I’d say it’s the reverse. There are far more people who hate Lebron but love Kobe.
You have highly upvoted comments that read like
“Kobe is light years ahead of Lebron no comparison” “Kobe is better. FACTS” “Kobe is great, but does not have the killer instinct Kobe does. Period. End of discussion” “KOBE IS MORE SKILLED THAN Lebron” “The disrespect to Kobe is superb. These weird stats pop up whenever Lebron is involved” “Kobe is more skilled than Lebron and that is a fact.” “Lebron needs help to win a championship. Kobe tried winning without Shaq and still won” “Kobe is more skilled. Case closed. Better shooter, better defender, and when he wants to pass is a great passer too” “Why does nobody ever point out that Kobe didn’t need to leave teams to win championships” “Not only does Kobe have more rings but he is a better shooter, better leader, better teammate, more clutch, more mature and is a harder worker. Lebron is a product of ESPN” “Kobe played in the West James played in the weak East that’s all I gotta say” “Pau Gasol was an all-star at best. Lebron fans complain Love isn’t enough to win for Lebron but Gasol was enough for Kobe. Kobe won by himself against 4 hall of famers against the Boston Celtics. MJ/Kobe = GOAT” “Lebron went to Finals 9 times and was 3 and 6 in those games. Kobe has been to the Finals 7 times and was 5 and 2 why does everyone look over that fact” “Only Kids will pick Lebron over Kobe” “WTF skill wise there’s no way Lebron is in the conversation over Kobe” “LeChoke sucks. I’ll take Kobe over LeChoke any day” “Kobe has amazed me much more than Lebron” “Kobe has become the most underrated great of all time. There’s no other player I’d take in the league in his era. This includes Lebron and Duncan” “Most players would take Kobe over Lebron so saying Kobe is better is not a stretch”
See what do all these Kobe fanboy comments have in common? They’re all either relying on rings, counting # of all stars each player played with, discrediting Lebron for playing in the East, saying Kobe was more ‘skilled’ and had ‘killer instinct’ which are subjective measures, or just saying plain false stuff like ‘Kobe is more clutch, more NBA players say Kobe is better etc’
I’ve seen this quoted so many times and it’s taken WAY out of context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAEiIdQwX50 this is the original interview done in 2012. That’s right, this was before Lebron even won his first ring so of course he’s going to pick Kobe who had a 5 ring lead on Lebron at the time. But he also said in the SAME interview that Lebron was ‘by far’ the best player in the league at that time. It’s desperate and pathetic by Kobe fans to take quotes out of context like this and then not mention the fact that Bird praised Lebron too in the same interview
So to me, I’ve seen way more people love Kobe but hate on Lebron, often for reasons that are very casual and never backed up by any proof or evidence.
I think most of the hate for Lebron comes from irrational or ignorant reasons. I’m not a fan of Lebron at all but I have definitely noticed he is EASILY the most hated athlete in my lifetime. I have a lot of friends who dislike Lebron James. I’ve asked them why they hate Lebron and here are the reasons they told me:
“Lebron is a whiny crybaby and a flopper” Of course, this can be applied to a lot of modern day NBA players, not just Lebron. The game has changed and flopping is pretty commonplace as a way to get extra points which will help win the game
“Lebron started superteams” This is not true of course, unless we’re talking specifically about free agency. The first ‘superteam’ was created back in 1969 when Lakers traded basically nobodies to get Wilt Chamberlain on their team to team up with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor to beat Russell. So what’s the difference between an organization trading for a superteam ie. 1983 76ers, 2008 Celtics etc vs superteams created in free agency? Honestly, not that much. Lebron could have just forced the Cavs to trade him to Miami and Miami management could have traded for Bosh and it would be the same thing, but he wouldn’t have gotten as much hate, somehow.
“Lebron called himself the GOAT” Yeah this turned a lot of people off, but I think part of the reason why people got turned off is because they took Lebron seriously. If any other player called himself the GOAT people would just roll their eyes. Draymond Green called himself the GOAT defender. KAT called himself the GOAT shooting big man. People just roll their eyes. But when Lebron called himself the GOAT, since Lebron legitimately has an argument to be the GOAT, people took him seriously and of course he comes off as arrogant and a prima donna. However, when Muhammed Ali called himself the GOAT people were ok with it, so go figure.
“Lebron is too political” which is funny because a lot of greats were political. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and (once again) Muhammed Ali were political. However, because they were fighting for civil rights, which people see as a worthy cause. Lebron’s political because of BLM and that’s a much more polarizing cause than civil rights.
“Lebrons fans are annoying” And they’re annoying because they think Lebron is the GOAT. Which is funny, because they’re just fans being fans. What’s different about Bron fans? Kobe fans think he’s the GOAT. Jordan fans think he’s the GOAT. Wilt fans think he’s the GOAT. Nobody has issues with those fanbases. The problem is, people (particularly Jordan and Kobe fans) don’t like that Lebron has a legit case to be the GOAT, so it annoys them. Then they try to discredit Lebron as much as possible by saying he needed a superteam, his Finals record sucks, he was stat padding, he’s overrated by the media, he played in the weak East etc anything to convince themselves that Lebron isn’t all that great and that Jordan or Kobe were still superior. That’s why a lot of NBA fans dislike Lebron fans and are eager to accuse people of being ‘bronsexuals’. Because they don’t like the thought of Lebron being the GOAT. I in fact get called a ‘bron dick rider’ or ‘bron fanboy’ or ‘bronsexual’ just for defending Lebron against all the slander that’s said about him online, even though I’m not a fan of his at all. I even told people Jordan was my personal GOAT, and they didn’t believe me and said Lebron was ‘lowkey’ my GOAT because I defended Lebron. lol, imagine telling someone that their personal opinion that you agree with is wrong because they defended a player you disliked. That’s insane.
“The media talks about Lebron too much” This one I agree with. However, I don’t think that media always praises Lebron as much as people think. In fact, I find that the media just likes to talk about Lebron no matter what the news is, whether positive or negative. Lebron’s problem is that he tends to tweet too much and overpromise about things i.e ‘not one not two not three..’ or ‘playoff mode activated’ or ‘keep the energy’ etc and he shoots himself in the foot this way. The media reports on this and NBA fans on social media all pile up on him because he’s an easy target. The media feeds on these haters and further reports anything negative about Lebron, whatever quote some player said (i.e Dennis Rodman saying how he could lock up Lebron easily or Imam Shumpert saying Lebron ruined basketball) then they post that. Whenever an analyst says anything negative about Lebron (ie. Stephen A Smith saying Lakers should trade Lebron or Brian Windhorst saying Lebron wears out organizations) the media posts about it. So the media actually posts a lot of negative stuff about Lebron, all the time.
What I find is that in general, the people who hate on Lebron usually don’t know much about basketball, and only have a very shallow view of it. Using stuff like Finals records to judge a player is dumb and misses a lot of context about the teams and strength of opponents etc. Using stuff like counting # of Hall of Famers he played with is also dumb and misses the context about whether those players were in their prime or if they were healthy. Using stuff like ‘stat padding’ is also dumb because what is stat padding exactly? It’s just a way to hate on a player that you don’t like when they have a good game. When a player you do like (i.e scores 81 points) has a stat heavy game then you praise them. Or they are simply ignorant about NBA history like not knowing that superteams is a concept that has existed for a long time. Or they try to discredit Lebron as much as possible by saying he played in a weak conference, he won a ‘bubble ring’, he ‘ruins’ teams by joining them, he ‘makes his teammates worse’, etc whatever BS narrative they want to create for Lebron and rarely do they give any kind of evidence for these takes, or they use very distorted views or misleading information about Lebron like he missed the most shots in the Finals or has the most turnovers (of course, he played more Finals games than any other modern player and handles the ball more often than any other modern player). Most of what the haters use are disingenuous arguments about Lebron, and not very well informed, or they heard what Stephen A Smith or Skip Bayless said and just regurgitates their misinformed opinions.
By the Lakers standards? Probably closer to a failure but that’s only because the Lakers are such a successful franchise.
The Lakers have only had a few eras where they were not competing:
-The post Mikan, pre Baylor era (1954–1958)
-The post Kareem, pre Magic era (1975–1979)
-The post Magic, pre Shaq era (1992–1996)
-The post Shaq, pre Gasol era (2005–2007)
-The post Kobe injury / Jim Buss era (2014–2018)
All these eras are considered failures in Lakers history. The Lebron era is better than all these eras.
