Friday: Was Kobe ever really the ‘face’ of the NBA?

As great as he was, Kobe might not have ever been THE feature player in the league.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I've often said that a team to be competitive in
the NBA these days needs to attempt somewhere between thirty
five and forty threes and make between fifteen. It probably
sixteen and twenty. Well, last night Steph decided he was
going to take nineteen on his own, and he not.

(00:24):
He was twelve of nineteen, is that right? From three
point land? Yeah, and threw up a fifty six spot.
Not bad for somebody that's thirty seven years old.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
It didn't also hurt that the the Golden State Warriors
got to the line thirty four times compared to only
eighteen to the Magic But.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
You know it.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's why, even even though it pains me to say it,
he is the greatest shooter of all time in the NBA.
You know, I think you could possibly say at one
point Reggie Miller kind of was just being able to
get a.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
But your Reggie Miller played in a different world.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
True, But even in the different world, you know, that
different era, he was still a very very good shooter.
And that's what Steath is. That's why, like how you mentioned,
on any given night, we have to have we have
to have some form of physicality Okay, give him a
little hand check just to kind of put he may
still get his shot up, but if you're able to

(01:24):
just kind of re route him to get to the
three point line, maybe that shot is a little one inch.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
To the left instead.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, Draymond Green was prophetic when he said Jimmy Butler's
gonna help us get to the championship. And they're seven
and one since he got there.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
I think, yeah, yeah, Well, last time I checked, they
are still Let's see there there there are a seventh seed.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
They're a game behind the Clippers. There are five games
behind the Rockets for fifth. That's going to be a
long ways to go there. See where thirty we're fifty nine,
so there's thirty. Uh, let's see, the Warriors have twenty three,
twenty three games left. That's making up five games and
twenty threes a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, that is making up a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
And but still they could be the sixth day. I
think they could pass the Clippers and be the sixth seed,
and that that potential Clippers Nuggets first round matchup would
be a pretty good one.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
It would, it would, But you know what I think.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
And Warriors Nuggets, I said, I should say.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I think you and I are still waiting for at
some point, because it's going to It's not a matter
of if, it's a matter of when when Jimmy Butler
blows up on that team or him and Draymond get
into it.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know, it's only a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Let's be honest, and maybe they'll just going to chill
out the rest of this Year's got a podcast. He's
you know, he's just playing out the string. He's just
happy to be where he's at. All Right, We've got
more Caitlyn Clark News. The Indiana Fever usually play in
a smaller arena in Chicago. I had the name of
it earlier. They used to play in the All State Arena.
I think it's it's either something else now or they
play somewhere else. But the two games that they're going

(02:54):
to play against the Indiana Fever are going to move
to the South Side and the United Center.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
They play in Cambridge or a Gamebridge Gamebridge Fieldhouse.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
No, No, Indiana does. Yeah, I'm talking about Chicago Chicago Sky.
They play a in Ay. The name of the arena
by the airport used to be the All State Arena.
I think they play in a different arena with a
different name, wind Trust Arena. But is it this is
that the old All State Building or is that a
new building someplace else in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
It looks it looks like a new new place.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well anyway, it only holds like twelve thousand. They need
more people, and they're going to sell this out in
about two minutes and they are going to play their
games where the Bulls play in the United Center. Thank you,
Caitlin Clark for making us rich or richer richer.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, it's the maximum capacity is ten three eighty seven.
So it opened in twenty seventeen. Okay, so it's a
new building. Yeah, it's a fairly new building.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
All right. We've we've been talking.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
About this for a while the face of the league,
and Colin Coward is said there's only been three faces
of the league because there wasn't a face of the
league in the sixties or seventies. The face of the
league was probably read Arbach in the sixties, and in
the seventies, most people that most sports fans didn't care.
Everybody was a baseball fan in the NFL was certainly
on the uptick. But the eighties was magic, and even

(04:19):
though Bird was his Foil Magic was the star, and
the nineties was Michael Jordan, and even though he had competition,
it was still mj And then it was Lebron. But
I heard a comment from the guys on the Doug
Gottlieb Show today where they said the problem with Kobe Ever,
it was Kobe Ever the face of the league, and
I don't think he was. They thought he was for

(04:41):
a brief amount of time, because the comment was by
the time that Lebron was in his fourth or fifth year,
everybody knew he was the best player in the league.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
I'm going to fight back on that.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
I don't think Lebron was the best player in the
league until he was well into his Miami days.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
And I'll have this argument with you.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
I think that from two thousand and four to about
twenty eleven, the undisputed best player in the league was
Kobe Bryant, and I don't think it was even close.
I don't think there was a second. And I know
we're Tim Duncan fans around here, but the way that
Kobe Bryant played in those seven or eight years, he
played like he was mad at the world every night,

