Just for reference
Kobe Bryant's first career game was November 3, 1996. He played a whopping 6 minutes, didn't score a point (he was 0-1), had 1 rebound, 1 block, 1 turnover, and 1 foul. He followed that up on November 5th with a whopping 3 minutes of game action again going 0-1, but was 1-2 from the line scoring his first point. He added 1 turnover, but had no other stats. Played 7 minutes on November 6th, had 3 turnovers, but was 2 of 3 from the field (including 1 of 2 from three) for a whopping 5 points.
In other words, in Kobe's first 3 games he played 16 minutes, was 2 of 3 from two, 1 of 2 from three, 1 of 2 from the line for 6 points, adding in 1 rebound, 1 block, with 5 turnovers and 1 foul. He didn't have an assist or a steal.
Not exactly the stellar start to a career that one would expect from a player that will retire as one of the greatest SG's the game has ever seen.
Yep. 19 year olds are going to struggle against pros in their primes. In this era of freshman turning pro, you need a few years before you can really evaluate a draft. I think this class will go down as one of the good ones.
And i think most posters on this board were under the impression that this class was full of star POTENTIAL. No Lebron's. But maybe a couple Mcgrady or Zack Randolph's eventually.
if McGrady was fully healthy, no injuries whatsoever, do you think he would be better? on par? or still gets destroyed by LeBron?
I mean McGrady in his prime was arguably a top 10 player
I still think Lebron destroys him most of the time. I put Lebron in that special category with Shaq and Duncan. Those guys were dominators.
Sadly we never saw McGrady perform late into the playoffs. He was great in his prime. But i thought there wasn't a heck of a lot of separation between Kobe, Pierce, prime Ray Allen, McGrady, and Vince Carter. All those guys were beasts and one upped each other in one skill or another.
If you want to sub out the name McGrady in my post thats cool. Maybe sub in Joe Johnson, Rip Hamilton, Klay Thompson or some other lesser all star level guard.
I know I'll get hate for this, but I put Lebron in a level above Duncan.
I put Lebron in the Jordan/Kobe category - the best player in the league in his prime.
Sorry, but I don't put Duncan on that level. Duncan never really came close to dominating the game the way guys like Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson, Magic, Bird did in their primes. He was more on Kg/Ewing/ Pippen/Wilkens level. Duncan is always judged based on his team's achievements rather than his own, but the truth is every team he played on was pretty stacked, and he's had the luxury of playng under an all time great coach his entire career.
If you judge his individual achievements he was obviously a great player, but not transcendence or dominant the way people like to claim. Statistically KG, Barkley and Malone all had more impressive careers.
Lebron, much as I dislike him, has completely changed the face and culture of the nba. He will be remembered a the greatest player of a generation, and he'll be an as a Jordan / Kobe like talent one his career winds to a close.