However, it is nowhere close to the success of the Mikan era (1949–1954), the Baylor/West era (1959–1974), the Showtime Lakers era (1980–1991), the Shaq/Kobe era (1996–2004) or the Kobe/Gasol era (2008–2013).
Lebron era is right in between these success and those failures. Obviously he won them a championship so it’s not a total failure. But aside from that one season, he has little else to show for it. So it’s not close to any kind of dynasty whatsover either.
By any other franchise’s standards however? A success. a championship is all that matters to most teams in the NBA but for the Lakers they want not just a championship but a dynasty and Lebron failed to deliver that.
Lebron James is one of the most unfairly hated athletes in history.
I would say that while Kobe has many haters, there are still way more fans than haters, judging from the amount of Kobe worship on social media. Basically any time is Kobe is not brought up in any conversation, their fans will say ‘the disrespect to Kobe! but what about Kobe! Did y’all forget about the Mamba!???’ etc so while Kobe is polarizing, I would say he’s still a net positive athlete in his image. His tragic death (RIP) just reflected how idolized he was around the world. Kobe’s positive traits (his 5 rings, scoring accolades, “mamba mentality”, work ethic) tends to be much more well remembered than his negative ones (most missed shots all time, not the easiest teammate to get along with, missing the playoffs in his prime, losing a series while up 3–1 etc).
Another example of how much more net positive Kobe is viewed than Lebron is seen in the fact that Lebron gets blamed for not meeting Kobe in the Finals – because he lost in 2009 to the Orlando Magic – despite that team being completely carried by Lebron and nowhere near a Finals caliber team. Whereas Kobe gets absolutely no blame for getting swept in 2011 to the same Dallas Mavs team – and FYI guarded by Jason Terry (who actually guarded Kobe, not Lebron since he’s an SG) – that people criticized Lebron for losing to in 6 games. Kobe could have met Lebron in the Finals that year – and he was the defending champ that year – and no one ever brings this up but brings up Lebron’s 2009 loss to the Magic.
Lebron on the other hand – seems to have more haters than idols. I’m in several basketball social media groups, I’m active on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and let me tell you the amount of people that hate on him is just ridiculous. There’s literally people on social media who dedicate each and every day to making some kind of hate meme or post about him. Then they will call anyone who defends Lebron a ‘bronsexual’ which is both immature and childish. And it’s always about the exact same reasons too, “Lebron joined a superteam” “Lebron needed help to win” “Lebron is soft, whines and is a crybaby” “Lebron is 3–6 in the Finals and is the biggest loser ever” “Lebron choked in the 2011 Finals” etc like a broken record.
Contrary to Kobe, these people focus on Lebron’s negative traits and never his positive ones, never ever praise him when he wins, and always blames him when he loses. When Lebron wins, it’s always his teammates carrying him. When Lebron loses, it’s always his fault. For Kobe, it’s the opposite – whenever he wins, it’s all Kobe and his mamba mentality doing the work. Whenever he loses, it’s because his teammates didn’t step up or were crap (Smush Parker and Kwame Brown always get brought up despite the fact that Lamar Odom was a pretty good player as well).
Also, people always hate on Lebron for only scoring 8 pts in a Finals game in 2011, well there’s lots of other greats who have similar bad performances in the Finals that never get brought up. Kareem got demolished by Moses Malone in 1983 Finals, Magic turned into ‘Tragic’ in the 1984 Finals, Bird had only 8 points in game 3 of the 1981 Finals, Kobe only had 8 points in game 5 of the 2000 Finals and also shot 38% in the 2004 Finals and shot 6 for 24 in the 2010 Finals game 7, Wilt had perennially choking performances in the playoffs and Finals, Duncan missed that potential game winning layup in the 2013 Finals etc in fact out of the top 10 players in NBA history only Russell and Jordan could be considered ‘truly’ clutch as they had next to no bad performances in the Finals.
Heck the Finals record as a measuring stick, came into being because of Lebron. Prior to 2014, no one on social media ever talked about Finals record for any other player. Not Kareem, not Magic, not Bird. But because of Lebron, now they start talking about Finals records – the reason being that they can take an accomplishment that is uniquely Lebron’s – going to more Finals than any other player in recent history – and turn it into a negative. And it’s one that Lebron can never win, because his teams were always outmatched in the Finals, and his own teams always overachieved, it’s a way the haters can turn something that would be celebrated for any other player (for example, Iverson’s lone Finals appearance is considered the crowning achievement of his career despite him losing), and turn it into a point to criticize. It’s also implying that losing before the Finals would actually be better in order to preserve the Finals record – but that idea is blatantly ridiculous, as anyone who has played sports knows. You play to win and in order to win you have to reach the Finals. Only one team can win, so there’s of course a chance to lose. But to focus on Finals records implies that missing the playoffs would actually be better. That makes no sense.
There’s literally nothing Lebron can do to better his image with these haters. If Lebron himself didn’t do well, then it’s because he choked and lacked ‘killer instinct’. If Lebron’s teammates didn’t do well, it’s because Lebron is a toxic teammate and didn’t make them better. If Lebron does well, it’s because he flopped and referees favored him and he ‘stat padded’. If his teammates do well, it’s because Lebron needed to form a ‘superteam’ to win and they ‘saved his legacy’. It’s a lose-lose situation whatever Lebron does.
Why do so many people on social media spend their every waking moment to hate on him? If I had to guess there’s a few reasons:
-Lebron gets too much media attention, and people get annoyed by that -Lebron’s too successful, and that makes people envious of him -They don’t like Lebron’s fanbase and thus they don’t like Lebron either for creating that fanbase -Lebron is threatening their favorite idol (usually Jordan or Kobe) and they don’t like that Lebron has a chance or is currently surpassing their idol’s legacy -Lebron habitually beat their favorite teams (usually the Raptors or Celtics but pretty much any team since Lebron has a winning record against almost every team) -Lebron is too political -They blame Lebron for all of the modern NBA’s problems like flopping and superteams -Recency bias. Lebron is fresh in people’s memories, and whatever he does on the court (or even off the court – I even read some posts where people blamed Lebron for Nike’s sweatshops, said he was a communist sympathizer and letting his son smoke weed which is ridiculous) is scrutinized unlike any other player before. Jordan played in an era without social media, and Kobe’s era was when social media was just starting. They never had the microscope of billions of users like Lebron does.
I can’t explain any other reason why these people would spend so much time to make hate memes and posts every day, it’s not like Lebron ever did anything to them personally or anything, and perhaps it’s proof of how successful Lebron is that he has so many haters. For example nobody hates on John Paxson or Kyle Korver – because they are not superstars. Only successful athletes become hated.
I firmly believe this. Wilt was hated in his day for playing selfishly, Magic was called “Tragic Johnson” for his choking the 1984 Finals, Jordan was also criticized for being a ball hog in his pre championship days and even the now much beloved Kobe was once hated for his ball hogging, rape case trial and failing to win without Shaq.
But nothing compares to Lebron. No matter what social media platform I use – reddit, twitter, facebook, youtube, even Quora, his haters are everywhere and they are the majority.
I’m not a Bron fan – my favorite players are Magic, West and Barry in that order – but I end usually defending Lebron because the hate against him is just irrational and ridiculous. One guy even told me Lebron “ruined the game I love” because he erroneously blamed Lebron for superteams and flopping now that’s just ridiculous.
I’m going to go over all the so called ‘hater’ arguments and debunk all of them as I usually do. Because every hater argument is pretty illogical and irrational and easy to debunk because they usually either don’t watch full basketball games or lack knowledge of NBA history or both.
“I hate Lebron because of his bronsexual fanbase who think he’s the GOAT”
First off, I hate the term “Bronsexual” like how childish do you have to be to use a term like that? Secondly, what’s wrong with being a fan of one of the greatest players of all time? How’s it different than the legion of Jordan fans and Kobe fans? Is it because “Bronsexuals” proclaim Lebron as the GOAT? and hype him up? Nothing wrong with that, it’s their opinion they are allowed to say that and it’s also no different than Jordan and Kobe fans. Especially Kobe fans because Kobe has almost no legit argument to be the GOAT at all since Jordan you know, plays the same position and is superior in every way, and yet Kobe’s fanbase keeps hyping him up with the 81 point game, all the buzzwords like ‘cold blooded assassin’ ‘mamba mentality’ etc and the worship has only increased after his tragic death. So what’s wrong with Lebron’s fanbase saying the same thing?
