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The debate about who is the best player in the NBA usually comes down to Kobe vs LeBron. I had this argument the other day for like the 100th time this year. I dont know if its only me but to me one of the two clearly had the edge over the other.

Lets first go to the season:

Stats wise LeBron was the superior player. He lead Kobe in ppg, apg, rpg, bpg and fg%. Kobe lead in 3pt% and ft%. They tied in spg. Clearly we can see the difference numbers wise, but hey the numbers are not everything.

The myth is that Kobe is clearly by far the better defender, but is this true? If we had this debate 2 or 3 years ago i would the margin was huge but as of today they are not far apart. LeBron is a very underrated defensive player. He can steal and he can block, he guards the best perimeter player of every team like kobe. The problem is that when people think Kobe, they think of the past, all the awards. We have to keep in mind the present not the past. Usually the Kobe argument is he has 3 rings he has so and so award. Yes thats great but thats the past. This is now.

Evaluating there head to head matches we can see that LeBron has won more than 70% of the times with a very inferior team. This year we saw with our own eyes LeBron shut down Kobe in the last 3 minutes of both games they had while the other one couldn't. Every time they face each other around late 3rd early 4th you see the switch were they place Odom on LBJ b/c of defense purposes.

Now to me the finals spoke more than any evidence we have ever had. The excuse is that the East sucks and that there are only 2 teams that have the quality of being top 4 in the west which is Boston and Detroit. Yet Lebron by himself almost eliminated detroit in 7 games when he was 21 (2 years ago), then eliminated them the following year. Kobe with a better supporting cast go eliminated in the first round twice by phoenix those 2 years. It is very arguable which team is better between Detroit and Phoenix, yet once showed success the other didn't.

Now lets put that in the past because we are comparing them TODAY. Lebron went vs the champion Boston Celtics and took them to 7 game single handedly. Where are Kobe took Boston to 6 games with 2 former allstars and a clearly better supporting cast and probably the best team in the nba depth wise and talent wise.

In the elimination game for both players one again elevated his game while the other one saw himself helpless. Lebron scored 45 points(with 5reb 6assist and 2 steals) to almost eliminate them but came up short and lost by 5 at the very end of the game. Kobe scored 22 points (with 3reb 1assist and 1 steal) to lose by 39 points and it wasnt even a game after the first 9 minutes of the first quarter.

Is Kobe a heck of a player? yes. Is kobe a top 2 player in this league? yes. Is he currently the best player in the nba? No. Kobe is no LeBron.

Do this analysis. Take out Kobe out of LA and insert LeBron, doesn't it seem like LA would have ended up with the trophy. Seriously its amazing how underrated LeBron is with all the hype he gets. I know its contradictory but the truth of the matter is he deserves more credit for doing everything possible and taking a sorry franchise full of NBDL players to the level that they have now. There is no doubt in my mind that without LBJ, Cleveland is lottery bound top 3 pick. Can we say the same for LA? When Gasol once led his team to a 50 win season with a worse supporting cast that he has now.

Even though i am a Knicks fan first I would love to see what LeBron can do with a good supporting cast in Cleveland. I know this harms our Knicks but i love basketball and i love to see greatness. In my perfect world Lebron would be in NY next to his Pippen (OJ Mayo) winning tittles after tittles. Its not going to happend, not even Mayo on the Knicks, but i can dream. Nevertheless I think the gap was finally closed last year between LeBron and Kobe and we are now starting to see it widen as LeBron gets better and Kobe maintains himself or declines.

Go NY Go NY Go!

Hmm, I'm no Kobe fan but I don't get this...Kobe is no LeBron? I still have them as pretty much equal. Kobe had better supporting cast last two years? Really, Kwame Brown AND Smush Parker as starters...come on! Kobe has two former all-stars on his team? I know only about Gasol who was once in the ASG...and guess what, LeBron actually has THREE former all-stars on his team Supporting cast, at least LeBron's supporting cast can play defense, that's huge asset which the Lakers currently don't have...I really wouldn't say that it was LeBron SINGLEHANDEDLY taking the Celtics to 7 games, especially when he was completely off first four games.

I don't see how you can say that LeBron was completely off either. Sure he wasn't shooting well and had probably the worst game of his career in game one. But the fact is LeBron was still rebounding, getting assists and playing defense. He was still putting up good stats as well, he just couldn't make an outside shot to save his life.

It is also rather disingenuous to say that LeBron has 3 Ex-allstars on his team. Fact is they are way more ex than they are all stars at this time. Sure it's not singlehanded, but fact is LeBron has less help (at least offensively) than just about any other team in the NBA right now.

Of course the all-stars part was meant to be a joke, fact is Kobe doesn't have TWO former all-stars on his team and it's really naive to claim that he had better supporting cast in previous years...