(05:21):
and because he was so hard on his teammates, and
he was so hard on himself and so hard on Shack.
I don't think he was ever the face of the league,
but I think he was the best player in the
league until he started to slow down with the achilles
injury and the shoulder injury in the last few years
of his and that's when Lebron took over the mantle.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Now I think you can make a case.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I don't know that you have to be the most liked,
but you do have to have a little polarity, and
certainly Lebron is polarizing, and certainly Magic was because we
had the Magic Bird rivalry. You were the Magic fan
or a Bird fan, So even though you may not
have lied magic, still they needed each other as a foil.
And Michael became the best player in the world in

(06:05):
the nineties and maybe the best player ever, and a
lot of people still think he is the best player.
I think there's some argument to be made there, but
if that's what you like, that's what you like. But
I think though one of the I don't know that
Kobe was ever the face of the league, but I
remember back during this time, in that seven to twelve range,
when people say Lebron's the best player. Lebron's the best player. No,

(06:26):
he's not the best player. Kobe was the best player,
and Kobe made more difficult shots, and Kobe won more games.
Lebron was just kind of along for the ride until
he went to Miami and he teamed with Bosh and
then we went back to Cleveland. He was still the
he was the best player, and in the last eight
or ten years he's been the best player. But I
am never I'm not going to give Lebron the title

(06:47):
as best player over Kobe until Kobe was in the
latter part of his career.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, you know, because even in those early in those
early days with Lebron, you know, from two thousand and
three to twenty ten, like you mentioned, Kobe was during
that time, and even though I know he.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Was a little older, but Shaq was still there.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, Jack was still in the league and still, you know,
the most dominant big man.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
And Shaq is was and is still loved by the
masses way more than Kobe was or even Lebron was.
I don't know that, but I don't know that Kobe.
Shaq was the face of the league because of two things.
He loadvantaged or was way out of shape in November
and December, and I don't even think he took that mantle.
What makes Shack so special in his post year life
is he's on six hundred and twenty five commercials. He

(07:34):
is a spokesperson for everyone.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
He is.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
He has monetized himself to where he can help out
people by spending fifty thousand dollars at Walmart for a
bunch of high school kids or whatever. He is a
he is a common has become a common person as
a incredibly wealthy person, and I think people gravitate to him.
He's he's he's a the teddy bear that you want

(07:57):
to walk up and hug.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
But Kobe was so competitive and so hyper competitive, and
it wanted so much to be Michael Jordan that I
think at times he equalled Jordan's ability as a player,
But I don't ever think he equaled Jordan's popularity because
he was trying so hard.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, and obviously I forget what what was it was
it twenty thirteen, The Colorado trial was twice two thousand
and three, two thousand and three, So that you know
that kind of hurt, that hurt his image a lot.
That hurt Kobe's image a lot as well. But you know,
I don't think it wasn't until Lebron went to Miami

(08:34):
that we were really starting to do the whole comparison.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Okay, well, who actually is the next MJ? Was it Kobe?
Was it Lebron?

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think we knew what four years in five years
in with Kobe, that hey, this kid is something special.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, the thing that Kobe Bryant always compared himself to
Michael And when Kobe was asked who is the best
five players in the world, he never set himself. He
said his Kobe I'm in for Kobe's all team was
Michael in Magic. I think you're Larry Bird. And the
people that he grew up watching when he was a
kid in Italy and his grandparents would send him videotapes

(09:10):
of games to watch. So Lakers and Sixers and Celtics
teams of the eighties were the guys that he compared
himself to. And Kobe always Kobe says that that said
before he passed away, and would still say that to
this day if he was alive, had Shack had the
same work ethic or even fifty percent of the work
ethic that Kobe had, they would have never lost a game,

(09:31):
let alone a championship. I mean, they would have been
the most dominating duo of all time. So, but I
think Lebron is the face of the league because basically
he's for those of you that remember the E. F.
Huttons spots when E. F. Hutton talks, people listen. When
Lebron opens his mouth, all the other four hund and

(09:52):
forty nine players do whatever he tells him to do.
He is he is the leader of the entire league
from a player's perspective, and even when the missioner wants
an opinion that he goes to Lebron before he goes
to anybody else. And Lebron has become that person, and
he's he's doing some miraculous things at his age, and
he's still in terrific shape. But I don't think he
took the mantle as the best player in the league

(10:15):
at the time until Kobe's decline as in the latter
part of his of his years his career.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, yeah, all.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Right, some golf stuff to get too, and we'll talk
about Project Marvel.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
In the six o'clock hour.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Baseball's searching for some new networks to broadcast their games,
and a whole bunch more.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
It's the indie average show on the tickets