It’s a dumb double standard that exists for Lebron and his fanbase. If Jordan/Kobe brag about themselves or act arrogant in any way, then his fanbase eats it up. If Lebron does that, then he gets criticized by everyone. If Jordan/Kobe’s fanbase hypes them up or calls them the GOAT its fine, but if Lebron’s fanbase does it, then it’s not ok and deserve to be hated. It’s a ridiculous double standard.
Oh and BTW here’s footage of Kobe calling himself the GOAT
.. and absolutely no one cared when Kobe said it. Muhammed Ali called himself the GOAT and everyone believed in it. When Lebron said it in the heat of the moment after beating a 73 win team after coming back from 3–1 down to win his city their first championship in 50 years, people lost their minds.
“I hate Lebron because he’s not loyal and he jumps teams and recruits other stars to play with him”
First of all, how is Lebron not loyal? Let’s actually go over what happened. Lebron signed a rookie contract with Cleveland. He renewed that contract with Cleveland despite the Cavs and Dan Gilbert giving him almost nothing to work with for 7 seasons. He took a Cavs team with Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Drew Gooden, Daniel Gibson, Sasha Pavlovic and Eric Snow to the Finals as a 22 year old. He never asked to be traded at any time despite this very weak supporting cast. And he never got a great coach either. He put up with this for 7 seasons before he was eligible for free agency. That 7 year run with Cleveland is already good enough to get his number retired with the team. Remember – Kobe couldn’t even put up with his bad team for even 3 seasons and was constantly asking to be traded in 2007–2008 until the Lakers gave him Pau Gasol.
Then he went to the Miami Heat and teamed up with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. The majority of Lebron hate has come after 2010 because of “The Decision”. This basically ruined Lebron’s good will with the wider fanbase. But let’s take this into perspective; superteams are not a new thing. They’ve been around since the 1960s. Wilt/West/Baylor Lakers was a superteam. Showtime Lakers and Bird Celtics were a superteam. Moses Malone/Dr J 76ers was a superteam. These teams were so stacked they had hall of famers like Bill Walton, Bob McAdoo and Bobby Jones coming off the bench. Then you got superteams like the 1997 Rockets, 2004 Lakers, 2008 Celtics – all before Lebron’s Big 3 Heat.
“But they built their teams through the draft” – Nope not the 1969 Lakers or 1983 76ers or 2008 Celtics those superteams were formed through trades. So what’s the difference between a superteam formed through trades versus a superteam formed through free agency? The only difference is free agency is of the player’s will and through trades is of the GM’s will. Either way the front office has to sign these players all together in the end. So what I get from this is fans don’t want players to win rings through their own decisions, but through forced decision making. Basically they want the players to suffer to win. Which is such a weird thing to me. In what other sport would the fans prefer the players to suffer than to make their own decisions?
Also, Lebron can only ‘recruit’ other players if they want to play with him and presumably take a paycut. It’s not easy to build a team with good chemistry and Lebron’s only been able to do this so many times because everyone knows he’s a great teammate and he elevates everyone around him. That’s why Lebron is able to do this so easily. And superteams don’t guarantee a win for the same reason that all the stars have to play unselfishly and get along well. Lebron is unique in this aspect that regardless of the coach, system or even chemistry (Kyrie and Love were not a good fit chemistry wise for Lebron), he can still get a championship – which he has done for over 40 players. That’s why superteams like the 2004 Lakers, 2013 Lakers and 2020 Clippers all failed is because they didn’t have the team chemistry and Lebron’s unique floor raising abilities. We have yet to see how well the 2021 Nets do – they have as much firepower as the 2017 Warriors on paper but they lack the Warrior’s cohesiveness and defensive abilities.
And finally of course, Lebron came back to Cleveland to lead them to four straight Finals and the championship – their first ever in franchise history. Lebron is Cleveland’s all time leader in every category, led them to every Finals in their history and their only championship. The man has done more than enough to be loyal to his franchise.
“I hate Lebron because he flops and is a crybaby”
Everyone flops in the modern NBA from James Harden to Luka Doncic. It’s to take advantage of the rules to get extra points. Every great player utilizes their era specific advantages. Lebron is no different. When you have a chance to get free points, you do it. Of course if Lebron was transported back to the 80s and 90s then he wouldn’t do it, cause the defensive rules were tougher back then. Some fans actually think Lebron – a player with the body of Karl Malone and the speed of Magic Johnson – actually would not survive back then because he’s ‘soft’. This is ridiculous. Lebron is obviously taking advantage of modern day rules, has nothing to do with him being soft. You really think that if you walk up to Lebron on the street and poke him, he’s gonna start crying? get real. And I hate that ‘crybaby meme’ and ‘butterfly meme’ that haters always post on non-related posts. It’s stupid, childish, immature, doesn’t mean anything, and yet always gets the most upvotes. Not just that but they use terms like “Bronsexual” ‘Lebum’ ‘LeChoke’ ‘LeFrozen’ etc it just reinforces the perception that these haters are immature 10 year olds bragging to each other about how funny they are. They are idiots. No better than Trump supporters in my opinion, who also use name calling and memeable gifs to make their arguments instead of any rational evidence for their arguments.
And the rest of the hater arguments are all either false or irrational.
“Lebron is not clutch and is too afraid to take the last shot”
The problem is whenever Lebron has a good game, his haters are always silent, and whenever he passes the ball (i.e makes the right basketball play) and his teammate misses (i.e Danny Green in the 2020 Finals) then social media is flooded with his haters talking about Lebron choked, is trash, has no ‘killer instinct’ etc. Since his haters outnumber his fans, his haters always end up winning the popular opinion unfortunately.
Backpicks GOAT: #3 LeBron James – as well as this great article by Ben Taylor, also known as Thinking Basketball who is a basketball author, popular Youtuber, statistician, sports journalist and watched every NBA game from the Hardwood classics to present day. He presents all the evidence – footage + analytics – that back up Lebron being a great defender.
The thing is even though Lebron is a great defender, he is almost never mentioned in the ‘greatest defenders’ discussion and if you mention him then you will be ostracized by people online. But people will put Kobe in the ‘elite defenders’ convo despite the fact that Kobe was always in the bottom half of DAPM in the league – especially after 2003 – and opposing guards would routinely get their career games on him like Gilbert Arenas, Allan Houston, Ray Allen, Allen Iverson, Steve Francis and even Jeremy Lin.
Same thing with Lebron’s scoring – despite averaging 27 PPG – good for top 6 all time – and being top 3 in total points in NBA history – he is also never mentioned in the ‘greatest scorers’ discussion either. However guys like Kobe, Iverson, Harden etc are inevitably all mentioned. It’s baffling to me. How can you be top 3 in total points and top 6 in PPG and not be mentioned in the greatest scorers convo?
“Lebron dropped the ball in 2009 to meet Kobe in the Finals”
First of all, Lebron’s 2009 team was not that good. Yes I know they won 66 games, but regular season win has little co-relation with the playoffs – the Derrick Rose Bulls, Giannis Bucks and the 2015 Atlanta Hawks should tell you that.
^ Jason Terry averaged an astounding 75% TS% and 65% FG% against Kobe in the 2011 Western Conference semi-finals. Kobe was 1st team All-NBA and 1st team All-Def so I don’t want to hear any excuses for him not being in his prime.
So Lebron averaging 38/8/8 against the 2009 Magic and Kobe getting swept by the 2011 Mavs averaging 22/3/3 against them – who’s the one that dropped the ball here?
“Lebron got outplayed by Jason Terry and JJ Barea in the 2011 Finals”
Lebron averaged 18/7/7 on 48% shooting in the Finals and Jason Terry averaged 18/3/3 on 49% shooting in the Finals. Terry did not outplay Lebron, this is clearly a false claim that the haters love to make. and JJ Barea averaging 9/2/3 on 38% shooting outplayed Lebron? yeah right.
