HurricaneKid wrote:Amare_1_Knicks wrote:We could be looking at the greatest basketball athlete of all time. At 34, Kobe was still going strong in terms of his play, impact, numbers and even though his athleticism had certainly waned by then he wasn't a shell of himself or anything. So we're two years out from that with Lebron, but I fully expect him to remain healthier into his older age. He seems to have less wear and tear on him, and is clearly the more impressive physical specimen, particularly pertaining to his durability.
That's being pretty kind. They squeaked into the playoffs his Y34 season and got swept in the 1st round. That was the year he tore his Achilles and was never the same again. He did not get to the Conference Finals after his 32nd BDay.
LeBron is still playing at GOD tier.
Right, but individually Kobe was still playing at a very high level. He was 34+ and averaged 27/6/6/1.5 on 57%TS and a 5.2 OBPM. The Lakers struggles were due to an awkward fit in terms of the coach meshing with players, as well as injuries to Nash/Blake and Gasol; not to mention the off the court issues between Kobe and Howard. Lebron had been better than Kobe anyway so I'm certainly not comparing the two in anything but durability and consistency/longevity.
You cant even compare Kobe and LB's game....LB is either drive to the basket or shoot a long jumper...he doesnt have an intermediate game he can rely on so if LB loses his quickness he will b done as an elite scorer
Well, I'm not really comparing their games at all. Just the fact that they're in similar positions at age 32 onward. Kobe had a ton of mileage from deep postseason run after deep postseason run, full seasons played without getting missing time, playing in the olympics and etc and that's essentially the same position that Lebron is in. Stylistically, obviously they're tremendously different but the point I was making is that Lebron is a different breed of athlete, really unlike anything we've seen anyway so I don't expect that to tail off abruptly barring injury.