“Nobody feared LeBron. I’ve heard people say including myself that they feared Michael Jeffrey Jordan” Shaq

[Professor Emeritus]

If we being fair, KG is the one that started this and he was fairly justified because of how the Wolves had failed to build around him. But in comparison to Jordan and Kobe and even Duncan who all stayed and won with their squads it’s a slight on Bron. Had KD not done something far more lowly it would probably be brought up more.

That's nonsense, neither KG nor Bron "started" any of this. Superstars leaving for better situations has been part of the NBA for its entire history.


Was prime Wilt willing to stay with the Warriors when he felt they weren't building enough? And then even after forcing his way out and winning a title with the Sixers, didn't he still force his way out a second time to LA to form a superteam with West and Baylor on the Lakers?

Didn't Big O leave for Milwaukee to join up with KAJ and get his ring?

Was prime Kareem willing to stay with the Bucks after Big O retired? Didn't he force his way to LA too?

Didn't Magic say he would refuse to enter the draft if Chicago won the pick, and only declared because he knew he'd be able to join forces with Kareem?

Didn't Moses Malone ditch Houston in his prime in order to go form a superteam with Dr. J and a Finals squad in Philly instead?

Didn't Barkley ditch Philly for the Suns to join a squad that had already made two WCF, and then after failing to win there, jumped to the Rockets to form a superteam with Hakeem and Drexler just a year after they'd already won a ring?

Didn't Kobe refuse to work out with anyone other than the Lakers and have his agent tell teams he wouldn't play for anyone else, so that he didn't have to start his career on some shytty franchise and work his way up like other top picks have to?

Didn't Shaq ditch Orlando after they lost to the Bulls, without trying to build there, and join a 54-win team in LA that had already added Kobe too? Then didn't he jump around from the Heat to the Suns to the Cavs to the Celtics trying to pick up another ring?

Then you have Garnett joining up with Pierce and Ray in Boston.



Bron played out two full contracts in Cleveland. Outside of Hakeem, no other superstar was ever willing to stay with a franchise that dysfunctional for that long (and the Rockets weren't nearly as dysfunctional as the Cavs were). Bron's decision stuck out because he's a media magnet, but otherwise it's no different than what stars had been doing for the previous 50 years, and that wasn't a stain on the career for any of them. Does Hakeem get extra shine because he stayed with the Rockets? Hell no, people penalize him for it. If he had forced his way to Portland in 1990 and the Blazers had won 4-5 titles together, he'd be far more highly ranked than he is now.

In 2010, the Cavs were trying to go forward by surrounding Bron with 6'1" Mo Williams, a washed Antawn Jamison, JJ Hickson and Andreson Varejao. That team wasn't going fukking anywhere no matter how well Bron played.

 

[LezJepzin]

Is there another choice?

 

[10bandz]

That's nonsense, neither KG nor Bron "started" any of this. Superstars leaving for better situations has been part of the NBA for its entire history.


Was prime Wilt willing to stay with the Warriors when he felt they weren't building enough? And then even after forcing his way out and winning a title with the Sixers, didn't he still force his way out a second time to LA to form a superteam with West and Baylor on the Lakers?

Didn't Big O leave for Milwaukee to join up with KAJ and get his ring?

Was prime Kareem willing to stay with the Bucks after Big O retired? Didn't he force his way to LA too?

Didn't Magic say he would refuse to enter the draft if Chicago won the pick, and only declared because he knew he'd be able to join forces with Kareem?

Didn't Moses Malone ditch Houston in his prime in order to go form a superteam with Dr. J and a Finals squad in Philly instead?

Didn't Barkley ditch Philly for the Suns to join a squad that had already made two WCF, and then after failing to win there, jumped to the Rockets to form a superteam with Hakeem and Drexler just a year after they'd already won a ring?

Didn't Kobe refuse to work out with anyone other than the Lakers and have his agent tell teams he wouldn't play for anyone else, so that he didn't have to start his career on some shytty franchise and work his way up like other top picks have to?

Didn't Shaq ditch Orlando after they lost to the Bulls, without trying to build there, and join a 54-win team in LA that had already added Kobe too? Then didn't he jump around from the Heat to the Suns to the Cavs to the Celtics trying to pick up another ring?

Then you have Garnett joining up with Pierce and Ray in Boston.