Which got downvoted immediately by haters. All the comments said that the statistics were wrong or deceiving and comments like ‘you didn’t watch the game’ etc flowed in. Somebody show me the footage where Terry and Barea so called ‘destroyed’ Lebron in the Finals. Also the haters act like Jason Terry was some scrub when he was a deadly offensive dynamo in the playoffs who was easily the Mavs second best scorer after Dirk – he scored 18k points in his career. But the haters have to add that he ‘came off the bench’ in order to make it look more embarrassing for Lebron.
Again, Lebron did not get outplayed that Finals. Any player averaging 18/7/7 on 49% shooting in the Finals is having a pretty decent game. It’s just the standards for Lebron is so ridiculously high for him. Rip Hamilton outscored Kobe in the 2004 Finals. Andrew Toney outscored Magic Johnson in the 1983 Finals. Larry Bird had 8 points in the 1981 Finals Game 3. Jalen Rose outscored Kobe by a whopping 8 PPG in 2000 Finals and shot 10% better too. None of these guys get criticized eternally for one below average series like Lebron did.
And at any one time any ‘lesser’ player can get hot and outplay a superstar. It happens.
It happens. Sometimes ‘lesser players’ do above average and superstars do below average. But point is, the superstars will perform above average most of the time and that’s why they are superstars. Hating on Lebron just for one Finals performance where Jason Terry averaged the same PPG as him out of 10 different Finals is just ridiculous.
“Lebron trades his teammates”
There’s yet another term for Lebron here “LeGM” and even media outlets themselves are quick to post any stories involving potential trades to and from Lebron’s team. The truth is ANY franchise superstar has a lot of power over the front office. Although Lebron is not officially the GM, he has strong influence over the front office’s decisions. Organizations naturally want to keep their superstar happy. You think the Bulls or Lakers would refuse MJ or Kobe’s request if they wanted a guy off the team? Kobe literally told Jeremy Lin, Carlos Boozer, Jordan Hill etc that they were gonna get traded when he walked into the locker room. And it’s happened in the past with many other stars. Magic Johnson wanted Norm Nixon off the team – he was gone. Isiah Thomas wanted Adrian Dantley off the team and his buddy Mark Aguirre on it – done. Kobe was a huge factor in Eddie Jones, Dwight Howard and Shaq being traded, etc. So this another one of those things where haters turn a blind eye to everyone else and only blame Lebron.
“Lebron got a Mickey Mouse ring in 2020”
Another stupid argument. What does that even mean? First of all the 2020 Lakers believe it or not actually had a harder time winning a ring than other teams. Why? Because they literally missed home court advantage which they would have had for the entire playoffs. They were also without the services of Avery Bradley who was a pretty good defender for the team. In addition, being in the bubble is mentally draining. Ask anyone who played in that bubble. Didn’t Paul George become “Pandemic P” in that bubble due to the mental drain?
So the whole Mickey Mouse thing is stupid. It’s a real championship. Every player competed for it. The Clippers choked a 3–1 lead trying to win that mickey mouse ring. Giannis choked trying to win that mickey mouse ring. The Lakers beat the Blazers, Rockets and Nuggets in the playoffs – those teams were not pushovers. So the thought that the ring was ‘easy for the Lakers’ is totally BS.
You know what else could be considered “Mickey Mouse” rings though? How about KD’s two rings when he joined a 73 win team? Those rings seemed pretty easy to get. How about the ring that the NBA gave Shaq and Kobe in 2002 over the Kings? That could be considered mickey mouse ring too.
“Lebron is too political”
I dunno, so is Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and they never get hate for it. What’s more you have guys like Bird who was a deadbeat dad, guys like Kobe and Jordan who cheated on their wife (Kobe possibly even raped someone) and they never get a fraction of the hate that Lebron does – who’s never had an off court scandal before.
It’s interesting because Muhammed Ali is widely considered the GOAT of boxing and he was known for being political and praised for it. Same for basketball legends Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Last I checked they were quite political and vocal all their life. But nobody hates on them for being political. Once Lebron speaks up, then everyone hates on him. And they also blame Lebron for Nike’s sweatshops (which is a Nike problem and has nothing to do with Lebron) and call him a communist sympathizer (the NBA decided to bend to China’s rules, so ask Adam Silver, Lebron has little control over it).
Also the media jumps on whatever negative information they can find about Lebron. Anything negative said about Lebron by ANYONE – his teammates, former teammates, other players, analysts, heck even celebrities like Ice Cube – it gets posted all over social media. Meanwhile you will never hear any negative stories about retired players like Bird, Kobe, Magic, Jordan etc
^ Lebron has a great game putting up 35/9/7 but since he loses haters will say stuff like this
Stat padding?? ok buddy, so when Kobe shoots 50 times thats not stat padding or whenever Curry puts up great numbers they are not? But when Lebron does it then it is? And how convenient that he cherry picks one game whereas in every other game you can easily see without Lebron the team just falls apart and loses to the worst teams in the league.
This one goes back to the ‘only Lebron can be a GM’ argument and he’s been on 3 different teams total in his career, and each time he’s won that team a ring within 2 seasons of being there. ‘underperforms’ is an exaggeration, considering he’s only missed the playoffs twice in his career – once in his rookie season and once in 2019 when he was injured.
^ These people have short memories. Didn’t Kobe miss the playoffs in his prime in 2005? Didn’t he lose in the first round twice in 2006 and 2007 in his prime? Wasn’t his career after 2010 a total disappointment? These people act like Kobe was winning his entire career.
^ Like I said whenever ANYONE says anything negative about Lebron it appears on the media. It’s as if he’s the only player anyone ever says anything negative about. It’s just that the media never reports anything bad about other players, but they know Bron has a lot of haters so they will report ANYTHING bad about Lebron.
^ When Lebron misses free throws in a game, it gets remembered forever.
When he scores 14 points in 4th quarter against the Kings just the month before, nobody remembers it.
^ The man can’t even think about a celebration because his team isn’t doing well? Wow. I guess we shouldn’t have retired Kobe’s jersey back in 2017 when the Lakers were doing terrible then too.
^ You have basketball pages that are called ‘Basketball Breakdown’ yet do very little breaking down of anything basketball related – instead they resort to posting Lebron flopping meme pics. See how childish and idiotic these are? Anyone can take a pic of Jordan and Kobe getting blocked too – it’s not like they never got blocked – and like I said earlier, flopping happens everywhere around the league.
He posts a covid meme (which maybe he just thought was funny) and the media immediately jumped on it and everyone from fans to haters to analysts to Kareem criticized him for it
Meanwhile Kyrie with his anti vax conspiracy theories gets praised by fans lol
So haters would crucify Lebron for these things but Kobe gets a free pass? Lol
Oh yeah and remember how haters keep saying Lebron is soft and can’t play in the 80s and 90s? Well the ONE time Lebron acts physical, people call him a dirty player. lol
Remember when Kobe purposely injured Yao but no one remembers or cares about it?
https://daydaynews.cc/en/nba/609662.html
^ this is the dumb stuff people say. I already addressed why the whole ‘Lebron creates superteams / trades players’ narrative is false, and begs former MVP caliber players? Hmm.. Westbrook? What about Kobe getting Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Karl Malone, Gary Payton to play with him? And Pau Gasol underperforming before the Lakers? Note that 2005-2007 neither Gasol or Kobe made it past the first round. So its not like Kobe was doing any better! It’s more like they needed each other equally. Lebron on the other hand has won over 40+ players their first ring and going back to the superteams thing, it’s because everyone wants to play with him. Kobe if people remember, scared off all free agents because of his intense personality. I was reading all the media back in 2011-2013, people’s memories must be short. Kobe was scaring off free agents like Melo left and right. Kicked Dwight off the team (who later joined Lebron TWICE). It’s totally a false narrative that Kobe is a better teammate, nothing could be further from the truth.
Another example ^ all Lebron did was post an apology for Lakers fans and media twists it in a negative way saying he’s gonna trade someone.
^ when Lebron gets angry and curses then he’s a ’19 year old’ when MJ or Kobe says it then they are ‘cold blooded’
See how ridiculous this is?
Not to mention, Lebron is only superstar where if you try to back up your arguments with stats, footage and evidence against the prevailing (misinformed) opinions, you get called out for being a ‘fanboy’ or ‘bronsexual’. With other superstars people will respect you for posting facts, but when it comes to Lebron, it seems you cannot defend him or post anything positive about him without being ridiculed.
