Dirk Nowitzki, NBA MVP?

[barryc83]

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Kobe's great, but he's also selfish. All you have to do is look at how their teams did around them. Kobe isn't worried about making those other guys better, its all about him. Nash will play for the name on the front of his jersey, not the name on the back. If Kobe could ever coexist with another star, or even tolerate him like he did with Shaq, he'd win another ring or six. As it looks now, that's kinda doubtful.


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You really haven't watched much of the Lakeshow. The other 4 guys on that team just stand around the majority of the time Kobe has the ball. I mean they don't move, they just clear out the lane, and watch him go to work. Putting Nash on that team really isn't as great as you think because the supporting cast is terrible. People think Nash makes guys like Amare and Marion great; he definitely makes them better, but see how good the Suns are if you sub Kwame for Amare or Walton for Marion. I am not a Nash hater at all, but Kobe really is the best player in the league right now. He's putting up Jordan type numbers.

[rakes.a.beach]

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Kobe's great, but he's also selfish. All you have to do is look at how their teams did around them. Kobe isn't worried about making those other guys better, its all about him. Nash will play for the name on the front of his jersey, not the name on the back. If Kobe could ever coexist with another star, or even tolerate him like he did with Shaq, he'd win another ring or six. As it looks now, that's kinda doubtful.


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You really haven't watched much of the Lakeshow. The other 4 guys on that team just stand around the majority of the time Kobe has the ball. I mean they don't move, they just clear out the lane, and watch him go to work. Putting Nash on that team really isn't as great as you think because the supporting cast is terrible. People think Nash makes guys like Amare and Marion great; he definitely makes them better, but see how good the Suns are if you sub Kwame for Amare or Walton for Marion. I am not a Nash hater at all, but Kobe really is the best player in the league right now. He's putting up Jordan type numbers.

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Amare made a jump AFTER nash got there. What about diaw, barbosa, bell, jj, q, jones, t thomas? You think Nash helped their game?

I live in LA and have watched a lot of Lakers game. I'd argue kobe's teammates just stand around instead of cutting because they weren't given the confidence to shoot. Maybe they didn't want kobe screaming down their throats after ever miss.

Do you play harder in a pickup game when your team is moving the ball around on offense? It seems like kobe's teammates don't enjoy playing with him.

[Edge34]

For what its worth, I haven't watched many Lakers games, mainly because I'm from Minnesota and also because watching that pitiful team would make me want to gag. The NBA as a whole is not very interesting to me anymore outside of whether or not the Pacers are doing anything good, and I can see that on SportsCenter.

Kobe has made it clear for a long time that he needs to be the biggest star on a team. I know that he's the best player on that team by such a long margin its unbelievable. But you can't win a title by yourself. He's proven that without Shaq. Jordan didn't do it all by himself either - he had Pippen as another huge star, and guys like Cartwright and Paxson backing him up. To me, there's a difference between knowing you're the man in the clutch, which Kobe is by far, and knowing that you can use your talent to help make the team better. Hucking up 1800 shots and barely making the playoffs isn't doing it.

I'm sure Kobe is content to sit back and say "look at what I've got around me", but they're NBA players, and if they actually played like a team they'd probably be even better. Nash has guys like Stoudamire, Diaw, and Barbosa backing him up, but when its time to help them out, he does it. Kobe has the skill to play more like Nash and still be a huge scorer, but he doesn't do it.

Long post somewhat shorter - Kobe isn't helping any of those "bad" guys get any better by shooting every time he touches the ball. They're not particularly good, but not every championship team is going to be run by 5 superstars. The Utah Jazz are doing very well this year with a starting 5 of Deron Williams, Derek Fisher, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, and Andrei Kirilenko. None of them are anywhere near the status of Kobe Bryant, but they win by making each other better.

[kidcolin]

rakes,

It's been shown before that none of those guys, other than Diaw (who mainly benefited from being used correctly), got "better" under Nash. Mostly the just played more minutes.

