If people are going to “make cases” for Bird, Duncan, Shaq as GOAT, along with Magic, Oscar, etc, then Kobe deserves it too. He has a Peak, and longevity claim same as any other. Duncan and Bird never won back to back. Kobe did, multiple times. With, or without Shaq. Duncan and Bird played their entire careers with other HOFers, same as Magic, so stop your next claims right there. Spare me. The middle of this stretch he was burdened with trash as Mitch rebuilt on the fly, but he was no less devastating. From age 21 to 25 he did everything you could ask for from a player, as a 1, a 1A, a 1B, whatever you want to call him, he did just as much as the other legends of the game.
Age 21-31
2000-2010
821 games
23,035 pts
4,286 asst
4,772 reb
1,359 stls
28.06
5.22
5.81
1.66
8,043-17,617 FG's 46%
1,150-3,372 3's 34%
5,799-6,893 FT's 84%
Missed 81 games. Basically an entire season.
32,311 min
39.36
Funny part, during that time frame he played in 170 playoff games, his averages?
27.8
5.2
5.5
Damn near identical across the board. 170 + 821 = 991 games. 40 minutes a night. 28/5/5 the entire time. Literally just shy of 1,000 games.
Years he DIDN’T win the MVP
2002-03 30/7/6/2 41 min a game in 82 games.
2005-06 35/5/4/2 41 min a game in 80 games.
2009-10 27/5/5/1.5 39 min a game in 73 games.
MVP year
2007-08 28/6/5/2 39 min a game in 82 games.
7 Finals, 5 Titles, 2 Finals MVP’s, 1 MVP* 2008 Olympics 7-0 in WCF’s.
25/11/7/4 blocks in game 7 2000
Game 4 of the 2000 Finals on the road
2001
48/16/3 close out of the Kings on the road
45/10/3 game 1 vs the Spurs on the road
2002
30/10/7 game 7 vs the Kings on the road
2010
33/7/8 WCF vs the Suns
All NBA First team 8 times
All NBA Defense First team 7 times
He was All NBA 2nd team and All Defense 2nd team when he was 21 and 22 and left off when he was hurt in 2005.
All Star every season, and All Star MVP 3 times. (His 4th came after this stretch) (He did sit out the 2010 All Star Game I believe)
Broken Hand, Knee surgery, shoulder injury, multiple finger/ligament tears, food poisioning,
He was their best defender, played damn near every minute, fought thru multiple injuries (unlike Shaq) and missed damn near an entire season worth of games, court trials, LA media crush, infighting, Phil leaving for a year, knee surgery, etc.
He lost one series with HC, the 04 Pistons series. That’s it. He lost the 08 Boston series with 2 starters out. Sasha Vujacic guarding Ray Allen at the close of games.
His other bad beat was Phoenix when 60% of his starters were Kwame/Smush/Luke Walton. A team that had ZERO business even being in the playoffs in the Western Conference. Nobody ever did anything with some trash like that.
He was one rebound away from winning that series, and dropped 50 in that game. Marion even missed the 3, they just couldn’t get one damn rebound.
That board would have changed so much about his legacy.
He gets hurt with this “1 MVP” stuff, like Shaq doesn’t also only have 1. When we have voters who give out random MVP’s to storylines like Nash, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, etc. Kobe was better in 2003 than he was in 2008, but he gets the MVP in 08.
Hell, he was ridiculous in 2006, outscoring teams by himself, and Nash and his 15-11 and zero defense somehow was more valuable.
Duncan, Bird, Shaq, they didn’t go to 7 Finals over a decade. Dunc and Bird didn’t win back to back, ever. So if you’re going to use those team accomplishments, then you have to do it for Kobe as well. And he surpasses all of them except MJ, Magic, Kareem, Russell over a decade span.
And to top that off, Kobe knocked Duncan out 4 out of 5 times during that time period. Went to the Finals 7 times. With Duncan/Pop in his same conference. Knocked him out in 01-02-04 and 08. Duncan won in 2003, when the Lakers were comin off 3 straight Finals runs, somethin Tim knows nothing about, ever. He didn't even reach back to back Finals until he was in his upper 30's and Kawhi/Parker/Manu/Green/Diaw carried him there.
Trying to push him out the way but include Duncan and Bird is just flat out nonsense. Shaq I wouldn’t argue too much about, I could see his claim, he certainly could make a good one. My thing with Shaq was he just left so much on the court. He COULD have done so much more. But he got swept like nothing with like 3 different franchises.
And took so much time off and laughed while doin it. If he played as much as Kobe, Bron, and KG have, man…………his resume would be Top 3 with MJ and Kareem, no doubt in my mind. Magic and Bird were great, but were done so fast, it’s a shame they didn’t get to play 14-15-16 years. MJ only getting to 13 is a shame too. He easily could have had an extra 3-4 years on his resume, at which point all this discussion is probably even more irrelevant.
But in terms of just single decade stretches, Kobe matches up with anyone in history outside of 3-4 guys. MJ, Kareem, Bron, Magic are about the only guys that can match this stretch. No one else can. (I don’t know how to quantify Wilt or Russell, I suppose they match up somehow, but I’m not smart enough to know how it translates.)
irk anymore, KG won 1 chip with two HOF's who were still both playing at a high level. Dirk got robbed of one, and might win another and the 2nd best player on those teams were Jason Terry
. Take away Dirk and put KG on the Mavs dude might not carry them into the playoffs even.
