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What do you mean exactly?
The selfishness he had early in his career that prevented him from having better assists numbers and FG% (from not forcing shots) ?
From Mike wilbon on ESPN, this ...
Kobe Bryant is one of the 10 best players to play the game of basketball. But he will never be as great as Michael Jordan. Don't dare read this as Kobe-hating. I'm rooting for Kobe to be in the Finals this spring again. But nobody has ever been as good as Jordan, not LeBron James, either; and he never will be, and people in my business need to stop suggesting it. There's not an all-court player in the game today who does anything as well as Jordan did. Just consider this one stat: If you take out his final full season (1997-98), the lowest shooting percentage in Jordan's career with the Bulls is higher than the highest shooting percentage of Kobe's career. I'm sure we'll revisit this a bunch of times in the spring, when Kobe is approaching his sixth le, which would tie him with Jordan.
i agree with most of this, Kobe is not as good as MJ. I disagree with a couple of things there are some things (very little) that Kobe and Lebron do better than MJ but overall MJ is better than both. I still think Lebron has a chance to threaten GOAT status but he better start winning les soon. Kobe will climb that top 10 list even further but I doubt he will surpass MJ or Kareem or Magic ... he had a shot at surpassing them eary in his career but now that opportunity has passed kobe by ...
What do you mean exactly?
The selfishness he had early in his career that prevented him from having better assists numbers and FG% (from not forcing shots) ?
Wow. Kobe got a big thread
That's not what that Colorado chick said
badabing!
Watchin the "Hardwood Classic" Shaq's return to LA with the Heat game. 2 things come to mind:
1) Kobe's such a ing pimp, it's ridiculous.
and 2) If that fat wins another ring w/ Boston, I'm gonna take a flight to Boston and start picking people off at Fenway opening day.
Timmy's just soo talented..
such an offensive foul.. Nene's a little b*tch
Kobe Bryant is one of the 10 best players to play the game of basketball. But he will never be as great as Michael Jordan. Don't dare read this as Kobe-hating. I'm rooting for Kobe to be in the Finals this spring again. But nobody has ever been as good as Jordan, not LeBron James, either; and he never will be, and people in my business need to stop suggesting it. There's not an all-court player in the game today who does anything as well as Jordan did. Just consider this one stat: If you take out his final full season (1997-98), the lowest shooting percentage in Jordan's career with the Bulls is higher than the highest shooting percentage of Kobe's career. I'm sure we'll revisit this a bunch of times in the spring, when Kobe is approaching his sixth le, which would tie him with Jordan.
i agree with most of this, Kobe is not as good as MJ. I disagree with a couple of things there are some things (very little) that Kobe and Lebron do better than MJ but overall MJ is better than both. I still think Lebron has a chance to threaten GOAT status but he better start winning les soon. Kobe will climb that top 10 list even further but I doubt he will surpass MJ or Kareem or Magic ... he had a shot at surpassing them eary in his career but now that opportunity has passed kobe by ...
The only thing Kobe has done better than Jordan is 3 point shooting and clever tricks to score. Arguably Jordan could have done all those things if he needed to. He was utterly the most dominant player on the court during every single play. He never needed to isolate himself and go 1v1 vs his player. Then work on his 1v1 game and tear players up. He did that really late in his career while that was Kobe's game from the get go. Jordan was too busy doing whatever it took to win the game, while Kobe was too busy becoming the best player he could be. The difference is Jordan was the most dominant force in the game, while Kobe developed the prettiest looking game.
But arguably, alot of what Kobe does, Jordan has done.
I find that type of reasoning to be patently absurd. Never, really? Never? That type of reasoning speaks more to people just wanting to have one player of "legend" who people want to deem untouchable. I hate this kind of reasoning.
I understand the allure, I really do, but to claim that Kobe or Lebron can simply never touch Jordan regardless of how they perform in the future is patently absurd.
Hypothetical - Kobe wins 4 more rings, 4 more regular season MVPs, 4 more Finals MVPs from this point onward. , while we're doing hypotheticals, let's really go over the top just to prove a point - forget 4, let's say 8, or 10. Will Jordan still be so untouchable?
