kobe bryant

• kendisi hakkinda jordan kiyaslamalari ile ilgili olarak, realgm forumlarinda yazilmis bir yazi.
  abh nickli kullanicidan alintidir.
  
  "you see the problem is not in bryant’s physical abilities whatsoever. j23f brings up the stats and yes, they are prolific. although jordan played in a time where scoring was much higher, jordan was always extremely efficient, there is no denying that. kobe can attain stats comparable, but there is a more deep-rooted problem at hand. people want to argue about jordan and his being faster, stronger, more hang time….etc. nonsense. bryant is there in all of these facets. he is very strong, fast, (at least as fast as jordan in the later years), and bryant himself was faster earlier in his career as was jordan. bryant does have smaller hands, which is a bit of a drawback, but not the major problem. in regards to work ethic, they are both the same. bryant’s work ethic is legendary and secondary to no one including jordan. we all know of bryant’s being at the gym at 4:30am. that is sick commitment indeed!!
  
  no, people, the real problem that kobe bryant has, that any player has when matched to michael jordan, is a cerebral one. quite frankly, all things being equal, michael jordan during his championship years mentally, when compared to kobe bryant now, is akin to a father and child. the disparity is that blatant, and it leads to all other facets. michae1jordan during his pre-championship years mentally, when compared to kobe bryant, is akin to a teenager in high school compared to a child. let me explain.
  
  when jordan went through his early trials and tribulations as being the only real option on his team. he was athletically gifted. potentially, a little more so than bryant. but what really was the difference was the way he used his tools to his advantage both mentally and physically. jordan didn’t settle for anything that he didn’t want in his early years. but he never really matured until he faced the detroit pistons. what did detroit do for jordan??? well, its simple. it toughened him up. what it did was it took the mind of a genius and implanted in it the seeds of a warlord. like bill gates with microsoft, but on a basketball court.
  
  before that, jordan was someone who was athletically gifted, extremely basketball intelligent, but someone who lacked the intestinal fortitude to overcome his biggest obstacle. until one day, jordan became like the fire of the phoenix that rises up from the ashes to conquer all. jordan would not be denied.
  
  you see that is what kobe lacks. kobe lacks that extra mental capacity to not only think the game, but to know how to destroy his opponent the best way. but beyond that to understand his own game and the game around him as it is happening from game to game and within each game.
  
  1) kobe lacks the understanding that when you step on the basketball court, you have complete control of what you want to do. jordan used to walk on the court and know not to give the defense what they wanted. what does a defense want jordan to do? it wants him taking contested outside shots. because that is where he will be least effective. when jordan became complete, he not only developed a low post game, but used it to his full advantage. he used to walk on the court and know that no matter who was guarding him, he was going to establish position in the post and back them down and hit a fadeaway that they could not guard. physical contact. jordan loved it. he embraced it. he used it as the fire to fuel him. you wanted to hold him or bump him as he crossed the lane, no problem, hed bump right back. and it would piss him off that he would want to establish ever deeper position. a battle of wills. that’s why players hated playing jordan. when you hear of media and pundits talk about jordan and players wilting under his will, this is what they mean. that you would get more hurt defending him, than he would because you could hold him, bump him, whatever, but in the end, he would not be denied and he would stick that ball down your throat. by the end of it, defenders and teams simply gave up. jordan used to walk on the court and put the defense in its most helpless position defending him nearly every time. you just couldn’t prepare for what was coming. and physical contact never did the trick anymore after detroit. players do not do that with kobe. because he gives them what they want too much. kobe lacks intestinal fortitude and the raw mindset to embrace physical contact. although his post up game is very good, he rarely uses it because he cannot embrace the physical nature of it enough. he won’t drive relentlessly because he isn’t getting calls.
  
