Reply With Quote
It's a myth that Kobe has destroyed his legacy. How do you destroy a legacy as a coattail rider? It didn't matter what he did this year, he's been Robin all the times that it mattered.
Name me one other top 10 all time great that has destroyed his legacy as Kobrick has. I'll even list the top 10 players,,,
MJ
Magic
Kareem
Duncan
Bird
Hakeem
Wilt
Russell
Shaq
Oscar
,,,,,,
It's a myth that Kobe has destroyed his legacy. How do you destroy a legacy as a coattail rider? It didn't matter what he did this year, he's been Robin all the times that it mattered.
It did matter, DMC,,,,his weakness has been exposed more than ever. He cant carry the team and we all knew this thoughout his career and now the Lakers have a 25 mil/yr bench player.
as a coatrider his ceiling was beating the likes of horry, kerrm pippen, rodman who has more championships then him as a coatrider
if he kept his inside his pants and mouth shut and accepted the robin role instead of chasing all the top5 big men he was lucky to ride the pine with for championships...he wouldve overtaken those players i mention
Agreed, T,,,dude was a small fish in a big pond and continues to sink in the deep end.
Lucky Allen Iverson, nothing more, nothing less
More like Alfred the butler at best, tbh.
You couldn't resist, could you?
Co sign
Iverson actually cared about winning, just that his vision of how to win is misguided. Sure there are those practice comments, stories of him demanding a trade, refusing to come off the bench, etc ... But it's done with him not accepting he is. It and cannot be the sole reason for the team to win. That combined with his strongheadedness led to many clashes and and image of him being a cancer.
Kobe on the other hand was clearly more interested in promoting his own brand and see a win at all cost image as the way to achieve it.
The way thei images unfolded to th public is similar, just that one is genuine while the other is manufactured.
I have no idea what you just said.
You shouldn't, auto correct and typos on phone.
What I said was, there was a difference in what Iverson and Kobe did during their days.
Iverson, at least based on what I saw, actually cared about winning. He had a warped sense of how teams could win (relying on him solely to win), but his strongheadedness as to how the team could win. He laid everything on the floor, didn't care/want to deal with all the other stuff, and just played. Sure there were those practice comments, rumors of him wanting to be traded, and him refusing to come off the bench, but it has more to do with Iverson not being able to accept that a model running through him only is not the way to win basketball games at the highest levels. He loved the game, and you can see it in the way he played.
Kobe on the other hand was strictly interested in promoting his own brand, and being on a winning basketball team, with well timed promo material to further his "win-at-all-cost" image is all but a vehicle for him to be more popular internationally.
The way they are presented to public is similar, but Iverson is genuine, while Kobe is just totally manufactured.
and, like clockwork, hes coming out with some dumb Showtime special in which he will try to rewrite history...again...of everything that's happened.
Its coming out right around the all star game of course. He'll explain why he deserves to be there, and give the excuse on why he's gonna quit.
See, Iverson never pulled crap like that. He never had an "accidentally" leaked video about how much he loves to win and would throw a teammate under the bus if it meant being compe ive again, he never scoring-record chased as obviously as Kobe did, he never signed a $48.5M contract to undermine the compe iveness of the team, he never walked into a free agent recruiting session to tell the recruit how to win. Iverson is not spotless for sure, but he loved the game.
tbh as much fun as it is to see him shoot 35% from the field it's not fair to act like that's the player he's always been. Prime/near prime Kirby was a pretty deadly scorer.
What I hope people see instead is that his style just doesn't work without a dominant frontline to carry him. He's too much of a selfish got. Doesn't make teammates better and nobody really likes playing with him. In his prime the ceiling was a 1st round exit and in his current state there is no ceiling just a floor. Basically no different than Tmac, VC, Iverson, etc. I hope his chopper goes down one day tbh.
Lucky that his team was smart enough to pair him with a legitimate big to carry his ass to the le.
Yeah....i always thought of Kobe as a TMac who stayed healthy for his entire prime. Lucked out with Lakers, Shaq.
Just depends on what you choose or what you're able to remember.
Magic had sex with men, got the HIV that required him to retire in his prime. Off the court, his legacy should go down as being destroyed more than what Kobe has gone through off the court. But there's a general perception that Magic's legacy wasn't destroyed as much as Kobe. And perhaps he's viewed as somewhat rehabilitating his off the court legacy as a business man. I don't know though.
