Is Kobe given the most flack of any star? Highlighting inconsistent arguments against him.

[Myth]

Ok so I guess I’m minimizing rik smits and Todd too? Mutombo was 35 years old. He was never a top 10 player in the league. Iverson was, Kidd was, in 2000 Miller was on the brink, you gotta admit that Kobe went up against tougher matchups in the finals than Shaq did, those are just facts.

You are just a walking, talking, moving goal post, aren’t you? Your initial comment about “old Mutombo” was following the statement “Shaq is being guarded by the likes of…” Mutombo was defensive player of the year that season and was absolutely better defensively than Iverson. Talking about who was a better player overall between Mutombo and Iverson is a different point than the one you initially made to downplay Shaq’s FMVP production. Smitts and Todd are valid points, so there is no need to call you out on those points, but you dilute your valid points when such an obvious bias comes out in the invalid ones, or avoid acknowledging valid points from another point of view and change the argument in order to do so (as you just did).

Basketball is a two way sport. Kobe had to deal with Mutombo too, but also had to guard Iverson on the other end. Shaq didn’t have to worry about Mutombo on defense.
Kobe was being guarded by Raja and Snow, both capable defenders while having to guard MVP iverson and 6 man of year Mckie.

Though none of this is incorrect, it still goes into the moving goal post and never acknowledged the hypocrisy of your earlier points. So, have a good night I guess.

[flytimes11]

You are just a walking, talking, moving goal post, aren’t you? Your initial comment about “old Mutombo” was following the statement “Shaq is being guarded by the likes of…” Mutombo was defensive player of the year that season and was absolutely better defensively than Iverson. Talking about who was a better player overall between Mutombo and Iverson is a different point than the one you initially made to downplay Shaq’s FMVP production. Smitts and Todd are valid points, so there is no need to call you out on those points, but you dilute your valid points when such an obvious bias comes out in the invalid ones, or avoid acknowledging valid points from another point of view and change the argument in order to do so (as you just did).

Basketball is a two way sport. Kobe had to deal with Mutombo too, but also had to guard Iverson on the other end. Shaq didn’t have to worry about Mutombo on defense.
Kobe was being guarded by Raja and Snow, both capable defenders while having to guard MVP iverson and 6 man of year Mckie.

Though none of this is incorrect, it still goes into the moving goal post and never acknowledged the hypocrisy of your earlier points. So, have a good night I guess.

I get Dikembe was DPOY but did you not see Shaq bullying him? Dunking all over him? Shaq did not do that to Hakeem or Ben Wallace. He didn’t do that the series prior against Duncan/Robinson. Dikembe was Capela level on offense. Dikembe was overmatched that team wasn’t that great to begin with. Although they are the only team to have MVP/DPOY/Coach of year and 6 man of year in same season.

[flytimes11]

That's still not realgm. People here argue about everything. There isn't a universal POV here. It's always naive when someone tries to assign an opinion to all of realgm. It's a message board. People discuss and disagree about everything. Topics about Kobe or Lebron are amongst the most divisive.

Tons of Lebron fans and Lebron haters on here. Yes, as a mod, I spend a lot of time on here and know this very well.

I’m having a hard time taking what you say at face value but do you believe this to be true? I really wanted to start a thread to see who all believed this comment that people backed up in the other Lebron thread I saw recently.

“The Heat would have had a far easier time against the Spurs if Wade was benched, let alone if they replaced him with Mo Williams who's shooting, spacing, and competent PnR ability would have benefited the Heat tremendously. Wade in the 2013 playoffs killed their spacing, couldn't create good offense with the ball, and got torched defensively. The Spurs were "guarding" him with Tiago Splitter for stretches of that series. What could he possibly be doing out there that had a positive impact?

The Heat were outscored by 54 points in that series with Wade on the floor. 54 points! With Wade off the floor in that series, the Heat absolutely obliterated the Spurs, outscoring them by 49 total points in just 11.6 minutes per game. There's zero evidence that Wade was anything other than a massive net negative in that series.

