23 years old: Kobe vs LeBron vs Durant

[StateOfMind12]

Kind of funny that people think KD only plays off the ball he got the sixth highest usage rate in the league.

LeBron is the best in the leauge and it isn't even close.

Hey ph[COLOR="Black"]agg[/COLOR]ot, we're talking about them as 23 year olds, not now.

Usage rates? Do you even understand how that stat ****ing works? It's based on how many FGs and FTAs you take. If you play and move without the ball you can still take shots you know because that is a method of creating your own shot. Usage rates doesn't determine how ball-dominant you are or how often you play without the ball or not, pha[COLOR="Black"]gg[/COLOR]ot.

LeBron dick rider exposed.

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

Lebron and KD at 23 were/are both better. Hell, Lebron at 22 took his team to the Finals BY HIMSELF.

[chazzy]

Lebron and KD at 23 were/are both better. Hell, Lebron at 22 took his team to the Finals BY HIMSELF.

07 Lebron really wasn't that great compared to his other seasons

[LamarOdom]

Hey ph[COLOR="Black"]agg[/COLOR]ot, we're talking about them as 23 year olds, not now.

Hhaha Lebron as a 23 year old lead CAVS with his second best player being Varejo to NBA finals.

Lets se how far Durant can take OKC.

Edit: Oh yeah forgot to mention KD got Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka, not bad.

[StateOfMind12]

Hhaha Lebron as a 23 year old lead CAVS with his second best player being Varejo to NBA finals.

Lets se how far Durant can take OKC.

First of all, it was the '07-'08 season when LeBron was 23, not '06-'07.

Second of all, he played in the ****ing East where there was not a slight of competition at all. The only team that was a powerhouse in the East was the Pistons, and they always self-destructed in the post-season because Flip Saunders was their coach.

What is your argument now? How about we compare their abiltiies? Durant at age 23 was better than Lebron was at age 23 at every facet of the game except passing/playmaking. Yet, there are people trying to say LeBron was better at age 23?

[LamarOdom]

First of all, it was the '07-'08 season when LeBron was 23, not '06-'07.

Second of all, he played in the ****ing East where there was not a slight of competition at all. The only team that was a powerhouse in the East was the Pistons, and they always self-destructed in the post-season because Flip Saunders was their coach.

What is your argument now? How about we compare their abiltiies? Durant at age 23 was better than Lebron was at age 23 at every facet of the game except passing/playmaking. Yet, there are people trying to say LeBron was better at age 23?

No, he was in the finals 06/07. And are you drunk? or are your jealousy and hate of LeBron so big. However you wanna put it or try to twist it LeBron is and was as a 23 yr old a better player. He is a much better teammate and he makes everyone on the court better. Or are those 60 win seasons with a worse team then Howard has just a coincidence?

Not even MJ could improve his team as much as LeBron.

[StateOfMind12]

No, he was in the finals 06/07. And are you drunk? or are your jealousy and hate of LeBron so big. However you wanna put it or try to twist it LeBron is and was as a 23 yr old a better player. He is a much better teammate and he makes everyone on the court better.

So I'm suppose to be impressed by LeBron James leading his team to the Finals in a conference where there is no competition what so ever outside of one team that self-destructed annually?

Cool story bro. I'll take the player that is the superior scorer, superior defender, superior rebounder, more clutch, and better at pretty much every aspect of the game outside of passing/playmaking.

Take more assists, I'll take more of everything else.

Or are those 60 win seasons with a worse team then Howard has just a coincidence?

He wasn't 23 when he accomplished that you idiot.

[LamarOdom]

And one more thing OP you forgot that the year before that 45-37 Cavs was in the NBA finals? that was when he was 22 he lead a team with role players to the finals.

Durant has Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka as teammates thats a great team.

[ShaqAttack3234]

Kobe was phenomenal in the clutch and better individually than the numbers suggest because he embraced the 2nd option role throughout the season and stepped up when necessary. See his 2002 series vs the Spurs for his clutch play. He was obviously capable of bigger numbers as evidenced by his 56 points in 3 quarters when Shaq was suspended or the fact that he wasn't a worse player than 2001 when he put up better numbers.

But why not just put their regular numbers and post their mpg with them? Per 36 numbers are estimation, while if you just post their regular numbers with their minutes, people can draw their own conclusions. Though it should also be pointed out that in 2002, defense was at it's peak and only 2 players averaged over 25 ppg on 50% shooting and only 3 did so on 55 TS%.

Either way, Kobe and Durant were the 2 best scorers, while Lebron was the best passer, and Kobe was the best defender.

Lebron had more of a clear hole in his game with his suspect shooting which did seem to get exposed vs Boston, but he was so physically dominant.

I do like what I've seen from Durant this season, though. He seems clearly better than the past 2 seasons when he was already very good. I'll have to wait to see what he does in the playoffs.

But as of right now, I think you can make a case for any of the 3 at this particular age.

