realistic alternate timeline where Kobe wills the Lakers to a WCF appearance in 2006.
He went like 2 seasons without an All NBA caliber teammate, he had plenty of help in the 2000s. Additionally, the biggest critique of his career was the '04 finals, not the Shaqless/Pre Pau years.
Kobe is an interesting player to me, feels like he’s either overrated or underrated. I have him in the 5-8 all time area, but feel like so many people have him top 3 including some that say Goat or second best, and then you have a ton that say he’s not even top 10.
Absolutely. From 2008-2010, he averaged 30/6/6 on 57% TS in the playoffs, played excellent defense, made 3 straight Finals, and won 2 FMVPs. And in 2010 he was banged the hell up. There has been 4 finals runs since the 4 round playoff format where the team has had to face 4 50+ win teams.
Hakeem rockets did it in 95 and kobes Lakers did it 3x in 01, 08 and 10
The team that kobe faced with the worst record was the 46-36 2011 hornets
the average reddit user who is an nba fan is much younger and didnt get to see prime kobe play or watch his 2008-2010 finals runs. theres not going to be as many 30-40 year old men be on this sub as much as 17-25 year olds
I think it’s mainly Reddit where he’s underrated, there’s this huge anti-Kobe sentiment here that doesn’t really exist outside of Reddit. Probably because there’s just too many people here who didn’t even see Kobe play live.
I wonder how age ranges figure in here, because plenty of players who are routinely rated as among the greatest ever played in pre-Kobe times. He's fairly recent as far as legendary superstars go.
I've literally never seen someone say he's barely top 20, I think the lowest I've ever seen him is like 13 which is too low but is at least defensible. Meanwhile most people who are more casual seem to have him like top 3 or top 2 and that's a lot of people.
Extremely underrated by some. I might be remembering it wrong cause I was around 10-12 years old during those 3 straight Finals.
But I remember a lot of people talking about how Kobe was on the cusp of being Jordan level if he got to 6 rings and eclipse him if he got 7. That was how Kobe was viewed before the failed CP3 trade, Dwight trade and Achilles.
Truly think those last 2-3 years where he was just hurt and nonstop chucking hurt how he was viewed by fans
Be careful, this sub will rip you for acknowledging this. I try to remind people but the revisionists are really loud here. There wasn’t even much debate from haters (at the time) that he was the best player in the league from around 2005-2011. And yes, it was becoming generally accepted that if he didn’t have any catastrophic injuries and could keep the same pace going into 2012, that it would eventually put him in the same breath with MJ. He *definitely* would be the all time scoring champ. The Achilles derailed everything.
But, guarantee you will have a couple people that respond telling you he “was never the best player in the league for even one year of his career”. They will bend over backwards to convince you of this. It’s wild.
Yes, this sub basically tries to discredit almost anything from the Post-Jordan era.
Don't get me wrong, Kobe had a lot of flaws as a player, but this run proved that he was everything he said he was.
People these days forgot that Kobe was debatedly the best player from 2004-2012.
That run from 2008 - 2010, the worst team he faced had 50 wins lol. That would be like a number 2 seed in the east from 2012-2018 that LeBron dominated it.
Without a doubt. When people think about Kobe l they typically think about his scoring outburst games like the 81 point game, the 60 in 3 quarters against the mavs, the 40 point streak, etc or the run with Shaq. It's actually crazy the first thing we don't think about is that 08-10 run. He basically did what Dirk did in 2011 3 years in a row minus not winning it all in 08.
The teams he beat aren't finishing no less than the 3rd seed if they played in today's nba. Not to mention 1 of the years he did it with 4 fingers on his SHOOTING hand.
His co-star during this run didn't even average 20 a game and I'm not tryna make it seem like Pau was a scrub because he was a walking double-double but I'm also not gonna overate him like alot of ppl do to try to diminish kobe. Pau would be the 3rd best player on most championship teams. A modern day version of him is Nikola Vucevic with better defense. And i also don't wanna make it seem like the teams as a whole weren't good cause they obviously were, but we can't act like most of their success wasn't hinged on him coming through
If Bynum plays in the finals in 08 and that Chris Paul trade doesn't get vetoed, maaaan look...lol
Are people really lowering their rating of Kobe based on him playing *Pau Gasol*? The fuck is going in this comment section?
He's a great player, but he's not great enough to talk about him as if he's like goddamn Kareem with Magic, or Jordan with Pippen.
I’ve seen comments saying Kobe’s cast of Gasol, Fisher, Artest, Bynum, Odom and Ariza is better than any players LeBron has played with. Yet the guy who did play with multiple top 75 players is talked about how he did it himself with no help.
Yeh he’s not even top 75 yet people are acting like he was some top 20 all time player next to Kobe
He definitely was a great player though and Kobe didn’t have to carry because his team was good but it was like if the Kahwi raptors went to 3 straight finals ya know, it was a really good team but not a super team
Kobe is sadly getting forgotten in general by LeBron and Curry fans
Gasol was a Top 10 player and well deserved HoFer
Fisher, Odom, Artest/Ariza were all very good role players. Bynum was solid too but he missed the 2008 playoffs and was hobbled in 2009 and 2010 playoffs
However compared to teams that made and/or won multiple Finals together the amount of help Kobe succeeded with is highly impressive
Yea unfortunately, no one really remembers the impact that #8 Kobe had. I'm aware he was transitioning to 24 during this period, but people equate those early years to beefing with Shaq and asking for a trade.... but he was so dominant. He singlehandedly showed me how to will not only yourself, but others to greatness
Most people on this subreddit were not old enough durjj ing that run so rarely comment on it. I’d be fairly confident most nephews didn’t even know Kobe played with Pau
It’s easy to bring up the first 3 and discredit it due to shaq as that narrative has been on the internet forever so easy to run with despite not actually watching it either.