Lebron didn't have a great series, but a big part of the reason is that Wade was on the floor for 36 minutes per game and the Spurs could basically ignore him. A good example of how difficult his presence made life for Lebron and the Heat is down the stretch of game 6, where Lebron + shooters came storming back from a 10 point deficit at the start of the 4th to a 3 point lead with 3:48 left. Then Spo put Wade back in the game for Mike Miller and choked the Heat's offense to death, being outscored by 10-2 in the next 3 minutes before the Heat forced overtime with those famous miracle plays. Go watch that quarter and see how difficult it became for the Heat to score once Wade killed their spacing and started hijacking possessions. Had he just kept Wade on the bench they would have cruised to a relatively comfortable win.

The Heat played 23 games in the playoffs and were considerably better with Wade benched for a role player who could just make a spot up three. The sample size is more than big enough to make conclusions, especially when the film makes it so screamingly obvious why this was the case.“

How many post do you see about Kobe or kd or Steph or anybody being able to beat all time teams with mo Williams as a vital part/second option of team. The stats he posted are compelling but stats without contest can be the most misleading thing ever. I don’t believe the Heat win a chip like that. Historically it just doesn’t happen that way.

I didn't see that thread and I'm not all that interested.

But I understand the basic argument of Wade being injured and no longer playing at an all-star level in 2013. But Wade played better in the that series than he did in the series prior. But if you're running "Lebron ball", yeah it's probably better to have an extra shooter than a broken down D-Wade. This isn't a big comment on Lebron or Wade and definitely not about Kobe or Steph!

It's a bit of a stretch considering almost everyone else on that roster was sniping 3s (Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller). Also those Spurs were really good at defending of Lebron. If it wasn't ignoring D-Wade, they'd find something else to throw at him.

Had Kobe had an injured all-star teammate in one of his finals runs (closest I can think of is Karl Malone in 2004), I could see Kobe fans calling that guy dead weight and wanting a healthier, less talented player with better fit.

It’s just a bad argument, mo Williams was healthy in 09 and Cavs lost to an inferior team in an upset. They were already playing commercials about the Lebron Kobe finals.

[Ayt]

All stars are going to get undue flack from certain fans for a multitude or reasons. Regarding your points against Curry and FMVP it isn't exactly the same as there are many people who argue (with backing) that Curry should have won at least 1 more (over Iggy) and potentially 2 more (over KD). Curry was just better than Iggy and there's a solid argument the reason KD's numbers were so absurd was because the Cavs put him on an island to contain Curry. I never see people argue that Kobe should have won those FMVPs over Shaq.

I could argue Kobe should have more than 1 regular season mvp… it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day though. There are a lot of what ifs and scenarios we could play out.

I could easily argue Kobe shouldn't have won any regular season MVP's.

[Pointgod]

Kobe is the most hated top player of all time that gets unfairly maligned. If you put up his peak stats, career stats, NBA records, winning %, list of awards and accomplishments, but removed the name Kobe Bryant he’d be unanimously seen as a top 5 player. I’ve seen people put him out of the top 15 players of all them. And he’s almost exclusively people who are too online and NBA media who are stat nerds. Some of the GOAT players and people who’ve played against Kobe almost always have him in their top 5.

[Myth]

Basketball is a two way sport. Kobe had to deal with Mutombo too, but also had to guard Iverson on the other end. Shaq didn’t have to worry about Mutombo on defense.
Kobe was being guarded by Raja and Snow, both capable defenders while having to guard MVP iverson and 6 man of year Mckie.

Though none of this is incorrect, it still goes into the moving goal post and never acknowledged the hypocrisy of your earlier points. So, have a good night I guess.