Bron played out two full contracts in Cleveland. Outside of Hakeem, no other superstar was ever willing to stay with a franchise that dysfunctional for that long (and the Rockets weren't nearly as dysfunctional as the Cavs were). Bron's decision stuck out because he's a media magnet, but otherwise it's no different than what stars had been doing for the previous 50 years, and that wasn't a stain on the career for any of them. Does Hakeem get extra shine because he stayed with the Rockets? Hell no, people penalize him for it. If he had forced his way to Portland in 1990 and the Blazers had won 4-5 titles together, he'd be far more highly ranked than he is now.

In 2010, the Cavs were trying to go forward by surrounding Bron with 6'1" Mo Williams, a washed Antawn Jamison, JJ Hickson and Andreson Varejao. That team wasn't going fukking anywhere no matter how well Bron played.

Embarrassing and no pulse of reality or how things are really perceived out here.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Embarrassing and no pulse of reality or how things are really perceived out here.

You're definitely dumb enough to think those are the same thing.

I'm quite in touch with reality, the issue is that you're stuck in how you want to perceive it. And literally everyone knows that's the problem with Kobestans - their entire fandom is centered around how things are perceived from their own biased perspective rather than being centered in reality.

 

[MoshpitMazi]

Passionate on both sides

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I think what people are getting at is that at its core the fear that people had for Kobe/Jordan was more organic because it was about them using sheer will and determination and killer instinct in their rise to the top.

The "organic" rise of Jordan who signed an individual Nike deal before he'd even played a game in the league that made him the focus of Nike's biggest single-athlete marketing campaign in history when it was just his rookie season.

The "organic" rise of Kobe who rose to the top through sheer will and determination.....I mean by refusing to play for anyone else other than the Lakers. Very organic.

The "organic" rise of Kobe who got so much media attention he was made an All-Star starter before he was even good enough to start for his own team. You could argue that outside of legacy picks for aging superstars, he was the worst all-star starter in modern history.


The idea that Kobe/Jordan somehow made their fame organically, while Lebron wouldn't have been famous without the media or NBA higher-ups orchestrating it, is pure delusion.

LeBron on the other hand had always felt like a social engineering project as a means of pivoting away from Kobe post Colorado as the next face of the league and Jordan’s heir. More ticky tack fouls were called and it gradually became less about your bag and your will to kill and more about if you were a part of the NBA’s marketing efforts.

This is wild fantasy land. You actually believe Bron only dominated because of "NBA marketing efforts" to pivot away from Kobe? The same Bron who was dominating NBA players in pickup games while he was still in high school? Who already looked like the best player on the court in the first NBA game he ever played? Who was already earning MVP votes his rookie season and averaging 27-7-7 by his 2nd year?

The idea that the NBA was trying to elevate Lebron over Kobe using foul calls is especially hilarious. Which one do you think was going to the line more in that post-rape period?

2004: Kobe 8.2 fts, Bron 5.8 fts
2005: Kobe 10.1 fts, Bron 8.0 fts
2006: Kobe 10.2 fts, Bron 10.3 fts
2007: Kobe 10.0 fts, Bron 9.0 fts

Despite the fact that Bron went inside far more than Kobe and drew much more contact, Kobe was going to the line MORE than Bron was. And you think officiating was involved in some sort of secret ploy to elevate Bron over Kobe by calling "ticky-tack" fouls in his favor?

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

I think what people are getting at is that at its core the fear that people had for Kobe/Jordan was more organic because it was about them using sheer will and determination and killer instinct in their rise to the top. LeBron on the other hand had always felt like a social engineering project as a means of pivoting away from Kobe post Colorado as the next face of the league and Jordan’s heir. More ticky tack fouls were called and it gradually became less about your bag and your will to kill and more about if you were a part of the NBA’s marketing efforts. I think had Bron won in Cleveland first it would’ve went a long way. Bron’s “bulldoze through nikkaz” offense and hopping on Wade’s team to win has permanently stained Bron for many fans.

With that said, I feel bad from Bron because now he can’t be appreciated for the great player he is because too many people still sense that stench of his being overly pushed by the league as the guy to root for. I honestly hope and wish that the league goes away from this “Next Jordan” bullshyt once and for all.

Thanks to that shyt, nearly 30 years of NBA discourse has devolved into Stan wars which has made it where one all time great is having his legacy erased while the other is being made to be hated by a growing contingent of NBA fans all while the same GOAT exists today and has to continuously be brought up because the sport refuses to move the fukk on.

