LeBron has a higher 3 point percentage than Kobe, but i dont feel like that makes him a better shoot

[Suleiman Bey]

Wrong Suleiman Bey. This is exactly what Detroit said they did. And notice that they did it because they KNEW how Kobe would respond, because he always responded that way:

"Chauncey Billups: Our game plan was very calculated. We knew we were going to play Shaq straight-up. We knew there was no way we could stop Shaq straight-up. And there was also no way we could stop Kobe straight-up. But, if we’re going to play Shaq straight-up, [the Lakers'] eyes are going to get big, which means they’re going to keep throwing it down there. We’re telling Ben the whole time, "Take fouls when you need to, but don’t get yourself into foul trouble. You need to give up a layup, cool, we’re going to get what we want on the other side." But what’s going to happen is Mr. Bryant is going to get a little discouraged with getting no touches and now the second half comes around…now he’s pressing. He’s going to start coming down and just breaking the offense. When you do that, you’re done—you’re playing right into our hands. Even if you start making those shots, you’re finished."

What he said is illogical. How can you be finished if the shots are falling? Thats illogical. If you watched the games u would see Shaq running down the clock and kicking it to shooters who would miss.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

What he said is illogical. How can you be finished if the shots are falling? Thats illogical. If you watched the games u would see Shaq running down the clock and kicking it to shooters who would miss.

You're going to tell the Detroit Pistons what their game plan was?

The Lakers were finished even if the shots were falling because Kobe had broken the game plan. The 2004 Lakers were fragile as hell - Kobe was feuding with Shaq, Kobe was feuding with Malone, Kobe was even feuding with Phil Jackson. The Pistons knew that if they could get Kobe to embrace his dark side, he would break the game plan, and that would screw over the Lakers even if Kobe hit some shots at first. That's why Detroit wasn't afraid of Shaq hitting shots against their single-coverage, and they weren't afraid of Kobe hitting shots when he started pressing, because they knew that once they got Kobe to start pressing he would keep doing it and those shots would stop falling, he'd start pissing everyone else off, everyone else wouldn't get their touches, and the team would fall apart.

This is one of the reasons why LeBron is historically so much better than Kobe. He is often looking to see what the TEAM needs to win and playing to those advantages. He determines the strategy and picks the best play for every situation. Kobe picks what's best for him and hopes that his coach will run the right strategy and his team's superior talent will carry the day regardless of how much he ball-hogs or how many shots he misses.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

these guys keep leaving out the Lakers were completely dysfunctional and pretty much broken up when that series went down. Everybody was beefing with each other the team chemistry wasn't good at all. These nikkas act like Kobe just sabotaged everything. Kobe was already better than Shaq at that point and the only win we got in that series was because of Kobe. Plus you had Karl hurt, GP mad about his role, Shaq mad about his contract and pretty much out of shape, and PJ pretty much in retirement mode. Kobe didn't play well that series but there was a lot of reasons the Pistons were able to do us like that

But the numbers breh....

 

[Amare's Right Hook]

Ignore facts because they don't support your narrative brehs. Lebron is a better 3 point shooter than kobe, is more efficient. The debate is over, lebron and kobe do not belong in the same sentence.

STFU

 

[Bilz]

Are you applying this to the 2nd half of Kobe's career or for his whole career. If the latter, you're an idiot

@ teams not being afraid of Kobe driving and finishing. Kobe was unguardable for a reason breh, he could do it all

He obviously was guardable because all of the excuses being made for Kobe and his shooting % are basically that defenses were too tough on him

 

[Biscayne]

If that is true, then why does Kobe have such bad numbers in every Finals?




LeBron has made 370 threes in his playoff career. Kobe only has 292.

LeBron averaged 34ppg while shooting 65% of his shots away from the basket this playoffs, pretty much the same as his career average. You're literally ripping on him for being smart enough to get to the rim when he can.






That's a horrible comparison because LeBron takes relatively more threes compared to twos. You have to separate the twos from the threes to make a fair comparison.