Ya because averaging half as many assists as a guy that has the ball in his hands twice as much is a bad thing

Durant is a good passer currently, imo, but lets not gloss over the fact that Lebron is in another league when it comes to passing, always has been. And really, by your logic, if Durant did have the ball in his hands enough to make the assist numbers closer, where would that put his turnover numbers?

Hell, Lebron at 22 took his team to the Finals BY HIMSELF.

Nah, nobody does it by himself, and the East being so weak that year has a lot to do with it because it's not like Lebron played at a level beyond what Kobe did to get there. In fact, Kobe's 2001 and 2002 playoff runs were more impressive to me. Also, one thing Lebron's cast gets underrated for is that they were a top 4 defensive team and outrebounded opponents by 3.7 boards per game. Playing that style made it so he needed less help offensively than if he had the same offensive talent around him and an average defensive/rebounding team, so listing his teammates would be deceptive.

Also, as it turned out, he got clutch performances from his shooters at the right time to make that run possible such as Marshall in the closeout game vs New Jersey, iirc and more famously, Daniel Gibson.

If you look at those teams, they faced Washington without Arenas or Butler and a Nets team with a horrible frontline(their big men were Mikki Moore, Jason Collins and Josh Boone). And they didn't breeze by New Jersey either, it also helped that Vince Carter had a horrible series vs Cleveland(another reason not to underestimate the value of a strong defense).

His game 5 vs Detroit was incredible, but his run wasn't really that impressive to me, at least compared to the level I've seen other superstars play at or Lebron himself play at in other seasons.

[Cowboy Thunder]

These types of threads are the silliest of all ISH threads.

[Dizzle-2k7]

kobe the best 2nd option of all time

[madmax]

LeBron is clearly the worst of the group and I'm not exaggerating, trolling, or anything like that.

LeBron in '07-'08 had a lot of problems and a lot of problems with his game that you could easily expose and they were exposed in the post-season.

LeBron at 23 had an inconsistent jump shot and played no defense. It is only two problems but those two problems are huge especially for a superstar player.

I have a hard time choosing between Durant and Kobe but LeBron is clearly last.


1. Durant/Kobe
2. Kobe/Durant
3. Lebron.

Lebron was also on by far the weakest team and his scrub teammates needed his stellar play day in day out to have any chance against elite teams

[LamarOdom]

So I'm suppose to be impressed by LeBron James leading his team to the Finals in a conference where there is no competition what so ever outside of one team that self-destructed annually?

Cool story bro. I'll take the player that is the superior scorer, superior defender, superior rebounder, more clutch, and better at pretty much every aspect of the game outside of passing/playmaking.

Take more assists, I'll take more of everything else.


He wasn't 23 when he accomplished that you idiot.

Look i am not gonna debate about how good of a defender LeBron was at 23 so i'll give you that one. But superior scorer, reounder and as a defender you do know what superior means right?

LeBron was a much better rebounder then Durant and it isn't even close Durant can't even grab a offensive rebound if his life depended on it, LBJ as 23 yr old avraged 7,9 reb and 1,8 was off, Durant just as many but only 0,6 offensive. Lets not forget Durant got 2-3 inches on LeBron, so i would call Durant a very poor rebounder.

Well Superior scorer, he may be a better scorer but superior? you make Lebron sound as a Perkins kind of scorer. LeBron got a career average of 27,7 points a game don't forget that.

Clutch? LeBron before last year he was the leauge leading scorer in the fourth Q for as many years as i remember. But something went wrong last season and he hasn't recoverd from that but he'll be back.

Whats the other aspects? please do explain!

[StateOfMind12]

LeBron was a much better rebounder then Durant and it isn't even close Durant can't even grab a offensive rebound if his life depended on it, LBJ as 23 yr old avraged 7,9 reb and 1,8 was off, Durant just as many but only 0,6 offensive. Lets not forget Durant got 2-3 inches on LeBron, so i would call Durant a very poor rebounder.

No he wasn't. Lebron averaged 7.9 rpg at age 23 and Durant is currently averaging 7.9 rpg. Here is the difference, LeBron averaged about 41 mpg that season while Durant averages like 38 mpg. You don't think 3 minutes make much of a difference? There is a reason why Durant's rebounding numbers per 36 minutes are better.

Durant's rpg per 36 minutes, 7.5
LeBron's rpg per 36 minutes, 7.0

Durant is the superior/better rebounder whichever you want to call it. It's the same thing to me, better and superior.

Well Superior scorer, he may be a better scorer but superior? you make Lebron sound as a Perkins kind of scorer. LeBron got a career average of 27,7 points a game don't forget that.

Superior and better is the same thing, baby dick.


So what do you have for me? Oh yeah, nothing.

[chazzy]

Kobe was phenomenal in the clutch and better individually than the numbers suggest because he embraced the 2nd option role throughout the season and stepped up when necessary. See his 2002 series vs the Spurs for his clutch play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8HgzXLQCTM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWPWvJ2wr44