I've never seen a Top 20 player with a worse ending to their career than Kobe...

[TheWinningFam]

OP solid but a wee bit modest

2015 Summer - despite the 3 year drought and all the superstar prospects rumored to sign with Lakers (again), Kobe again couldnt recruit anybody to teamup with him on his final season. LA scraped up the leftover FA Roy Hibbert on a atrocious contract

L

November - Kobe gets ranked leagues 91st best player, meltdowns ensue for weeks, Kobe says to the media "I suck". Kicked off the beginning to Kobe Fams year long worst nightmare

L

January - The Kobe fanboys hyping up Warriors vs Lakers "passing of the torch" game as Bryant went on to shoot 1-11 in a blowout loss. Laminating Top 3 GOAT game threads ever

L

February - ESPN + SI Top 100 NBA All-Time, cementing Bron Top 3 and coining the term "12be" + countless meme's

L

April - Most cringe worthy final fairwell game of alltime in any sport, Kobe was defended as if he had stage 5 cancer, make a wish foundation type shit, 50 shots, F.I.F.T.Y.

- leads his LAL to a franchise worst record

- 3rd year consecutive missed playoffs

- shoots NBAs worst FG% + 3pt% despite leading team in shots attempts + NBA's top 20 overall in 3pt attempts

L x 4

June - As kobe and his fans watched the finals from home.
-Lebrons efficiency and statline placed kobes legacy, accolades and any comparison in a casket.
-The 3-1 comeback against a 73-9 team sealed that casket.
-The 4thQ back 2 back three's, the block and the clinching FT lowered that casket.
-Lebron hoisting up his third FMVP trophy surpassing 3be, was the cement truck of jizz which poured ontop of the casket

Infinite L's

[gigantes]

sounds like you hit some nerves, OP. well done.


i guess iverson isn't quite top 20, but that guy in particular went out like a mega-bitch. (or maybe a micro-b-tch, considering his size)

by insisting on playing as a tiny 2-guard who needed the ball at all times, he forced the sixers to build a team of rebounding and defensive specialists around him. they brought in more than a few star-level players too, but none of them could really coexist with him because he didn't like sharing much.

when that plan eventually stopped working, he demanded a trade, got it, and the sixers were pretty much left with a huge mess on their hands.

after that he bounced around the league for a few years, no longer having the same impact without that specially-constructed team around him. his ego never wavered, tho-- he demanded to be a starter on an NBA team or else. the sixers did bring him back for one last, fairly pathetic, little swan song. he all but disappeared after that.

[JT123]

More so than any joke about Lebron or Kobe , it's the sitting here realizing that Feeny spends 100% of his time discussing a retired player and therefore without a doubt is still a virgin.

Rent free.

[jstern]

This thread wouldn't hit such a nerve for Kobe stans if the title had Top 10 instead of 20. I'm sure they wouldn't even mind someone calling Kobe's last season an embarrassment so long as some other than themselves puts Kobe in their top ten. They would tolerate it, such is the state of the Kobe stans with the many Ls they have been handed this year.

[gigantes]

This thread wouldn't hit such a nerve for Kobe stans if the title had Top 10 instead of 20. I'm sure they wouldn't even mind someone calling Kobe's last season an embarrassment so long as some other than themselves puts Kobe in their top ten. They would tolerate it, such is the state of the Kobe stans with the many Ls they have been handed this year.

kobe as a top 10...?

those are all perfectly reasonable points, jstern, but then again, we're not here to blow each other away with our secret erotic fantasies, are we?

[NuggetsFan]

sounds like you hit some nerves, OP. well done.


i guess iverson isn't quite top 20, but that guy in particular went out like a mega-bitch. (or maybe a micro-b-tch, considering his size)

by insisting on playing as a tiny 2-guard who needed the ball at all times, he forced the sixers to build a team of rebounding and defensive specialists around him. they brought in more than a few star-level players too, but none of them could really coexist with him because he didn't like sharing much.

when that plan eventually stopped working, he demanded a trade, got it, and the sixers were pretty much left with a huge mess on their hands.

after that he bounced around the league for a few years, no longer having the same impact without that specially-constructed team around him. his ego never wavered, tho-- he demanded to be a starter on an NBA team or else. the sixers did bring him back for one last, fairly pathetic, little swan song. he all but disappeared after that.

Who were the stars the Sixers got for Iverson? Iverson forced Philly to do nothing. That's just what was built for him. Mutumbo got traded to Philly when he was like 34. Chris Webber went there after all the injuries and gave them like 1 season. Iggy was drafted in house and was never quite a star with Iverson. After those guys who are you left with? A washed up Derrick Coleman/Eric Snow/Theo Ratliff? Larry Brown wanted him at the 2 by the way. It made sense especially when the Sixers were good with Eric Snow. Iverson was actually really good off the ball. Karl played with him Anthony Carter at the point with Denver too.

He didn't bounce around the league after that. He played for Denver. Had the second highest FG% of his career while averaging like 26/7 for 130+ games. He and Melo were obviously not an ideal duo given there strengths and weaknesses were the exact same so they didn't have as much success as anticipated and Iverson was swapped for Bilups. Played half a season for Detroit which was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be. 17/5 on 41% shooting for half a season. Refused to play a bench role and an entire career worth of bad practice habits/getting banged up eventually took it's toll.

