loungefly. you dismiss Kobe’s betrayal of his team’s best interest in the choose-me-or -Shaq-because-I won’t-let-the-team-have-both thing because Barkely said it? Logicians have a name for this mode of thinking: ad hominum–meaning ignoring the substance of a statement to attack the person making the statement. It is a logical fallacy, not engagement in the matter being discussed, but a deception–often, an unconscious self-deception in those who habitually employ the dodge..

OK, Let’s dismiss Barkley. Do YOU YOURSELF think what Kobe failed his team by forcing the Shaq trade? Do YOU YOURSELF thing players in team sports should be judged on their participation in the team effort of winning?

Kobe’s ego demanded exclusive supremecy and he got it and a green light to shoot all he wants. Ironically, he undid his claim to the position in basketball history he might have had by forcing the Shaq trade. He sent the team into a period of rebuilding the precluded championships it might have won with the dominent center of the time still on the team. Instead of the five championships, he might have had nine. That difference, in the long run outweighs any individual accomplishment he might get. Again, it is a team sport. Success is measured by team fortunes, not individual glory.

Isn’t it the case that no championships were won until Coach Jackson & GM Kupchak built a team Kobe was on that could win? A team with two top quality 7 footers on it? History suggests Jackson did it both with Kobe and without. Kobe is probably the replacable part in the championship run and they were Jackson championships, not Kobe championships.

Finally, could you see Russell, Jordon, Bird, Magic, West, Dr. J, or even Shaq forcing the trade of a great player on their team? All of those greats made room for great teammates instead of forcing them off the team.

Kobe is a despicable human being and while fortunate in his team, coach and management circumstances not in their league as a BASKETBALL PLAYER. He might be respectable as a singles tennis player, but he’s on a team.

…barkley is a loud mouth. yeah, we all love chuck but lets face it, he says a lot of dumb stuff and he did not know what happened with the kobe/shaq breakup. heck, most sources say it was shaq who broke up the team.

…Wilt would NOT be the fastest/strongest man(Center) in the game’s recent era. the fact is, players are just stronger and faster now. technology has changed the game to create a more “perfect speciman” and this is true with almost all sports. there are a million examples but i’m not going to bore us with that…

..the league is way more talented now then ever. participants from all over the world now play the game. not sure how you can argue against that? the “Pasha of Tripoli” example is interesting but delusional by his part. we know what the world has to offer.

…i think what is happening issywise is you are experiencing a case of heavy nostalgia where things were just “better” at that time. every generation does that. heck, sometimes, i get thoughts of “wow…i wish it was the 80′s again, etc…” but i realize “no, it’s better now and it’s getting better…(the eternal optimist)

…going back to the article, yeah, i never saw the “100″ point game of course…but the stories about it have confirmed it was a semi-joke event. i used the Madden football reference as an analogy in that i played the video game within its rules but distorted the natural flow/events of a “real” game that in the end was just a farce…kinda like the “100″ game.

The league was much smaller then and the talent more concentrated. Playing against the likes of Russell could not have been less difficult than playing against the likes of any other player from any other time. The game then was very much rougher than today’s (thank goodness).

I hear so much crap about how the “modern game” is better and stars from the past would not be stars now from people who have no memory of the game in the time of Wilt and Russell that I am forced to recall how the Pasha of Tripoli regarded his own realm the greatest in the world because he knew nothing of others.

Undoubtedly, Dr. J, Magic, Jordan and others have changed the game to one that is more fun to watch. Physical training is better now. The catchment for talent is wider–even worldwide. Coaching is generally better. However, a 6’10″ Ben Wallace was dominating games with defense in the modern era and not because of any of those changes. John Stockton played Bob Cousy style ball in the modern era. Would Wallace and Stockton have had to loose to themselves if they’d played in an earlier era? Would Cousy be less effective cutting the modern Laker defense apart then he was cutting the West-Baylor-Don Nelson defense apart way back when?

To assume the greats of an earlier age could not be great in today’s game or that their teams must necessarilly inferior to today’s teams ignores the central fact that greatness flows from places that aren’t subject to dimunition because things external to the great. Whatever made Wilt, Russell, Cousey, Oscar, Baylor, West and Archibald great then would make them great today. Everything visible about Larry Bird added up to a slow mediocre player….but for his greatness.

I always get in trouble assuming what I’m familiar with must be inherently better than that which I’m not. When I get caught doing it, it is because I’m relying on ignorance to frame insight.

Saying that getting the points in “the flow” of a normal competitive game is more difficult than getting the points when the whole other team is desperate to stop YOU from scoring does not seem all that appropriate a perspective to take.

Of course, both Wilt and Kobe had and have, respectively, huge egos that often work(ed) to the determent of their teams as well as to their benefit when confidence in the face of overwealming odds was needed.

I only posted because, while very talented, Kobe is a despicable man whose depredations are excused only because he’s the beneficary of hero worship.

In the normal run of things, maybe all the fawning over this character would be “deserved” in a sports fan sorta way of viewing things. However, Kobe’s history isn’t normal. He forced a trade that, if not made, might have meant Kobe got 11 rings. He defended a rape charge with the “it was just rough sex” defense and set loose a pack of hateful ambulence chasers to intimidate the accuser into not going to court and exposing herself to yet another pack of flesh eating tabloid scum who’d have been freed by Kobe’s lawyers to paint the accuser’s name black all over the worldwide media.

What a guy. He runs with those packs and passes up the chance to stand aside Russell. Some may consider him “the man,” but I hold that cannot be the final judgment.

Eddy Curry.

BOOM! /thread

Charles Barkley has had the last word on Kobe, no matter what words are yet to be spoken: “Regardless of what else he does in his career, Kobe’s the player who forced his team to trade the dominant center in the game. It’s a team sport and as team players they must be measured.”

With Kobe, it’s always “my team.” Kobe’d never ask to sit out if there was a chance for HIM to get some record.

Kobe is also the only sports figure, or even celebrity, who defended a rape charge by saying, “It wasn’t rape. It was just rough sex.” Some guy! Then he went out and hired a team of sleezy lawyers who commenced to violating the law preventing the release of the name of women who’ve filed criminal complaints for rape, so the women don’t get victimized by having their privacy violated in the press as horn dog, it’s all about me, Kobe violated her privacy right not to engage in unconsented “just rough sex.” Kobe’s hired gun lawyers fed the press stories about the victim’s mental health past and then took to using her name as often as possible to bait the press into making her the issue. Just like rapist always did before the law Kobe’s legal posse violated was enacted.

He is the most deplorable sports figure on the scene today.

Best we forget about this guy. He’s a fool. I suppose Hitler could be a hero, if one just ignored his depredations.

Other Kobe’s great games:
when he outscore Dallas 62 to 61 in three quarters, and sat down the full 4th quarter. ( another 80+ perhaps)
55 against Jordan, scoring 41 in the first half, and you could only imagine if not in foul trouble, how much he would had score.

In a game against a great Lakers team Chamberlain scored 78 points and pulled down 43 rebounds.
When sports writers questioned him about being just a scorer late in his career he went out and lead the league in assists just to prove a point.
Anyone that believes that his game would not translate into the NBA today is an idiot.
He may not average 50 points for the season but he would be the most dominant Center, and probably player in the game right now.
Name just one Center in the league that could contain him.