Real Deal

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Jordan, Kareem, Wilt, Oscar, Kobe. Kobe is a better overall player than Magic and Bird, has as many (or more) rings than they do. I almost want to say that Oscar didn't play against anyone, and Wilt was defended by power forwards for parts of his career...but I'm not going to bother with that unless I consider everything. I'm sure Kobe would've shredded a 10-team league, though.

What the hell was Portland doing there? And what the hell was Billups doing?

Matthews with 10 boards, career high. Portland may have locked this up after the Afflalo miss.

Amen to that.

Wes was a steal, for sure. He's stepping up, with Roy out. Not surprised if we're talking on the defensive end, but I had no idea the dude was a baller back on offense, and not just some spot-up shooter.

If we're talking about the help the players are receiving, why is anyone calling Battier a good defensive player? Other than contesting a shot (which Kobe has no problem with anymore), he relies HEAVILY on help, almost more than any other "elite" defensive player in the league. However, Battier has been considered one of the best defensive players of this last decade. With Ron helping out that mini-zone they were playing for a while, and Yao sitting in the paint, and even Chuck Hayes contesting shots at the rim, that's huge for Battier...but nobody cared to call him an overrated defensive player because of it. Wade had his share of help, too, in that case. That Heat team was NOT the 6th best defensive team in the league without Haslem, Richardson, O'Neal, Anthony, Wright, and even Magloire's help defense. And, you know...Richardson actually defended some of the better players, especially the bigger two-guards and the small forwards. He took Kobe, LeBron, Durant, and Melo.

I didn't see much of it because I was at the gym playing ball, but I caught the end. I'm not really surprised that Texas took the game. Wish I could actually comment on it, but I hate just looking at the box and trying to make an analysis from the numbers.

There will be some teams interested, but they won't throw a major contract out there for him, so it makes the acquisition a bit easier. More teams will be involved. Oden did impress. He was a top defensive center in the NBA at one point. I would take a chance on him, if I were a team in need of a true big defensive center, no doubt about it.

Well, Bryant was 12th in the voting for DPOY (below Thabo and Wade), and I never said he deserved it over Thabo. Wade is a different story because I think Kobe is a better on-ball defender, and unless we're talking Dwight Howard, on-ball defense is more important than help defense (in my opinion). Wade has taken plays off on defense. I've seen him do it against Bryant, where Wright would take Kobe and Wade would watch someone else. With Ron Artest, Bryant shouldn't defend the best player. That doesn't make him a worse defender, because sometimes, he does defend that guy. Kobe locked LeBron down twice in the 2008-09 season, while LeBron crushed Artest both games last season. If this team ran the ball through the post every play, and Gasol was a threat like Shaq, Bryant would have more room to defend the best every single night, 40 minutes a game. If he had someone else creating for him, he'd do it. It's one reason why guys like Thabo and Bowen have started games over players like Harden and Ginobili. It's why Ron starts over Odom at the SF, where Phil would consider Drew, Gasol and Odom in the five together (it's not just about bringing Odom off the bench to run the offense, because that experiment was long wiped off the board since 2007). Here's what NBA coaches know: they can't expect a player (any player) to score on Kobe in a one-on-one situation, unless it's a power forward or a center in a mismatch. They have to run their offense while considering Bryant and Ron's defense. It changes everything, and makes the Lakers the team to beat. Boston hates that Kobe defends Rondo the way he does. The Thunder lost that series BECAUSE Kobe drained his knee and defended Westbrook (and because Ron held Durant, but it was Westbrook winning those games). Defensively, Kobe is a problem for every team in the NBA, and coaches have to respect that when they play us, and then they respect it when it's time to stick players on the all-defensive teams.

Relapse was different, Recovery reminded me more of the old Em. Are you wanting him to go back and talk about his daughter and his mom, how he grew up? I mean, you want him to head into...what direction? It's really like I was saying...other rappers are bad for standing ground and not changing, Em gets slapped for changing. Then Em starts to go back to the way he was, and it's not good enough. I'm not so sure what everyone is wanting him to do. Recovery was great.

Voters don't look at the two awards the same. There's actually a criteria for the MVP award: wins, and then stats. I can find a game where Thabo played garbage defense, make a video about it, and then we can talk about that. For the most part, Bryant is always helping on Fisher's man and in the post. He's having trouble this season because of the injury (it's clear as day) and the amount of minutes Ron is playing right now. Matt Barnes is nowhere near the defensive player Ron is, not even close, and with Phil playing Barnes at the four here and there, it asks for Bryant's help even more. I know you have to acknowledge that. And if you do, I can go ahead and acknowledge the fact that Bryant does lay low on defense sometimes (I already have, in my last post) but there are legitimate reasons for it, and I would rather get beat by the three than by the drive or post.

