LAKERS FTW!!!!!

kobe is THE MAN..

P.D: Ginobili in Lakers season 09/10 = INVINCIBLE

Not to rain on the Jordan parade but he was able to do things that are now defended differently or just flat-out illegal.

Even MJ wouldn't be MJ in today's league.

To be fair, he's still one of the greatest players to ever play and probably the greatest I ever had the pleasure of watching.

In some cases... in other cases it's easier though.

No hand check, more calls on drives... etc.

The main problem with a Jordan V Kobe matchup is that Kobe is just an inferior Jordan.  So he's just a bad match.

There are definitely different aspects that are easier now, calls on drives being one of them. On the other hand, I consider that offset by his flailing jumper, which served two purposes. One, look at how guys defend Kobe now. He's shooting mid to high 40 percentage with a hand stuffed an inch from his face a lot of the time. With Jordan's flailing, that was almost impossible to do. Then there was the incidental contact with his legs, which was often called for a foul and allowed Jordan to often go for a three point play because it was such a chickenshit foul that didn't disrupt his shooting motion. Now that doesn't happen.

Hand checking was a pretty big deal though but if you look at how much Jordan manhandled his coverage (a foul almost every time nowadays) by pulling, tugging, whatever, it's hard to get over how much that helped him play later in his career.

Also, guys in the middle are just plain bigger now. How would Jordan have fared driving to the lane like Kobe and meeting a Shaq or Howard in the middle?

I'm not saying that Kobe is on par with Jordan, I don't think he is. Not yet, anyway. A lot rides on how Kobe lasts into his mid-30s. But I think it's a lot closer than many people want to admit.

On the other hand, many of the modern rules regarding screens, jumpers, and contact were enacted because Michael was so damned devastating at exploiting the rules at the time.

^^^

jordans got the kind of basketball iq to handle rules of any day

hed have figured it out

Basketball is not as popular since the retirement of Jordan. These other young players: Bryant, James, Howard, etc are great players but do not draw the crowds and worldwide interest as much as Jordan did.

^^^you are right the only player after jordans retirement that came close to drawing those crowds was Vince Carter when he was younger but he turned straight pussy after his leg injury

the threads not about that stuff

worldwide tho the nba is more popular than you think, its become a truly international sport

Lebron is already better than Kobe, Kobe can't get any triple doubles..... Plus Kobe has a great supporting cast, Bron is by himself.

Hah, LeBron hardly is "by himself". His supporting cast is not as good as Kobe's but it's far from horrible. Besides, Pao is the only real consistent threat besides Bryant on the Lakers. Odom is a no-show whenever he feels like it, Bynum is a shadow of his former self since the injury, and the rest of the cast is pretty mediocre. The Lakers bench is definitely better, though.

And triple doubles don't mean shit if your team is losing. Kobe was putting up monster numbers before he had that supporting cast (anyone remember his streak of 40+ point games... His 82 pointer?) and the Lakers were pretty mediocre. It's a better sign of Kobe's maturity that he's not putting up those kind of numbers anymore.