I really don't care who is the better player.. They are both special players with breath taking talents who just wants to win. Kobe is the better player as far as right now since he's been in the league for over a decade. Obviously, more years in the league means more experience and more ways of improvement.. However, LeBron will soon be the best in the league for many years to come. Not right now though.. Kobe is in his prime. LeBron is still arising spontaneously. By the way, this debate is getting annoying. Let's stop comparing these two.

My best friend is a Lakers fan. He told me today that these playoffs sealed the deal for him. He said that there is no doubt in his mind that the Lakers would have been a much harder out with LBJ instead of Kobe. I'm a Celtics fan first and foremost and also an avid Cavs fan. Having watched Boston play both Cleveland and LA, I'd have to agree that LBJ is just a better player than Kobe. They might be equally talented but Kobe simply doesn't have LeBron's passion to win.

A good litmus test would be looking at how fans outside of CLE/LA compare the two.

Obviously watching Lebron night in night out we will consider him better, particularly given the progress he has made defensively. I do think Kobe is unquestionably a more skilled player, but Lebron has some natural gifts and instincts that close that gap.

What gets me is the number of people that give Kobe the edge because his game is smoother. Are you kidding me? LeBron may not be smooth but just about every game he does something that I swear nobody else in the NBA can do. Don't get me wrong, Kobe does some of the craziest spinning twisting shots. But the fact is LeBron does stuff and makes it look easy until you realize that nobody else can do that.

As a unbiased observer, I think LeBron is clearly better. This great killer instinct that allegedly set Kobe apart from the rest of the league just hasn't been there in the past several years.

TheOUTLAW wrote:What gets me is the number of people that give Kobe the edge because his game is smoother. Are you kidding me? LeBron may not be smooth but just about every game he does something that I swear nobody else in the NBA can do. Don't get me wrong, Kobe does some of the craziest spinning twisting shots. But the fact is LeBron does stuff and makes it look easy until you realize that nobody else can do that.

Not to revive this topic but that's when you know your really, really good. When you make stuff that is extremely difficult look easy. Lebron drives by 3-4 people and finishes with the off-hand like it's nothing.
He drops cross court dimes 1-handed or touch passes up the court regularly, etc.

Lebron may not have the grace or technical skill polished in his game yet but his raw ability is amazing.

Kobe may have more skill, but I'd rather have a player in the lane attempting a layup than shooting a fadeaway jumper over three people. The "skill" argument is overrated, LeBron puts his talents to better use.

As a Celtics fan I agree. Lebron has a slight edge. Gave us the most competition this year. Look forward to seeing your team next year in the playoffs.

Food for thought: As someone said earlier, if the Cavs team defense werent there in those first 4 games v. the Celtics, there'd be no "singlehanded" LeBron push to 7 games. He still ended up at 35% fg for the series, remember, and most of the games were lows scoring affairs, which shows you how much of a defense-fest it was. Offense, for which you can credit LeBron with the large majority of the time, wasn't what took 3 games from Boston. That's not to say LeBron didn't play good defense, but a swing is still limited to what he can do defensively bracketing aside the rest of the team (see: duel with Pierce, game 7). I don't know if comparing a loss in the finals in 6 to a loss in the 2nd round in 7 is going to tell you "a lot" about the two guys vis a vis each other. Otherwise its arguable that Joe Johnson is on their level too, right?

Fact is LeBron played better both offensively and defensively than Kobe did versus the Celtics. But you don't have to use that as an example you could use the times that the Cavs and Lakers have played head to head and you'd still come away with the same answer.

TheOUTLAW wrote:Fact is LeBron played better both offensively and defensively than Kobe did versus the Celtics. But you don't have to use that as an example you could use the times that the Cavs and Lakers have played head to head and you'd still come away with the same answer.

Do you have some eFG% that backs up that statement about playing better offensively? 5% in fg differential is a lot of ground to make up.

And LeBron was specifically assigned to Pierce. Pierce dropped what was it, 39, 40 pts in game 7? You can't give up just as much as you put in if you want to consider it good defense.

Clearly you don't understand that there is alot more to the game of basketball than shooting percentages. Fact is, LeBron is way more involved in the Cavs intricate in the Cavs offense than Kobe is. So regardless of how he is being defended LeBron has to have the ball and has to shoot. He isn't going to just run away from the responsibility and let his team lose by 39 just because it might effect his shooting percentages. Even with the one absolutely horrendous game LeBron still had better stats than Kobe did as well (He actually led in pts, assts and rebs/game). Regarding the fact that Pierce did have an excellent game 7 at least take into consideration that LeBron outscored and outplayed Pierce in every single game of that series while Kobe cannot say the same at all.