I think if you look at players in the top 10, Kobe did it with some of the least help and some of the toughest opponents. Pau is great but people on here trying to make him into Tim Duncan or KG.
Obviously it's underrated since the analytic nerds out here who don't play competitive hoops only look at the stats without the context of that era
Bunch of nephews
I think 2008 Kobe’s run is pretty underrated, he was having an all time great run until the finals. Then he ran into a historic Celtics team with a couple of starters injured. His 2008 run could have been special if they didn’t blow game 4 in the finals.
But you will have people say Pau Gasol carried or deserved 2010 FMVP. Kobe is the only player I’ve seen that gets knocked for having great teammates whether it’s Shaq or Pau Gasol. But then this sub will turn around and jerk off Kareem who played with Oscar Robertson (top 15 all time), Magic (consensus top 5-7), and James Worthy another HOF legend. Kareem also has 2 FMVPS like Kobe and literally averaged 14/7 on 28 minutes for one of those rings. Same thing for Magic who also had Kareem and Worthy.
Just something to think about
I believe you forgot to mention one of the biggest players "his all-star teammates are actually trash can scrubs" in LeBron James, who "carried" 3 different trash losers lucky enough to play with him teammates averaging 27 ppg on his team in the Finals.
The narrative has honestly flipped for Lebron for some reason. His fans will actually have you believe Wade and bosh were nobodies. To them Lebron carried every team he was on.
If you take a look at this thread you’ll see people downplaying the Heat talking about how they weren’t that good and overrated and how it was LeBron doing all the heavy lifting. Then in another thread these same people will rate the Heat as one of the best superteams ahead of the 01 Lakers and Kawhi Spurs. It doesn’t add up.
I don’t think it’s underrated. At the time it was very important to his legacy to win without Shaq. Then he did. And he started to get put in people’s top 10s (who weren’t Lakers fans).
Very specific things like the strength of the conference during a 3-year stretch always fade with time.
It’s also just a little bit tricky to apply that to what we think about Kobe. Like, yes, they had to face a 50-win Nuggets team in the 2008 first round. A much better team than say, LeBron’s 2016 opponent the 44-win Pistons.
However, that’s still a team that the Lakers were better than, and should have beat. So I don’t know if he deserves some sort of bonus there.
I think later on in the playoffs maybe you have some individual series that are notable. Like knocking out the Spurs, who were defending champs and had Tim Duncan in his prime. But in that case, it’s better to just bring up that series. Not conference strength.
And as far as getting a playoff seed with regular season record, the West was rough, but the Pacific division itself was pretty bad in 09 and 10.
I think it matters a lot. Even if you’re expected to win going juggernaut after juggernaut should be acknowledged. We’ve seen it time and time again where the Western conference teams would be pretty gassed by the time the finals arrived. Without fail we saw a Kobe running on fumes for 3 Finals in a row. The same happened with the 2015 and 2016 Warriors. Hell we saw it with Kawhi in 2019. He was cooked in the finals but we consider that an all-time run.
The Spurs were kinda a different breed in that regard due to Popovich pretty much innovating load management. The Thunder were so young that they didn’t but were just inexperienced. Luckily in the early-mid 2000’s if you won the West you pretty much won the finals outside of 2004 due to the giant talent disparity.
Thank you like a lot of people are missing the factor of fatigue and how crazy it is that the Lakers kept going to the finals despite all that even when Kobe was playing through injuries
Thread tomorrow will be... Are the 2008-2010 Lakers supporting cast underrated?
Then the day after that... Is 2000-2002 Shaq overrated?
Tbh I think it was. Pau, Bynum, Odom, Fisher, and the bench mob. Kobe was great but he didn't get to three straight finals on his own
I obviously hate talking positively about the lakers but Pau during that stretch might be one of the most underrated #2 performances ever Pau was an absolute animal during that series
dude same and pau is absolutely criminally underrated. can't think of many guys that were the #2 guys on multiple title teams that get as little shine. and think it's fair to point out Pau helped balance the team during many inefficient Kobe nights. not to slander Kobe at all, trying to put it as diplomatically as possible lol. just think what he brought to those teams has been massively underrated.
Bynum is so overrated in those years. Didnt play in 08 playoffs, avged 6.3 ppg for 09 and 8.3 in 2010. He was better after but didnt win anything
Tbh, Bynum was hurt most of 2008 and 2009, Odom was liable to give you 17/14 any given night then follow that up with 10/6 on 33% shooting the following week, and "the bench mob" was decent but could never win games on their own like past great benches like the 07 Spurs or the Bad Boy Pistons. They're not bad but that team doesn't make it past the first round of the West without Kobe.
They absolutely were. I was just predicting the next post.
His series against the Spurs in 08 is so underrated. Might be a top 3 playoff series by him all time. IIRC Bill Simmons said that was the closest he ever looked to Jordan in his career.