I hope I addressed all the ‘hater’ arguments but to me the hate for Lebron is unwarranted and none of the haters ever respond with any evidence. No footage, no stats, just memes and gifs and stuff like that which exposes how irrational their hate is.
It’s honestly not even close. It someone irks me that so many casual fans and die hard Laker fans still want to keep Kobe in the GOAT discussion, but Kobe just isn’t in that discussion.
Let’s go over the reasons why Lebron is better:
Lebron has more awards. Lebron has more MVPs, FMVPs, a ROTY, more All-NBA selections and he’s only 2 All-Star selections away from Kobe as well. The FMVPs especially matter since Kobe was not the best player on 3 of his championship teams while Lebron was the best player on all 4 of his.
Lebron beats Kobe statistically in every category except for FT% (which lets be honest, Kobe has an advantage as a guard). Lebron beats Kobe in total points, total rebounds, total assists, total blocks, total steals, PPG, RPG, APG, SPG, BPG, FG%, TS%, Win shares, PER etc whatever stat you name. Lebron is ahead of Kobe in.
Those are the two main reasons why Lebron is better than Kobe, and those two reasons should be good enough for most people, but Kobe fans aren’t most people, I know there’s these ‘intangibles’ that people will argue for Kobe over Lebron on, so I’ll address some Kobe fan’s remarks here:
“Kobe should be in the GOAT convo, put some respect on the Mamba!”
Sorry, he’s not. He’s about the same level as Hakeem, and Hakeem is never mentioned in the GOAT convo. Also, Kareem, Duncan, Bird and Magic are all ahead of Kobe and never mentioned in the GOAT convo and I don’t hear their fans complaining. And yes Kobe could be considered the closest player to the GOAT (MJ) – but that doesn’t mean he’s anywhere near as good as MJ! It’s a logical fallacy to believe that someone was almost as good just because they were the ‘closest’. You can be the closest and still be really far away!
“Kobe is more loyal than Lebron. Lebron always jumps teams to chase championships and Kobe bled purple and gold”
Well, that’s not true. There’s multiple instances where Kobe requested a trade from the Lakers.
^Lakers even wanted to trade Kobe straight up for Lebron in 2007, but Cavs refused because they knew even a 22 year old Lebron was still better than Kobe
At the time Kobe had a bad squad and wanted out of LA. So it’s a misconception that Kobe was a die hard Laker.
Lebron actually stayed on a *really bad* Cavs team where the management would not give him anything for 7 years!! He had Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Larry Hughes and Mo Williams for 7 years as his second best players. He actually extended his rookie contract with management despite them giving him absolutely nothing to work with. And he came back to Cleveland of course, brought them to 4 Finals in a row and won them their only championship. He’s Cleveland’s all time leader in every single category and played with them a total of 11 seasons, bringing them to every Finals in their history and won them their only championship. And people still say Lebron isn’t loyal?
Kobe – as much as his fans want to pretend he played with a bad team for most of his career – only had Smush Parker and Kwame Brown for 3 seasons. AND he had Lamar Odom who was better than any teammate Lebron had in his first 7 years. AND he still demanded to be traded everyday until they got him Pau Gasol.
“Kobe is more clutch than Lebron and has more killer instinct”
First of all what is killer instinct anyways? Is it always taking the last shot? Because Kobe factually is not as clutch as Lebron is.
^ there’s 12 minutes of Lebron being clutch and that’s only in the playoffs. Add the regular season and there’s probably an hour’s worth.
These are just some of the numerous stats that prove that Lebron is actually more clutch than Kobe is. Kobe’s clutch reputation is mostly based on myth more so than fact.
Kobe has never had any playoff moments as memorable as Lebron scoring the last 29 out of 30 points against Detroit in 2007, or that chasedown block against Iggy in the 2016 Finals. People seem to assume Kobe is more clutch based on the fact that Kobe is very aggressive and eager to shoot the last shot, whereas Lebron tries to make the right basketball play. However, they don’t seem to understand that taking the last shot regardless of basketball position usually leads to missed baskets, which has happened with Kobe far more often than he has made those baskets.
Kobe – 22.3 PPG / 5.7 RPG / 3.4 APG on 44% FG% in elimination games.
Lebron – 33.5 PPG / 10.8 RPG / 7.3 APG on 48% FG% in elimination games.
Kobe is 8-11 in elimination games while Lebron is 12-9.
Kobe was also 7-28 on shots in the last 24 seconds of games and 5-22 in the final 10 seconds. He has only 1 buzzer beater in the playoffs.
Lebron is 8-20 in the final 24 seconds of a game and 6-11 in the final 10 seconds. He also has 5 buzzer beaters in the playoffs, the most of anyone all time, and is 7-15 on go ahead shots in the last 5 seconds in the playoffs
By any stat or any measure – Kobe is not more clutch than Lebron is. I think the main reason Kobe is perceived as more clutch is the media narrative, by casual fans who don’t really watch full NBA games of Kobe and Lebron they just believe what the media says about Kobe being clutch.
“Kobe is better at defense than Lebron”
Although Kobe has more All-Def selections than Lebron, this is misleading as Kobe was never a great defender, especially after 2003 where he started slacking on defense. His on ball defense was merely mediocre while his off-ball defense was virtually non-existent. For example here are the top 20 players according to the amount of love they got in All-Defensive team votes in 2011, sorted from best to worst by defensive RAPM:
Kobe is literally at the bottom, so how did Kobe get All-Def 1st team selection that year? I think again, this has much to do with the media. The media (contrary to what many Kobe fans believe as ‘hating’ Kobe after the rape case allegations and giving him only 1 MVP) has been more generous with Kobe than any other superstar. They gave him 11x All-Def 1st team selections despite him not earning even half of those selections.
Even his own coach Phil Jackson said that he was an overrated defender in his book The Last Season.
Lebron on the other hand, is a versatile on ball and off ball defender and while he has slacked on defense during his Cleveland days, he was always in the DPOY conversation in his Miami days. But just like with Lebron’s career in general, his great performances on defense (and offense) often get overlooked. Lebron is hardly ever mentioned as an all time great defender even during the 2010s decade. Whenever you bring it up, fans will ridicule you. Just like if you say Lebron is all time clutch (borne out by statistical evidence), fans will ridicule you. It’s the whole media narrative that shapes fans perspective into believing that Kobe is a better defender than Lebron (he isn’t) and that Kobe is a better clutch player than Lebron (he isn’t).
Don’t forget Chauncey Billups and Paul Pierce both got Finals MVPs being guarded by him
“Kobe never needed a superteam to win”
Well, first of all – if you have prime Shaq do you really need a bunch of lesser HoFers on your team? The team is already good just having prime Shaq as a teammate right? Later on in Kobe’s career, he had to have exactly the right team built around him to win. Namely, a team full of players who are excellent rebounders and without big egos to clash with Kobe. Oh and it has to be a triangle offense system too because Kobe would never pass the ball to anyone else.
Also the statement is factually untrue because the 2004 Lakers and 2013 Lakers by the definition of having more than 2 HoFers on the team, can be called a ‘superteam’, it’s just that they weren’t successful, because most superteams are not successful. 1997 Rockets, 2020 Clippers are two other examples. Turns out Lebron is quite the exception since he elevates everyone else around him. Even Rondo and Dwight who people wrote off before this year started, became champions when they played with Lebron. Don’t think that would have happened with Kobe (because we know it didnt work with Kobe, twice).
And plus let’s look at Kobe’s Finals opponents – 2000 Pacers, 2001 76ers, 2002 Nets, 2009 Magic, 2010 Celtics. The only one out of that group that can be considered even remotely challenging is the 2010 Celtics – and that group could be considered just as old as the 2014 Spurs everyone makes fun of Lebron for losing against, age-wise. KG was not the same post-surgery and Kendrick Perkins was out for a game. And he still needed 7 games to beat that team.
Lebron’s best teammate was 2011 DWade, then 2020 Anthony Davis. Wade would decline after 2012. Kyrie was not on the same level, and Love and Bosh just weren’t as good as people like to think. Plus look at Lebron’s Finals opponents – the only ‘easy’ one was the 2020 Heat. Kobe has never had to face a team as hard as the 2015–2019 Warriors, or the 2013–2014 Spurs.
