Kobe Leads LAL Back to the Playoffs

Shaq was DEFINITELY worth Lamar "No Scrotum" Odom, Brian "Cash" Grant and Caron "Never quite good enough" Butler. But, he didn't lead them to the title. It was Wade and his free-throw attempts and the all-star team they put around him. Shaq was a shell of himself in that Finals series against the Mavs (and for most of those playoffs).

 

Thank you, Art Garfunkel Kupcake

 

Shaq owned the Bulls in that series. I'm talking GW Bush 'ownership society' here.

 

Yeah, it takes a real big man to own the human toothpick, Tyson Chandler.

 

Hey, the Bulls do a good job on Wade. Someone had to own TyPick.

 

And Kobe's still has at least 10 years left in the league. I feel confident when I say he'll end up with more rings than Shaq when he hangs the up.

 

Walton has shown more than Farmar, but I agree on Turiaf. Farmar does work hard defensively, and that's a valuable guy to have. Just wish he were six inches taller . . . . . .

As for Bynum, he's already better than Olowokandi. He's a second-year player out of high school. At this time in Kobe's career, there was a rumored Kobe-for-Mitch Richmond deal spoken of, and that didn't suck at the time. He had shown flashes, sure, good enough to be voted an all-star, and good enough to be sixth man on a very good Lakers team. But many impatient Lakers fans were still down on him for that game against Utah in the playoffs when he was a rookie. Then Fox went out for the start of the lockout season, Kobe was in, it clicked, and the rest as they say is history.

The point? The book on Andrew Bynum has yet to be written. We're in the prologue and the first couple chapters, and Frodo and friends haven't even left the Shire yet.

And as for Shaq's departure (SHOCKING this thread went that way! SHOCKING!), apparently people forget pretty easily how he never came to camp in shape (the very thing Vlade Divac was run out of town on a rail for). People forget pretty easily how he was demanding huge, cap-killing money even as his work ethic continued to decline. His 2002 surgery on his toe, deliberately done at a certain time so he could miss training camp, showed he was putting Shaq Daddy above the team, while everyone else spent the offseason working out for a drive to a possible fourth title.

Kobe? spent every offseason working his tail off, in a Magic and Bird-esque way. I don't know; I guess I enjoy seeing an athlete who is determined to be the absolute best he can be.

Trading Shaq at that time made a hell of a lot of sense. These are the Los Angeles Fucking Lakers. They have won titles before Shaq, they will win titles after him. Maybe not soon, but they will. No one is above that team. No one is above that franchise.

NO ONE.

 

He could. I simply refuted your point that Shaq did nothing before Kobe. The fact that Shaq's been to the NBA Finals with three different teams -- winning three rings with the Lakers and one with the Heat -- says a lot about what he brings to a franchise.

 

No freaking way does he have 10 years left, IMO. He already has 11 years on those wheels, and two surgeries to boot. I can't see it, but maybe he'll find some new way to stick around. Yo, Creamora...

 

Tell that to Kober fans. :

 

Can I get an "Amen!" from the choir! THANK YOU JEEZZZUSSS!!!!

 

Does Kobe have a shot at breaking Kareem's scoring mark when his career is done?