Obviously any sensible person will tell you that this won't happen. I know that. I'm not suggesting in the slightest that Kobe is capable of achieving such a feat. I'm merely trying to shed light on this annoying practice of arbitrarily deeming players "untouchable" for its own sake.
Trip home stirs Bryant’s nostalgia
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 12 hours, 51 minutes ago
On the Los Angeles Lakers’ preseason trip to Barcelona, Kobe Bryant(notes) watched the young kids with a basketball and marveled over the differences in the development of too many players in the States.
“Every single one, it seemed – the 8-year-old, the 9-year-olds – go left and they go right,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports recently. “The older ones shoot the jump hook with the left, and they shoot the jump hook with the right. You’ve got bigger kids who can shoot from the outside, who can handle the ball and play. A lot of young players that look like [Pau] Gasol, who are just so skilled.
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Kobe Bryant pledged $411,000 to build exhibits within the gym of his old high school, Lower Merion, in suburban Philadelphia.
(NBAE/Getty Images)
“And now, you’ve got kids here in the States, 20 years old, who can’t do those things. Damn, you’ve got max players who can’t do that.”
Bryant laughed, but he was barely kidding. What it reminded him was how fortunate he had been at the most important level of the game – high school basketball – to have had a coach teach him the fundamentals and drill him over and over.
As much as anything, this is the reason Bryant returned to Lower Merion High School in suburban Philadelphia for a ceremony on Thursday night where they named his alma mater’s gym after him. He pledged $411,000 for educational and interactive exhibits within the gymnasium where his old coach, Gregg Downer, still runs the team.
“He was always a sponge,” Downer said by phone this week.
Bryant had so much to learn when he came out of Lower Merion and into the NBA draft in 1996, but he always appreciated the knowledge he brought with him. He’s forever grateful to Downer in that way, loyal to a coach who was willing to immerse himself into a driven young prodigy. There are so many of these coaches in so many cities and small towns, everywhere. Most of them don’t get a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Bryant, the son of an ex-NBA player, to walk into the gym, but they all do the best they can with whatever kids do come along.
“I really had a great high school coach,” Bryant said. “I really had a great high school. I had the will to learn the game, but he had the knowledge to teach me the game. He would get there early to work with me on the basic things: midrange game, footwork.
“But these kids now, the coaches are catering to the star players. They don’t want to tell them when they’re messing up. They don’t want to correct things. They end up skating through things in AAU [Amateur Athletic Union], and go to college and still have all these weaknesses in their game. I don’t like it. I don’t like it.
“I think it’s a system thing we need to address in the United States.”
AAU basketball is still king, and perhaps that’s made it harder for the generation of stars to overtake Bryant. Before Lower Merion High School, Kobe had grown up in Italy and learned his lessons in the European system. Back in the States, Downer elevated everything for Bryant. Now, he doesn’t need to be the most athletic, most explosive player on the planet to be its best. This was true of Michael Jordan in his 30s and still the case for Bryant. What was most vital to Bryant’s game at 16 years old is still most vital now.
“I always talk about having your bread-and-butter play, and for Kobe that was his middle-range game,” Downer said. “Whenever he needed a basket, he would go to the pull-up 15-footer. I think that they shoot the 3-pointer too excessively in AAU, and you don’t always see the great fundamentals. Kobe had a little mus in his game, but he understood what his bread-and-butter was as a player, and he’s never lost that.”
So, yes, this makes his trip to play the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night something unforgettable for Bryant, because he spent Thursday evening back at the old gym for a fundraiser, for the dedication. For all these years, he’s stayed close with Downer and the program, and isn’t averse to getting on the speaker phone and giving the kids a little talk when the coach tells him they need it. For everywhere Kobe Bryant goes now, everything he sees in the game, it always reminds him how fortunate he was back in the beginning, when there was a young coach to feed his appe e for learning, to teach him the important lessons of the game. Maybe it didn’t seem like the biggest deal in the world then, but all these years later, for basketball’s best player, it sure does now.
Adrian Wojnarowski is the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Follow him on Twitter. Send Adrian a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcas
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...ts-every-game/Kobe wears his Lower Merion shorts under his Lakers shorts every game
Kurt Helin
Michael Jordan, every time he put on his Chicago Bulls shorts for a game, had a pair of North Carolina shorts on underneath them.