He had without a doubt an ugly end to his career because he didn't want to play off the bench. I think the injuries were a bigger deal nobody talked about tho. Philly gave him a shot after Memphis giving him 30+ minutes a night and he only played like 20 games. He was just finished. He was 34. He probably held up longer than people thought he would given his playing style/off the court stuff. 26/7 on a 50 win team at age 32.

[SwayDizzle]

wow seriously?

[gigantes]

1) Who were the stars the Sixers got for Iverson?

2) Iverson forced Philly to do nothing. That's just what was built for him.

3) He didn't bounce around the league after that.

4)I think the injuries were a bigger deal nobody talked about tho. ...He probably held up longer than people thought he would given his playing style/off the court stuff.

1) it's been a while now, but i think i can remember at least a couple of them. he started off with prime stackhouse and that didn't work. they tried to give him some help with larry hughes, a guy projected to be a star for the first few years of his career. nope. they brought in toni kukoc, who still had some juice left. nope. chris weber you mentioned. IIRC they also tried glenn robinson, star of milwaukee, at one point. nope.

i think there are more... i can't recall just now. of course the first thing you'll say is "these guys were broken down / washed up / etc!" while that's true to an extent, by their play they showed that they still had something left. the problem is iverson was like marbury, francis, kobe, etc, etc... he was poor at making other players around him better. in fact the reverse-- he needed glue guys who would collectively make up for his flaws.

2) he did indeed force them to build around him. after paying the top pick in the draft for him, he gave them no choice but to build a team of specialists around him. that was where they had their greatest success, and no other formula worked nearly as well as we saw over the course of many years.

3) for an MVP, he certainly did. you rarely see that kind of thing with one of the top players in the league. five teams in the space of three years-- sixers, nuggets, pistons, grizz, sixers again between 2006 and 2009, then a failed attempt with a turkish team.

4) i agree with you on that. he surely did play like a warrior. tough as nails for playing as a drive-happy SG in a small PG's body.

i also agree with a lot of what you say other than the points above. no question, he was an exceptional and fascinating player, altho at the same time he caused endless headaches for his teams, particularly the sixers. what a shit show that all was. i'm from philly, btw.

anyway, there you go... a response, if you wanted one. and i'm out.

[NuggetsFan]

1) it's been a while now, but i think i can remember at least a couple of them. he started off with prime stackhouse and that didn't work. they tried to give him some help with larry hughes, a guy projected to be a star for the first few years of his career. nope. they brought in toni kukoc, who still had some juice left. nope. chris weber you mentioned. IIRC they also tried glenn robinson, star of milwaukee, at one point. nope.

i think there are more... i can't recall just now. of course the first thing you'll say is "these guys were broken down / washed up / etc!" while that's true to an extent, by their play they showed that they still had something left. the problem is iverson was like marbury, francis, kobe, etc, etc... he was poor at making other players around him better. in fact the reverse-- he needed glue guys who would collectively make up for his flaws.

2) he did indeed force them to build around him. after paying the top pick in the draft for him, he gave them no choice but to build a team of specialists around him. that was where they had their greatest success, and no other formula worked nearly as well as we saw over the course of many years.

3) for an MVP, he certainly did. you rarely see that kind of thing with one of the top players in the league. five teams in the space of three years-- sixers, nuggets, pistons, grizz, sixers again between 2006 and 2009, then a failed attempt with a turkish team.

4) i agree with you on that. he surely did play like a warrior. tough as nails for playing as a drive-happy SG in a small PG's body.

i also agree with a lot of what you say other than the points above. no question, he was an exceptional and fascinating player, altho at the same time he caused endless headaches for his teams, particularly the sixers. what a shit show that all was. i'm from philly, btw.

anyway, there you go... a response, if you wanted one. and i'm out.

1) Honestly dude look at that list. Compare that to what other top 30 players got. Glenn Robinson played 42 games in Philly in the second last year of his career. I had completely forgot about him because does he really count? Prime Stackhouse? Stackhouse played for the Sixers as a rookie which led to them winning 18 games and getting Iverson. He played with rookie A.I and than a little bit of next season. Larry Hughes played for Philly as a rookie and a little over half a season as a 2nd year played. 10 points on 41%.

2) He forced them to do nothing. They could have got better talent and maybe they would had far more success. Compare what Iverson played with vs Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving etc. Sixers whole formula was let Iverson carry the offense, surround him with defensive specialists. Iverson going to Denver and accepted a role with Melo makes this point untrue. He was fine sharing the offense with Melo and other talented offensive players, he just didn't get many of them in Philly.

3) Gotta use context tho. He went from Philly to Denver. Played 130+ games with Denver. Traded to Detroit and didn't re-sign because of the whole bench thing.. Signed by Memphis than got waived which was ugly but he played what like 5 games with them? Signed with Philly because he's loved there and the fans/Iverson/management wanted it but he couldn't stay healthy.

Fair enough. Iverson had his issues for sure. I actually think because there so obvious there's no need to create ones that were never there such as him forcing Philly to build a certain way or pretending like he was surrounded with multiple "stars" during his time with the Sixers.