Clearly was joking about the coked up part, but he wasn’t that good is the point.
Also, to bring up LeBron’s playmaking ability is to severely discredit Kobe’s own playmaking ability which was elite in his own right. The only difference between the two is that LeBron’s focus is playmaking while Kobe’s is individual scoring.
In the case of the Lakers styles make fights, or in this case styles make teams. LeBron’s abilities would’ve been redundant around guys like Odom and to a lesser extent Luke who were more all around players. The team had no scoring ability whatsoever so Kobe stylistically was a better fit for the 06 Lakers over LeBron. Put it this way, Suns easily could’ve thrown Diaw or Matrix on LeBron and neutralize him, Spurs had defenders, Mavs, even the Kings would’ve put prime Artest on him. LeBron hadn’t even reached his Miami playing level yet. No team could shut down 06 Kobe at that time, no one.
Now if you were to argue in the case of the Lakers and Cavs switching conferences then I’d agree with you. I think the Cavs fit LeBron’s style much better than the 06 Lakers and he would’ve made the playoffs in the West then just as Kobe would’ve made the playoffs with the 06 Lakers in the East.
Kobe is a good passer but LeBron is clearly on a different level than Kobe as a playmaker though. I actually would want to see what a team with all-around, unselfish point forwards like LeBron, Odom, Walton would do. Stylistically, it would be a different team like you said but that doesn’t necessarily mean worse team. You gotta remember Phil Jackson is coaching we have no idea what he could come up with or how he would manage a player of LeBron’s caliber.
I also don’t think that Cavs team was the best fit for LeBron because they really didn’t have shooters outside of Donyell Marshall. Your point about fitting LeBron’s styles makes no sense. We know LeBron strives with spacing. Look at those 3PT%’s in the playoffs the Cavs put up as a team and in the season they were a below average shooting team (24th in 3PT%).
The funny thing is the Lakers actually took and made more threes than the Cavs it was a bigger staple of their offense. Odom, Smush, Vujacic, Walton, Brian Cook, Devean George was taking threes.
Also LeBron isn’t going to be stopped. The Suns may have had Marion but tell me who they had protecting the rim they were a below average league defense you think they’re really stopping LeBron? You think LeBron didn’t kill elite defenders and elite team defenses in this time, the man averaged over 30 points per game himself.
Like I said he took the Pistons to 7 games. A 64 win Pistons team arguably the best defensive team of the era that season, a team coming off back to back Finals.
Y’all looking at Kobe’s volume scoring but ignoring the impact LeBron has on the court, just the all-around, consistent force he is and his ability to game manage as well as his own scoring volume.