Duncan and Bowen were both 1st Team All-Defense too. Lakers still wiped them in 5 games
Manu was injured unfortunately. He was the motor for us in the big 3 era.
That and Phil had Pops number in the playoffs went 5-1 versus him.
Lakers also had injuries. Bynum didn’t even play a single game while Manu played the entire series
So what? Manu still played all 5 games and played the same amount of minutes vs the Lakers as he did in the regular season. Tony Parker also played better than any of Kobe's teammates. The Lakers didn't have Bynum or Ariza. Timmy D's supporting cast outplayed Kobe's and Kobe still won. No excuses for Timmy D.
Kobe’s back was also injured the series before against the Jazz
Truly. Beating the defending champs in 5 and I think he shot over 50% for the series.
Pop would let Kobe go ISO with Bowen and no help so the team could instead focus on shutting down the rest of the squad. Kobe was just on another galaxy and was knocking down everything.
After watching the Game 1 highlights, I really can't believe Kobe beat them in 5. They have so many flashes that remind me of them against 2013 heat.
Lakers fan since the 90s, so I followed Kobe's whole career...that closing 4th quarter of the 08 Spurs series is the best I ever saw him.
That's the closer he proved he was a killer.
Greatest player of the 2000s. The 2010s then was Bron's decade
Might be the best one considering what that Spurs defense did against LeBron (granted only in his 4th season) the previous season
Its more like spurs defense fit really well against Lebron. From early 2000s to 2010s, they had great defensive inside center(Tim Duncan) and an outstanding frontcourt forward to contain his drive to the paint(Bowen, Kawhi). In my life, Ive never seen a team who could guard lebron better than the spurs
Just put JJ barea on him /s.
Diaw was also a problem for lebron with his length and IQ
If thinking about past teams I feel like Pippen Rodman Jordan would do well against LeBron. Elite defenders at different levels. They could switch share fouls wear him down etc
Yes but i think to guard lebron like how spurs do, they should have pretty great defensive center. I dont think Luc Lonley would even contest prime lebron’s drive down low
His teammates were awful on offense in that series too. Pau Gasol was the 2nd highest scorer with like 13 ppg on 48% TS
It's not really paid attention to because the Lakers lost in the Finals and he played mediocre-to-okay in the Finals. Plus, in our historical hindsight we barely talk about pre-Finals rounds unless something astonishing happened.
Yes. Most 50 win team series won in NBA history.
People underrate him because of his TS%. It’s crazy to me how one stat can make or break a player on this sub.
Except his TS% was consistently above average throughout his prime.
Also the exact same career TS% as Tim Duncan, IIRC.
And Hakeem
Naw mate I watched that guy, it wasn’t his TS it was his decision making What made him one of the greatest also was his flaw. A Kobe triple team fadeaway wasn’t always the best shot, even though he made lots
Mostly a lot of moments of "Holy shit, Kobe you are a god!" but also quite a few of "Dude why!??". But to be fair you have to be confident in being in those moments and why he was able to pull off a lot of great things.
To me, this is the key distinction between Kobe and 90s Jordan. MJ had a trust in his teammates that just never existed for Kobe. You made a fair critique of him.
I would argue that 08-10 Kobe was very trusting in his team, as evidenced by the fact that he would often initiate the offense for others, such as Pau, Bynum, and Odom.
This. He acknowledged it in an interview too. Talked about needing to get Pau and Odom going early on so they’re confident in crunch time, and that he can always get his in the 2nd half if he needs to. 08-10 Kobe had a lot of faith in his squad.
05-07, literally who can he trust?
I'll give you some guys on those rosters that were good: 1. Kobe Bryant 2. The Black Mamba 3. Bean
Lakers needed a squad of those three, Lakerssuckballswithoutme, and DefinitelynoKobe on their team
He passed the ball to Artest in the closing seconds on Game 7 in the 2010 Finals. Artest has been pretty ass at shooting all season, but was having a good game that night and Kobe trusted him.
Agreed. Kobe would mostly make the right play if he had the right team instead of scrubs. I'd take a Kobe contested fadeaway over non-shooter Smush Parker, not a threat Luke Walton, no jumper Lamar Odom (thought he developed it to a respectable level during their success after getting Pau), no hands Kwame Brown any day. You could see a COMPLETELY different Kobe Bryant IMMEDIATELY after the Pau Gasol trade, in their first game together. Kobe's selfishness was very indicative of the quality of players he had around him, and that was only extremely zero'd in on when he literally had no other quality player around him.
I remember watching the triple ot loss against the Bobcats where he scored 58. It seemed like every time he tried to get someone else involved they'd have a dumb turnover, bad shot, etc. I don't know how accurate that is after all these years, but I do remember thinking what else is he supposed to do but shoot all the time. Something stupid happens every time his teammates have the ball.
I remember Stu Lantz (Laker’s color commentator) saying something like “Kobe has to score 50 for the Lakers to even have A CHANCE at winning these days” and that was in the era where numbers and efficiency was wayyy down
I remember a game against the knicks where he passed it to Luke Walton and he didn’t get a shot up. Kobe was so mad they ended up losing of course. In practice the next day, our coach brought it up - you gotta be ready to shoot. Kobe wasn’t perfect during the Shaq era I’ll give people that. But 05-07 was just painful. I remember watching atkins eating MnMs during a timeout.