I get Dikembe was DPOY but did you not see Shaq bullying him? Dunking all over him? Shaq did not do that to Hakeem or Ben Wallace. He didn’t do that the series prior against Duncan/Robinson. Dikembe was Capela level on offense. Dikembe was overmatched that team wasn’t that great to begin with. Although they are the only team to have MVP/DPOY/Coach of year and 6 man of year in same season.

So we’ve now moved the goal post to he has to be as good against peak Shaq as a tag team effort of Duncan/Robinson, prime Hakeem on 23 year old Shaq, or peak Ben Wallace on the Pistons vs gaining weight Shaq. K…

[flytimes11]

All stars are going to get undue flack from certain fans for a multitude or reasons. Regarding your points against Curry and FMVP it isn't exactly the same as there are many people who argue (with backing) that Curry should have won at least 1 more (over Iggy) and potentially 2 more (over KD). Curry was just better than Iggy and there's a solid argument the reason KD's numbers were so absurd was because the Cavs put him on an island to contain Curry. I never see people argue that Kobe should have won those FMVPs over Shaq.

I could argue Kobe should have more than 1 regular season mvp… it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day though. There are a lot of what ifs and scenarios we could play out.

I could easily argue Kobe shouldn't have won any regular season MVP's.

Fact is you can argue a lot of MVPs, y’all only like to argue Kobe’s accomplishments to prop up other players. I’m sure you don’t have any problem with Russ or Harden or Dirk or Nash’s MVPs.

[flytimes11]

Though none of this is incorrect, it still goes into the moving goal post and never acknowledged the hypocrisy of your earlier points. So, have a good night I guess.

I get Dikembe was DPOY but did you not see Shaq bullying him? Dunking all over him? Shaq did not do that to Hakeem or Ben Wallace. He didn’t do that the series prior against Duncan/Robinson. Dikembe was Capela level on offense. Dikembe was overmatched that team wasn’t that great to begin with. Although they are the only team to have MVP/DPOY/Coach of year and 6 man of year in same season.

So we’ve now moved the goal post to he has to be as good against peak Shaq as a tag team effort of Duncan/Robinson, prime Hakeem on 23 year old Shaq, or peak Ben Wallace on the Pistons vs gaining weight Shaq. K…

Nobody is moving the goal post. You are overrating a 35 year old Mutombo. My point simply is the 01 spurs were better than the 6ixers. Kobe had a better matchup and dominated just like how Shaq had a better matchup and dominated. He put up similar numbers on dikembe and Todd legit a 3 point difference. You mentioned peak Wallace but you are acting like we are talking about peak Mutombo.

[Calvin Klein]

I don't think we've discussed this topic enough in the last few days. How refreshing.

[Xatticus]

Kobe is the most hated top player of all time that gets unfairly maligned. If you put up his peak stats, career stats, NBA records, winning %, list of awards and accomplishments, but removed the name Kobe Bryant he’d be unanimously seen as a top 5 player. I’ve seen people put him out of the top 15 players of all them. And he’s almost exclusively people who are too online and NBA media who are stat nerds. Some of the GOAT players and people who’ve played against Kobe almost always have him in their top 5.

It's not Kobe that is hated. It's the mythologized version of Kobe that is.

[sashaturiaf]

Kobe is the most hated top player of all time that gets unfairly maligned. If you put up his peak stats, career stats, NBA records, winning %, list of awards and accomplishments, but removed the name Kobe Bryant he’d be unanimously seen as a top 5 player. I’ve seen people put him out of the top 15 players of all them. And he’s almost exclusively people who are too online and NBA media who are stat nerds. Some of the GOAT players and people who’ve played against Kobe almost always have him in their top 5.

It's not Kobe that is hated. It's the mythologized version of Kobe that is.

"Mythologized", that word alone exposes you as a hater

Only you the enlightened one can see the man instead of the myth, even though this mythical figure played just 10 years ago. It's so pretentious I'm cringing

[Xatticus]

Kobe is the most hated top player of all time that gets unfairly maligned. If you put up his peak stats, career stats, NBA records, winning %, list of awards and accomplishments, but removed the name Kobe Bryant he’d be unanimously seen as a top 5 player. I’ve seen people put him out of the top 15 players of all them. And he’s almost exclusively people who are too online and NBA media who are stat nerds. Some of the GOAT players and people who’ve played against Kobe almost always have him in their top 5.