There’s a few things worth noting here. The league’s two biggest issues is that while they promoted Mike more so than the bulls as a team, the quality of play went into the tank across the entire league real fast and as you pointed out every great new player got the “next MJ” label instead of being appreciated as who they were. At the same time, the league expanded so much and so fast that we didn’t get any other great teams the league could build its marketing around so they were in such a bind when Mike retired that he essentially stayed the foundation of the league’s marketing campaign even as he was retired. Kobe, Grant Hill, and Vince Carter all got a lot of attention (I remember getting an N64 as a kid with a game with Kobe on the cover when he was 19-20), but they weren’t able to be marketed as the face of the league for a few reasons. Vince with him never really reaching the next level, Grant’s ankle giving out on him, and then just as Kobe was nearing the point where he’d be the best player on the team, the Shaq feud and Colorado happen.


Fouls have been trending down for about 30 years though and so have free throws, which is good for the game. The problem is the league’s media machine. They have more to blame than anyone by green-lighting skip and every imitator over the past 20 years. This should’ve been clear to us all when the morning talk shows after the 2007 finals opened with that guy trashing a 22 year old for taking a team of scrubs to the finals but not winning against a team whose core had already won 3 previous titles together.


You mentioned the decision and the league has a ton of blame for that too. There’s no way the league didn’t know how dumb that would come off, but instead of pushing to not do it at all, they air it and basically treat it as a sweepstakes between “will LeBron sign with the Knicks or stay with the cavaliers?” in the buildup to it. I don’t know what the local media by you was like in the buildup to it, but in the weeks before it happened, the local talk was about how clearly the cavaliers weren’t a well run team and it’s clearly not gonna happen there. Then once we hear the words “take my talents to South Beach” on the tv the whole machine does a 180 and acts like a team whose best acquisitions in a 7 year span besides him were Mo Williams, 37 going on 38 year old Shaq, and Antwan Jamison was a good enough supporting cast while just weeks prior we saw a team with Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett didn’t have enough offense to win it all. The league office has themselves to blame and really nobody else because not only did they not stop this nonsense, but they encouraged it. We even had owners a year later during the lockout pushing for a CBA specifically designed to breakup the team that was the biggest box office draw in the league because of how mad everyone got over this, which is insanity. This was the sort of stuff that stern should’ve stomped out real quick. It’s 2024 and we still see online basketball discussion about whether leaving the cavaliers in 2010 was a good choice to make when the next year’s team went from 61 wins to 19 wins and was 29th in offense and defense.

There’s so many more interesting things for the league to talk about than stan wars centered around incoherent stuff like this. I really hope silver is prepared to make sure the league’s media machine doesn’t repeat this crap where fans will be living 25-35 years in the past when he’s done as commissioner. I’d even overlook shyt like the ugly jerseys we get and dumb stuff like the in season tournament if he pulls that off.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

There’s a few things worth noting here. The league’s two biggest issues is that while they promoted Mike more so than the bulls as a team, the quality of play went into the tank across the entire league real fast and as you pointed out every great new player got the “next MJ” label instead of being appreciated as who they were.

Nah, man, the league never promoted Mike, his entire rise was purely "organic".

Kobe, Grant Hill, and Vince Carter all got a lot of attention (I remember getting an N64 as a kid with a game with Kobe on the cover when he was 19-20)

That was this, announced in 1997 and released in 1998 despite the fact that he hadn't done anything in the league yet. Just 19, he was the youngest player to ever have a game named for him despite the fact that he was still coming off the bench for his own team.

They made a sequel the very next year:

He also made the cover of SI at 19 when he was a mere bench player averaging 15-3-3 on 42.8% shooting.

But no, Kobe didn't get a media push, it was purely organic.

Fouls have been trending down for about 30 years though and so have free throws, which is good for the game. The problem is the league’s media machine. They have more to blame than anyone by green-lighting skip and every imitator over the past 20 years. This should’ve been clear to us all when the morning talk shows after the 2007 finals opened with that guy trashing a 22 year old for taking a team of scrubs to the finals but not winning against a team whose core had already won 3 previous titles together.

Nah, they're going to ignore this, Bron was the result of a pure media push and he definitely didn't get criticized like crazy and called a "choker" for not winning the 2007 Finals despite being just 21yo at the start of the season and leading scrubs further than any young player ever had.

He also didn't get crazy deranged media criticism for not winning the 2004 Olympics or 2006 FIBA at 19/21 and pick up the nickname "Bronze" despite that Larry Brown didn't even play him in the Olympics. And he wasn't criticized after the 2008, 2009, or 2010 playoffs either.