“Kobe is better because he had 5 rings”
This is the simplest and most juvenile argument. First of all, rings are won by teams, not one player. And it’s more important to look at how much each player contributed to those championships. Lebron was the best player for all 4 of his championship rings. Kobe was the best player for only 2. But Kobe fans like to say that he was ‘on par’ with Shaq right? In 2001 and 2002 … maybe and its a big maybe because Shaq’s rebounding numbers were double Kobe’s while scoring a similar amount of points. It’s hard to make the case that Kobe was superior to Shaq taking that into account. For 2000, Kobe was definitely a sidekick. He averaged 15 PPG that Finals compared to Shaq’s 38 PPG, it’s not even close. Yes, I realized he was injured in that series and he made those crucial last points in the Game 4 when Shaq fouled out, but outside of that one game he did not make a meaningful contribution to those series. So 1 of Kobe’s 5 rings can definitively be considered one where he was not even close to the best player.
Then in 2001 Finals, Kobe averaged 24 PPG to Shaq’s 33 PPG. In 2002 Finals, Kobe averaged 27 PPG to Shaq’s 33 PPG. It’s not that close in any of these series.
“The media hates Kobe and the NBA conspired against him”
Kobe fans and their conspiracy theories again. First let’s go over them
“Steve Nash stole Kobe of MVP” – MVP has always been about team record, not being about stats. Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50 PPG in 1962 and didn’t get MVP. Jordan averaged 37 PPG in 1987 and didn’t get MVP. So why would they make an exception for Kobe? If Kobe missed the playoffs in 2005 and exited the first round in 2006-2007 how can be MVP? But Kobe fans say he had a bad team. How bad was his team when he had Lamar Odom was putting up numbers of 19/11/5, a very solid secondary playmaker and rebounder on that team? Lebron never had any player as good as Lamar Odom on his team and carried a team where his second and third best scorers were Drew Gooden and Daniel Gibson to the Finals. And despite all the hate Kwame Brown gets, even he averaged a double double against those Suns teams. And Kobe fans treat that team as if it was the worst supporting cast of all time. Gimme a break. Hakeem carried a team with Otis Thorpe as his second best player to the championship in 1994. Duncan carried a team with Stephen Jackson as his second leading scorer to the championship in 2003. Kobe – supposedly better than those guys – couldn’t carry a team with Lamar Odom as his second best player past the first round? So no, he doesn’t deserve MVP for those years and most definitely was not robbed (he was not on MVP ballot in 2005 and was 4th place in voting in 2006 anyways. If anything, Nash had robbed Lebron in 2006 since Lebron was second place in voting)
“NBA prevented CP3 from going to the Lakers in 2011 so that Kobe couldn’t win more championships” – ridiculous paranoia. The NBA owned the Hornets at the time. They didn’t like the trade so they vetoed it. Simple as that. The flip side to this argument was that the NBA actually gave Kobe an extra championship if anything – the 2002 Lakers-Kings series? Hello? Obviously it was a rigged series. Kobe got an extra ring from the NBA at that time, so this whole NBA preventing Kobe from winning more rings is nonsense. They already gave him a freebie but clearly Kobe fans didn’t think that was enough.
“Media and public hated Kobe” – First of all Kobe got at least 4 all star selections from the fans for free. In 1998 he was coming off the bench averaging 15 PPG and somehow got a starting spot in the all star lineup. In 2014-2016 his production was near the worst in the league due to his injuries, yet the fans kept voting him in. Then, the media gave him at least 8x undeserved All-Def selections. After 2003, Kobe was inconsistent on defense – I’ve even said before that Eddie Jones was a more consistent defender than Kobe during this time – and yet he got those All Def selections over guys like Tony Allen, James Posey and guys on his own team like Ron Artest and Trevor Ariza were better and more consistent defenders than him – especially with off ball defense, where Kobe was near non-existent. So if media hated Kobe why did he get all these undeserved selections from? And oh yeah, when was the last time we ever saw any negative news about Kobe after he retired? All I see is tributes coming in nonstop after his tragic death, and commemorations of the most overrated game of all time – the 81 point game against the Raptors where he took 46 shots against a terrible defensive team in the regular season – and I see this ALL the time. I NEVER hear or see any negative stories about Kobe after his retirement. It’s almost as if his rape case, his treatment of his teammates, begging a trade to get out of LA when he had a bad team, his awful performance in the 2004 Finals, giving up against the Suns in 2006, taking a huge salary after his injury, preventing free agents from playing with him etc all that gets swept under the rug now. But negative stories about Lebron happen all the time (ever hear about a guy named Skip Bayless??). I rest my case. But none of that is enough for Kobe fans, even though they already named the All Star MVP after him, the only player to have two jerseys in the same team retired for him, they now want the league to retire his jersey leaguewide and change the NBA logo to him now. Jesus Christ. I guess Kobe fans won’t stop until the entire world bows down to his image right?
“Kobe never had a Finals game as bad as Lebron did in 2011”
Kobe has had multiple Finals games arguably worse than Lebron’s 2011 Finals performance.
2000 Finals, Game 5 – Kobe had 8 points. Everyone who makes fun of Lebron’s 8 points in the 2011 Finals – well Kobe matched that here and no one ever brings this up. Kobe also averaged 15 PPG this series – lower than Lebron’s 18 PPG in 2011.
2004 Finals – Kobe shot 38% for the entire series. Including only 11 points on 31% in Game 3. Lebron has never had a Finals series that inefficient. Oh BTW – Kobe had 4 HoFers on that team and lost to a team with one all star. I really think the 2004 Finals was just as much an upset as the 2011 Finals.
2008 Finals, Game 4 – Kobe got 17 points on 31% shooting. That’s pretty awful.
2010 Finals, Game 7 – Kobe shot 6 for 24 that game. If it wasn’t for Gasol and Artest with some key moment plays that game, it would have ended in a loss.
And in fact Kobe has never had a Finals series averaging 18/7/7 on 48% shooting like Lebron did in his ‘terrible’ 2011 Finals.
“Lebron dropped the ball in 2009 to meet Kobe in the Finals”
This one irks me a lot because was Lebron supposed to make the Finals with his second best player being Mo Williams? That team was high in the regular season sure, but it wasn’t built for the playoffs. It was basically carried by Lebron. That he lost to Dwight Howard in 2009 wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. Dwight Howard was really really good in 2009 – people forget.
Also I think the more important question I have is why is Lebron being blamed for 2009 when Kobe had a chance to meet Lebron in 2011 and dropped the ball there and that never gets mentioned? People always trash Lebron for losing to the 2011 Mavericks but Kobe lost to the exact same team as the defending champs – and got swept by them no less! And if you want to bring up Jason Terry’s stats against Lebron, you really should bring up the fact that Kobe and Terry were actually guarding each other – cause they actually played the same position! Lebron didn’t directly guard Terry, they played different positions.
Also in 2009, Lebron was averaging 35/9/7 in the playoffs. He averaged 39/8/8 against the Magic in the 2nd round including a buzzer beater in Game 2. And people blame him for losing to the Magic. I’m pretty sure he was doing all he possibly could on that team.
“Lebron got cramps in the Finals and Kobe shot two free throws on a torn achilles”
This one is just stupid. Cramps can stop anybody. I’ll let Isiah Thomas explain it for me:
And shooting free throws is very different from actually playing in the game.
“Lebron flops and played in a soft era. Kobe would never do that”
First of all Lebron and Kobe’s careers overlapped. There was 13 years where they were both in the league together. Also, fllopping is a way to get points in the modern NBA. every player does it. There’s literally no downside to doing it. None of this means that Lebron is ‘soft’ he just takes advantage of his era, just like ALL great players do.
“Lebron always takes credit when he wins, and blames others when he loses. He’s a toxic teammate. Kobe is a better leader.”
This one is possibly the most untrue of them all. Lebron has never ever blamed any teammates, no matter how badly they performed. And Lebron’s teammates have been just as bad as Kobe’s. Don’t let Kobe fans tell you that Smush Parker and Kwame Brown were the worst players in NBA history. They were not.
From 2003–2004, Lebron’s best teammate was Ricky Davis, from 2005-2007, his best teammate was Larry Hughes and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. He took the 2007 team all the way to the Finals.
