I believe that this season is the tipping point.
I’ve been doing lots of reading up, been listening to all the podcasts, etc…and I think it’s worth spending some time writing about the whole Kobe vs LeBron thing, especially this season.
I seriously think that this is the year that LeBron officially moves past Kobe as the greatest player on the planet.
Or to be more precise, it is during this year’s playoffs when that happened.
Not so much the regular season, but during the playoffs.
If I were to draw a parallel, the most obvious one I can think of is when Nadal beat Federer at this year’s Aussie Open final…which kinda signalled the fact that Nadal is now officially the best tennis player in the world.
One is (supposedly) on his way down, and the other is on his way up…and the Aussie Open final was where their paths crossed.
And you could say that this year’s playoffs could be the moment when Kobe and LeBron’s paths crossed as well.
Firstly, LeBron wins his first regular season MVP title, which kinda proclaims the fact that King James has finally arrived.
I remember hearing on one of the Bill Simmons podcasts that somebody said that he spoke with some of the greatest minds in basketball today, and they said that of all the players they’ve ever seen through the years…LeBron has a decent shot of becoming better than Jordan.
Next, LeBron’s performances thus far (and that includes Game 2 against the Orlando Magic) have shown that perhaps this is the year when he wins his first (of many) NBA titles.
You look at Kobe and his team struggling to get past an understrengthed Rockets team, and how they’re currently struggling against the Nuggets…and you start to wonder if this is the beginning of the decline for Kobe Bryant.
Kobe
For the last few years, most people would agree that Kobe was the greatest basketball player on earth.
Yes, LeBron probably has the potential to be as great as Jordan was, but as of the last few years, Kobe was still No. 1.
Bill Simmons says that Kobe is on his decline, and that he is past his prime, in the sense that even though he could still light up for maybe, say, 50 points on a given night…his points come much harder now.
He has to work much harder to get his points nowadays than as before.
I think we should talk a little bit about Kobe’s legacy.
One should remember that all of Kobe’s 3 rings were won when he was playing with Shaq in his prime.
I seriously think that had Kobe and Shaq not split, they could easily have gone for 5 or 6 titles.
Anyway, the fact remains that Kobe, for all his talent, has not won a title while he is the best player on his team.
In other words, he has not won a title without a Shaq.
Michael Jordan won all his 6 titles as the best player on his team.
He led the likes of Horace Grant, Will Purdue, BJ Armstrong, Toni Kukoc, Bill Wennington, Luc Longley, Steve Kerr, Bill Cartwright, Ron Harper, and willed them all to championships.
How about Kobe? He hasn’t done that yet.
And by the looks of things, LeBron might even do it before Kobe does.
Or the bigger question is: Is Kobe ever going to get another title?
Cos it has been noted that his current Laker team, well…it just seems like they’re perhaps a bit too soft, or too weak, or too scared to win a championship.
I dunno, this current line-up doesn’t seem to give me the confidence that they can win an NBA title.
And Bill Simmons mentions that Kobe’s window to win another championship is between 2008 to 2010, and I agree.
It would be sad if Kobe ends his career not having won a championship without Shaq. That would seriously undermine his status as one of the greatest NBA players in history.
I know Kobe has a legendary work ethic, and his killer instinct and will to win are way above any current player…but sometimes one can only do so much.
LeBron
What can you say about this guy?
As I mentioned, according to experts…LeBron probably has the best chance of becoming as great, if not greater than Michael Jordan was.
His physical attributes are just unbelievable.
He’s built like Karl Malone but runs the floor and is as quick as maybe Scottie Pippen was.
He’s as strong as any power forward, but is as quick and agile as any shooting guard.
He can play four positions. He can bring the ball up, he can pass like Magic, he can dunk better than anyone else has ever dunked, he can block shots like Dwight Howard, he can dribble and penetrate like Kobe, and he can also shoot game-winning, buzzer-beater 3′s.
And this season might be the one when he makes the leap from NBA superstar to the rarefied Jordan-Bird-Magic-Kobe stratosphere.
LeBron hasn’t put a foot wrong.
He’s fun, he’s lovable, he does all the right things and says all the right things, his team always seems to be having fun, he’s got the unique and easily-identifiable first name, he’s making all these incredible trick shots in practice (and some in real game situations too), he penetrates and dunks like no other player has done before, he easily makes at least three or four highlight-reel plays per game, he never gets into trouble, and now he’s on a team that is almost on its way to an NBA title.
Can this guy do anything wrong?
In conclusion, I think a league always needs superstars to drive its growth and sustain its popularity.
And the NBA is very fortunate to still have probably two of the greatest and most exciting players in recent history playing at what can still be considered their primes.
When all is said and done, I think it’s now all a matter of who wins the trophies at the end of the day.
Kobe really needs to win one very soon, cos LeBron is going to have many more chances to get his fair share.
Cos like it or not, at the end of the day, legacies are judged by the number of championships one has won.
