Remember that 08 series in game 1 where Tims Spurs had double digit lead. Kobe took over and Lakers won game 1. Got them outta there in 5.
Who ranks higher , Timmy or Kobe ?
- Thread starter bucks3115
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Kobe doesn't catch hate for Shaq winning FMVPs...that's a Kobe Stan construct...
Kobe Stans catch heat for revionist history, re-imagining the 3peat Lakers as if there was some question of who the best player on those teams was. Kobe Stans come up with all kinds of loopholes as to why the 3peat Lakers were "really" something other than what they were...
I've never used the FMVP in any argument and I dislike how it's such a large part of ball today. It only matters a slight degree, which is that it's part of a larger list of evidence that Kobe, an unquestioned All-Timer, is at a lower tier of greatness than guys who imposed their will on the sport more profoundly...
If someone else won FMVP cats would just talked about Kobe like Steph, but we all would have understood Kobe still drove those busses...
Kobe never lost as a 1-seed, but how significant is this piece of information, really?
Duncan is cleaning him up in most areas of importance on the basketball court. This fact isn't changed despite Duncan losing to an 8 seed in Y14 at the very last stretch of his prime...
Nah it's more like Laker fans realize the playoffs are longer than just the Finals. Yes, Shaq feasted against BBQ chicken during the Finals during the 3peat, but getting to the Finals, where the real war was, yeah more often than not it was Kobe that was 1a and Shaq 1b especially since he(Shaq) couldn't close games due to his FT shooting.
It’s the easiest one to become the GOAT of.Only one is the goat at his position
No other power forward has ever even really sniffed being a GOAT level player at any point during their careers or post career.
I’m not into the super stan shyt but I have never in my life as a black man ran into anyone ranking Tim Duncan higher than Kobe 
How does this make sense? Jordan is considered GOAT and Kobe is the second coming, a copy. How is he not then 2nd greatest ?
How does this make sense? Jordan is considered GOAT and Kobe is the second coming, a copy. How is he not then 2nd greatest ?
Be dumb brehsIt’s the easiest one to become the GOAT of.
No other power forward has ever even really sniffed being a GOAT level player at any point during their careers or post career.
Kobe ain't never been considered the goat because he ain't better than MJ 
Duncan beat Kobe and Shaq together multiple times.
Greenhornet
A God Among Kings
Duncan wasn't a complete player and Kobe was?
In his prime Duncan was the Spurs' dominant scorer (both inside and outside), rebounder, defender, on-court leader, and the guy they ran their offense through. Claiming he wasn't a complete player is wild.
Breh you talk like you weren't even around the Spurs until the 2010s.
There was NO question who the best Spur was from 1998-2008. Most of those years Timmy was an MVP candidate and they didn't even have another all-star around him.
this is where convos around basketball get weird
we are basing 1v1
but judging them based on how they play as a team
there's too much flip flopping when people argue this point because everyone wants to say Kobe is ballhog and shyt
but then when you look at how he led, and controlled the team as the main piece (by far)
suddenly the Spurs as a complete team doesnt matter and its only Tim Duncan who carries and leads.... which is wild far from the truth
I'm not even saying Duncan is bad... he's easily one of the best of all time... but skill wise he's not Kobe
I wouldnt say Duncan is not complete, thats a bad way of putting it... because he's A grade on both sides of the ball and a good anchor
but he's not technically the best at 1 thing... he's just great at most things. Its too hard of a convo to have, because the same shyt people give Duncan props for... they shyt on Kobe for. That's why I brought up Amare... he wasnt all that great.... but even he figured out Duncan and would beat him on sheer athleticism. People can say "Well Duncan got his too" but the Spurs as a team was the problem not Duncan. Thats why with Kobe... if you could limit or slow him... usually Lakers would fall apart in some way. Two complete opposites achieving the same results basketball wise ... I dunno why people discredit the rest of the Spurs like they had these throwaway players. That's a whole nother conversation and topic where people flip flop on "Oh the Spurs are just Duncan and pieces" then when Miami lost.... "Oh Spurs are just too good and well rounded" .... not you, but in general people say the opposite thing depending on what point they want to argue. Parker, Ginobili, Kawhi, Drob... the list goes on with some of the best 3point shooters to space the floor for over a decade... solid coaching, amazing rounded defense and rotations. Its not Duncan's fault really that he was just on a perfect team... you cant discredit the entire organization
whereas Kobe you can cry about Shaq... you can talk about down years etc... but Kobe carried for the most part alot of his career and was the clear cut leader of the Lakers, from recruitment to front office moves... etc
Remember I'm not saying Duncan is bad at all... I know as a Suns fan
he's not but I'm just saying I pick Kobe because he did more and carried more. Duncan and Kobe actually compliment eachother's games perfectly because they do things differently. I never saw Duncan go save the olympics or strike fear in the entire league like Kobe
This is an outright lie on every level.