That team won 49 games. Cleveland won 66 that season, and LeBron put out better numbers and was a better overall player. If you're talking the previous season (where they won 56 games, Paul didn't score as much or grab as many boards, shot under 50%), then you have an argument, but the Lakers won the West (more wins than NOH) and Kobe was a better overall player, and that shouldn't be debated.

I wouldn't go THAT far yet. Roy is still a good Robin in this league. Stick him alongside a superstar, and that team can go places. Someone like Melo would die to have him on their side. Arenas, Brand, those guys are still productive here and there (definitely not on the level of McGrady just yet), but they wouldn't be the third or fourth best players on a contender. If you're speaking on just the contract, so be it...but you have to consider the level of play, also.

Thank God he doesn't rebound like Amare.

Well, it's at Minny, and we've been on and off rebounding the ball. No defense. Just a bit ago, I said that Odom was the biggest factor. I have to include Ron Ron, because he's still hurt and not playing as much as he should be, and that puts out the green light for Beasley. With the way the Lakers play their regular season games, I really don't know.

I would mention the fact that he led a team to 60 wins, but he had some weird goon named Ron.

Prime Jermaine. He was a better defensive player.

Kobe has been shooting for those 30s lately, so I don't know...reminds me of the playoffs last season, when he went off for a bunch of 30s (11 of 12 playoff games, something like that). The biggest factor, right now, is Lamar Odom.

By the way, someone tell Nick that the record is 23 threes, by Orlando, against the Kings. The Suns didn't tie it.

Bryant takes off defensively, sometimes, so he has enough juice to score when nobody else is feeling it. He's been playing since 1996. Steve Nash is having trouble logging minutes now, Allen Iverson is in Turkey, Ray Allen is depending on a lot of his team's play to get his wins these days, and nobody in that draft is even coming CLOSE to the level Kobe is playing on even today, after the multiple knee surgeries and destroyed fingers. When it's go time, he's expected to excel. When it's not, he can do whatever he wants. He has five championship rings and almost 46,000 total minutes. If we lose this season, it'll be on him no matter what (because that's how it goes), so he's doing fine. Even today, there isn't a single person I would want defending LeBron or Wade at the end of a meaningful game other than Kobe Bryant. Not Battier, Artest, Thabo, none of them over Kobe. Most GM's will agree with that, and that's what earns him his defensive player awards. Phil's philosophy has always been that a great offense is the best defense (anyone have that quote from the Kobe-Shaq era?), and while he doesn't like losing, he will brush off losses to teams that live and die by the three, just like he discussed before the Lakers played the Magic in the NBA Finals. In our offense, we depend on Kobe quite a bit. He is the primary option AND the facilitator. When he's playing injured every season, and over 30, and in his 15th NBA season, it's important for him to conserve his energy. Extending Kobe's prime is the most important thing right now. It wins us more rings. When the smoke clears, that's all that matters. That's the difference between a dynasty and a one-and-done. Funny how this is never brought up about Steve Nash when he was winning his MVP awards, or how nobody cares to talk about LeBron only closing out on drives to the rim and not playing any on-ball defense, how Dwight Howard doesn't have elite on-ball post defense, and how Tim Duncan has been resting for three years now without any criticism.

The only problem is that Tim Duncan is getting older. His scoring and rebounding has hit an all-time low, mainly due to his minutes. If Pop is limiting him, how will this fast team adjust once the playoffs arrive? Will they play through Duncan? Eventually, the elite will figure them out, and that's an issue the Spurs will need to pay most attention to in the second half of the season.

The problem with that is that everyone will want to have access to their own forum, and do the same thing with the draft topics. Editing the first post with information...it seems like the way to go, but what it does is prevents discussion in that topic. Edits don't show up as new posts. Plus, there's reason why I can't give BFT access to a forum outside of the division he's moderating. I can't really go into details about it just yet, but it's sort of important to what we're going to do in the very near future. He does have the second post in that topic, though...so I wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal if he were to edit his post every now and then.

Kobe has had a family for a long time, and he's been working in overdrive since I can remember. Even Devin Ebanks joked about how hard he works, and how hard he pushes teammates to do the same thing. His family didn't slow him down, and the trial? In 2003? He was working even harder after the trial. I don't know why that even came into play, and I don't know why Arron Afflalo is even mentioned in the same breath as Kobe, and why Kobe was even brought up to begin with.

Haha, you'll never see me post under a different name.