From 2008–2010, Lebron’s best teammate was Mo Williams. He won 66 games in the regular season with him as the second best player.
Kobe’s team was bad, but his second best teammate was Lamar Odom. Odom is better than either Zydrunas or Mo Williams, I’m sure anyone will tell you that. Odom was a very capable player, it’s just that Kobe fans want to focus on Smush and Kwame, well did you know Lebron played with guys like Daniel Gibson and Eric Snow? Sasha Pavlovic? Arguably just as bad as Smush and Kwame.
^ Lebron’s second best player on the 2007 team (Larry Hughes). He took that team to the Finals. His second and third leading scorers in the 2007 Finals was Drew Gooden and Daniel Gibson. Just a reminder: Lebron took a roster with Drew Gooden, Daniel Gibson, Sasha Pavlovic, Eric Snow and Larry Hughes to the Finals. That’s arguably the worst supporting cast anyone has ever had in the Finals. At least Iverson had Dikembe Mutombo!
^ Kobe’s second best player on the 2006 team (Lamar Odom). Lamar averaging 19/11/5 a game. They lost in the first round. Same deal in 2007 where Lamar Odom averaged 19/13/2 a game – lost in first round.
Kobe’s best performance with that team was when he went up 3–1 against the Suns in 2006 in the first round (because Suns were missing Stoudemire), but then inexplicably stopped shooting the ball in the Game 7. Kobe fans tell me it was to ‘spite Phil Jackson’ but there’s no excuse for acting that way in any game. The only comparable times was when Rick Barry stopped shooting in Game 7 against the Suns in 1976 because his teammates didn’t back him in the fight, and when Pippen got angry at Phil for a play drawn up for Toni Kukoc in the 1994 series against the Knicks. Lebron has had no such temper tantrums.
Plus – Kobe’s fans often say he was robbed of MVP that year. Well, if you can’t make it past the first round, if you can’t elevate your teammates that much, how much of an MVP can you be right? And it’s reflected in the voting – Kobe was not on the MVP ballot in 2005 (no it was not related to the rape case, it was because he missed the playoffs), and in 2006 he was 4th place in MVP voting. So much for being robbed by Steve Nash. Lebron on the other hand took his pitiful teammates all the way to the Finals. That’s the difference.
Also, people like to talk about Lebron missing the playoffs in 2019 despite tearing his groin. Kobe missed the playoffs in the middle of his prime. It’s not like his teammates were any worse than Lebron’s teammates in 2019. Lebron’s teammates that year were Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma. None of these guys were actually as good as Lamar Odom. Explain that.
In addition, Kobe has infamously cursed out his teammates and trashed talked them in various interviews.
Saying things that will instantly demoralize his teammates?
Raping a girl or at the very least cheating on his wife?
Lebron has never ever trashed his teammates publicly. Even when his teammates had a brain fart, like JR Smith did in 2018 Finals Game 1, or Markieff Morris in 2020 Finals Game 5. Kobe would have trashed them and ruined their careers. Instead, we have seen JR Smith welcomed back by Lebron and winning another ring, and Dwight’s career have a resurgence with Lebron.
But since Lebron isn’t an asshole to his teammates and doesn’t have an incredibly bitchy whiny fanbase that constantly blames everyone except for Kobe, that’s why he’s the most hated athlete online. If only he cheated on his wife, then he could have gotten statues, tributes and a standing ovation when he came back from the trial like Kobe did.
There’s a reason why Lebron is able to ‘recruit’ other players to play with him – it’s because everyone wants to play with him! From AD to Rondo to Danny Green to McGee to Melo to Westbrook to Demarcus to former rivals like Lance Stephenson – they all want to come to LA to play with Lebron! In contrast – due to both Kobe’s personality and the fact that he had signed a huge contract with the Lakers post-injury depriving them of any cap space – the Lakers had been unable to acquire any big name free agents for 5 years after Kobe came back from injury. People have short memories but no one wanted to play with him at that time.
There seems to be a double standard with Kobe and Lebron. Anything Kobe does that is arrogant or ego-tistic is played off by Kobe fans as being ‘alpha’ or having ‘mamba mentality’ whereas if Lebron had acted the exact same way he would be called ‘arrogant’ and ‘prima donna’.
Lebron called himself the GOAT you say? What an egotistical prima-donna.
^ Kobe called himself the same thing? It’s ok, we’ll brush it off because it’s Kobe.
All this is to conclude that I think Kobe’s negative traits and aspects get downplayed or brushed off by Kobe fans. He never ever gets the blame, meanwhile his fans always blame Kobe’s teammates instead. Dwight Howard was soft. Steve Nash was past his prime. Malone and Payton was past their prime. Shaq wasn’t in shape. Smush and Kwame were the worst players of all time. Kobe was just trying to teach Phil Jackson a lesson. Kobe was being tough on his teammates to toughen them up. Whenever Kobe wins a ring, it’s all him. 5 rings that’s all Kobe’s. Kobe carried the 2009–2010 teams. The rest of that team were scrubs.
Meanwhile for Lebron, it’s the opposite. He always gets the blame, his teammates never get any blame. Missed the playoffs? All because Lebron couldn’t elevate his teammates. Lost in the Finals? Because Lebron choked. Who cares if his teammates were injured, it was all Lebron’s fault. Won a championship? Well he needed help to win. He had a stacked team. He recruited too many superstars. His Finals path was too easy. He shouldn’t have passed the ball to Danny Green, he was too ‘scared’ of the moment. Kobe would never have done that. Also, Ray Allen and Kyrie Irving saved his legacy. Derek Fisher and Robert Horry’s shots? pretend it never happened. Kobe never needed anybody else taking the last shots. Of course not.
The double standards are pretty ridiculous. Whenever Lebron makes a clutch play, people never really talk about it. Whenever Kobe makes a clutch play, it gets remembered for all eternity. There are two games in particular that Kobe fans never fail to bring up: the 81 point game versus the Raptors and the 62 points in 3 quarters versus the Mavs. While impressive, they act as if Kobe never had any bad games and only had good games like these. Both of these were in the regular season. And they always point out how many 50 and 60 point games Kobe had. Well, it’s not hard when you take 40+ FGA a game:
Kobe holds almost half of the top 20 most field goal attempts all time. Obviously when you shoot more, you have a higher chance of scoring a lot of points. Just imagine if Curry, KD or Lebron shot this much a game?
Meanwhile with Lebron it’s the exact opposite: EVERYONE remembers Lebron’s 2011 Finals performance where he choked hard and scored only 8 points. How many people bring up the fact that Kobe had 8 points in Game 5 of the 2000 Finals? How many people bring up the fact that Kobe’s performance in Game 3 of the 2004 Finals was worse than ANY game of Lebron’s 2011 Finals? Heck, how many Lebron haters with the JJ Barea and Jason Terry memes don’t bring up the fact that Kobe was swept by the same team? And nobody ever brings up Lebron’s great performances even though he has great games ALL the time. They talk about Ray Allen’s shot in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals but never talk about Lebron’s 37 point effort in Game 7. They talk about Kyrie’s shot in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals but not Lebron’s triple double effort. Every one of Lebron’s Finals performances since 2012 are *at least* as good as Kobe’s BEST Finals (2009) performance. But Kobe’s are far more remembered.
Did you know that Lebron averaged a 30pt triple double in the 2017 Finals? Did you know that Lebron shot 59% from the field in the 2020 Finals including one game where he scored 40pts on an absurd 71% shooting in Game 5? These are all for an entire championship series too, the biggest games in an NBA player’s career. But no one ever brings up these performances, apparently none of them compare to Kobe’s 81pts in the regular season against a bad defensive team and outscoring the entire Mavs team in 3 quarters… in the regular season.
Or the time Kobe sank 2 free throws on a torn achilles… in the regular season. Or the time Matt Barnes shook a ball at Kobe’s face and he didn’t blink. Wow. Amazing. Or the ultimate ball hogging moment, when he took 50 shots and scored 60 points with Utah playing 0 defense on him in his last game. Fantastic.
Whenever we do a comparison of al time greats, what matters is your performance in the Finals, period. That’s the biggest stage, and where you win championships. Fair? Ok so let’s look at Kobe’s Finals performances versus Lebron’s performances (I’ll highlight the best numbers in bold):
So yeah.. you decide who had the better Finals performances, but it should be obvious.