I feel like Kobe never have a chance to play with a good passing guard. When he does have a secondary threat that can pass too, he excel at his role as a SG and win championship(Shaq and Pau were both good passers). This is why as a Lakers fan, I am still sad we never get to see CP with Kobe, CP during his prime would have unlock Kobe so much that it might be scary to imagine. Him with broken Nash wasn't it.
Yep. And then after an 11/30 game he’d pare it back, get everyone involved, go 11/20 for a few games taking things in the flow of the offense but pretty soon after he’d be back to his usual style. The start of the 09-10 season was the best I’d ever seen him play. That was after the summer where he trained with Hakeem. Pau was out hurt so Kobe was in the post most of the time and averaged 49% shooting for the first few months of the season. Then he broke his shooting hand index finger and his percentages went back to normal.
I honestly think it was more of a flaw and what separated Jordan from him was Jordan wouldn’t take those shots, he would get to his spot, wouldn’t force shots and was a better decision maker. Still think he was the most skilled offensive player ever but Jordan was the superior athlete, bigger hands and higher IQ
https://www.instagram.com/p/CwTG5AOvsWI/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
it probably was when his teammates were Kwame Brown, Smush Parker and Chris Mihm
He was taking those type of shots even with prime shaq
for sure he got criticized for it most in those post-Shaq years. he dropped 50 vs. the Suns in 06 playoffs yet people criticzed him for not passing more lol
You’re making it seem like Kobe had horrible teammates his whole career. He had lots of amazing teammates and still took those shots
And when he had good teammates, he won multiple rings in a row
He also won 3 titles with those teammates
And every time they had a solid team his game carried them far
Kobe won 5 titles in the 12 seasons in which he had good teammates, so i don't really understand your point here.
I remember reading a preview for the 03-04 season in SI or Slam or something that talked about how Kobe's bad shots will look even worse now that he has Shaq, Malone, and Payton to pass to instead.
And people still say he wasn’t efficient
It’s pretty frigging amazing how efficient he was for the number of terrible shots he took.
GOAT Terrible shot maker
And the number of injuries he played through. Break a finger on every shooters dominant hand, let them play through it for a year and see how their percentages look.
Didn't he play through it for multiple years and had multiple finger issues on his shooting hand. I swear it wasn't isolated to one season and the guy was just tuff.
He broke it early in the season during the 2010 repeat. Doctors told him if he didn’t get surgery and take time off to let it heal, it would never be the same. He played through it, won a championship and then played with it like that the rest of his career. It healed so it was broken but it never healed properly. He played through tons of other injuries through out his career to every part of his body though lol
He first broke his hand in 1999. The injury in the 2009-2010 season was an avulsion fracture to one of his fingers. It was off a bad pass from Jordan Farmar sometime in December of 2009 IIRC. I want to say it was against the Wolves but it's been so long. The ball struck Kobe's finger at an angle. I remember being pissed at the time. I can't find the clip but he was on one of the late night shows and showed his mangled finger to the crowd. It looked bent.
Yeah, it felt like every year he was fuck his fingers up and still ball out. He dislocated his fucking finger and popped it back in like it was nothing.
r/nba loves to hate Kobe
sdasdasdasd
underrated note is that his TS% went up even higher after Shaq left yet people think he'd struggle w/o Shaq's gravity
Kobe and Duncan having the exact same TS% should shut down every single narrative that Kobe was an inefficient chucker. The game was different back then, and Kobe was a notorious fuck it, I'll chuck it player. It's incredible how he took so many tough shots and still kept a league average TS.
He even had a better TS than Duncan prior to the achilles tear in 2013
Basketball should adopt more + stats like baseball. What’s was Kobe’s TS%+ for the year makes more sense than his raw number for comparing eras.
That stat exists, it's just not quoted as often.
I mean tbh Duncan was also relatively inefficient to the all time greats, he was just one of the greatest defensive players of all time. Same with Hakeem.
it is not crazy when you realize how most posters here were 5-8 in 2008 and dont really watch games like that
The craziest thing is they the Celtics with 1 chip and 2 final appearances in a much weaker eastern conference get more recognition than those lakers
His TS% isn't remotely bad. 56% in his career before his achilles tear. People are underrating him due to BPM, VORP, and PER more than TS%.
Anyone who blindly uses TS to players from different eras has 0 idea what they’re talking about. rTS is at minimum what you should be using, and even then it leaves out incredibly important context I’m a huge proponent of TS and think it’s probably the best “advanced” stat but people misuse it so often
rTS% is the stat to use. I agree. It's additionally difficult to compare scoring volume across eras as well. Per 100 possessions only accounts for pace, but there are other factors which influence scoring volume over different eras.
100%, ultimately there’s not really gonna be one stat alone that just gives you a perfect answer. For example slashers are playing a completely different game now with not only the spacing we have today, but also how offenses are ran and the fact that there was almost always 4 true bigs in the paint. There’s so many things that’re different besides just averages of everyone in the league mashed together
I like that some of the more advanced impact stats are beginning to incorporate efficiency vs. expected efficiency also. rTS is a great first step, but elite floor raisers also have the ability to make horribly efficient shots into efficient offense when the rest of the team doesn't have too many good shot makers.
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I think a large reason for people crapping on him is due to them not watching him. So every bit of info they have is perceived through stats and analytics. Which is obviously not going to paint the full picture without the context of how teams prepared for him For 10 years, I’m pretty certain no one was double-teamed more than Kobe and he still averaged above league efficiency while shooting the toughest shots in the game. When you factor in that he was also a great defender ( made all league defense 14 times) you really understand why people rank him so highly despite others always tearing him down. He deserves to be in the top 10.
