I mean, out of all NBA players to beat Kobe’s 81 pts… Bam Adebayo??? I mean, I’ve always expected *some* player to beat it at some point, given the increased scoring and fast pace we have seen the past couple of seasons, but you would think it would be somebody like Steph Curry.. Kevin Durant.. Luka Doncic.. Nikola Jokic.. Giannis.. SGA.. you know, the usual suspects for high scoring.
Bam Adebayo was not on my bingo card – a player who averages about 19 PPG for the season. Scoring over 83 was not as shocking to me as *Bam scoring over 83*.
As for beating Kobe, well let’s just say there are alot of salty Kobe fanboys out there
I mean jesus.. look at all that cope
But what do you expect? I already been telling people Kobe fans are the worst fanbase in sports. A bunch of whiny bitchy losers who always have some excuse for Kobe and willing to jump off a bridge to defend him.
Kobe only has 1 MVP? that’s because he was robbed and the media ‘overhated’ him for the rape trial
Kobe shot his team out of the 2004 Finals? Well he had too much drama from the rape trial and Shaq
Kobe blew a 3–1 lead and quit on his team in the Game 7? Well he did it to spite Phil Jackson
Kobe averaged 15 PPG in the 2000 Finals? That’s because he was injured (for 2 games out of 6 fyi)
Kobe missed the playoffs in the middle of his prime? he was injured!
Kobe shot his team out of the 2008 Finals? Nah man.. INJURIES again!
Shaq carried Kobe? Nah look at these cherry picked games from the WCF!
Kobe beat all these 50 win teams all by himself!
Kobe willed the 2008 Olympics team to the medal all by himself!
Kobe carried Gasol and a bunch of scrubs to 2 rings all by himself!
The league denied Kobe the CP3 trade because they didn’t want Kobe to keep winning!
Kobe chased Dwight and Shaq out? Well that’s because they weren’t tough enough to play with Kobe!
Kobe got swept by 2011 Mavs? Well that’s because he was too fatigued from carrying the Lakers to 3 Finals in a row!
Seriously the amount of excuses and BS I’ve heard from Kobe fans is another level.. for all the hate Bron fans get online (and believe me, ANYONE defending Bron gets insulted and called a bunch of lameass childish phrases online), I’ve never heard Bron fans say oh he was robbed of MVP in 2006 cause he was like second place in voting you know? or say anything about Donovan Mitchell scoring 71 as a Cav beating Bron’s record.. or say anything about Bam scoring 83 as a Heat player (overtaking Bron’s 61). With Kobe fans though, it’s always a bunch of whining and BS.
They say Wilt’s 100 point game doesn’t count because there was no footage of it (stupid, I know. So most of human history didn’t happen then?)
Now they say Bam’s game doesn’t count because too many free throws (free throws are part of the game last time I checked)
Oh Bam was stat padding you say? You really think Kobe was not a stat padder? Pretty sure at the end of the 81 point game he was padding some stats cause they didn’t need 81 to beat them at the end.
Oh Kobe’s team was down you say? How come Kobe fans never think about WHY his teams are down in the first place. 2006 Raptors were one of the worst teams in the league. Kobe the ‘best player in the world’ was down to them why exactly? It aint Kobe’s teammates fault cause they dont even get a chance to shoot since Kobe never passes to Smush or Kwame.
Oh they played better defense back then? Then explain to me why in 2006 literally the top 14 scorers were ALL perimeter players – Kobe, Arenas, Lebron, Iverson, Pierce, Melo, Wade etc pretty sure the 2006 season – especially the Finals – was basically watching a bunch of free throws as well
tldr; Yes Bam’s game was shocking to me – out of all the players I would have never expected him to be the one to break Kobe’s record. And Kobe fans keep crying – at least your guy will still hold the record for most FGAs in a game with 50. He’ll forever be the biggest gunner in NBA history.
And let’s keep something in mind first.. Kobe generally respected and admired Lebron heck his last tweet before he passed away was congratulating Lebron on passing his scoring record!
But Kobe fans don’t care about this – why do Kobe fans hate Bron so much? Simple, because Bron is a better player than Kobe is and Bron is put ahead of Kobe in GOAT convos. (for a similar reason Jordan fans hate Bron too but they are slightly less delusional because Jordan has legit arguments to be ahead of Bron, unlike Kobe).
This makes Kobe fans enraged, so they spend a lot of time posting Lebron hate and amplifying all the negatives about Lebron so that they can convince others that Kobe was the better player (in large part they have succeeded judging from all the brainwashing done online). So they endlessly post about Kobe’s 50/60 pt games, highlight his ‘mamba mentality’, his ‘clutch’ abilities and ‘killer instinct’ and ‘toughness’ and ‘loyalty’ and saying he’s a ‘winner’ while Lebron is a ‘loser’ ‘choke artist’ ‘flop master’ ‘not loyal’ ‘jumps teams’ ‘stacks the deck to win’ etc Which of course is all misleading and exagerrated narratives meant to benefit Kobe and denigrate Lebron.
