Deuces88
05-23-2009, 05:31 PM
NBA brought in a lot of revenue in the 90s when millions of people loved to watch a certain player. That player was Michael Jordan. I'm not saying Bird and Magic weren't very popular. They were. But Jordan was on a different level of skill and popularity. The things that he did. We can even see it today. Young players love to emulate him. You see his sneakers on the feet of every teen and young adult.
When Jordan left, I'm assuming the revenue NBA brought end dropped because everyone's favorite player was no longer playing. Obviously, as a business, the NBA isn't going to just let their sales go down. They needed a player that could fill Jordan's shoes. It doesn't have to be on a skill level necessarily. He just as to be as popular.
Obviously, no one at the time came close to Jordan's skill-level. However, we all know that most basketball fans love to watch scorers. They love to watch players who score a lot. True basketball fans love to see solid defense and execution. Fairweather fans (at least 80% of basketball fans worldwide) just love to see teams score. High scoring games excite most fans.
Kobe is a talented scorer. No one can deny that. Furthermore, he's not afraid to take a sh*tload of shots. The NBA had the perfect candidate. They proceeded to go as far as they needed to in order to hype this guy up and even compare him to MJ. Kobe filled the popularity void left by Jordan.
Good thing Kobe was on Shaq's Lakers. Shaq lead his team to 3 championships and since Kobe was a part of it, the NBA could continue to fuel the Kobe-Jordan discussion. It was a shame that LeBron James was drafted in 03.
As we stand today, James is definitely a more popular player than Kobe. His teammates actually like him and he doesn't blame others when things do not come out right. It's also fun to watch him play because he does more than score (let's see Kobe pull off some of the James' blocks). Furthermore, that rape case didn't increase Kobe's popularity.
Kobe is no longer needed to fill the Jordan void. We have a new candidate. There is no need to sway things in Kobe's favor anymore. I'm pretty sure sales for the NBA finals will be high as long as LeBron is there especially since his team is doing better than ever.
When Jordan left, I'm assuming the revenue NBA brought end dropped because everyone's favorite player was no longer playing. Obviously, as a business, the NBA isn't going to just let their sales go down. They needed a player that could fill Jordan's shoes. It doesn't have to be on a skill level necessarily. He just as to be as popular.
Obviously, no one at the time came close to Jordan's skill-level. However, we all know that most basketball fans love to watch scorers. They love to watch players who score a lot. True basketball fans love to see solid defense and execution. Fairweather fans (at least 80% of basketball fans worldwide) just love to see teams score. High scoring games excite most fans.
Kobe is a talented scorer. No one can deny that. Furthermore, he's not afraid to take a sh*tload of shots. The NBA had the perfect candidate. They proceeded to go as far as they needed to in order to hype this guy up and even compare him to MJ. Kobe filled the popularity void left by Jordan.
Good thing Kobe was on Shaq's Lakers. Shaq lead his team to 3 championships and since Kobe was a part of it, the NBA could continue to fuel the Kobe-Jordan discussion. It was a shame that LeBron James was drafted in 03.
As we stand today, James is definitely a more popular player than Kobe. His teammates actually like him and he doesn't blame others when things do not come out right. It's also fun to watch him play because he does more than score (let's see Kobe pull off some of the James' blocks). Furthermore, that rape case didn't increase Kobe's popularity.
Kobe is no longer needed to fill the Jordan void. We have a new candidate. There is no need to sway things in Kobe's favor anymore. I'm pretty sure sales for the NBA finals will be high as long as LeBron is there especially since his team is doing better than ever.