With Kobe's weight loss, and LeBron's improved J...give a stab at their '08 statline

[Make It Rain]

Originally Posted by Valiant Valor

These two players will never be separated by a 4.5 point differential. And that'll especially be the case as LeBron matures. If Kobe puts up 33, you can be rest assurred Lebron will do 30, atleast.

How do you figure? The differential this year was 4.3. You have horrible logic.

[Make It Rain]

Originally Posted by C.Michael.Murray

Who's that? He probably isn't any better than Skillz from One Tree Hill.

You're gay for even mentioning the show, much less admit to watching it.

[bleedinpurpleTwo]

if Lebron paid attention in class this summer, he may have learned how to play D

[Make It Rain]

Originally Posted by bleedinpurpleTwo

if Lebron paid attention in class this summer, he may have learned how to play D

If you watched LeBron at all this year, you'd notice he's not a bad defender. He's average at least. He'll get better with experience. Kobe didn't exactly come out of high school as a fabulous defender either.

[gb8]

Originally Posted by Make It Rain

If you watched LeBron at all this year, you'd notice he's not a bad defender. He's average at least. He'll get better with experience. Kobe didn't exactly come out of high school as a fabulous defender either.

Wasnt he 21/22 when he won his first team all defensive honours?

[Make It Rain]

Originally Posted by gb8

Wasnt he 21/22 when he won his first team all defensive honours?

Doesn't hurt having Shaq in the middle to help him develop.

[chains5000]

Originally Posted by Make It Rain

If you watched LeBron at all this year, you'd notice he's not a bad defender. He's average at least. He'll get better with experience. Kobe didn't exactly come out of high school as a fabulous defender either.

LeBron has to make a big effort on offense as his team sucks, so he won't "waste" his energy on D.
Same for Kobe, he plays D only when he wants to (because of the matchup mostly).

[Make It Rain]

Originally Posted by chains5000

LeBron has to make a big effort on offense as his team sucks, so he won't "waste" his energy on D.
Same for Kobe, he plays D only when he wants.

Yeah, Kobe getting All-D this year was a complete and utter joke. He played no defense at all this year. All he did was play the passing lanes and gamble, which is exactly what LeBron did. Even Tex Winters will tell you Kobe played HORRIBLE defense this year.

[MaxFly]

Originally Posted by Valiant Valor

and LeBron knows people like MaxFly want to hold his Finals sweep forever against him.

If you're going to put my name in your posts, it behooves you to accurately represent my stance on the given topic you are addressing. It is extremely insincere and disingenuous to purposefully distort my stance in favor of your homeristic views.

In the future, please keep that in mind. I'm very patient with a lot of things, but I won't stand for people purposefully distorting or misrepresenting what I have said.

[gb8]

Originally Posted by Make It Rain

Doesn't hurt having Shaq in the middle to help him develop.

Agreed helps having a giant beast anchoring the defense. The difference is kobe is just a better defender then him even from the outset largely because of willingness and also because of lateral quickness hand speed and size. Lebron lacks certain physical attributes that kobe has in relation to defense.
Lebron has no subtlety in his game, everything is in your face, and this means his defense is also similar, there's no finesse to it.

[chains5000]

Originally Posted by Make It Rain

Yeah, Kobe getting All-D this year was a complete and utter joke. He played no defense at all this year. All he did was play the passing lanes and gamble, which is exactly what LeBron did. Even Tex Winters will tell you Kobe played HORRIBLE defense this year.

The difference between both is Kobe CAN play D sometimes.

[Make It Rain]

Kobe IS the better defender of the two. But people say it like LeBron sucks at defense period. LeBron just hasn't learned yet. He has to do everything on the court whereas when Kobe was developing, he actually had room to develop. Everything has been a rush for LeBron.

[abuC]

LeBron has also gone up to 260lbs.

LeBron 27ppg, 8apg, 7rpg, 52% from the field, the jumper will open up more driving opportunities too.


I think his assists will increase as Sasha and Gibson play more and get bigger roles, so his scoring might drop a bit since he wont need to score as much. I can see Gibson scoring 10-14ppg this year if he's allowed to start.