  2) jordan understood that when he wasn’t on, not only did he not shoot more, he would work even harder to establish better position to score. if one of his teammates was hot, he would demand that they get in position and he would feed them to score. it was a matter of understanding the weakness of the defense and communicating this to his team. to let them know that this one player was going to be exploited until the defense adjusted. once they did, he would adjust likewise by becoming more aggressive himself. and not by shooting more from outside, but from attacking and posting up. realizing that the defense was now not on guard for the onslaught that was about to come. almost like a chess match where jordan knew his opponents play and his own counter before they even made it.
  
  3) jordan understood that when you are hot in a game, fine. but as soon as you go cold, don’t give the defense any favors by waiting for your hot hand to come back. attack them in every way possible. if jordan had a couple of great shooting games, he didn’t talk himself into thinking he was going to go out there and do it again. he would start off by breaking the defense down, attacking and posting up. if he happened to get hot again during that particular game. fine. but it was not a mentality that he embraced. kobe has embraced that gunslingers mentality too often.
  
  4) when one of his players had a problem on defense, he would switch. he knew enough to make the switch in game. not needing anyone to tell him otherwise. he would communicate this to his teammates.
  
  5) jordan understood how to get the most out of referees. he wouldn talk to them nicely during the 1st, 2nd, 3rd quarters. by the time the 4th q came, that one call he would get was the difference between winning and losing.
  
  you think this is a small thing. it isn’t? it all adds up to the bigger picture. every little mental advantage that jordan could get, he had.
  kobe’s biggest problems are not of a physical nature you see. people like to say that kobe has a killer instinct and is clutch in 4th quarter situations and whatnot. sure he is. people like to say he has an assassins mentality like jordan. sure he does. but what people don’t understand, and i now do, is that it is more. it is a mental and intestinal fortitude that separates jordan. its simply knowing more than your opponent and knowing what your opponent is trying to do. analyzing it before the game and during the game. and then coupling that with the intestinal fortitude of someone who learned to embrace physical contact and used it to fuel his game even more. you think jordan would have succeeded against the physical nature of the knicks if he had not learned how to embrace physical contact. detroit taught him that. then you add to that is mental ability to out think his opponents literally during every possession of a game and mentally outthink his opponents in the psychology of the game and what do you have. exaclty.
  
  nowadays, every one is physically gifted. but not nearly everyone is mentally gifted and not nearly everyone has the intestinal fortitude of jordan. you hold bryant a bit and bump him a bit, you turn into him into a jumpshooter. you did that to jordan, and you basically just made life hell for you as a defender. better to let sleeping dogs lie.
  
  there was no such thing as jordan having a bad game costing his team the win, especially during his championship runs. it just didn’t happen. sure, he shot poorly sometimes, but that was all in the flow of the game and it was because he was missing even the shots he himself had designed on taking, not taking ill advised forced shots because the defense made him. kobe doesn’t have this yet.
  
  i could go on, but i am sure there is more to write in response to many posters on this site.
  
  but the fact remains, kobe is lacks in three main areas:
  1) his ability to outthink his opponents before the game and during the game
  2) his intestinal fortitude to embrace physical play and put the defense in its weakest position.
  3) his lack of a psychological chess mass nature. maybe jordan learned that from phil. but, nevertheless, he attained it and used to his advantage.
  
  when kobe does all this, he may become what jordan is today. but until that day, he will simply be a great player, even perhaps the best player in this generation, and nothing more.
  
  next time you watch kobe bryant play and watch anything he does. whether it be talking to a ref, taking a shot (any shot), playing any defense on any player, a response to a run by the opposing team, or any kind of in game adversity, whether it be being held or hacked and not getting the call or whatever it may be and kobe’s response to it. ask yourself these two simple questions every time: would jordan have done that same thing? what would jordan have done in this situation?
  
  once you realize that your answer to that question while you watch and what jordan would have done are vastly different, you will realize what i am saying in this post.
  
  and for the record, i am still as big a fan as kobe bryant as i have ever been. just simply more realistic and hoping that one day, he wakes up and realizes all of the above."