Real Deal

It's not about the greatest player, it's about what that player has to work with. I can't discredit what someone like Michael Jordan did in his first 5-6 seasons just because he dropped into a Chicago Bulls team with the likes of Oakley and Woolridge. I don't remember when Magic DIDN'T have solid teammates in the 80's. What happened after Kareem stopped being a threat on the floor? He averaged around 15 per game in their last championship, if I remember right (remembering this from Shaq/Kareem debates, so I may be off), and after that, Detroit ran off two consecutive titles, and Chicago took over while Magic was still in the league. I don't take away anything from Magic because of that, and I was hoping nobody would take away from Kobe when Shaq decided to gain 15 pounds, fix his injuries on company time, and demand more money (which led to his departure). So basically, this is what I understand already: if Kobe wins his fifth, he's in the debate. What happens if the Lakers make another run in 2010-11? Do six rings put him on top of Magic, despite everything you've provided us (as far as Magic's impact on the league goes)? For me, there's too much of a gray area. Chauncey Billups led a Pistons team to a championship in 2004, but does that make him the greater Detroit Piston between him and Dave Bing?

He's not the right coach for the Bulls, but then again, he led them to 41 wins and a huge chance of beating Boston in the first round last year. This new team is 11-17 right now and looking like they need more help to get to that .500 record. I guess management isn't considering the fact that they just lost Ben Gordon, and Thomas has been out for quite a while, also. They didn't have a problem with him, at all, last season. I don't see why they have one this year, given the circumstances noted above.

Haha, good point. Kobe isn't getting the MVP unless the Lakers win 65+ games and obtain the top record in the NBA. He's not the future of the league anymore, and the NBA (and mainly the media) needs to build on those guys that will lead the NBA in 10-15 years.

I'll update it daily, not a problem. RSS feeds are already running along the sides, and a feed down the middle won't include what I want, so I'll take care of it.

If I had any denial being a biased Lakers fan, I would tell you it was accidental. I just don't see how someone just 15 pounds more can knock down another professional athlete without running at him, simple as that. My cousin has hit me with screens when I was younger, outweighed me by a good 40 pounds or so, and that's almost exactly how I fell on the ground, no more than that (and sometimes not falling at all). If he flopped, I was right. If he didn't, I'm right in calling him a wimp. Either one doesn't matter to me. As I mentioned earlier, Garnett sets illegal screens harder than that, much harder, and I've seen guards under 200 bounce right off of him without falling to the ground in pain.

So when do player abilities factor in? Because Michael Cooper has as many rings as Magic as well, so does that make him a greater Laker than Kobe Bryant? As many "Kobe Kult" fans you see, you'll find just as many "Magic Minions" in Lakerland, all who think he's arguably greater than Michael Jordan, so I don't see why something like that has to be mentioned in this topic. Magic has one more ring than Bryant, with a far superior team over a course of a full decade of basketball. That's it. Earvin was a Laker for 13 seasons, Bryant at 14. Kobe has had the greater performances, and he's the better overall player (this you agree with). So other than championship rings, which Magic has only one-upped on Bryant...what else has Johnson done for the LAKERS that Kobe hasn't? The Magic/Bird/Jordan trio is what changed basketball in the 80's, not just Magic himself...and the truth is, it was Jordan who brought the interest back to the playgrounds, with kids wanting to be like him, and it was he who raked in deals with the likes of Nike, McDonald's, and many others that significantly helped the NBA turn into a media giant, but even then, that wasn't just for the Lakers, Celtics or Bulls, that was for the league. The impact isn't shown today because the NBA is already global. Is there any doubt that Kobe could've done the same thing, assuming he came into the league with someone like LeBron at a time when the NBA needed that extra boost? The greatest Laker should be the greatest player to play in a Lakers jersey. Being the better overall player has a lot to do with that, or else Cooper trumps Bryant, and that's just ridiculous, to say the least. By the way, I think it's close enough to be a tie, in my opinion...but there's only one choice available for each member, so yeah...