It's not Kobe that is hated. It's the mythologized version of Kobe that is.

"Mythologized", that word alone exposes you as a hater

Only you the enlightened one can see the man instead of the myth, even though this mythical figure played just 10 years ago. It's so pretentious I'm cringing

That's an interesting way to go... ostracizing my point of view right after you said "Kobe is the most hated top player of all time that gets unfairly maligned."

Logic. It's not for everyone.

[Pointgod]

Kobe is the most hated top player of all time that gets unfairly maligned. If you put up his peak stats, career stats, NBA records, winning %, list of awards and accomplishments, but removed the name Kobe Bryant he’d be unanimously seen as a top 5 player. I’ve seen people put him out of the top 15 players of all them. And he’s almost exclusively people who are too online and NBA media who are stat nerds. Some of the GOAT players and people who’ve played against Kobe almost always have him in their top 5.

It's not Kobe that is hated. It's the mythologized version of Kobe that is.

It’s not myth to say Kobe is a top 10 player or arguably top 5 player of all time. Especially when the factors held against him apply to other players who people rank above him.

[xAIRNESSx]

Only Kobe diehards think this because Kobe isn't as high on the all-time greats list as they would like him to be.

People don't really hate on Kobe, they hate on his fans for all the irrational arguments.

[flytimes11]

Only Kobe diehards think this because Kobe isn't as high on the all-time greats list as they would like him to be.

People don't really hate on Kobe, they hate on his fans for all the irrational arguments.

Well rankings are subjective. I don’t see Kobe compared to oladipo anywhere outside of realgm. The agendas and narrative pushing here is wild. It’s less crazy to call Kobe top 5 than some of the Lebron narratives I see regularly on the front page.

[Myth]

I get Dikembe was DPOY but did you not see Shaq bullying him? Dunking all over him? Shaq did not do that to Hakeem or Ben Wallace. He didn’t do that the series prior against Duncan/Robinson. Dikembe was Capela level on offense. Dikembe was overmatched that team wasn’t that great to begin with. Although they are the only team to have MVP/DPOY/Coach of year and 6 man of year in same season.

So we’ve now moved the goal post to he has to be as good against peak Shaq as a tag team effort of Duncan/Robinson, prime Hakeem on 23 year old Shaq, or peak Ben Wallace on the Pistons vs gaining weight Shaq. K…

Nobody is moving the goal post. You are overrating a 35 year old Mutombo. My point simply is the 01 spurs were better than the 6ixers. Kobe had a better matchup and dominated just like how Shaq had a better matchup and dominated. He put up similar numbers on dikembe and Todd legit a 3 point difference. You mentioned peak Wallace but you are acting like we are talking about peak Mutombo.

Never said peak, but he literally won DPOY that year. Shaq destroying him is evidence more of Shaq being an elite monster, not of Mutombo being a poor defender as you have insinuated to pump up Kobe.

[dhsilv2]

The star who receives the most 'flack' is LeBron without question. It borders on psychotic at times.

Kobe has also received a lot of criticism but, on balance, his reputation has probably always exceeded his impact. It's awfully difficult to make a coherent argument that he's a top 10 guy, whereas making that argument for LeBron is pretty easy.

Also RealGM is hardly a homogeneous group - we have insightful posters and **** posters often in equal measure. Asking for consistency among that group is simply asking too much.

Finally, your 40+ minute plus comparison only really proves that LeBron was better, particularly if you take a look at some of the more advanced figures from those games, such as the higher offensive rating for LeBron and the lower defensive rating.