You mentioned the decision and the league has a ton of blame for that too. There’s no way the league didn’t know how dumb that would come off, but instead of pushing to not do it at all, they air it and basically treat it as a sweepstakes between “will LeBron sign with the Knicks or stay with the cavaliers?” in the buildup to it. I don’t know what the local media by you was like in the buildup to it, but in the weeks before it happened, the local talk was about how clearly the cavaliers weren’t a well run team and it’s clearly not gonna happen there. Then once we hear the words “take my talents to South Beach” on the tv the whole machine does a 180 and acts like a team whose best acquisitions in a 7 year span besides him were Mo Williams, 37 going on 38 year old Shaq, and Antwan Jamison was a good enough supporting cast while just weeks prior we saw a team with Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett didn’t have enough offense to win it all.

The media DEFINITELY didn't treat Bron's decision to go to Miami completely differently than they talked about the Boston Big 3, the Lakers superteam, Shaq's team-hopping, the Houston super-team, Barkley's team-hopping....nah, they were determined to make Bron an inorganic superstar and didn't give him outsized criticism after that at all.

 

[10bandz]

You're definitely dumb enough to think those are the same thing.

I'm quite in touch with reality, the issue is that you're stuck in how you want to perceive it. And literally everyone knows that's the problem with Kobestans - their entire fandom is centered around how things are perceived from their own biased perspective rather than being centered in reality.

The reality is elite athletes in every sport pursue their dreams vicariously through Kobe.

Lions' Darius Slay was 'in a zone' after meeting childhood idol Kobe Bryant

Darius Slay is a cornerback in the NFL, but he became a giddy fan when he got to meet the Lakers' Kobe Bryant.

www.espn.com

Inside Manny Machado's amazing encounter with his idol Kobe Bryant

Imagine you get a chance to meet your sports hero face-to-face -- and he's wearing your jersey.

www.espn.com

Travis Kelce talks about Kobe Bryant's 'Mamba Mentality'

Cavs’ Kyrie Irving credits ‘Mamba mentality’ after NBA Finals victory

Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving said that he channeled his inner Kobe Bryant during his team’s 93–89, Game 7 win over the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

www.si.com

The reality is Kobe's career as an inspiration to the elite, the best of the best across both sports and in international business, while you're a fakkit, a fraud, and a fukking dork who doesn't go outside. You're not around other black people outside going on nerd rants against Kobe, AI, Melo, the 01 All Star game etc. You're inside, perpetually, googling for hours, making misleading statisitcal arguments, making up fantasies about your life, finessing other dorks on The Coli with your performative bullshyt, etc etc.

The entire history of sports fandom revolves around rooting for teams and you've let one basketball player lead you to make arguments that following teams is actually the wrong thing to do, and following one man from team to team for 21 years and dictating your entire opinion of the sports through the lens of that one man is the right thing to do. Nothing about being a Bron dikkrider or The Real Jcotton is steeped in reality.

But you go ahead and keep playing them internet games. POTY is your biggest life accomplishment and just yesterday you were bragging about "getting mad rep in these streets". Yeah, I know The Coli is "the streets" for you. I know.

 

[fifth column]

That's nonsense, neither KG nor Bron "started" any of this. Superstars leaving for better situations has been part of the NBA for its entire history.


Was prime Wilt willing to stay with the Warriors when he felt they weren't building enough? And then even after forcing his way out and winning a title with the Sixers, didn't he still force his way out a second time to LA to form a superteam with West and Baylor on the Lakers?

Didn't Big O leave for Milwaukee to join up with KAJ and get his ring?

Was prime Kareem willing to stay with the Bucks after Big O retired? Didn't he force his way to LA too?

Didn't Magic say he would refuse to enter the draft if Chicago won the pick, and only declared because he knew he'd be able to join forces with Kareem?

Didn't Moses Malone ditch Houston in his prime in order to go form a superteam with Dr. J and a Finals squad in Philly instead?

Didn't Barkley ditch Philly for the Suns to join a squad that had already made two WCF, and then after failing to win there, jumped to the Rockets to form a superteam with Hakeem and Drexler just a year after they'd already won a ring?

Didn't Kobe refuse to work out with anyone other than the Lakers and have his agent tell teams he wouldn't play for anyone else, so that he didn't have to start his career on some shytty franchise and work his way up like other top picks have to?

Didn't Shaq ditch Orlando after they lost to the Bulls, without trying to build there, and join a 54-win team in LA that had already added Kobe too? Then didn't he jump around from the Heat to the Suns to the Cavs to the Celtics trying to pick up another ring?

Then you have Garnett joining up with Pierce and Ray in Boston.