For one, they weren't signing up when I was posting all the articles anyways, so that's not the case. Let's not start pointing fingers at things that make little to no difference when it comes to our problems with keeping members around here. If I remove that homepage altogether, 75% of you wouldn't notice. As far as actually updating it goes, I've been gone since the beginning of December, pretty much. I haven't been to my house for weeks, which explains why roster pages aren't up, which explains why the remaining banners aren't up, and because I've been busy doing other things, it explains why the homepage isn't updated. In the past, I have assigned five people to do it for me. This is on three different pages since probably two years ago. All five shut it down on their own, just stopped doing the work. I have to post at least 20 times a day, approve registrations, update team records, update the homepage, finish roster pages, finish team pages, enter player data into the database, put up the rest of the banners, re-code the skin after our update coming up in a week, perform maintenance on the forums, and do many other things that I'd rather not do. But yeah, it'll be updated soon, not a problem.

Williams is 6-1, 190 pounds. Kobe is 6-6, 205. There's a 15-pound difference, and that's it. If this were LeBron, I could see Mo falling hard and going about five feet down the court. It was intentional and it was a flop. Both were idiots at that time. Kobe's arms didn't push away from his body, he didn't run his shoulder into Mo, and he wasn't even running to begin with, so if Williams really did fall like that, he's a bigger pansy than I thought.

Then if even part of that wasn't an acting job, he needs to put some weight on him or get thicker, because he bounced off Bryant pretty easily, despite Kobe not running full speed or driving his shoulder into him.

Oakland has the strongest kicker and punter in the NFL, and that's not even up for debate. Both have the legs to kick the football 60+ yards, field goal or punt.

After five days' worth of questions.

Ah, see, the people that do it seem to be braindead on the matter. When they go in and mess with our new members, they don't realize they are only adding to the problem, joking or not, and I think that's what most of you just don't get. There is no sarcasm button on the internet. When you guys dive into a topic and crack your "funny" jokes, they cause more problems than anything else. Most of the Lakers fans here followed me in. I didn't go recruit them. But it's also not my problem that there are 15-16 teams in the league that have little to no fans, either, and those fans won't post anywhere that lacks others of their fanbase because, quite frankly, those teams don't draw interest. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand by now, for anyone on this site. Maybe that's why I run the place? Whether all of you like it or not, we lost non-Lakers fans, some Lakers fans, and even potential members here, because everything turns into a joke. Suddenly, the site becomes a personal haven for you guys to bash each other (friendly bashing?), to dog a particular team to no end (such as the Jazz), and to join some "rebellion" made by a banned member that failed miserably, just to be "cool" like him and maybe, just maybe, run other members off. I don't have time to sit here and stick pacifiers in members' mouths, really. That [expletive] got old two years ago. I have work to do on the site, and the posters here have things to post. If some of you don't want that role, nobody is holding a gun to your head. Go run off to another site if you don't want to be a part of what we have going on. Some of you keep attempting to, so why stop now? Thread closed, because there is nothing to discuss beyond this point.

Wilt played four full seasons with us, and his best years came earlier.

Probably when I just start banning people for it.

Kobe is the best overall player to put on a Lakers uniform, so he's the greatest Laker of all-time.

Gilbert's last two games have contained seven turnovers each. He shot 5-14 against the Bucks Wednesday, 6-21 against the Suns two games before that. He was 10-28 against the Wolves last night, with the seven turnovers I mentioned, and also a poor 1-7 from downtown. I guess I don't see where he's playing better.

Now wait a minute...wasn't it a group of Boston fans so mad at the Celtics that they were cheering "MVP" for Kobe a few years back? Did Cleveland have any fans in attendance pre-LeBron? Let's not start slapping an entire fanbase in the face just because there were 5-6 foam fingers and a water bottle thrown out on the court. Word was that a few of them came from celebrities, anyways, and we know there are quite a few celebs that go to LA games just to get pinned on TV.

Kobe ran into him on purpose, and it was also a good flop by Mo Williams. If this were like Fisher's shoulder-block on Scola, it would be different. That was no flop, and Fisher literally threw his shoulder into Scola...but this wasn't that bad at all. Give him a fine, if anything. This is no different than a Garnett illegal screen.

How the hell are Joe Johnson, Deron Williams and Brandon Roy so low, and why is McGrady even on this list? Iverson? Perkins should even be up higher. Amare Stoudemire isn't a center. Ugly voting.