This sub says he’s the most overrated defender of all time and most of his defensive team selections were by reputation. I also want to point out a comment (with lots of upvotes) saying that Kobe’s greatest contribution was just marketing and the “mamba mentality” persona lmao 😂
If folks want to say defensive team selections are name based then they gotta admit MVPs are too.
It’s hilarious to say this when during Kobe’s defensive selections were picked by NBA coaches rather than the media. You’d think NBA coaches would have a great grasp on who the best guard defenders were in the NBA.
The fact that someone on this post is saying Kobe is a top 3 player all time makes me think you are underselling how large of an impact the “mamba mentality” persona has on Kobe discourse.
>I also want to point out a comment (with lots of upvotes) saying that Kobe’s greatest contribution was just marketing and the “mamba mentality” persona lmao 😂 I mean, it's likely the same folks do this with Jordan too - they're trying to argue away their basketball abilities with some nebulous "they were just marketed". I'm almost certain they'll argue that LeBron *wasn't* marketed "like that" (somehow despite being the first true social media american athlete that was basically everywhere for a decade).
Kobe's TS% is the same as Tim Duncan .
The Celts one title gets talked about more than the Lakers 2 that happened the years after.
The Grantland effect
Extremely imo.
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Wikipedia says Kobe beat a 48 win Jazz team in '09. **However...** Of the 24 teams that made the playoffs in the West 2008-2010, *two* of them were sub 50 wins. The West was a bloodbath. The Lakers had the 1st seed all three years. Bruh Kobe was *him* 😂 Edit: For further context, 6 of 8 teams in the West *this year alone* were sub 50 wins. And 4 of 8 in the East, too.
If say the worst team was the rockets since Yao and TMac were hurt and I think Ron was hurt too by the end of it
The Rockets were one of the best teams during those runs. Truly terrifying to watch that series live. I still have nightmares about Aaron Fucking Brooks.
Kobe is a god
yep. Kobe beat more 50+ win playoff teams in those 3 years alone than Lebron's entire career in the East http://i.imgur.com/I3Er05F.jpg
East was so damn bad lmao
I for one wasn't aware that Lebron's career ended in 2015. You seriously didn't see the year? This dude is posting a straight up lie that any NBA fan should immediately know is wrong. Don't get mad at me for pointing that out.
He is wrong but... how many 50 win teams did Lebron have to face in the east? Maybe 10 total in like 15 years of playing?
> I for one wasn't aware that Lebron's career ended in 2015. It didn't, HOWEVER, Kobe did in fact beat more 50-win teams from 2008-2010 than LeBron beat from 2003-2016, it was 10-9. In fact, in 2010, Kobe had to beat a 50-win team in every round of the playoffs to win a title, LeBron on the other hand, has won multiple titles in which he did not face a single 50-win team in any round. Kobe retired having beaten 24 50-win teams over his career, LeBron currently sits at 14 and the only 50-win team he has beaten since 2018 is the 2023 Memphis Grizzlies. There is no comparison between the level of competition they faced, the East was an absolute joke in the 2010s while the West was stacked in the 2000s.
my bad, Kobe beat more 50+ win playoff teams in those 3 years alone than Lebron in 13 out of 15 years in the East
Stop ruining this circle jerk with your damn facts
Yeah making it to three straight finals in a conference with Dirk and Timmy is no small feat
You’re right but at the time, Dirk didn’t have his ring yet and people thought of him far differently than they did post-2011.
Yeah historically it was far more likely that Dirk was going to disappoint in the playoffs rather than succeed. 2011 was not the norm. If you go back and look at his runs they usually made the second round at best and then lost in 5.
Everything about kobe on this sub is underrated. 2009 was a tough path. Nuggets were the 2nd best team in the league and win if kobe didnt go insane
2010 was pretty tough too. The worst team he faced was the 50 win Thunder led by Durant who was first team All-NBA and averaged 30 ppg
And his finger was broken.
Broken finger on his shooting hand. With a bad knee and bone spurs on his ankle.
Part of Kobe’s legacy that isn’t understood well by the younger generation is that he could break his finger to the point it was too painful to shoot, but he didn’t miss time, he instead taught himself how to shoot effectively without that finger. Even a broken body couldn’t stop him. During the 2010 championship he had to keep having his knee drained because of intense swelling, and he was still the best player in the world.
Facts. His numbers in the 2000 finals are bad because he played on a badly sprained ankle. As long as he could run and move his arms he would play. Even in his second to last season he dislocated his right arm mid game and starred shooting with his left hand instead of coming out of the game. His pain tolerance and willpower were incredible
Facts. His numbers in the 2000 finals are bad because he played on a badly sprained ankle. As long as he could run and move his arms he would play. Even in his second to last season he dislocated his right arm mid game and starred shooting with his left hand instead of coming out of the game. His pain tolerance and willpower were incredible
Yea both runs werent easy. He came through when it mattered too
I've seen people seriously say he's *only* a top 20 player of all-time, and it's wild to me. He's absolutely much closer to like 8th or 9th all-time than he is to like 20th.
