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Shooting guards only. In your opinion who faced the tougher competition between Kobe and MJ

Here are some of the top shooting guards MJ faced in Order

1. Clyde Drexler
2. Reggie Miller
3. Mitch Richmond
4. Joe Dumars
5. Rolando Blackman
6. Ron Harper - Before the knee injuries with the Cavaliers
7. Byron Scott
8. Sidney Moncrief
9 Danny Ainge
10.John Starks


Kobe's competetion at shooting guard

1.D-Wade
2.T-Mac
3 Gilbert Arenas
4 Ray Allen
5.Manu Gionobli
6 Rip Hamilton
7.Brandon Roy
8 Michael Redd
9 Kevin Martin

You missed Gilbert A. and AI

Its probably harder guarding guards now as they got much more fancier with their dribbles plus there aren't much fast breaks as back then. SO more efforts on defense.

Not to take anything away from the gaot, but Kobe faced better overall athletes, and better competition at the shooting guard position.

B-Scott wrote:Shooting guards only. In your opinion who faced the tougher competition between Kobe and MJ

Here are some of the top shooting guards MJ faced in Order

1. Clyde Drexler
2. Reggie Miller
3. Mitch Richmond
4. Joe Dumars
5. Rolando Blackman
6. Ron Harper - Before the knee injuries with the Cavaliers
7. Byron Scott
8. Sidney Moncrief
9 Danny Ainge
10.John Starks


Kobe's competetion at shooting guard

1.D-Wade
2.T-Mac
3 Ray Allen
4.Manu Gionobli
5.Rip Hamilton
6 Brandon Roy
7.Michael Redd
8 Kevin Martin

How could you miss AI? If there was a threat to Kobe, AI has been the most consistent threat during Kobe's career so far IMO. T-Mac for a year or so and now.

Personally I feel like Kobe has faced tougher competition as the wing talent is at an all time high right now.

Having said that MJ was the better overall player, and I don't want to take anything away from him as he also faces some great players and beat them all.

kobe has faced the tougher competition

tkb wrote:Personally I feel like Kobe has faced tougher competition as the wing talent is at an all time high right now.

Having said that MJ was the better overall player, and I don't want to take anything away from him as he also faces some great players and beat them all.

Byron Scott purposely said shooting guards only, so some of the wing talent that Kobe went against would not be mentioned. If you're going to make a comparison, at least have the integrity to attempt to make it a fair discussion.

Anyways some names I feel you omitted on the current day list if you're going by shooting guards only (though I think overall wing talent would make the comparison more accurate) are Carter and Pierce- played shooting guard earlier in his career)

If you count small forwads and other non shooting guards then you would have to add Magic Johnson, Glen Rice, Dominique Wilkins and Larry Bird to Jordan's list.

Jordan had to guard Magic in 1987,1988, 1989 before Pippen was fully developed.

I always looked at Iverson in Phili as a scoring PG.

While Kobe's group of shooting guards are harder to stop, Jordan's group plays better defense.

Kobe might have faced tougher competition, but defense today is nothing like it was in the 80's and early 90's. And the number of top flight defenders has dropped as well.

No hand-checking, young Jordan could have averaged 40 a game.

^^^ya but Kobe has guarded those players consistently and add vince carter to that list. Bulls are not (Please Use More Appropriate Word) to put Jordan on those players because its clear mismatch. Its like having kobe guard Zack Randolf, Randolf will own him cuz its clear physical mismatch.

B-Scott wrote:If you count small forwads and other non shooting guards then you would have to add Magic Johnson, Glen Rice, Dominique Wilkins and Larry Bird to Jordan's list.

Jordan had to guard Magic in 1987,1988, 1989 before Pippen was fully developed.

I always looked at Iverson in Phili as a scoring PG.

Valid point.

But a fair amount of small forwards today also play the 2.

Jordan didn't guard Bird usually, did he?

But I see no problem adding Wilkins, Rice, or Magic. That was some great competition which Jordan had to go against, and should be included IMO.

Magilla_Gorilla wrote:Kobe might have faced tougher competition, but defense today is nothing like it was in the 80's and early 90's. And the number of top flight defenders has dropped as well.

No hand-checking, young Jordan could have averaged 40 a game.

Really? Is that why today's teams score much much lower than teams in the 80's and 90's? Is that why every team, even the worst, was able to score considerably higher than the Suns on average?

Just get through your head the new rules weren't implemented to make the game easier for players. And rarely are hand checking called refs aren't stupid to call them every time they see it. In fact hand checking helps defense to stop the opponent from penetrating in one on one situations. There are more hand checking calls when the offensive player breaks down the defense, defender pushes or touches/holds the offensive player and gets called for hand checking. There aren't that much of huge disparity between 80 through current basketball unlike the 50s~70s.

Patterns wrote:-= original quote snipped =-


Really? Is that why today's teams score much much lower than teams in the 80's and 90's? Is that why every team, even the worst, was able to score considerably higher than the Suns on average?

LOL. Yeah, EVERY team in the league at that time was scoring way more than 110 PPG - NOT! The 90's? What planet are you from? There might have been 4 or 5 teams from that entire decade that scored more PPG than the Suns. And even if team scoring is lower, perimiter scoring is higher than it's EVER been. Thanks in part to the new rules that clearly favor guards and wings.

To answer the question of the thread, if we're talking strictly SGs (not SFs that are capable of playing SG), it's probably a wash. I don't see much of a difference either way. There might be a little more depth at the SG position today. But certainly not enough to say Kobe, or any other SG, sees more competition than Mike did. Hell, with a 30-team league, the top 2's don't see each other anymore than twice a season anyway (unless they're in the same conference, of course).

I think some shooting guards today may handle the ball a little better,but the shooting guards in the 80s were better shooters.

Wade is a better ball handler then Mitch Richmond and Reggie Miller,but it may be more tiring guarding those guys because they run you off so many screens and they can shoot from all over the court. M

Mitch could also take you to the post

tkb wrote:Personally I feel like Kobe has faced tougher competition as the wing talent is at an all time high right now.

I agree, though I never really felt this had any bearing on anything. Talent at the wing is at an all-time high (offensively; defensively, I feel that Jordan went up against better defenders on the whole), but how does that change what Jordan himself would do? Would it mean that some of these guys would have big games against him once in a while? Of course, just like they do to any great defender (Kobe included). But Jordan, being a better defender than Kobe (or any other wing today), would have this happen to him less frequently than it happens to others. And on the other end, none of the stars today are particularly good defenders (except for Kobe; Lebron is emerging too), to say nothing of the perimeter contact rules.

B-Scott wrote:I think some shooting guards today may handle the ball a little better,but the shooting guards in the 80s were better shooters.

I definitely agree with this. Guys like Richmond, Ellis, Dumars, Miller, and Mullin were just lights out shooters.

I personally think the energy expended defensively would be about the same if not less when defending today's "type" of player, who does more damage with the ball in isos etc. as opposed to guys who moved well off the ball and were constantly running you through big bodies on defense. Defending each type of player is difficult for different reasons.

why is the thread about best competition, if most of the players mentioned as the competition are only good offensive players?..

you forgot Vince Carter