Who was better... Barkley or Kobe?

[Kblaze8855]

Not only that, but his efficiency often dropped in the Playoffs (not counting early exit runs). He was almost always a 60%TS or higher scorer in his seasons but then you look at his efficiency dropping all the way to 55%TS in '93 during his MVP year in the POs, he only had one 60+%TS Playoff run (10+ games played minimum) and that was his 2nd year when he took 15 shots a game.

You can give me his best Playoff run and it doesn't stack up to Kobe's 30/6/6 on 57%TS average in his 3 straight Finals runs from 08-10.

Kobe was simply more complete on both ends and did everything to help his teams win and had that competitive mindset while Chuck was golfing with MJ and laughing it up with him on the court as his team was losing in the Finals.

You could argue that Chuck is worse than Kobe at every single facet of the game outside of rebounding. Give peak Kobe the '93 Suns and HCA against Jordan and there's no question that Kobe's team destroys the Bulls.

Kevin Johnson
Kobe
Dumas
The remains of Tom Chambers(he started 5 games for the rest of his career after 91-92)
Mark West

Dan Majerle off the bench with Oliver Milller and the last bit of Danny Ainge


They are supposed to "destroy" the Bulls?

In the one matchup Kobe could face where hes decidedly not the best player at his position?

Horace Grant would pull down 18 rebounds a game vs that soft ass frontline. Hed probably get 13 offensive rebounds one night. The Suns only shot would be utterly destroying the Bulls in the backcourt and on the wings where they would be facing the best defensive wings in history.....in their primes....in a matchup they would take personal.

Naaaah.

Im not as worried about that team as the one we actually played.

That team wasnt ideal for Kobe to play the Bulls.

[Phoenix]

You could argue that Chuck is worse than Kobe at every single facet of the game outside of rebounding. Give peak Kobe the '93 Suns and HCA against Jordan and there's no question that Kobe's team destroys the Bulls.

The Suns had an edge in the frontcourt with Barkley. You're removing that one definitive edge, and replacing it with a situation where whatever Kobe does is going to be countered by 93 MJ thus removing any advantage for the Suns.

[ImKobe]

Bulls hounded Kevin Johnson and forced the ball out of his hands, adding Kobe takes more out of MJ/Pippen defensively and '93 Grant wasn't that great to begin with so I'm not worried about that. Kobe/Jordan would be a wash offensively but Kobe's teammates would outplay MJ's.

Dumas, Johnson and Thunder Dan are getting underrated here and Ainge was still an elite 3-point shooter as well. MJ dominated the Suns like no other team and it was still a relatively close series, Suns had no one to guard him but with Kobe his 41 ppg averages drops down to his usual norm of 32-35 just because he would have to spend more energy defensively to stop Kobe and Kobe was a great man defender in his prime and it would show under the old rules. Suns and Bulls scored an identical number of points IIRC in the series despite MJ outscoring Barkley by like 14 points a game.

[Phoenix]

Bulls hounded Kevin Johnson and forced the ball out of his hands, adding Kobe takes more out of MJ/Pippen defensively and '93 Grant wasn't that great to begin with so I'm not worried about that. Kobe/Jordan would be a wash offensively but Kobe's teammates would outplay MJ's.

Dumas, Johnson and Thunder Dan are getting underrated here and Ainge was still an elite 3-point shooter as well. MJ dominated the Suns like no other team and it was still a relatively close series, Suns had no one to guard him but with Kobe his 41 ppg averages drops down to his usual norm of 32-35 just because he would have to spend more energy defensively to stop Kobe and Kobe was a great man defender in his prime and it would show under the old rules. Suns and Bulls scored an identical number of points IIRC in the series despite MJ outscoring Barkley by like 14 points a game.

Kobe is going to be as much up to his eyeballs defending Jordan, as the other way around, except MJ has prime, athletic defensive Pippen to tag in so he doesn't overly exert himself on defense at the expense of his offense. Who's Kobe's defensive tag partner in this situation? Majerle? Dumas? We saw what happened there. Kobe was at his best defensively in the early 2000's when Shaq was guarding the yard and he could afford to gamble. Kobe's offensive peak in the mid 2000's came at the expense of consistent, night in, night out defense. Yeah, he's going to take on MJ personally but there's no way this doesn't have some impact on his offense. He'll drop 30 or whatever on much lower efficiency numbers if he has to go balls to walls defensively trying to 'hold' MJ to 'only' 32-35ppg. You lose a major rebounding edge when you take Barkley out. He alone was good for 13 boards, after that there's nobody in the frontcourt who's a serious rebounding threat. Horace and Scottie by themselves were good for 20 boards that series. Majerle and Ainge as the 3point shooters also get those looks taken away when you don't have Barkley's post gravity. Lots of things change when you swap Barkley and Kobe. It's not even about who is better and moreso what edges are gained or lost by swapping the two.

[Kblaze8855]

Bulls hounded Kevin Johnson and forced the ball out of his hands, adding Kobe takes more out of MJ/Pippen defensively and '93 Grant wasn't that great to begin with so I'm not worried about that. Kobe/Jordan would be a wash offensively but Kobe's teammates would outplay MJ's.

Dumas, Johnson and Thunder Dan are getting underrated here and Ainge was still an elite 3-point shooter as well. MJ dominated the Suns like no other team and it was still a relatively close series, Suns had no one to guard him but with Kobe his 41 ppg averages drops down to his usual norm of 32-35 just because he would have to spend more energy defensively to stop Kobe and Kobe was a great man defender in his prime and it would show under the old rules. Suns and Bulls scored an identical number of points IIRC in the series despite MJ outscoring Barkley by like 14 points a game.