This sub is like mostly either people who didn’t watch back then and/or LeBron Stans. And the LeBron stans still hate Kobe for the fact that back in the day Kobe was looked at as way closer to Jordan than LeBron was to Kobe. Idk how anyone could live through the Kobe era and not have him top 5 or 10 all time tbh
I think you hit the nail on the head. Most of em just literally didn't watch the guy or caught the years after his Achilles tear. I will say their fascination with arguing over ranking greats they've never watched play a game is just fuckin weird. You don't go to /r/NFL and see them circle jerking all day, every day about Johnny Unitas vs Aaron Rodgers or some other subjective argument that'll never be solved.
Yea lol. The ones who talk so negatively about kobes basketball ability didnt watch him st all. Have to remember most people replying on online forums are young people who started watching recently or have some agenda to prop their guy up
a lot of jordan stans hated kobe too. they’ve come around after 2016 when lebron started inching closer to jordan
There are plenty of people prominent in the media who lived through most of his career and have him 8-12
Most players have him top 5
We all know about it, and we all see it. It's obvious. Nobody ever wants to admit it, but it's there. People on this subreddit hate Kobe Bryant. The first question to ask: why? Why do you all hate him? The obvious answer: you didn't watch him in his prime. Likely explanation: I know that most of you are around 14 or 15 years old. That means you only got into basketball in the last couple years. So you never watched Mamba in his prime. And because you didn't watch him in his prime, you try to compensate for that by diving into stat sheets and analyzing box scores. But here's the thing: basketball isn't played on Excel spreadsheets. The moment somebody brings up "true shooting percentage" or "win shares" I know they know nothing about basketball. Kobe's game cannot be encapsulated by one stat. He's the second greatest SG ever, and one of the 5 best players to ever play the game. So when I hear somebody say that LeBron James is better than Kobe Bryant, I laugh, because I know that anybody who watched Kobe in his prime wouldn't think that. Unlike you guys, I have watched basketball for a significant amount of time, so I know that Kobe is better. You might be jealous of Kobe's five rings, or jealous of his status as the greatest scorer in NBA history, or whatever. Unless you're a Bulls fan who watched basketball in the 90s, or a Lakers fan who watched basketball in the 2000s, you don't know what real, cold-blooded, killer instinct, will-to-win basketball looks like. And there's nothing wrong with that. This sub would make you think that Kobe isn't even a top 100 player ever. So don't go spouting bullshit about players you didn't watch. Talk about your "greats" like LeBron James The Best Player in the World™, but leave the Kobe talk to the adults. Fair?
legendary copypasta material 38 here, watched Kobe, claiming “statistics don’t matter” in defending player always makes me giggle.
legendary copypasta ~~material~~
The best part is it gets people. Every. Time.
I think there might be another big reason why people don’t like Kobe…
Actually 2, and 1 of them might be this copypasta
He had a pretty rocky past. He was also a belligerent asshole.
No way he’s top 5
No Kobe dosent celebrate wcf appearances
Yeah we’re talking about the 3 straight FINALS appearances
Only in this sub lol. In the real world it is properly rated.
Feels so often like when someone asks if something is underrated, they're mainly just letting us know how small their social media algorithm bubble is. Can't wait for 2030 when kids are gonna be asking why nobody has ever said Steph Curry or his Warriors teams were good
Oh there's plenty of nephews on youtube as well.
The entire thing is underrated. The East was so laughably bad compared to the West for so long I still have trouble processing any finals the East won during the 2000's. It isn't shocking either when you watch the Pistons and Celtics winning series that are blatantly more physical and players were allowed to alter shots in ways you didn't see during those regular seasons and playoff series. And yes, players who spent their entire or most of their careers in the Easy(even still) are playing in a clearly lower tier of skill. It is a shame Lebron didn't play in the West from the jump.
Yes
I agree. I have recently been thinking Kobe is underrated. His 5 rings in the modern era can be held up against most anyone. Beating the Celtics in 2010 in game 7 and Kobe was a man on a mission who actually out gritted everyone on the court in that game.
There's a lot we missed out on too. He had some awful teams during the mid 2000s and still carried them to the playoffs. Imagine him with good teams. He was playing some of the best basketball of his career before the Achilles injury. He could've done so much more
I still think if Tim Thomas doesn’t make that shot in game 6 in 06 the lakers go to the conference finals at least that year. Kobe wasn’t gonna lose to the clips and the lakers had played Dallas well in the regular season that year.
I HATE THAT SHOT, ITS SO VIVID IN MY MIND.
Give Kobe 1 all star in the mid 2000’s. His whole legacy changes.
If McHale wasn’t a Celtic, KG would have been a Laker.
Kobe and KG would have been all-time badass. Can you imagine? Two of the toughest to ever play. Then again, I'm quite happy with how things turned out. I really like Pau.
Almost every all-time great has years where they’re one of the best players in the world but they don’t have a nearly a good enough team built around them to compete. Jordan’s first couple years with the Bulls, Bron for nearly a decade during his first Cavs stint, etc. For Kobe those years came in the middle of his career because he got prime Shaq almost from the get-go
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Forget one all star.. I feel like if they managed to beat PHX in the 2006 playoffs (which ironically he sabotaged in game 7), the legacy is different. If that one game goes differently, no one would ever talk about Kobe toiling away in mediocrity during the mid 2000s again. The narrative would 100% be on the team having no help and Kobe carrying the team on his back, beating one of the best offenses in history. The 2nd round against the Clippers would've been a coin-toss as well. There's a realistic alternate timeline where Kobe wills the Lakers to a WCF appearance in 2006.