And no one says that LeBron had a fantastic long-range two his whole career. His jump shot was suspect during his first stint in Cleveland, it really started peaking around 2012.

In Miami LeBron shot:

49.3% from 3-10 feet
43.9% from 10-16 feet
41.4% from 16-23 feet
36.9% from three

Find a four-year stretch from Kobe that's better than that. LeBron at his peak was better even in Kobe's sweet spot.





Don't call "sub 48%" Kobe-like. Kobe only shot over 43% from the field in ONE Finals in his entire career, and that was a joke sweep against the Nets.

Lebron shot 45% from the field and 35% from three while guarded by Kawhi with Duncan at the rim against one of the best defensive schemes in basketball. Kobe-like would have been 41% from the field and 32% from three at best in that situation.




We already saw that, with LeBron in Cleveland when his roster was as bad or worse than anything Kobe ever had. He still was far more efficient than Kobe and that was before he'd even developed an elite jump shot.

Kobe played his entire career in the western conference. So he's faced multiple iterations of the Spurs and has had solid and poor series alike against Timmy D, Bruce Bowen and the pop system. So LeBron's scoring numbers and shooting percentage against the Spurs in 2013 is very much Kobe-like. 2014 was when he really torched them(even in a loss). Point being, the Spurs are a really good team who can make any all time great struggle....including LeBron. In that sense, LeBron and Kobe's scoring numbers and efficiency against the Spurs in the playoffs are very comparable with the exception of 2014. Again, LeBron has had all time great finals, and he's had wildly inefficient finals.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Kobe played his entire career in the western conference. So he's faced multiple iterations of the Spurs and has had solid and poor series alike against Timmy D, Bruce Bowen and the pop system. So LeBron's scoring numbers and shooting percentage against the Spurs in 2013 is very much Kobe-like. 2014 was when he really torched them(even in a loss). Point being, the Spurs are a really good team who can make any all time great struggle....including LeBron. In that sense, LeBron and Kobe's scoring numbers and efficiency against the Spurs in the playoffs are very comparable with the exception of 2014. Again, LeBron has had all time great finals, and he's had wildly inefficient finals.

I don't think that situation is comparable, as nearly all of Kobe's series were a decade or more earlier against a much less experienced Pop and a completely different Spurs team, and Pop's strategy for all of them was to focus the defensive effort on Shaq and just let Kobe shoot as much as he wanted against single coverage so long as it kept the ball out of Shaq's hands. Even then, as you note, Kobe only had some good series, typically against inferior Spurs rosters that weren't championship caliber.

I'd say the only year that Kobe beat a ring-worthy Spurs team was 2004, and even that was driven by the Spurs' faltering offense (they only averaged 80ppg over the four games, all LA wins, and only 75ppg over the last two) than Kobe's scoring. Kobe shot 32% from three for that series, similarly bad to what he does in his Finals.

How do you explain that outside of the one easy sweep over the Nets, Kobe has shot inefficiently in EVERY Finals? This is a player that all his stans claim is far more difficult to guard than LeBron...so how is it that the Pacers, the Sixers, the Pistons, the Celtics, and to some degree the Magic all figured out how to guard him during the Finals despite none of those teams even having elite defenders starting at the 2?

 

[steph_harden]

Where is this evidence.

This is why I cant take these bron stans serious smh.

Are u serious asking a question like that? Go get that shot chart.

The audacity of some of you nikkas

 

[Biscayne]

I don't think that situation is comparable, as nearly all of Kobe's series were a decade or more earlier against a much less experienced Pop and a completely different Spurs team, and Pop's strategy for all of them was to focus the defensive effort on Shaq and just let Kobe shoot as much as he wanted against single coverage so long as it kept the ball out of Shaq's hands. Even then, as you note, Kobe only had some good series, typically against inferior Spurs rosters that weren't championship caliber.