Bron played out two full contracts in Cleveland. Outside of Hakeem, no other superstar was ever willing to stay with a franchise that dysfunctional for that long (and the Rockets weren't nearly as dysfunctional as the Cavs were). Bron's decision stuck out because he's a media magnet, but otherwise it's no different than what stars had been doing for the previous 50 years, and that wasn't a stain on the career for any of them. Does Hakeem get extra shine because he stayed with the Rockets? Hell no, people penalize him for it. If he had forced his way to Portland in 1990 and the Blazers had won 4-5 titles together, he'd be far more highly ranked than he is now.

In 2010, the Cavs were trying to go forward by surrounding Bron with 6'1" Mo Williams, a washed Antawn Jamison, JJ Hickson and Andreson Varejao. That team wasn't going fukking anywhere no matter how well Bron played.

Cool story, so why did Lebron leave a competent situation in Miami to go back to the Cavs if all he wanted was a good organization

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Cool story, so why did Lebron leave a competent situation in Miami to go back to the Cavs if all he wanted was a good organization

I'm not in his mind, but he's from Ohio originally and seemed to still have a nostalgic desire to win one for Cleveland.

After Bron went to Miami, Cleveland also finally got four years of high draft picks in a row, which allowed them to build the team. That had literally been impossible so long as Bron was on the team and they were picking at the end every year. Chicago built through the draft by having 8 top-18 picks in Jordan's first five seasons, including 6 top-11 picks. Cleveland had never been able to do that because they only had one top-18 pick in Bron's entire tenure and immediately wasted it (Luke Jackson at #10). So by leaving the team, Bron allowed it to build into a competitive squad in a way that would never have been possible while he was there.

 

[bigde09]

Embarrassing and no pulse of reality or how things are really perceived out here.

He didn’t know js mean Jordan’s. He has no understanding of the culture. So of course he doesn’t know or understand Kobe’s impact

 

[10bandz]

He didn’t know js mean Jordan’s. He has no understanding of the culture. So of course he doesn’t know or understand Kobe’s impact

Exactly Talking about reality about how people really feel about these topics but didnt even know J's stood for Jordans.

 

[10bandz]

How 'Mamba Mentality' helped Detroit Tigers' Akil Baddoo become 'bona fide big leaguer'

Detroit Tigers outfielder Akil Baddoo's favorite athlete is the late Kobe Bryant, and he\u00a0worships the Kobe-created \

eu.freep.com

players from all sports leagues looking up to Kobe more than idols of their own sport. Just like Tom brady chasing after MJ and not caring about other legendary QBs as much.

ORGANIC

NOT FORCED

 

[Professor Emeritus]

you're a fakkit, a fraud, and a fukking dork who doesn't go outside.

You literally have lived in the valley your entire life, work an office job, and have given zero indication that you have ever been with a woman. I've been all over the world and I'm supposed to feel threatened by someone like you calling me a "fakkit" who doesn't go outside?

You're not around other black people outside going on nerd rants against Kobe, AI, Melo, the 01 All Star game etc.

No, I virtually never argue about basketball in my real life. When I'm with real people, I can always come up with better shyt to do. Dumb basketball arguments are for down time at work when I'm waiting for emails to get back to me or decompressing at night after I've put my girl to bed.

The entire history of sports fandom revolves around rooting for teams and you've let one basketball player lead you to make arguments that following teams is actually the wrong thing to do, and following one man from team to team for 21 years and dictating your entire opinion of the sports through the lens of that one man is the right thing to do.

EVERYONE can see you and your fellow deranged Kobestans are Kobe fans more than you're Laker fans and will never accept Lebron as the star of your squad specifically BECAUSE you cared about the player more than the team. And every one of you would have followed Kobe to any team he went to if he had been traded like he demanded, just like Jordan stans followed him to Washington even after he was washed.

If "following a player" wasn't a thing before Lebron, then why are there so many Kobe fans outside of Los Angeles? How did Jordan become by far the most popular player in the world despite the Bulls not even being a big team before him?

I have no problem with enjoying the best basketball players I see in the game. And I have no problem with someone else rooting for a team. When have I ever tried to stop someone from rooting for their favorite team?


Everyone here can see you're mad deranged that you care so much who another man roots for. Imagine having so little in your life that THAT is what you chose to focus on.

Spoiler

And I almost never bring up my POTY banner, you bring it up MUCH more than I do. Don't you realize how insecure that makes you look? Pretty much the only time I've thought about that banner this year is when your whiny insecure fingers bring it up again and again. I live in your mind.