Is it? 5 championships, 2 Finals MVPS, MVP, 18x all-star, 11x all-NBA 1st team, 2x all-NBA 2nd team, 2x all-NBA 3rd team, 9x all-defensive 1st team, 3x all-defensive 2nd team, 2x scoring champion. 4th all time in points scored.

Sure, he wasn't the most efficient of any all-time great, but his TS% was always above league average.

To the last point, 2010 he was I guess rounding better than league average, 2012 he was dead on league average and then his last 3 years I we can ignore, but obviously he wasn't league average.

[dhsilv2]

I won't go through all of this, but a lot of this is just gibberish.

Curry vs Kobe - you bring up career points and what not. Kobe likely is ahead of Magic and Bird in most career stats, but ranked behind them. The reason? They are seen to have peaked higher, just like Curry is. If you rank Kobe ahead of those two but have Curry over Kobe, OK i'll give you that. But I haven't seen that happen.

The whole OP is just riddled with these things. Ask how someone ranks a player and then see if they are or are not consistent.

[The4thHorseman]

Not gonna respond to a lot of this but I'd give some friendly advice that your defense of Kobe seems pretty defensive and not always super fair, and that might be setting you up for bad arguments. Couple examples I saw skimming:
--"Many call 17-18 warriors greatest ever but it was a team that included Kobe that holds the greatest playoff record ever." Cool, but the argument there is 'best team' and it seems like there's no other measure or argument that could support that Lakers team being all-time anything. Seems like you're taking one interesting fact and not even bothering to surround it with others to make an argument that this team was better than the 17-18 Warriors, or other great teams. That team also had super-peak Shaq...
--"Shaq did win 3 finals mvps in that stretch but to say replace Kobe with any all star and they still win is disingenuous as Shaq had Eddie jones and van exel and wasn’t able to actually win until Kobe became Kobe." Sure, but that's a straw man argument that skips the real one--no one worth arguing with actually thinks ANY all-star was as good as Kobe, but that doesn't mean that it's not relevant that Kobe played with a top-10 all time guy at his ultra-peak during those years. Shaq was ridiculously good at that time, and it definitely has to be factored into any argument.
--"There is also never any mention that Kobe was injured in game 2 by Jalen rose who admitted to purposely injuring him." If you're rehashing possible injuries in one game in an argument about ATGs, you know you're probably too in the weeds and are grasping too hard for details that'll help you.

I'd also say that there are a lot of people who are really into good arguments who argue about ATGs, and then a lot of people who are just randomly pro- and anti-certain players and aren't going to give you the best hearing. Try to find the former and they'll bring up your overall level at making cases.

1. We have had many playoffs… you acting like 16-1 isn’t an outlier is pretty crazy. 17-18 warriors got taken to 7 games.

2. Like I said when you look at the western conference the statistical gap isn’t as large. To get to the finals you have to get through the west. The fact remains Shaq hasn’t done much without Kobe. Shaq was able to do what he did because of Kobe. They needed each other, not this one sided affair you make it out to be.

3. Kobe was averaging 21 a game in the 2000 playoffs. It would not be crazy to assume that playing on a bum ankle for 4 out of the 5 games of the series would affect someone’s numbers.

Watch a lot of what I said in my OP get repeated in here.

Not saying Kobe's ankle didn't affect his shot, but seemed strange as to why he would take a combined 47 FGA in games 5 and 6 of the Finals if it really was bothering him.

[flytimes11]

I won't go through all of this, but a lot of this is just gibberish.

Curry vs Kobe - you bring up career points and what not. Kobe likely is ahead of Magic and Bird in most career stats, but ranked behind them. The reason? They are seen to have peaked higher, just like Curry is. If you rank Kobe ahead of those two but have Curry over Kobe, OK i'll give you that. But I haven't seen that happen.

The whole OP is just riddled with these things. Ask how someone ranks a player and then see if they are or are not consistent.

Curry was never the defender Kobe was. Offensively Kobe has had better scoring seasons, better driver of the ball, lethal mid range, gets to the line more regularly etc.