There is some merit/credit to making the Finals, but you have to look at the competition to decide if it's praiseworthy. I give LeBron some credit for his accomplishments, but no way in hell he would be in 5 Finals in the West.rtiff68 wrote:Let's say that Kobe quit in one of those hypothetical Finals the same way he quit against the Suns in the 1st round and the same way LeBron quit against the Celtics in the playoffs the year before he bolted to Miami...AlaskaHawks wrote:Does Kobe "Shit the bed" like LeBron did in 2 separate Finals series losses as well?rtiff68 wrote:
Here's a question for you...
After Shaq and before Pau/Bynum, prime Kobe had some pretty lousy supporting casts around him, and his teams missed the playoffs once, and were bounced in the 1st round twice. For the sake of argument, let's say that those Kobe teams played in the east, and Kobe dragged their asses to the Finals 3 years in a row, only to be stomped all 3 times by an unquestionably superior team.
That would make Kobe's "Finals record" 5-4 instead of his current 5-2. If that had happened, would you consider his legacy to be lesser than it is right now because he "failed on the biggest stage so many more times?"
In my opinion, they both quit in those respective series for the exact same reasons: they both knew that they were the best players on the floor, but the next 3-5 best players were all on the other team.
As a quick side note, Kobe's Lakers losing to the Pistons and Celtics is universally held against him, especially by the same people on this board who are given LeBron a free Pass for his losses. Despite the fact that LeBron shit the bed 2 whole Finals series, and is shooting sub 40% in this one.