whos better

[**DONOTDELETE**]

glad to see people are giving Kobe his respect. Last year a lot of commentators and "experts" started throwing around the terms "best all around player" and "most complete player" and "best talent" about Kobe, this year it should get even better, let's remember he's still soooooo young and about 4 years away from his prime. imagine the possibilities!!

[bubbachuck]

AI is definately the best out of them. He has to play different because he is so small but he dominates the game. It is a lot harder to get open looks when you can't shoot over many people. You have to work so much harder to get a shot. And he still finds a way because no one else on his team will take a shot.

[Admiral50]

Good points. Iverson for sure. He single handedly took one terrible bunch of players to the finals (and no, that doesnt mean he hogged the ball, his team simply cant play - which doesnt mean he dislikes or puts them down though, he likes and respects them still) He does everything possible and never gives up. Of course TMac and Kobe would be better all round players, they are much taller so get more blocks and rebounds by default, and for Kobe, when you have Shaq in your team it's very easy to get assists. But even so, Kobe and Iverson both had 5.5 assists a game last season. Kobe also grabbed 5.5 rebounds compared to Iversons very respectable 4.5.

Anyway, stats can sometimes be misleading. I'd take Iverson any day over anyone but Duncan in the league. And it is very hard to compare players of such different heights. They play so differently. But on the sole purpose of having the best player to get the job done without any nonsense all while giving 100% effort every game, I would still pick Allen Iverson.

[Liquidrage]

The 76'ers played great team defense that year they went to the finals.
AI didn't take the team to the finals with no help, that is just stupid.

Lets look at AI and the year they went to the finals shall we?
AI shot .420 from the field, which was about .020 less then the league average. He did this avereraging 25.5 shots per game.
With AI taking that many shots and shooting at that average, In order for the 76ers to win then, it stands to reason that they needed to hold the other teams to a worse shooting percentage and/or hold them to less shots.
This is where his teamates playing great team defense and the coaching of Larry Brown kicks in. Without that, AI and his Sixers get no where.

The 76ers only were ranked 15th in the NBA in scoring that year. And yet AI's biggest impact is as a scorer. So while I wont deny AI was very good that year, it wasn't scoring that got the 76ers to the finals. And that year the 76ers were ranked 2nd in the league in defense as a team.

AI is a good player. No denying it. But he wasn't the sole reason his team got to the finals. He actually shot less then his tea average that year. And yes, when you take a lot of shots, your shooting % is very meaningfull.

Take a look at this.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/statis...2&seasontype=2
Everyone else near the top in scoring is well above AI in terms of shooting %.
There are a lot of coaches that wouldnt even let AI put up 28 shots a game like he did last year.
Missing a lot of shots doesn't help your team win. Your team only get a limited number of shots per game. And making them is what puts points on the board, and the team with the most points wins.

[Admiral50]

Well you still gotta put the ball in the hoop, ranking low in scoring shows the rest of the team really struggle. Mutombo was basically their second option and while has been on the downfall lately, he has never really been a decent scorer. I still say Snow couldn't shoot consistently to save his life and that leaves the second best scorer as Aaron McKie. Allen Iverson really is a good accurate shooter. It's more his shot selection that lets him down, but as I pointed out, sometimes he has no choice. People who watch a lot of 76ers games will know how many shots he puts up at the end of the shot clock when the offense is struggling and every player on the team will just throw tha ball to him and hope he can pull something out of his arse, no matter how many defenders are on him. That happens so often and helps keep fg% down. Also, obviously a guy like Shaq in his team would improve his fg's a fair bit (I say Kobe's fg's % will go down noticeably if he spends a whole season without Shaq), but give him another high quality player (maybe Van Horn will help if he turns out to be any good) and I believe he will shoot a bit less and hit a bit more. I also think Iverson plays through and with injuries that would keep most players on the sidelines.
Obviously he does have a low fg% and I do agree with some of your criticism and my points aren't trying to defend it totally, but I do think they help to keep it lower than it should be.

Cheers

[ZigZag]

I would have to say The Answer. A.I. is the only one of the 2 who had to carry a garbage team all the way to the finals. The only reason that A.I. FG% is so low is because he is a 6 foot 2guard. The majority of the shots he takes is over 6-5 & up 2guards ( Kobe, Carter, etc. ) and because of this he takes a lot of bad shots. He is also the most dominating guard in the league, no one can guard him the only person who can stop A.I. is A.I. by taking too many bad shots , which often is'nt his fault because when he tries to pass the ball off to give his teamates scoring opportunities, they throw up bricks or cause a turnovers. Which is no excuse for his teamates because they are often wide open cause most teams double team A.I. T-mac comes second in my mind because like A.I. he carries his team. He has a lots of versatility and athleticsism he can play anything but Center because of his height (6-8 ). The only thing that keeps him from being the best is that he has yet to get pass the 1st round, despite of his could cast of teamates who are good quality players( darrell armstrong, mike miller, pat garrity,etc. ). Kobe Ican't say much for but that he had a 3-peat. He has yet to prove that he can win without the BIG DIESEL. When Shaq was out some games last year, Kobe lost a lot of games, but this year Kobe has a chance to redeem himself because of Shaqs surgery on his toe and chances are he's going to miss more games than expected. Kobe is definitley one of the best just not the best.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I usually respect people's opinions..... but not when they're blatantly wrong. First off, the Sixers team that went to the finals was not Garbage, in addition to AI they had the defensive player of the year and the six man of the year and the coach of the year(i think). Anyways, saying AI is better than Kobe is just crazy, he MIGHT be a better pure scorer, but in terms of all around ability, it's not even really close. T-Mac is much closer.

[karma224]

I agree with skillz, AI shoots his team out of games--and that finals team was not garbage--it did consists of the defensive player of the year, sixth man of the year, and coach of the year !--yo, Zig--you gotta come better than that with the knowledge bro--there's too many people here who know what they are talking about..AI is a good player but he's not complete--he's very one demensional--I would pick, Kobe, T-Mac, Carter, Allen--damn--I might even pick up Finley before I'd pick AI. Imagine Kobe shooting a zillion shots a game like that--geez he'd average like 45-50 pts a game.