I'd say the only year that Kobe beat a ring-worthy Spurs team was 2004, and even that was driven by the Spurs' faltering offense (they only averaged 80ppg over the four games, all LA wins, and only 75ppg over the last two) than Kobe's scoring. Kobe shot 32% from three for that series, similarly bad to what he does in his Finals.

How do you explain that outside of the one easy sweep over the Nets, Kobe has shot inefficiently in EVERY Finals? This is a player that all his stans claim is far more difficult to guard than LeBron...so how is it that the Pacers, the Sixers, the Pistons, the Celtics, and to some degree the Magic all figured out how to guard him during the Finals despite none of those teams even having elite defenders starting at the 2?

One took smarter shots, one took more contested shots. LeBron is the superior scorer, more elite player and more efficient scorer, but that doesn't necessarily translate to him being the superior shooter. Especially if we take into account FT percentage, which is the ultimate uncontested shot. Having said that, LeBron improved tremendously as a shooter. In Miami in year 3, a LeBron pull up 3 was a shot that I was comfortable seeing LeBron take. That was considered a good shot, because he became a solid shooter from behind the arc. But, Alot of his development as a shooter, came via teams insistence that LeBron was the same shooter he had been prior to 2013, and that daring LeBron to Jack up uncontested shots was the winning basketball defensive scheme. Teams didn't respect LeBron as a shooter until it was too late. And sometimes it worked for stretches and other times he's make them pay. And LeBron made them pay, but these were open shots for the most part.

 

[UpAndComing]

Paul Pierce is a better 3 point shooter than both

 

[Gravity]

these guys keep leaving out the Lakers were completely dysfunctional and pretty much broken up when that series went down. Everybody was beefing with each other the team chemistry wasn't good at all. These nikkas act like Kobe just sabotaged everything. Kobe was already better than Shaq at that point and the only win we got in that series was because of Kobe. Plus you had Karl hurt, GP mad about his role, Shaq mad about his contract and pretty much out of shape, and PJ pretty much in retirement mode. Kobe didn't play well that series but there was a lot of reasons the Pistons were able to do us like that

This is basically proof that you're not a lakers fan and you're just a Kobe fanboy. You give Kobe all of the credit for the 1 game where he gunned semi-efficiently while completely excusing him for shooting them out of the other 4 games. Kobe was 14-27 in the game that they won, but in the 4 that they lost he was only 29-86. Kobe took 113 shots during those 5 games while Shaq only got 84(making 53) and nobody else on the team got 40 shots. Kobe only had 14 rebounds in those 5 games with 22 assists and 18 turnovers.

I'm only citing the exact stats to cement the point that whether it was conscious or not, he did sabotage the team. It's not that he just didn't play well, he was a L(iability) out there. He got outplayed by rip and chauncey. Kobe shot them out of that series.

 

[AJtheOne]

Lebron is a better 3pt shooter.

Kobe had better midrange.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Paul Pierce is a better 3 point shooter than both

Well considering that pierce could be considered a great shooter from distance, that’s kinda obvious. He had 9 seasons shooting over 38% from distance with 3 of them going over the 40% mark while taking almost 5 threes per game for much of his career.

 

[Haliax]

basketball isn't a game of aesthetics ..yes contested 15ft fadeaways look great when they fall..but when they don't..boy..

fact of the matter is..there isn't a shot in any players arsenal that LeBron can't make at a respectable level (you could use the eye test or stats the results would still be the same)

one more thing ..people don't dare LeBron to shoot because he is a terrible shooter..they dare him because that's the weaker poison. If they crowded him he is blowing by them

 

[ELESDEE616]

Kobe is the most media manufactured superstar of all time. When you actually do the research for yourself instead of listening to bullshyt narratives like “bu bu mamba mentality” not a single thing ever points to him being better than his peers, apart from him having more rings which were gifted to him by the most physically dominating player ever.

He's basically Derek Jeter. Overrated because he played in a top 3 market and won a bunch of things with superior talent.