Kobe Bryant, every time he has put on his Los Angeles Lakers shorts, has a pair of his old Lower Merion High School shorts on underneath.
We all learned that later fact last night at the dedication of the new gym at his old school — which is named after Kobe now (thanks in part to a $411,000 donation).
Kobe has modeled plenty of Jordan habits but this news came as a surprise to media who have been around the Laker locker room for years. And there aren’t that many secrets in that locker room — when Sasha Vujacic gets traded and ex-girlfriends thrash him on twitter, it is something people around the team almost expected.
The shorts thing, did not see that coming.
And as Brian Kamenetzky said at the Land O’ Lakers blog, how many of us can still fit into clothes we wore in high school? I’m sure the all-flannel-shirt wardrobe I had back in the day would be a little tight now.
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...rays-negative/Kobe Bryant has sprained pinkie, X-rays negative
Matt Moore
This will not affect Kobe Bryant. These injuries just don’t bother him. I don’t know if it’s because he just blocks out the pain or if his body just doesn’t react to damage like a Terminator. But this sprained pinkie for Kobe Bryant? Won’t bother him. Because he’s not human.
But a sprained pinkie it is. From the Orange County Register:
Coach Phil Jackson said Bryant told him: “It’ll be all right.” Postgame X-rays on the finger showed no break.
It’s the same finger in which Bryant tore a ligament and suffered an avulsion fracture (a fragment of bone torn away) in the 2007-08 season, although that injury was to the top knuckle of the finger.
via Finger pain hampers Bryant | finger, bryant, bynum – Sports – The Orange County Register.
It being the same finger is a little disturbing, if only because Bryant’s not shooting quite as well as he has in previous years. He’s struggling in certain situations, but still is Kobe for the most part. His FG% is the lowest it has been since 2004-2005. But his 3-point shooting is up.
Bryant has already said he’ll be playing against Toronto. Seriously, nothing can stop the man.
Except John Connor.
Nice effort with rebounding
lets go Spurs
Kobe moved into the top 10 all-time scoring group tonight.
He passed Dominique? Congrats
Ballhogging DOES pay off
now that kobe is officially retired can we unstick this piece of crap?
The Lakers are up by 51
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...upid%e2%80%9d/Kobe Bryant on Denver fans booing ‘Melo: “That’s stupid”
Kurt Helin
Carmelo Anthony dropped 35 points on the Oklahoma City Thunder, taking over the fourth quarter, in what was one of the — if not the — best wins of the season for the Nuggets Wednesday. And still fans booed him during the post game, on court interview.
Kobe Bryant doesn’t get that, as he told Chris Tomasson of FanHouse.
“That’s stupid,” star guard Kobe Bryant said in speaking with FanHouse and the Denver Post after the Lakers practiced Thursday at the Pepsi Center in preparation for Friday’s game against Denver. “That’s not very smart…”
“Put yourself in his shoes,” Bryant said. “If you’re teeter-tottering about going somewhere, he’d be more inclined to go to another place where they’re going to cheer you rather than boo you.”
It’s impossible to rule out Anthony signing an extension and staying in Denver, because in this fluid situation it’s impossible to rule anything out. The Nuggets could be stuck without a trade partner and Anthony could decide that the money potentially lost in a new Collective Bargaining Agreement outweighs his desire to go to New York.
But the waters in Denver seem poisoned. Whenever Anthony has been asked if re-signing with Denver was a possibility, he said yes — until last night. Last night he dodged the question (from Tomasson). Twice.
Who knows if the boos impacted that or not. Can’t believe it helps, though.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...chinesetheaterBryant to get cement prints at Hollywood landmark
Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant has championship rings and an MVP trophy, but he’s about to get an honor usually reserved for the stars of Hollywood.
Bryant will become the first athlete to have a hand and foot print ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Representatives for the theater announced Thursday that Bryant will have the ceremony setting his hands and feet in cement as part of the NBA’s All-Star Weekend festivities on Feb. 19, the day before the All-Star game at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
More than 200 Hollywood luminaries including John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe and Brad Pitt have had their hands and feet set in cement in front of the Hollywood landmark.
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