But I generally agree with you. Kobe's team is crap, but he might take it too far. I'm not sure. They looked pretty decent early in the year with a healthy Odom and Walton.

[barryc83]

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Kobe's great, but he's also selfish. All you have to do is look at how their teams did around them. Kobe isn't worried about making those other guys better, its all about him. Nash will play for the name on the front of his jersey, not the name on the back. If Kobe could ever coexist with another star, or even tolerate him like he did with Shaq, he'd win another ring or six. As it looks now, that's kinda doubtful.


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You really haven't watched much of the Lakeshow. The other 4 guys on that team just stand around the majority of the time Kobe has the ball. I mean they don't move, they just clear out the lane, and watch him go to work. Putting Nash on that team really isn't as great as you think because the supporting cast is terrible. People think Nash makes guys like Amare and Marion great; he definitely makes them better, but see how good the Suns are if you sub Kwame for Amare or Walton for Marion. I am not a Nash hater at all, but Kobe really is the best player in the league right now. He's putting up Jordan type numbers.

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Amare made a jump AFTER nash got there. What about diaw, barbosa, bell, jj, q, jones, t thomas? You think Nash helped their game?

I live in LA and have watched a lot of Lakers game. I'd argue kobe's teammates just stand around instead of cutting because they weren't given the confidence to shoot. Maybe they didn't want kobe screaming down their throats after ever miss.

Do you play harder in a pickup game when your team is moving the ball around on offense? It seems like kobe's teammates don't enjoy playing with him.

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Oh I 100% agree that Nash makes his teammates better and to a much further extent than Kobe for that matter. And I acknowledge that since you live in LA you've seen more Laker games than me, although I probably watched like 9-11 Laker regular season games. However, if you swap out Nash for Kobe on the Lakers this year, I don't think that team gets better. To be fair to Kobe though, the Lakers did have injury problems this year and they sure as hell had no legitimate shot at beating the Suns in the playoffs. Look at the starting lineup, the only other decent player is Lamar Odom, and he has always had more potential than actual game. Luke Walton, Brian Cook, Smush Parker/Farmar, and Kwame all log decent minutes for this team and are really bad. For once I'll agree with the media: if Kobe shoots too much and they lose, its bc he didnt get his teammates involved, if he shoots to little and they lose, its bc he didnt shoot enough.

[Aloysius]

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Did you watch the Lakers at all this year? The supporting cast surrounding Kobe is pitiful. Nobody on that team can create their own shots, nor do they finish when Kobe sets them up.

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Kobe really should be the MVP imo, I've watched alot of Laker games just cause it's local for me... this team (and I'm going to have to disagree with KC, though it pains me to do so) was really not good at all even with a healthy Luke and Odom.

I mean, really, those guys give you 1 competent role-player thrust into a starting role, and Odom who is very inconsistent. That's barely a supporting cast factoring in that everyone else seriously sucked (though yes Bynum had his moments I guess for like a 2-game stretch).

Compare the Lakers personnel to the Clippers (who had a worse record obvi) and you get a sense of how truly bad the Lakers were outside of Kobe, and how he got his team to overachieve.

-Al

[Aloysius]

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However, if you swap out Nash for Kobe on the Lakers this year, I don't think that team gets better.

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You see why this is not a very good argument at all?

-Al

[barryc83]

Wasn't Amare ROY w/o Nash???

[rakes.a.beach]

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Wasn't Amare ROY w/o Nash???

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Wasn't Kwame 1st pick overall? Didn't Kwame have a great first... 30-40 games?

[barryc83]

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However, if you swap out Nash for Kobe on the Lakers this year, I don't think that team gets better.

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You see why this is not a very good argument at all?

-Al

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Well if you put Nash on the Lakers for Kobe, who's gonna hit the 3s? Who's gonna be able to run and finish on the break? Who's gonna hit the wide open mid range jumpers? The Lakers just have way too many weak role players IMO. Sure Nash would up his scoring, but how can he get assists if his teammates cant finish?