They can’t use anything statistical because Lebron beats Kobe in nearly every stat category, so instead they focus on rings and finals records and intangibles like the mentality aspect. They purposely ignore or make excuses for all of Kobe’s bad playoff and Finals moments and instead hype up all his best moments like his regular season highlights and those WCF performances against the Kings and Spurs. Then for Lebron they purposely ignore or discredit all his best playoff moments and focus on the worst – that often being the 2007 Finals and 2011 Finals because that’s all there is really for Bron’s bad performances. It’s cherry picking to the nth degree.
And yes, because the majority of Lakers fans are not really Lakers fans but Kobe fans, that also means the majority of Lakers fans hate Lebron as well.
For example this “fan” is actually just a Kobe fan / Lebron hater in disguise. Imagine hating on a man who brought a championship to your city like this. His arguments don’t make any sense at all. So Bron’s supposed to play defense at 41 years old? Was Magic playing defense in his PRIME? Was Kareem and Kobe playing defense in their last seasons?? I don’t think so. Why don’t they get any flak for not playing defense? Hell why doesn’t LUKA get the same hate for not playing defense despite being the de facto Lakers star over Bron?? See, it’s just irrational hate period.
CP3 in his prime not only can be your best player on the team, but his floor raising ability is Lebron level good.
Taking a team like the 2008 Hornets to 7 games vs the Duncan Spurs?
Taking a sorry franchise like the Clippers and elevating them to be Western conference contenders?
Taking the 2018 Rockets to 7 games vs the 2018 Curry/KD Warriors?
Taking the 2020 OKC full of nobodies to 7 games vs the Harden/Westbrook Rockets?
Taking the 2021 Suns to the Finals?
CP3 has done so much legendary floor raising throughout his career it’s ridiculous. Stockton can never do any of this, and he was never the best player on his team, and the MVP voting shows it. Malone won 2 MVPs and Stockton never cracked the top 5 in voting. Stockton is a great floor general and passer but he has never shown his ability to lead a team deep in the playoffs as the main player for his team the way CP3 has.
The Lakers never really accepted Lebron and the fanbase never accepted him because they saw him as a mercenary who went from superteam to superteam to try to win. He wasn’t ‘homegrown’ the way Magic or Kobe or West was. He didn’t spend alot of time with the Lakers like Kareem (14 seasons) or win multiple titles like Shaq. His career with the Lakers is probably most similar to Wilt Chamberlain – a certified superstar who landed on the Lakers as a way to both win more titles and to close out his career.
Lebron will not get a statue with the Lakers. He will almost certainly get one with Cleveland and he *should* get one with Miami too.
Lebron’s jersey should be retired with the Lakers though. That much I do think should happen. CLE, MIA and LAL should all retire his jersey because he won a title with every one of those franchises as the best player. That should be enough for jersey retirement.
The 2020 ring isn’t respected by a lot of fans because Lebron won it. I don’t care what people say, that’s not an asterisk ring. Everyone played under the same conditions how can it be an asterisk? Lakers even lost home court advantage. It’s just because Bron won it and people look for ways to discredit him as much as possible that’s why.
Many Lakers fans are not Lakers fans at all – they are Kobe fans. and they see Bron as threatening Kobe’s legacy. Bron was always viewed as Kobe’s rival. So these fans will never ever accept Lebron and they will hate on Bron as much as possible.
Lakers fans are used to winning multiple championships and going to multiple Finals. Despite Bron playing for the Lakers and still putting up decent numbers into his old age, they want to see more success from him than just that one bubble ring.
Because Bron has so many haters they blame Bron for everything. They blame him for being LeGM and trading away teammates. They blame him for ruining the team. They blame him for recruiting teammates as well. They blame him for sitting out games. They blame him for stat padding when he plays. They blame him for flopping. They blame him for whining. They blame him whenever his teammates don’t do well enough. They blame him if his teammates do too well and say they’re carrying him. So no matter what Bron does, he gets killed for it.
Honestly in terms of precedent, it’s 1976 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
I mean of course there is an MVP case for him – that being that he was the best player in the league and averaging 28/17/5/1/4 – typical 70s prime Kareem stats are always insane like that.
So it’s not about his production, it’s the fact that his team missed the playoffs.
To this day, there is no other MVP I can think of that got the award and their team misses the playoffs. Heck it’s rare to even find an MVP on a team that doesn’t have a top 3 record in the NBA. That’s why 2017 Russell Westbrook is commonly cited as an anomaly – he averaged a 30 point triple double which hadn’t been done since the 60s – even though his team was only 6th seed.
But missing the playoffs..? I’ve never seen another player be awarded MVP yet his team only had 40 wins and miss the playoffs. That’s 1976 Kareem. MVP was voted on by players back then so it’s a bit different – but still it’s a huge anomaly when it comes to regular season MVPs. You can look up 1969 Unseld, 1973 Cowens, 1975 McAdoo, 2006 Nash, 2011 Rose etc all these guys people think are ‘weaker’ MVP candidates.. at least their team record backs up their wins. 1976 Kareem just breaks the mold. 40 win team and didn’t even make the playoffs is unheard of for a modern MVP candidate.