murksiderock
Superstar
This is not true at all...
Both years you're talking about, Kobe finished behind McGrady in MVP voting, and in real time it was very much a debate as to who the better player was between Mac and Kobe...
In the years you're talking about, there was no consensus that Kobe was better than Iverson, it was argued either way. I can tell you for certain, that during the 2001 Finals, Iverson was the hotter commodity...
Garnett was also, to a lesser extent, in that debate...
What you're attempting to illustrate, is that Kobe in '01 and '02, was of equal stature to 2011 Wade, or '17/'18/'19 Durant and Steph. A Top 3 player on the champion or runner-up...
In 2001 and 2002 Kobe was absolutely, already considered an awesome player. He didn't have Top 3 stature yet...
I didn't even mention Shaq and Duncan, who were the consensus two best players alive. Kobe was somewhere in the Top 5 range, but what you're doing is a microcosm of what guys do with Kobe overall: unnecessarily exaggerating his work or his stature to try to win a debate.
Its unecessary because being a Top 5-ish player, at any point in NBA history, is a high fukking bar. Its basically where Tatum or Shai or Luka are now, that was T-Mac/Kobe/Iverson 23-24 years ago. You could debate the order you want them in because all of those guys are that close, but none of those guys are Giannia or Jokic, and none of those guys have a lock on the #3 spot...
All those guys were in the Top 5 convo, you could throw Garnett in too although he (and Dirk) didn't really catapult until after the 3peat was over; but not a single one of those guys, INCLUDING KOBE, had a lock on #3, and not a singke one of those guys, was anywhere near the level of Duncan and Shaq...
Not in 2001 or 2002. People know this and the majority of heads are honest, its only the Kobe Stan demographic that has to act like being a Top 5 player is an insult, like being compared to Iverson and McGrady at that time is an insult, but yall do it to denigrate how Shaq was actually viewed at that time...
95% of people in real time, never even slightly viewed Kobe and Shaq as equals. It wasn't a real conversation....
You guys have made it one....Kobe was a great player during the 3peat. He was never a consensus Top 3 player at that stage if his career.
Never seen this commercial but it's hilarious and ironic for the fact, that the commercial basically illustrates how you guys are with LeBron
Every great player has haters, we see it with all the guys now (Jokic, Giannis, Shai, Tatum, Luka, etc). Kobe had plenty of haters. This commercial though is how you mf's get about LeBron
As mentioned many times before, I started watching basketball because of Kobe, my very first team allegiance was the Lakers, and my very first favorite player was Kobe.
This was 1999, my dad had me a subscription to SI Kids, and the first poster I ever ripped out and taped to my wall, was a centerfold of Kobe. I was a student at Weemes Elementary in South Central LA...
I moved to Virginia in 2001, and became an AI fan immediately, obviously already knew him, but he and Vick were fukking icons in Virginia at that time. There was a park across the street from my house and I started playing street ball with older guys there, mimicking AI...
Kobe took a huge PR hit with the rape situation and it followed him for a few years. Those extra MVPs you say he should've won, in what years was he winning them? '04 he didn't have the strongest case, and he was on bad teams in 2005-07. He didn't deserve any before '04, and the one he got in '08, internet people argue for Chris Paul, but i remember real time, people thinking LeBron would win his first that year. So '08 wasn't the greatest case either, but by '08 he was walking back into good grace and it was the, "we owe him one" award...
(He deserved it, I'm just saying he never had a clear cut season he deserved MVP over anyone)...
And I'm also saying that yall exaggerate the "media hit" he took. It lasted a few years, then his image was rebuilt and he was largely forgiven. There are athletes who got worse PR hits than he got.
Kobe was always a media darling from the moment he was drafted. The 3-4 year stretch that it was dark for him is a small part of his story, because its not like some lifelong shyt followed him around the rest of his life like Pete Rose or Ray Rice or OJ. Kobe's hit was more like Ray Lewis', lasted a few years, then he was in good graces again...
(And like Ray, there were still journalists here or there who brought up his scandal, but those people were in the vast minority).
Yall gotta stop doing this shyt with Kobe, we can talk about people not liking him without acting like he was public enemy #1 or something...
I didn't do it. Chat GPT did it.
