MJ Kobe vs Steph Durant

[Tomtolbert]

What does Kobe add to MJ?

I'm not sure if you made the same mistake I did when I saw the thread title. But it's asking about each option as duos to build around, not a single hybrid player.

[ShaqAttac]

Kobe is the odd man out. Not only is he by far the worst of these 4, but his synergy with Jordan is actually bad. Curry and Durant are a great fit.

I don’t see what makes Kobe far worse than Durant at all

Steph and KD do fit better though

the hate is crazy

[One_and_Done]

As I noted on page 1 of the #10 thread, KD objectively kills Kobe on the stats.

[ShaqAttac]

As I noted on page 1 of the #10 thread, KD objectively kills Kobe on the stats.

pee-pee-gee merchant never done nothing but get carried by steph. bro had booker goin kobe and still got murked by the jok

[One_and_Done]

As I noted on page 1 of the #10 thread, KD objectively kills Kobe on the stats.

pee-pee-gee merchant never done nothing but get carried by steph. bro had booker goin kobe and still got murked by the jok

Compelling rebuttal.

[ShaqAttac]

You can't be serious with this...

Y'all need to stop feeding the troll/previously banned posters. If we're gonna let them stay, at least ignore them... at least we know what player he got banned over.

Oh, you think ohayoKD is freethedevil?

If so, that makes A LOT of sense.

mj faans: why the pc board hate mj!!!!!
also mj fans:

[ShaqAttac]

As I noted on page 1 of the #10 thread, KD objectively kills Kobe on the stats.

pee-pee-gee merchant never done nothing but get carried by steph. bro had booker goin kobe and still got murked by the jok

Compelling rebuttal.

boi u got compelling rebuts n just repeated yourself. lakers were a 50-win team? KD NEEDED A 73 WIN ONE

[rk2023]

pee-pee-gee merchant never done nothing but get carried by steph. bro had booker goin kobe and still got murked by the jok

Compelling rebuttal.

boi u got compelling rebuts n just repeated yourself. lakers were a 50-win team? KD NEEDED A 73 WIN ONE

Ignoring the semantics here, is it not true that the Suns had no answers for Jokic in the grand scheme of things and current Durant's offensive drawbacks were put under the light more than D. Booker's were that 2nd round series?

[One_and_Done]

KD took the 73 win Warriors to 7 games the year before with a suboptimal support cast. 2 of the OKC starters couldn't shoot 3s, and another was the streaky on-ball Westbrook. The best shooter outside of KD was Ibaka. That's terrible... and he still almost beat the 73 win Warriors.

Tough to say he 'needs' a 73 win team to win a title. He just needed a better optimised one.

[rk2023]

KD took the 73 win Warriors to 7 games the year before with a suboptimal support cast. 2 of the OKC starters couldn't shoot 3s, and another was the streaky on-ball Westbrook. The best shooter outside of KD was Ibaka. That's terrible... and he still almost beat the 73 win Warriors.

Tough to say he 'needs' a 73 win team to win a title. He just needed a better optimised one.

The streaky on-ball Westbrook whom had one of the greatest playmaking PS runs in NBA history?

[One_and_Done]

Leaving how good Westbrook was to one side: that is a completely suboptimal line-up around KD. Their key bench guys were an even worse fit; Kanter & Waiters.

[ShaqAttac]

KD took the 73 win Warriors to 7 games the year before with a suboptimal support cast. 2 of the OKC starters couldn't shoot 3s, and another was the streaky on-ball Westbrook. The best shooter outside of KD was Ibaka. That's terrible... and he still almost beat the 73 win Warriors.

Tough to say he 'needs' a 73 win team to win a title. He just needed a better optimised one.

The streaky on-ball Westbrook whom had one of the greatest playmaking PS runs in NBA history?

carried by brook, carried by steph, carried by beard, carried by book

all kd been doin is gettin carried if were bein real

[One_and_Done]

In 2014 Westbrook missed time. They were 25-11 in his absence. In 2015 when KD played they Thunder were 18-9. They were 27-28 withouy him.

In 2021 both Harden and Kyrie got hurt and he took the champs to 7 games and a literal inch away from victory while posting insane numbers.

It is clear he doesn't need others like Harden or Westbrook to carry a team.

[tsherkin]

Kobe's an underrated passer though.

Kobe is, depending on the audience, both an underrated passer and an underrated scorer. There is this idea that still floats around to one degree or another that he was actually an inefficient scorer, when in fact he was pretty efficient overall and particularly good relative to his peers in terms of volume:efficiency. The guys who were more efficient, mostly Ray Ray and Pierce, were 3pt snipers who typically scored less than he did, and Pierce didn't show up in the playoffs to the same extent.

I think in your average conversation, Kobe's passing gets underrated because his APG never really went soaring, as he spent the screaming majority of his career in the triangle and alongside other ball-handlers/playmakers. Sort of like if MJ never had his 89 season, I guess. But I think we both agree that he had good vision, a good array of pass types and a good thought process for how to use them. He didn't always make the correct play, and that wasn't always awesome, but in context of our conversation, that's no different than Jordan, MJ could just often get away with it more because he had the physical tools to gain better separation. When you're athletic enough that at 38, you can just jump over your opponent at any point for a reasonably clean look by your standards, there's a degree to which the double matters less, for sure. Hell, even in Washington, Jordan could get a "clean" (by his standards) J at basically any point, and he had even less vertical at that stage, but great separation and body control.

He just didn't have the scoring gravity I think(illegal d might have helped). By a comination of defensive rules/schemes and athleticism and first-step MJ could get to the rim alot better which was always the cornerstone of his offense(though people have gotten revisionist about that). He also could get more seperation easier

Yeah, I mean the athletic tools MJ possessed were intense. My original point wasn't to crap on Kobe, it's just that he isn't a complementary player to Jordan, he doesn't add anything meaningful to Jordan's profile to help him compete with Steph/KD. You take Steph, make him 6'10 and good at drawing fouls and now you're talking about the single scariest scoring threat I can imagine, basically.