#1: Shaq was clearly the better player and team leader in every playoff run, not just in the Finals.
#2: The "real war" for the Lakers in '01 and '04 was indisputably the Finals. Both times the Finals were hard for the Lakers, Kobe's performance was disappointing.
#3: The two times the "real war" was won before the Finals was in the '00 WCF and the '02 WCF. In both of those series Shaq was CLEARLY the better player and 1A for the Lakers
#4: The four times the Shaq-Kobe Lakers lost before the Finals was '97 Jazz, '98 Jazz, '99 Spurs, and '03 Spurs. Kobe played like shyt all four times.
#5: When the Lakers beat the Spurs in '01, is a fukking joke to call them the "real test". Duncan's supporting cast was horrible and series was an easy sweep with an average margin of victory of 22. In the one close game, Duncan scored 40 points on 15-26 shooting, Kobe had 28 on 11-24, Shaq had 19 on 8-21....and the Spurs still lost by 7. The other three games the Spurs lost by an average of 27 because their #2 was Antonio Daniels, a 6ppg bench player the rest of his career who only was in the starting lineup due to injuries.
#6: Shaq always closed games, and on average his late-game performances were about the same as Kobe's were. The only thing he didn't do was take the close-out free throws, but that's irrelevant because if Kobe hadn't done that then Fish would have handled it just fine.
You guys are relying on myths rather than reality. You can't point to a single year where Kobe carried the Lakers in the "real test" before the Finals.
Dwight Howard
Superstar
Kobe didn't win a Finals mvp in 2001 but he shytted on Duncan and the spurs in the wcf (the REAL finals" . This arguments holds no weight.
Dwight Howard
Superstar
You typed all of those but failed to explain why Kobe outperformed Duncan damn near every time they met in the playoffs.Duncan still looked like the better player more often than not. Duncan sent the Kobe-Shaq combo home twice. A sweep in 1999 and a 4-2 in 2003 when Kobe/Shaq were both in their prime and Duncan had a teenage Tony Parker as his #2. Kobe only sent Duncan home once without Shaq and that was 2008 when the Spurs were only about 3 deep and Manu got hurt.
Kobe-Shaq had 3 wins against weak-ass Duncan teams with almost no help and injuries.
Kobe wasn't doing jack shyt with those early Spurs teams. You need to look at how thin those lineups actually were, without Duncan holding shyt down in the middle on both ends they wouldn't have had a chance.
Tony Parker wasn't even on the team until he came as a teenager in '02 and wasn't at an all-star level until '06. Before then he was just an average point guard especially considering his defensive limitations. Manu came as a rookie in '03 and wasn't an all-star until '05.
A Parker-Kobe-Manu lineup would struggle because none of them is scoring that efficiently in the 2000s and Kobe would have to carry all the weight on defense which he stopped doing around '01.
SadimirPutin
Superstar
I think Kobe had a higher apex but I dont know if comparing them really makes sense as a centre and shooting guard are drastically different
This is just nonsense. How old were you in Duncan's prime? Duncan finished 1st or 2nd in MVP voting for 4 straight years from 2001 to 2004 because HE was the problem. In 2003 he took one of the weakest supporting casts in recent history to a title.
2003, Duncan averaged 25-15-5 and 3 blocks a game on 51% shooting in the postseason. Led the Spurs in all 5 categories by a wide margin AND was by far their best defender.
