Though people constantly mention Kobe's five rings against the other stars in the league. He really was only the key player for the last 2 laker championships. Shaq was by far the star for the first three. Just look at his playoff stats from 2000-2002. He picked up his game like crazy in the finals. Against the pacers he averaged 38 points and 16.7 rebounds! Imagaine his scoring if he could hit his freethrows. Though Kobe the closing shots in game 4 of the 2000 finals, he only had to because shaq fouled out. If he was still in the game all of those shots would have been dunks. In fact Kobe only shot 36% and averaged 15 points for that series. In 2001 Shaq went up against Dikembe Mutumbo... one of the best post defenders ever. He won DPOY four times when he had to compete with Alonzo Mourning (before his surgery he was on track for the hall of fame), Ben Wallace, Tim Duncan and an aged but still tough David Robinson in addition to the much bigger front courts of the time. Shaq still averaged 33 points and 15.8 rebs and 3.4 blocks. Kobe scored 24.6 ppg on 41.5 fg%. Oh... and Shaq almost had a quadruple double in game 2. When Shaq came back in 2002 he once again averaged 36.3 points and 12.3 rebounds. In all three finals Shaq was unstoppable and even dominated great defenders.
While Kobe did go up against a strong pacers defense in 2000, he didn't have to play against an outside defender near the level of Dikembe's post defense. Putting someone like Gary Payton (in his prime) in Kobe would have shown just how much more dominant Shaq was. So Kobe really is a 2 time Champ, the other three are Shaq's. Even with hack a shaq to bail the defenders out and shaq's freethrow shooting he still dominated great post defenders. I am often mystified at how some ballhog Gs get so overrated by the media. Iverson is beyond overrated, in the 2001 finals he was primarily defended by Tyronn Lue... an unknown journeyman and Shaq was up against Dikemembe. Despite AI's game one scoring, shaq still put up better stats through the series against an incredible defender. Somehow Gs like Iverson and Kobe get all the hype. Putting Kobe in the top ten all time is even difficult with players like Duncan, Russell, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Moses Malone, Hakeem, Wilt and MJ23... the list could go on. If you do any all time list Kobe would have to be below Shaq and Duncan who have made their mark during his prime years, which would probably knock him out of the top 10 as it would be hard to even place Duncan or Shaq in the top 5
Last edited by Vixen at 11/15/2011 9:26:06 AM