Yeah, but you guys led 48-46 at the half, if I remember right (last game against us). However, Kobe played a solid game, scored 29 and pulled down 10 boards, while Bynum was pretty much Casper and Fisher was destroyed by Devin Harris. Odom had a good game, Gasol did as well. Today, all of that went down, but Bryant shot poorly, and both Gasol and Odom played badly as well. Take today's Lakers and the Nets from that night you guys played us...and you get a Nets win, or at least a very close game. Then again, the likelihood of Bryant playing that bad would be slim...just doesn't happen much, and when it does, Gasol steps up for us (or Bynum). That's why we're arguably the best team in the league, though.

Kinda funny how doctors feel about this, even in Kansas and Oklahoma. My eye doctor wants Universal Healthcare, badly. He said it will help with procedures they have to wait on, for weeks to months, that they need to do immediately. The more they wait, the more they'll have to do to the eye. And, my primary physician (in Kansas) says it's very sad that hardly anyone who shoots down the bill knows anything about it. He's for it as well, saying that it's a very sad thing when he has to do "what's second best" for someone who can't afford the best procedures and treatments because they either don't have insurance, or their insurance doesn't cover something in particular, and he sends them out of the office with his fingers crossed. People sure the hell don't care about anyone else, they only care about themselves. I guess that's why many in the US look down on other countries, though, and fail to accept change. I bet they'd be begging for change if they had a life-changing disease...but when they are healthy as a horse, no [expletive] way.

After seeing the way our bench has been playing, though...I guess I can add that to my small list of problems. We actually need Walton back, as crazy as that sounds. He doesn't defend very well, doesn't score a lot, but he can play in the post and pass the ball, two things we desperately need from Odom, yet we aren't getting.

I never said I was worried about that, I said it becomes a problem if Kobe plays bad against those teams, but... 1) how many times does Kobe play bad against them, anyways? 2) we won't see either of them in a playoff series If New Jersey and Minnesota (or any other bottom-feeder) decided to put a very good defender on Bryant, doubling him as well, and they found success in doing that (or if Kobe just shot bad, like he did tonight), we'd struggle to win those games. Truth is, I believe we lose most of our games because we are lazy, and we have a couple of S-T-U-P-I-D players that get way too much playing time. Phil Jackson doesn't give a damn about regular season games. He would rather play idiots like Vujacic and Farmar in hopes that their confidence will shoot through the roof, and they will be better players by April or May. We need every win we can get. If they stay healthy, we will see Boston in the Finals, and regular season wins add up to home court advantage in June. So, yes, in a way...we need to beat every team, good or bad...but as far as being worried about those teams, I only find myself biting my nails in the postseason. Orlando beat us both times in the regular season last year, but we rolled them 4-1 in the Finals.

By the way, for those saying there were/weren't bad calls...there were, and the majority of them didn't favor LA. Problem is, that wouldn't have mattered. If we had gotten all of those calls, we would've still lost this game. With Kobe being the best player on the floor DESPITE shooting poorly, that's going to be a problem even if it's against the Nets or Wolves.

Garbage game. I'll forget about it by morning. Here's the breakdown: Kobe Bryant - shot poorly from the field, had turnovers that weren't his fault, did everything else right on the court and didn't get four very obvious calls as he attacked the rim most of the night Pau Gasol - not much on offense because he couldn't position himself in the post, didn't roll off of screens correctly, and his defense sucked Andrew Bynum - no offense, no defense, no nothing Ron Artest - needs to start posting up weaker players, defense was okay but I would've rather had Kobe defending LeBron (he would've done a better job) Derek Fisher - nothing on offense, absolutely nothing on defense (as always) Lamar Odom - nothing on offense, terrible on defense Shannon Brown - didn't get the playing time to matter, which is too bad because he's better than Fisher Jordan Farmar - needs to be traded Sasha Vujacic - garbage time scoring, needs to stop looking like a fool trying to defend LeBron James It's nothing to stress over, really. By the end of the third, I was actually just laughing. I'm really, really glad that Kobe stayed on the court until the very end, though. That was by choice, I believe (looked like he yelled over at Phil to keep him in) and was a statement of him not wanting to give up. Basically, Cleveland beat us with much more than just LeBron James. They attacked our bigs and forced them to beat us on the other end of the floor, and they didn't. Throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Kobe worked, and it was Gasol, Bynum and Odom who couldn't do anything with the ball when they had it in their hands, and that led to our demise.