This is the line of thinking that had people convinced the Bulls would be bad when Jordan retired.

Nobody gave the rest of the team credit then and still don

[SouBeachTalents]

Not only that, but his efficiency often dropped in the Playoffs (not counting early exit runs). He was almost always a 60%TS or higher scorer in his seasons but then you look at his efficiency dropping all the way to 55%TS in '93 during his MVP year in the POs, he only had one 60+%TS Playoff run (10+ games played minimum) and that was his 2nd year when he took 15 shots a game.

You can give me his best Playoff run and it doesn't stack up to Kobe's 30/6/6 on 57%TS average in his 3 straight Finals runs from 08-10.

Kobe was simply more complete on both ends and did everything to help his teams win and had that competitive mindset while Chuck was golfing with MJ and laughing it up with him on the court as his team was losing in the Finals.

You could argue that Chuck is worse than Kobe at every single facet of the game outside of rebounding. Give peak Kobe the '93 Suns and HCA against Jordan and there's no question that Kobe's team destroys the Bulls.

[NBAGOAT]

That isn't even a point to be argued.

yea ik but kobe fans love the aesthetics of his post game. There's no substitute for scoring like 60% of the time however.

Also replacing a big with a guard is unrealistic in general. Just say kobe has a supporting cast roughly on the level kj, majerle, dumas, west, ainge. Turns out the 09-10 lakers isnt a terrible parallel with gasol, odom, ariza, bynum, fisher. Dont think most people have those lakers teams crushing the bulls however.

[Carbine]

Kobe played 37 finals games in his career.

Kobe who shot above 50 percent just five times in his Finals career. He actually has 13 games or OVER 1/3 of his entire finals career shooting 35 percent or below...... Shot 42 percent overal for his finals career. He's one of the worst top ten goat finals performers. Maybe THE worst.

And this is the guy who is going to replace Barkley doing 27/13/5.5 and generally creating a bunch of open shots for his teammates? And destroy the Bulls?


Those Suns teams with Hakeem instead of Barkley? Who knows.

But Kobe? The deciding factor between losing in 6 to "destroying" the Bulls.

People are dumb.

[SouBeachTalents]

Kobe played 37 finals games in his career.

Kobe who shot above 50 percent just five times in his Finals career. He actually has 13 games or OVER 1/3 of his entire finals career shooting 35 percent or below...... Shot 42 percent overal for his finals career. He's one of the worst top ten goat finals performers. Maybe THE worst.

And this is the guy who is going to replace Barkley doing 27/13/5.5 and generally creating a bunch of open shots for his teammates? And destroy the Bulls?


Those Suns teams with Hakeem instead of Barkley? Who knows.

But Kobe? The deciding factor between losing in 6 to "destroying" the Bulls.

People are dumb.

Kobe stans especially, at the very least completely delusional. All those Jordan comparisons have them thinking he was some great Finals performer when he's probably the worst of any top 10-15 player of all time.

Barkley's lone Finals performance was better than ANY of Kobe's, and he scored more points by his 2nd Finals game than Kobe did in 7

But nah, he's gonna go off against Jordan & Pippen

[RRR3]

ImKobe embarrassing himself ITT

[Carbine]

I was curious to see how many games Jordan has shooting poorly in his finals career. Has nothing to do with this thread but it's still interesting to me.

He shot below 40 percent only 4 times in his 35 Finals games. Shot above 50 percent in 18 of them.

Kobe isn't going to "cancel" Jordan out unless something drastically different than the norm happened.

[Round Mound]

Let's not forget that Charles played with an elbow injury from game 2 onwards. He probably would have shot better the rest of the series but the Bulls perimeter defense was to much to handle. Pippen and Jordan: The 2 Best Defenders in the League in their respective positions. While Grant was a Top 5 Defensive PF. Chuck had good offensive help but no defensive help pretty much.

[AussieSteve]

[QUOTE=warriorfan]Barkley was one of the worst defenders of all time. No exaggeration. PF is one of the most important positions defensively. It

[AussieSteve]

Not only that, but his efficiency often dropped in the Playoffs (not counting early exit runs). He was almost always a 60%TS or higher scorer in his seasons but then you look at his efficiency dropping all the way to 55%TS in '93 during his MVP year in the POs, he only had one 60+%TS Playoff run (10+ games played minimum) and that was his 2nd year when he took 15 shots a game.

You can give me his best Playoff run and it doesn't stack up to Kobe's 30/6/6 on 57%TS average in his 3 straight Finals runs from 08-10.

Kobe was simply more complete on both ends and did everything to help his teams win and had that competitive mindset while Chuck was golfing with MJ and laughing it up with him on the court as his team was losing in the Finals.

You could argue that Chuck is worse than Kobe at every single facet of the game outside of rebounding. Give peak Kobe the '93 Suns and HCA against Jordan and there's no question that Kobe's team destroys the Bulls.

Dude... outside of his rookie year, Philly Barkley averaged 25.0ppg on 65%t's in the RS and 25.0ppg on 63%t's in the PO.

Compare this to Kobe, who was the definition of inefficiency in the post season. Especially the finals. Why don't u post some of his post season efficiency stats?

[ILLsmak]

Kobe.

Let's not go any further than this.

-Smak