21 - 6

[jeezem]

show me clips of any of the Legends of the game, kicking out another players foot as he jumps for a rebound, or getting away with winding up and making an obvious effort to punch an opponent in the head as hard as he can; no calls, no questions, no accountability, here's your ring superstar, we earned it for you - now go kiss your wife and kids, we need to make some money off your image.

[luckthefakers]

I don't really care about Kobe's personal life, whether he raped that girl or what (since we can never know for sure), but it is LOL@NBA that they feel the need to push him as this "family man" with the endless montages of his trophy wife and kids.  As if that isn't totally scripted (like everything else they do).

What I do have a problem with is when the league tries to manufacture his basketball image to cater to their biggest fanbase (with Laker fans likely outnumbering fans of all other teams combined when you count all of the casual & international exposure).  They try to say Kobe is a living legend; I see him as a top swingman who has never even been the best in the league.  If you watch games objectively it's pretty obvious.  For instance, the Celtics faced Lebron & Wade this postseason.  Both of those guys gave them more trouble than Kobe.  In the Olympics, these same three swingmen were on the same team so we can give them an objective comparison.  Lebron & Wade far outplayed Kobe.  Of course, the media AGAIN hyped up Kobe as the MVP because he hit a single big shot in the final game despite being the one who dug him in the hole in the first place (and doing nothing in the previous games). 

It's a media fabrication and it is insulting to the intelligence of real fans.

[luckthefakers]

Here are two statlines:
25ppg 5rpg 5apg 46% FG, 83% FT
25ppg 7rpg 3apg 46% FG, 81% FT

That is about as similar as it gets.  One is Kobe, the so-called living-legend GOAT candidate.  The other is a guy* who didn't make the top-50 NBA because he never had good teammates.  And in fact, there are a handful of players just like him.  Dominant swingmen aren't that rare in the NBA.  Game changers like Magic, Bird, Jordan, and (eventually) Lebron are.  And game changing big men (eg, Shaq, Duncan, Hakeem, Wilt, Russell) have arguably an even bigger impact.  The NBA should let us distinguish them instead of deciding for us.

* Dominique Wilkens

[CelticSooner]

I'm not going to blame the refs. They totally started calling the game differently in the 4th but the C's should have had a big lead by then. C's should have won the game despite the refs. They just stopped making shots in the second half. The C's had too many scoring droughts throughout the season and it finally caught up to them.

I do have one question though. When did Pau Gasol become a NBA Superstar? He practically lived at the free throw line during these playoffs. You couldn't even breathe on him.