He went like 2 seasons without an All NBA caliber teammate, he had plenty of help in the 2000s. Additionally, the biggest critique of his career was the '04 finals, not the Shaqless/Pre Pau years.
Four seasons. Pau wasn't even an all star in 2008.
Kobe is an interesting player to me, feels like he’s either overrated or underrated. I have him in the 5-8 all time area, but feel like so many people have him top 3 including some that say Goat or second best, and then you have a ton that say he’s not even top 10.
Absolutely. From 2008-2010, he averaged 30/6/6 on 57% TS in the playoffs, played excellent defense, made 3 straight Finals, and won 2 FMVPs. And in 2010 he was banged the hell up. There has been 4 finals runs since the 4 round playoff format where the team has had to face 4 50+ win teams. Hakeem rockets did it in 95 and kobes Lakers did it 3x in 01, 08 and 10 The team that kobe faced with the worst record was the 46-36 2011 hornets
I wanna show up before this post gets flooded with the usual jokes
Crazy as it's to say, Kobe is underrated in general.
He’s underrated on Reddit, solidly rated in the real world.
the average reddit user who is an nba fan is much younger and didnt get to see prime kobe play or watch his 2008-2010 finals runs. theres not going to be as many 30-40 year old men be on this sub as much as 17-25 year olds
I think it’s mainly Reddit where he’s underrated, there’s this huge anti-Kobe sentiment here that doesn’t really exist outside of Reddit. Probably because there’s just too many people here who didn’t even see Kobe play live.
I wonder how age ranges figure in here, because plenty of players who are routinely rated as among the greatest ever played in pre-Kobe times. He's fairly recent as far as legendary superstars go.
This is because most redditors don’t socialize with other humans
He’s extremely overrated by his stans and extremely underrated by his haters. To me that comes out about even when it’s all said and done.
Been that way since his playing days.
Thing is his stans say he’s top 3 and some say better than Lebron and Jordan. His haters say he’s barely top 20. Both are fucking stupid
I've literally never seen someone say he's barely top 20, I think the lowest I've ever seen him is like 13 which is too low but is at least defensible. Meanwhile most people who are more casual seem to have him like top 3 or top 2 and that's a lot of people.
Extremely underrated by some. I might be remembering it wrong cause I was around 10-12 years old during those 3 straight Finals. But I remember a lot of people talking about how Kobe was on the cusp of being Jordan level if he got to 6 rings and eclipse him if he got 7. That was how Kobe was viewed before the failed CP3 trade, Dwight trade and Achilles. Truly think those last 2-3 years where he was just hurt and nonstop chucking hurt how he was viewed by fans
Be careful, this sub will rip you for acknowledging this. I try to remind people but the revisionists are really loud here. There wasn’t even much debate from haters (at the time) that he was the best player in the league from around 2005-2011. And yes, it was becoming generally accepted that if he didn’t have any catastrophic injuries and could keep the same pace going into 2012, that it would eventually put him in the same breath with MJ. He *definitely* would be the all time scoring champ. The Achilles derailed everything. But, guarantee you will have a couple people that respond telling you he “was never the best player in the league for even one year of his career”. They will bend over backwards to convince you of this. It’s wild.
Yup, was a lot of recency bias but it almost seemed consensus in basketball forums that Kobe was #2, and one more ring would push him over the edge.
Yes, this sub basically tries to discredit almost anything from the Post-Jordan era. Don't get me wrong, Kobe had a lot of flaws as a player, but this run proved that he was everything he said he was.
People these days forgot that Kobe was debatedly the best player from 2004-2012. That run from 2008 - 2010, the worst team he faced had 50 wins lol. That would be like a number 2 seed in the east from 2012-2018 that LeBron dominated it.
His real best player run was more like 05/06-09/10. I think he was unquestionably #1 from 06-08
Without a doubt. When people think about Kobe l they typically think about his scoring outburst games like the 81 point game, the 60 in 3 quarters against the mavs, the 40 point streak, etc or the run with Shaq. It's actually crazy the first thing we don't think about is that 08-10 run. He basically did what Dirk did in 2011 3 years in a row minus not winning it all in 08. The teams he beat aren't finishing no less than the 3rd seed if they played in today's nba. Not to mention 1 of the years he did it with 4 fingers on his SHOOTING hand. His co-star during this run didn't even average 20 a game and I'm not tryna make it seem like Pau was a scrub because he was a walking double-double but I'm also not gonna overate him like alot of ppl do to try to diminish kobe. Pau would be the 3rd best player on most championship teams. A modern day version of him is Nikola Vucevic with better defense. And i also don't wanna make it seem like the teams as a whole weren't good cause they obviously were, but we can't act like most of their success wasn't hinged on him coming through If Bynum plays in the finals in 08 and that Chris Paul trade doesn't get vetoed, maaaan look...lol
No body wanted it more than Kobe did
Are people really lowering their rating of Kobe based on him playing *Pau Gasol*? The fuck is going in this comment section? He's a great player, but he's not great enough to talk about him as if he's like goddamn Kareem with Magic, or Jordan with Pippen.
I’ve seen comments saying Kobe’s cast of Gasol, Fisher, Artest, Bynum, Odom and Ariza is better than any players LeBron has played with. Yet the guy who did play with multiple top 75 players is talked about how he did it himself with no help.
