NippySudz wrote:stan francisco wrote:NippySudz wrote:
this is the best he's looked defensively probably in 4 years.
Has it ever occurred to people LeBron James can't be LeBron James anymore?
He's shooting a tick under 50% this year. He hasn't shot under 50% since 2015. He had a hot start to the season but has kinda cooled off. Maybe he's pacing himself, maybe he exhausted himself by not pacing himself, who really knows.
It doesn't help that he is the Lakers entire offense. I don't get how Laker fans can be critical of the guy that's mostly responsible for the Lakers being the number 1 seed in the west.
You'll give kuzma all these passes but the guy that is the MVP of your team, nothing.
He's had some big wins in Utah, Denver, dallas, Miami, Houston.
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‘Has it ever occurred to people’ that if you get paid $35M plus per year to be the star of stars on the franchise of franchises, you can’t expect to win unless you yourself roll up your sleeves to play defense.
Kobe’s comments on our roster this season, “we have enough”. He has his supporting cast.
If LeBron doesn’t have it anymore, and I base that off of what you say, then we made a huge mistake signing him. Yes. You can’t win it all if your best player doesn’t play defense. Period. Nash etc. It just doesn’t work when your leader plays one end only. No rings.
It would suck for those of us who loved the promise of our youth of last year (Lonzo, Ingram, Hart are all future elite defenders). If we get eliminated by the Pelicans simply because LeBron doesn’t have it defensively anymore, you can expect some Lakers fans to doubt your guy’s warrior heart. We’re used to Kobe slaying teams while playing defense against their best player on the other end.
Spoiled? Indeed.
Best individual defense in four years for LeBron’s personal account means nothing if it doesn’t end with Laker rings. It’ll matter absolutely nothing. Not to LeBron, not to me, not to any Lakers fan. LeBron fans might think it’s cool to stat pad. Ask Bean and logo.
Anyone who starts playing 35 minutes next to AD will see their defensive stats go up. AD plays defense enough for two, sometimes three players.
Here’s my projection:
Unimproved defense from LBJ from here on out, no rings. Kawhi has his number unless LBJ mans up and takes on Kawhi one-on-one. If he picks up his defense, we have a solid chance. He just has to grow a pair, and stop his lazy fade-away three pt attempt give-aways.
With all due respect to Kobe, he's not a GM. He wouldn't know if they have enough. It's his opinion. There are several times where players think they have enough and it's not the case. Kobe wanted to get rid of bynum for Jason kidd.
Please don't take offense to this,
I wouldn't say spoiled. Just deluded. Kobe played for the Lakers for twenty yrs which means Laker fans saw the best of Kobe for a long time.
If you got Kobe in his 16th and 17th year, it would look different. Kobe played in the NBA for twenty years man. In his 17th yr, he was a seventh seed with Dwight Howard. No knock on Kobe. He's an all time great but people tend to over romanticize Kobe to the point I wonder if people remember he didn't win every year or he didn't shoot the ball well every game.
Kobe had Ron artest and Trevor ariza(same Trevor ariza who made LeBron work against portland) as additional wing defenders. Who does LeBron have?
If you think the Lakers have enough, they should just stand pat during the trade deadline and buyout market. Don't change anything if that's the case. There shouldn't be complaints from Laker fans saying they didn't do anything either if you truly believe Kobe's opinion to be fact.
I didn't say the Lakers couldn't win without LeBron. That's a strawman. I said LeBron has lost a step. He's not washed. He's just not 4x league MVP LeBron anymore. He's good enough to win a title. Hell, he's the reason the Lakers are the number one seed. Without LeBron, it's the Los Angeles pelicans competing for a 7th or 8th seed. Kobe was never the Lakers main offense cog for literally everything than asked to play defense I'm not only talking about generating offense for himself(which Kobe was excellent at) but generating offense for the team entirely.
It's going to take another wing defender to help out. I do agree, he shouldn't settle against kawhi Leonard. But I'm going to give LeBron benefit of the doubt and allow us to see his most optimal self come playoff time.
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The issue I have with this is the word never. Kobe was literally that 06, 06, 08, 09, and 10. HE was all defense while being the primary ball handler even with broken fingers, top assist getter, being doubled team, and being the primary scorer. And he did it all while making sure Pau still got the same amount of attempts a night he got in Memphis. He did it while getting Bynum and Odom their double digit attempts.
LeBron never had to carry Kobe's weight on offense or defense that Phil had him carry because kobe unlike LeBron got his talent curtailed. LEBron made Bosh and Love into jump shooters over playing around them like he has done a pretty good of doing around AD this year. But even that isn't what it seems on paper because Bron leads the league in 4th quarter attempts, frequently playing hero ball like Kobe. LEBron has over 100 more 4th quarter attempts than his second guy, which is something Kobe never lapped Pau and Shaq that much by. LEBron was an extraordinary help defender and backline rim protector in Miami, but he was never that guy you put on someone like Kobe was put on people like McGrady, Iverson, Vince when they were hot as fire.
And if we are being technical, LeBron in year 16 couldn't make the playoffs in LA while Kobe took Mike Brown's team with Sessions, Bynum, Pau, Metta to the second round in a lockout shortened year where they played 3 games in a row sometimes and literally played back to back nights in the playoffs.
Kobe in year 17 had a Pau that played 49 games total, Nash that played 50 games total, Artest that played with no meniscus (love that bastard), Dwight who was hard headed, and Blake who played 45 games. Kobe literally had his main rotation players miss so many **** games but he put them on his back that year and forced them to the playoffs out west. In fact for the second half of the year, they had the best record there was going into the 7th spot and no team was trying to see them with Kobe on that tear. The opposite is true so far with Bron because he hasn't shown up like year 17 Kobe did when pushed in a corner. They needed him to show up vs Kawhi, Lillard, Simmons, Freak, and Boston but he did not. When they needed Kobe to play damn near every minute vs Portland and win in Portland he did that year, when they needed him to full court press Kemba and Jennings to get in the playoff picture he did, when they needed him to make Earl Clark relevant like he made a list of gusy who never stuck around the league after him (Cook, Smush, Tierre, Sasha, Brown, Radmanovic, etc) he did, and when they needed him to pick himself up after popping his achilles so the Warriors couldn't select the free throw shooter, he did just that.
LeBron has enough. He's had a relatiely healthy team all year long with AD, Javale, Dwight, Green, and the like. He's got 5 or 6 guys who made all defense before. He's got guys who have played in the finals before on his team in Cook, Cousins, Rondo, Green, JAvale, Dwight, and so on. his learning curve is vastly different from Kobe taking the youngest team of the past twenty years at the times with a core of guys who had never won sans Fisher to the finals 3s in a row out west and defeating the actual champs to get there.
Does he have everything? Nope. But no team has literally everything that they need. None of Kobe's team had everything, not even the 15-1. Hell Curry/KD didn't have everything either because they gave up every bit of depth for KD, and even the 72 win Bulls team lacked certain things. Did they all have enough to get in the dance? Yes. When they got there, did they handle their ****? Yep, and Bron has to handle his. And right now honestly even with the record I'm waiting for Bron to have a Kobe moment where I say oh **** he won't let us lose when it matters and we stare down a real team like the Clippers, Celtics, Sixers, or Bucks
