Should Pau Gasol have been Finals MVP in 2010?

[Dr Aki]

LOL is this a joke? before game 7 everyone was saying how he should win fmvp even if lakers lose because kobe was clearly the best player in the series.

the only arguement for gasol is win shares (LOL) and his game 7. first of all win shares is a useless stats, lbj was winshares leader in the 2011 finals. 2) kobe wasnt the only one that shot a horrible % in game 7. pierce/allen/artest and even gasol shot horrendously. kobe was also the one getting the most attention while being guarded by tony allen. kobe also had 10 points in the 4th with 15 rebounds.

gasol didnt even show up for like 2 games, especially the game where kobe was going insane.

its funny when kobe puts up 30-6-7 49% shooting with shaq, he gets no credit because everyone was trying to stop shaq even though kobe was the only capable ball handler and play maker on that team but when gasol avg 18/11, hes robbed of the fmvp. DOUBLE STANDARDS

[Nowascki]

Lebron TS% in 2013 finals: .529 (would be worse without Ray Allen and Chris Bosh saving the day).
Kobe TS% in 2010 finals: .528

Lebron stans are not thinking straight criticizing Kobe for his efficiency.

[Mirjalovic]

there are even a discussion before game 7, Kobe could be final MVP even if Lakers lose against Celtics.

and when Lakers win, all of sudden the real MVP was Pau ?

Discussion between who? Kobe fans??

You'd have to put up Jerry West-type #'s to win FMVP after losing...

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs ... iem-100614

[jordan0386]

Lebron TS% in 2013 finals: .529 (would be worse without Ray Allen and Chris Bosh saving the day).
Kobe TS% in 2010 finals: .528

Lebron stans are not thinking straight criticizing Kobe for his efficiency.

Kobe has shot the ball backwards in four of the Finals he has played. I don't wanna hear **** about true shooting percentage.

[Hoffa12345]

lol at posting his stats to defend him but leaving out he shot a horrible percentage to get those numbers and averaging as many turnovers as assists. For a person who is a chucker when you shoot a bad percentage it impacts your team every game. Compare field goals attempted if your going to put in points.

Instead of saying agenda this, agenda that go and look for yourself how Chris Paul did vs Kobe in Kobes MVP year, .5 games was the difference in record (and as we know Lakers got their way in that position from refs anyways). I remember them showing how Paul accounted for an insane amount of their production. Vs Kobe who's just a scorer.

And any fan who actually watched Defence knows Kobe doesn't deserve his all nba first teams.

[Jonny Blaze]

I dont wade into these sorta debates too often, but the Kobe hate on this board is unreal.

Only on realgm would Player A outscore Player B in a series by over 10 points, and people would try to make serious arguments that Player B deserves Finals MVP.

[disenfranchised]

Absolutely not. Kobe's the man when it matters most. Kobe is the alpha dog. You can have your pretty boxscores, but Kobe is simply going to get the job done. Kobe's the junkyard dog with GOAT skills. Kobe is just as tough or tougher than any player in the history of the game. Kobe MADE Pau who he is.

Seriously, though, what is Pau, 0-16 in the playoffs without his daddy?

[carlquincy]

Doesnt matter. Does PP or Tony Parker winning the FMVP detract anything away from KG or Duncan?

KG and Duncan are still credited (on this site at least) as the main man to lead their teams to the championship. Kobe would too, if Pau won the '10 FMVP.

[snaquille oatmeal]

Maybe, if he did, Kobe's resume would look pretty crappy next to Lebron, because that would mean for 4/5 rings Kobe wasn't the best player on his team


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Finals MVP doesn't mean you are the best person on your team. Just the best person for a series. The 3 Shaq won where against east teams with no centers. He was the best matchup and therefor dominated. Kobe did just as much to get them there. Finals MVPs have become overrated to me.

All I hear is excuses.

For 3 straight years he was the unquestioned best player on his team on the grandest stage of them all, twist and turn anything you like, but you can't change facts.

You can't say the same thing about LeBron, who has been the lead dog on all his championship teams

what fact changes are you talking about? he is right during the Lakers Shaq/Kobe era the East teams they played in the finals were unbelievably weak at the center position. the real finals was the WCF, that's were Shaq needed Kobe to take over games. the actual finals was more of a formality. do yourself a favor and youtube the WCF games and then watch the finals. but before you do put Lebron's nut sack down and be a fan of basketball in general and enjoy.

[richboy]

This isn't about Kobe hate. This is the reality. Kobe is very high usage player. Which leads very little room for other players to achieve. I personally say Kobe high usage doesn't make his teammates better. At the same time he is not a crazy high PER guy with that usage. With often 15% less usage Pau Gasol has comparable PER to Kobe. That the Lakers were always better when they went inside out. Problem is it usually took them until they were in trouble to decide to go inside out. I would also say that as time has went on the more and more they went away from Pau the worse they have become as a franchise.

I think if the Lakers had went inside more they would have won that series a little easier. Now that isn't enough to warrant giving Gasol the MVP. They won the series and Kobe is impacting the most possessions. Negatively or positively. I do not consider Gasol a Pippen to Kobe though. Pippen was never better than Jordan for a stretch. He was never the better option on offense. He never had better advanced numbers than Jordan. IMO during this time you can make a case that if Kobe was the 3rd or 4th best player in the league that Gasol was the 5th or 6th. He was one of the most efficient offensive big men in league history. Some even arguing he was better than Dwight during this time. Gasol coming there took them from a team probably never going out of the first round to 3 straight NBA finals. That is a top 5 player impact. I would say this is more of a 1A 1B situation.