Also off the court, Michael Jordan (allegedly) had gambling problems so severe that he was forced to take a leave of absence in his prime and those gambling problems also could have led directly or indirectly to the death of his father. He also was a widely reported asshole who many teammates hated. He got divorced when at the time his wife got one of the 2 or 3 top most expensive divorce settlements of all time. As an NBA executive and owner, he's been for the most part a monumental disaster, beyond the Kwame Brown and Adam Morrison draft selections. And on the court, he made a comeback and failed miserably. When you think about it, his post 1993 life except for the 3 les has been wrought with legacy damage. But he's still considered by most as the GOAT and at least his player legacy hasn't been criticized too much aside from ardent Jordan haters.
On the court, after Shaq won his 4th le to surpass Kobe's and Duncan's 3 at the time, his first le as a sidekick, he began a long and pitiful journey from team to team trying to add on an extra championship or two. His stints in Cleveland and Boston particularly were an embarrassment.
Although not a top 10 player but in the conversation for perhaps somewhere in the top 10-25, Karl Malone went from legendary one-team career great to a coat-tailing pedophile Mexican wife hunter. And quickly fell off the cliff. His one year stint in the purple and gold even though they came close to ringing was probably not worth leaving his in tact legacy in Utah.
But as it were, Kobe's legacy feels the most destroyed because it's most current. 20 years from now, he won't be remembered for his last 3-5 seasons as a player. He'll be remembered as an all time great with no asterisks or footnotes, save from the most ardent Kobe haters who want to continue to live the hate. Not unlike the few handful of guys on these boards that will still harp on Michael Jordan as a dad killer and horrible human being. True or not, the general public, heck the general NBA fanbase won't worry or concern themselves with that narrative. And the same with Kobe 20 years from now.
How many people talk about Jordan's Washington Wizard years? How many people bring up Oscar not being able to win despite his great individual stats until he hopped on Kareem's back in Milwaukee or how he tried to hang on in the league through his mid 30s despite becoming a s of his former self averaging 13-15 points in his final few seasons? How many people will talk about Shaq's Phoenix, Cleveland, Boston days? How many people will joke that Larry Bird's first le in their "mini-dynasty" run in the 80s came with Cedric Maxwell winning the Finals MVP? Do people care that Wilt averaged 11 and 12 points his final two seasons in the league?
It all depends on what you choose and are able to remember. Kobe is the most recent. And in today's social media driven sports world and in an era of extreme dissection with advanced statistical metrics, he's also been the most exposed under a microscope on and off the court. Are the criticisms and the hate justifiable? Sure, some of it, perhaps most of it. But 20 years from now, Kobe could very well be remembered in very much different manner than how a lot of people on these boards view him now.
nothing is worse than buying a a condo after your wife tells you he can no longer stay with you.....straigght got ass
What's worse is being homeless after giving your wife all your houses.
tee, hee.
http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/e...48484/34478396
Can't say I agree.
Reputations fade as the years go on, but that's mostly the good reputation.
All those negative aspects weren't Major knocks on those players legacy (not as a person, but a basketball player) when it happened. People think they were bad people (malone, magic, jordan to a degree but it was minimized because of his marketing power) but their reputations as players were never seriously affected.
Shaq was known to be washed up and people didn't use those days to evaluate him as a player. He accepted a much smaller role and was clearly ring chasing to have more rings than duncan.
Kobe though, is the first one who had his weaknesses magnified the last few years. How he's always about himself, how he undermines teammates, how he has horrible shot selection, etc... Sure he is no longer in his prime, but he supposedly can still score with the best of them, he declares that he is still a top player in the league and can teach superstars like dwight how to win. But not only could he not, he dragged one of the most successful franchises down to a laughing stock.
We will see what happens in 20 years, but history has shown that fans and media tends to minimize older players to prop up newer ones. They aim to show the old players weaknesses to prove how the new players are so much better. We saw it with Cousy, big o, russell, wilt, Kareem, magic, bird, Moses, jordan etc and we will see it with duncan, Lebron and kobe. Just that kobe is having questions raised about him way earlier than expected.
Hakeem is pretty much the only player whose reputation got better years after retirement. Can't really explain why.
LA made Kirby. The trades they can pull, the FAs they can attract, the money they can spend, the tradition they must uphold...that's why Kirby has 5 rings not bc of his supposed greatness. As good as he was individually that style doesn't make anyone better, he needed to be surrounded by rosters that only LA could afford/lure.
Yet he found a way to it all up and singlehandedly turn the Lakers into a joke.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