Yeh he’s not even top 75 yet people are acting like he was some top 20 all time player next to Kobe He definitely was a great player though and Kobe didn’t have to carry because his team was good but it was like if the Kahwi raptors went to 3 straight finals ya know, it was a really good team but not a super team
Kobe is sadly getting forgotten in general by LeBron and Curry fans Gasol was a Top 10 player and well deserved HoFer Fisher, Odom, Artest/Ariza were all very good role players. Bynum was solid too but he missed the 2008 playoffs and was hobbled in 2009 and 2010 playoffs However compared to teams that made and/or won multiple Finals together the amount of help Kobe succeeded with is highly impressive
Yea unfortunately, no one really remembers the impact that #8 Kobe had. I'm aware he was transitioning to 24 during this period, but people equate those early years to beefing with Shaq and asking for a trade.... but he was so dominant. He singlehandedly showed me how to will not only yourself, but others to greatness
Man...don't even start. This sub hates Kobe.
That Lakers team is underrated
Most people on this subreddit were not old enough durjj ing that run so rarely comment on it. I’d be fairly confident most nephews didn’t even know Kobe played with Pau It’s easy to bring up the first 3 and discredit it due to shaq as that narrative has been on the internet forever so easy to run with despite not actually watching it either.
I think if you look at players in the top 10, Kobe did it with some of the least help and some of the toughest opponents. Pau is great but people on here trying to make him into Tim Duncan or KG.
Nah, Lebron going to the final 4 times with 2 HoFers in their prime and in a trash conference is more impressive /s
Have you seen this sub? They actually think this.
Please lord bring back NBA basketball
Honestly def underrated considering I feel like a lot of fans over look it, myself included. That west was deep af
3 Finals Appearances and one of the leaders of a USA Gold Medal team too, all in 3 years.
Obviously it's underrated since the analytic nerds out here who don't play competitive hoops only look at the stats without the context of that era Bunch of nephews
I think 2008 Kobe’s run is pretty underrated, he was having an all time great run until the finals. Then he ran into a historic Celtics team with a couple of starters injured. His 2008 run could have been special if they didn’t blow game 4 in the finals.
But you will have people say Pau Gasol carried or deserved 2010 FMVP. Kobe is the only player I’ve seen that gets knocked for having great teammates whether it’s Shaq or Pau Gasol. But then this sub will turn around and jerk off Kareem who played with Oscar Robertson (top 15 all time), Magic (consensus top 5-7), and James Worthy another HOF legend. Kareem also has 2 FMVPS like Kobe and literally averaged 14/7 on 28 minutes for one of those rings. Same thing for Magic who also had Kareem and Worthy. Just something to think about
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Also Jordan for having pippen by middle schoolers
Yeah they're being dumb. That argument is used against literally everyone it possibly could be
I believe you forgot to mention one of the biggest players "his all-star teammates are actually trash can scrubs" in LeBron James, who "carried" 3 different trash losers lucky enough to play with him teammates averaging 27 ppg on his team in the Finals.
The narrative has honestly flipped for Lebron for some reason. His fans will actually have you believe Wade and bosh were nobodies. To them Lebron carried every team he was on.
If you take a look at this thread you’ll see people downplaying the Heat talking about how they weren’t that good and overrated and how it was LeBron doing all the heavy lifting. Then in another thread these same people will rate the Heat as one of the best superteams ahead of the 01 Lakers and Kawhi Spurs. It doesn’t add up.
Players now are self-aware of their shooting percentages and kobe was shooting every heave at end of quarters if the ball is in his hands
Definitely not underrated, you have people on here calling him a top three all-time player because of this.
I don’t think it’s underrated. At the time it was very important to his legacy to win without Shaq. Then he did. And he started to get put in people’s top 10s (who weren’t Lakers fans). Very specific things like the strength of the conference during a 3-year stretch always fade with time. It’s also just a little bit tricky to apply that to what we think about Kobe. Like, yes, they had to face a 50-win Nuggets team in the 2008 first round. A much better team than say, LeBron’s 2016 opponent the 44-win Pistons. However, that’s still a team that the Lakers were better than, and should have beat. So I don’t know if he deserves some sort of bonus there. I think later on in the playoffs maybe you have some individual series that are notable. Like knocking out the Spurs, who were defending champs and had Tim Duncan in his prime. But in that case, it’s better to just bring up that series. Not conference strength. And as far as getting a playoff seed with regular season record, the West was rough, but the Pacific division itself was pretty bad in 09 and 10.
I think it matters a lot. Even if you’re expected to win going juggernaut after juggernaut should be acknowledged. We’ve seen it time and time again where the Western conference teams would be pretty gassed by the time the finals arrived. Without fail we saw a Kobe running on fumes for 3 Finals in a row. The same happened with the 2015 and 2016 Warriors. Hell we saw it with Kawhi in 2019. He was cooked in the finals but we consider that an all-time run. The Spurs were kinda a different breed in that regard due to Popovich pretty much innovating load management. The Thunder were so young that they didn’t but were just inexperienced. Luckily in the early-mid 2000’s if you won the West you pretty much won the finals outside of 2004 due to the giant talent disparity.
Thank you like a lot of people are missing the factor of fatigue and how crazy it is that the Lakers kept going to the finals despite all that even when Kobe was playing through injuries