It’s true. Kobe averaging 15 ppg in 2000 Finals? ‘but he was injured that series, and he hit the crucial shots in Game 4 so that’s what matters’. Kobe shooting 38% in the 2004 Finals ‘Pistons was an all time great defensive team. Not Kobe’s fault’. Even Kobe giving up on his team in the Game 7 in 2006 gets an excuse ‘he wanted Phil Jackson to know how bad the team was so he stopped shooting’. Meanwhile Lebron in 2011 Finals averaging 18/7/7 on 48% shooting “worst performance by a superstar ever. Outplayed by a bench player’ (which wasn’t true, Terry averaged 18/3/4 and even though he came off the bench, he played more minutes than Deshawn Stevenson their starting PG, and besides Lebron wasn’t guarded by either Terry or JJ Barea anyways as their main defensive assignment). The double standards are crazy.
So for Kobe, his great performances get remembered for all eternity while his bad performances are swept under the rug and Lebron’s great performances are swept under the rug while his bad performances get remembered for all eternity. It’s infuriating. Even more infuriating is when you bring up these facts and evidence, Kobe fans will accuse you of ‘hating’ or ‘disrespecting’ the man (especially now that he’s passed) and refuse to listen to you while insulting you and saying you ‘don’t know basketball’ and are a ‘casual’ when in fact it just proves that they are the ones who are in denial about the actual facts.
Finally, I’ll leave you with some stats about Kobe vs Lebron head to head:
Lebron leads Kobe 15–6 in head to head matchups. In those match ups, Lebron averages 28.4 PPG to Kobe’s 24.6 PPG, Lebron shoots better with 46.8% FG% to Kobe’s 41.8% FG%, Lebron averages 7.3 APG to Kobe’s 5.4 APG, Lebron averages 7.5 RPG to Kobe’s 7.5 RPG. In every category head to head, Lebron beats out Kobe.
^ Lebron not only shuts down Kobe in his prime while Lebron was still young, but also hits the jumper over him for the win.
Anyways, all this is to show that 1) Lebron is definitely better than Kobe and 2) Kobe fans are delusional and overrate the man quite a bit
Lebron has in my experience, surpassed Kobe as the most polarizing NBA player of all time – measured by the amount of people who idolize him vs the amount that hate him.
I would say that while Kobe has many haters, there are still way more fans than haters, judging from the amount of Kobe worship on social media. Basically any time is Kobe is not brought up in any conversation, their fans will say ‘the disrespect to Kobe! but what about Kobe! Did y’all forget about the Mamba!???’ etc so while Kobe is polarizing, I would say he’s still a net positive athlete in his image. His death earlier this year (RIP) just reflected how idolized he was around the world. Kobe’s positive traits (his 5 rings, scoring accolades, “mamba mentality”, work ethic) tends to be much more well remembered than his negative ones (most missed shots all time, not the easiest teammate to get along with, missing the playoffs in his prime, losing a series while up 3–1 etc).
Another example of how much more net positive Kobe is viewed than Lebron is seen in the fact that Lebron gets blamed for not meeting Kobe in the Finals – because he lost in 2009 to the Orlando Magic – despite that team being completely carried by Lebron and nowhere near a Finals caliber team. Whereas Kobe gets absolutely no blame for getting swept in 2011 to the same Dallas Mavs team – and FYI guarded by Jason Terry (who actually guarded Kobe, not Lebron since he’s an SG) – that people criticized Lebron for losing to in 6 games. Kobe could have met Lebron in the Finals that year – and he was the defending champ that year – and no one ever brings this up but brings up Lebron’s 2009 loss to the Magic.
Lebron on the other hand – seems to have more haters than idols. I’m in several basketball social media groups, I’m active on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and let me tell you the amount of people that hate on him is just ridiculous. There’s literally people on social media who dedicate each and every day to making some kind of hate meme or post about him. Then they will call anyone who defends Lebron a ‘bronsexual’ which is both immature and childish. And it’s always about the exact same reasons too, “Lebron joined a superteam” “Lebron needed help to win” “Lebron is soft, whines and is a crybaby” “Lebron is 3–6 in the Finals and is the biggest loser ever” “Lebron choked in the 2011 Finals” etc like a broken record.
Contrary to Kobe, these people focus on Lebron’s negative traits and never his positive ones, never ever praise him when he wins, and always blames him when he loses. When Lebron wins, it’s always his teammates carrying him. When Lebron loses, it’s always his fault. For Kobe, it’s the opposite – whenever he wins, it’s all Kobe and his mamba mentality doing the work. Whenever he loses, it’s because his teammates didn’t step up or were crap (Smush Parker and Kwame Brown always get brought up despite the fact that Lamar Odom was a pretty good player as well).
Also, people always hate on Lebron for only scoring 8 pts in a Finals game in 2011, well there’s lots of other greats who have similar bad performances in the Finals that never get brought up. Kareem got demolished by Moses Malone in 1983 Finals, Magic turned into ‘Tragic’ in the 1984 Finals, Bird had only 8 points in game 3 of the 1981 Finals, Kobe only had 8 points in game 5 of the 2000 Finals and also shot 38% in the 2004 Finals and shot 6 for 24 in the 2010 Finals game 7, Wilt had perennially choking performances in the playoffs and Finals, Duncan missed that potential game winning layup in the 2013 Finals etc in fact out of the top 10 players in NBA history only Russell and Jordan could be considered ‘truly’ clutch as they had next to no bad performances in the Finals.
Heck the Finals record as a measuring stick, came into being because of Lebron. Prior to 2014, no one on social media ever talked about Finals record for any other player. Not Kareem, not Magic, not Bird. But because of Lebron, now they start talking about Finals records – the reason being that they can take an accomplishment that is uniquely Lebron’s – going to more Finals than any other player in recent history – and turn it into a negative. And it’s one that Lebron can never win, because his teams were always outmatched in the Finals, and his own teams always overachieved, it’s a way the haters can turn something that would be celebrated for any other player (for example, Iverson’s lone Finals appearance is considered the crowning achievement of his career despite him losing), and turn it into a point to criticize. It’s also implying that losing before the Finals would actually be better in order to preserve the Finals record – but that idea is blatantly ridiculous, as anyone who has played sports knows. You play to win and in order to win you have to reach the Finals. Only one team can win, so there’s of course a chance to lose. But to focus on Finals records implies that missing the playoffs would actually be better. That makes no sense.
There’s literally nothing Lebron can do to better his image with these haters. If Lebron himself didn’t do well, then it’s because he choked and lacked ‘killer instinct’. If Lebron’s teammates didn’t do well, it’s because Lebron is a toxic teammate and didn’t make them better. If Lebron does well, it’s because he flopped and referees favored him and he ‘stat padded’. If his teammates do well, it’s because Lebron needed to form a ‘superteam’ to win and they ‘saved his legacy’. It’s a lose-lose situation whatever Lebron does.
Why do so many people on social media spend their every waking moment to hate on him? If I had to guess there’s a few reasons:
-Lebron gets too much media attention, and people get annoyed by that -Lebron’s too successful, and that makes people envious of him -They don’t like Lebron’s fanbase and thus they don’t like Lebron either for creating that fanbase -Lebron is threatening their favorite idol (usually Jordan or Kobe) and they don’t like that Lebron has a chance or is currently surpassing their idol’s legacy -Lebron habitually beat their favorite teams (usually the Raptors or Celtics but pretty much any team since Lebron has a winning record against almost every team) -Recency bias. Lebron is fresh in people’s memories, and whatever he does on the court (or even off the court – I even read some posts where people blamed Lebron for Nike’s sweatshops, said he was a communist sympathizer and letting his son smoke weed which is ridiculous) is scrutinized unlike any other player before. Jordan played in an era without social media, and Kobe’s era was when social media was just starting. They never had the microscope of billions of users like Lebron does.
I can’t explain any other reason why these people would spend so much time to make hate memes and posts every day, it’s not like Lebron ever did anything to them personally or anything, and perhaps it’s proof of how successful Lebron is that he has so many haters. For example nobody hates on John Paxson or Kyle Korver – because they are not superstars. Only successful athletes become hated.
