LeBron or Kobe? Easy Choice!
I’m not going to sit here and bore you with an incessantly long rant, but I just wanted to chime in my thoughts.
While I watched the highlights of Kobe Bryant dropping 61 points on the New York Knickerbockers, I was perturbed. I kept thinking about how horrible and mind boggling it must be to play with Kobe. He was signaling constantly to his teammates to get him the ball on every trip down the court, or at least every other trip down the court (Sure, when you’re the star player of your team, the focal point, you need the ball, but damn!). THREE ASSISTS AND NO REBOUNDS. 61-3-0. Talk about a team guy. When Trevor Ariza made the ‘mistake’ to swish a 24-footer in the fourth quarter, I think Kobe may have given him the evil eye.
When LeBron James came to play the Knickerbockers at Madison Square Garden two days later, he put up an amazing 52-11-9 game. He didn’t break Kobe’s Madison Square Garden point record but he definitely challenged the said record. LeBron’s 52 came in the flow of the offense. When the Knicks doubled him, he found the open man. When they signaled him, he scored. He dominated every facet of the game. It was a complete performance, basketball at its finest, everything we ever wanted from King James. And it happened 48 hours after Kobe’s big game, in the same building.
Just like a horde of people, I’ve been comparing those two games ever since. Never has basketball seemed more simple to me: I would rather watch a 52-11-9 than a 61-3-0. I would. It’s really that simple. It’s a matter of preference. In the words of the ESPN.com ‘Sports Guy’, Bill Simmons, I’m not a Kobe hater — I’m just a basketball lover.
If Kobe ever puts up 52-11-9, then heck, I guess I’d have to conform to a statement that Kobe is a complete player, up to par with the LeBron comparisons. Until then, give me the player who wears number 23 for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
*Troy “T.J” Sparks is a contributor to Sports Jabber. With over 300+ blog posts written at TSOS, he has grown an affinity for WordPress and fellow bloggers.
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