I also feel that the Lakers biggest problem after that was they didn't appreciate Gasol and Odom. It was always about Kobe love. Trying to make Kobe into Jordan. The Lakers lineup of Gasol, Odom, and Kobe destroyed the league. It seemed like overnight they decided Bynum was there second best player. Odom and Gasol were dispensable to trade or let go for nothing.

[Volcano]

I think their values were close. Kobe impacted more on offense (most of the time anyways) while Gasol had an impact on both ends of the floor. Gasol's offensive impact didn't equal Kobe's, but he made up for it in places where he didn't need the ball to be effective. For their first title, they basically had no team that could realistically challenge them. In the finals, they faced a one man team with Dwight. Both titles should probably have been co-MVP's.

I think having Odom and ~20ish minutes of Bynum was a tremendous help too..it was like the perfect rotation and there wasn't a single team that could match up aside from KG/Perkins, but Perkins went down in '10 finals.

I don't believe accolades should be used to judge a player anyways, since a lot of it is situational and awards where players are voted for are more about reputation and perception than truth.

[HotRocks34]

Maybe, if he did, Kobe's resume would look pretty crappy next to Lebron, because that would mean for 4/5 rings Kobe wasn't the best player on his team


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Finals MVP doesn't mean you are the best person on your team. Just the best person for a series. The 3 Shaq won where against east teams with no centers. He was the best matchup and therefor dominated. Kobe did just as much to get them there. Finals MVPs have become overrated to me.

Shaq was the best player, IMO, on every Lakers team he and Kobe played on (8 years together). Both in the regular season and in the playoffs. I think this is borne out by advanced metrics. I believe the only years in question with regards to this issue would be the 2001 playoffs and maybe the last year Shaq was in LA (2003-04), in the regular season.

For their time playing together, I think Shaq had a better PER by playoff series for something like 21 out of 24 playoff series. Something like that. 2 of the series in which Kobe had a better PER were in 2001, I think, but Shaq had a better PER in the other two series in 2001, won Finals MVP, and had the better overall playoffs PER in 2001. They both had the same Win Shares Per 48 Minutes in the 2001 playoffs (.260). Kobe had a slight edge in win shares in that playoff run (3.8 to 3.7), whereas Shaq had the lead in PER for the playoffs (28.7 to 25.0).

In Shaq's final regular season in LA (2003-04), Shaq had the better PER (24.4 vs 23.7). But Kobe had the better Win Shares Per 48 Minutes for the year (.210 vs .192).

In 2001, I think, the Spurs did not yet have Bruce Bowen. And I believe that their starting SG, Derek Anderson, was out for the Spurs-Lakers series. I think this meant that in the Western Conference Finals, Kobe was being guarded by Antonio Daniels (good defender if I remember right but not at Anderson's level, I don't think) and possibly even Terry Porter (awful defender at that point in his career, if I remember right, especially against shooting guards).

[jamesnamida]

Kobe should have 5 fmvps right now and if it wasn't for shaq Malone and Payton messing up the team chemistry he would have 6

[Mamba Venom]

Everyone remembers Kobe's awful game where he out rebounded the Celtics front line. We forget games 1-6.

Before game 7 everyone thought Kobe should have got the MVP. Bill Simmons wanted to give Kobe the MVP if the Celtics won. He said Kobe was clearly the best player on the floor. He thought there hasn't been such a clear best player on the other team since Jerry West. AND SIMMONS HATES KOBE.

30/7/4/2/1 games 1-6. You want to give the MVP to Gasol for 18/11?

[number1joker]

Kobe should have 5 fmvps right now and if it wasn't for shaq Malone and Payton messing up the team chemistry he would have 6

thats a joke

[FirmBizBws]

Kobe should have 5 fmvps right now and if it wasn't for shaq Malone and Payton messing up the team chemistry he would have 6

thats a joke

I'm assuming he meant rings, and not finals mvps, because Colby Bryan only has 2 of those


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[Goon]

The hate is strong with this one.

To all those frustrated keyboard warriors, who managed to win an NBA title on his own? Nobody. Yeah Kobe had Pau and Bynum and a few other strong players, its a team game. Did Lebron win before he teamed up with two other greats and a ton of veterans on the side? Its the NBA, you dont win if you dont team up sadly.

[soxfan2003]

I would have voted for Gasol. Not that Kobe didn't play defense in that series but Gasol was obviously quicker back then he is today and not just scored efficiently but moved well on defense including contesting some 3's from Ray Allen.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

No, not really. In general a lot of guys had mediocre offensive series', but Kobe did the most, he deserved it.

That said, please STOP with this "Kobe was as important or more than Shaq during the 3peat cause of the WCF" nonsense, he didn't even outplay Shaq in every WCF, only vs the Spurs in 2001 could you even TRY to make that argument.

This is the problem with Kobe threads, you have some horrible hater start out with an awful premise... and then you get all these ridiculous homers that want to rewrite history to set things straight. Kobe fully deserved Finals MVP in 2010, and Kobe was flat out the 2nd best guy on his team from 2000-2002 (at best a 1b occasionally).

[Dajadeed]

Would be interesting to see if Kobe ever won another title if Pau never showed up

Yeah, how lucky of him to have an all-star teammate for his 5 rings. If other all time greats had all-stars for teammates, they would have won titles just like Kobe.