His #2 was a 20yo TP who averaged 14-3-3 on 40% shooting with no defense. Stephen Jackson averaged 13-4-3 on 41% shooting. No won else scored double-digits, no one else shot even 50%, no one else averaged even 7rpg or 3apg. The problem was NOT the team. The problem was Duncan.
Duncan-Robinson were a decent duo in '98 and '99 but Duncan was still clearly the team's dominant player. Duncan-TP-Manu were a good trio from '05 to '08 but Duncan was clearly the best player on the team that time. And from '00 to '04 there was no doubt at all that it was Duncan and a bunch of inferior role players.
This just isn't true at all. In '00 the Lakers won a title even though Kobe was terrible in the Finals and pretty mediocre in the WCSF and WCF. In '01 the Lakers won the title despite Kobe having a terrible Finals against the only difficult team they played that postseason. In '02 the Lakers got past the Kings despite Kobe shooting just 41.9% for the series.
So in all three of their title runs, Kobe was slowed/limited against their most difficult opponents and the Lakers advanced anyway.
Heck, even in their second run. In the '09 WCSF when it came down to Game 7, Kobe scored just 14 points on 4-12 shooting and the Lakers still won by double-digits. In the '10 Finals when it came down to Game 7, Kobe shot just 6-24 and was just 40% for the Finals. So teams slowed Kobe and his teammates still did enough to beat them. Kobe shot like shyt in the two biggest games of those runs and still won.
TP and Ginobli didn't even join the team until '02 and '03 and neither was playing anywhere near an all-star level until '05 and '06. Kawhi didn't join until '12 and was still a role player until '16. The Spurs were an awful 3pt shooting team when they won the '99 title (24th in the league in made threes, 19th in %). In fact, the Spurs never once finished top-10 in threes until 2006 (10th) and didn't make top-5 in threes until 2011.
You seem to just want to ignore almost the entire period from 1997 to 2005 when Duncan was clearly in his prime and won most of his titles, and grade him just on how he was in the twilight years.
This was not remotely true during the period of his career from 1996-2002 when he won most of his titles.
Sure it's true if you want to talk about 2005-2016.....but in those 12 seasons the Lakers only got past the 1st round five times and only got past the WCSF three times.
I feel like I've run into someone from a different part of the multiverse and we're just talking about two different realities.
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I already posted on that series-by-series, liar.
Duncan outperformed Kobe in '99, '02, and '03.
Kobe outperformed Duncan in '01 and '08.
It was a wash in '04, even with Duncan playing hurt.
And that was despite the fact that every one of those years, the Lakers based their entire defense around stopping Duncan, while the Spurs' game plan the first 5 times they met was to let Kobe shoot as much as he wanted cause they were more worried about Shaq beating them.
It's hilarious that y'all have completely given up on claiming that Kobe has the better career (cause Duncan's accomplishments are so clearly superior) so you have to base your entire argument on a false head-to-head narrative when they don't even play the same position and Duncan still outperformed Kobe more often than not.
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Duncan: 30-18-2 with 2 steals and 4 blocks against the Lakers' best defender
Kobe: 27-5-9 with 1 steal and 0 blocks against trash defenders
Kobe had a nice 4th but he'd had an ugly game until then. Lakers didn't win because of Kobe (who only outscored Duncan by 6 in the 4th), they won cause Duncan's supporting cast shot 1-16 in the 4th quarter. If they had managed even 4-16 that quarter the Spurs would have won, but they were trash. It was basically TP, an injured Manu who couldn't do anything, and a bunch of 35-37yo guys ready to retire.
game 1
9 assists > 18 rebounds (14 defensive rebounds at that)
trash defenders
Bruce Bowen and Ginobli are trash perimeter defenders 
game 5
Trust i aint talking out my ass. I watched that game live.
Series:
Kobe: 29.2 pts 5.6 REB 3.8 Assist 1.6 STL on .533 FG%, .333 3P % .909 FT%( Torn ligament on shootin hand
) Duncan: 22.4pts 17.4 REB 4.8 assists 1.2 STl 2 BLK on .426 FG% .591FT %
man.... do better LMAO