*For the 49th guy… Paul.

Great offense always beats great defense in bball Cynic..

Not for a WHOLE TEAM in a 7 game series but one on one?? Gasol would smoke Rodman.. Ok not smoke him but Gasol would get his..

Does anyone realize how HARD gasol’s offensive game is?? Dude got both hands and can play BOTH his back to the basket and facing and even got a fadeaway from the pivot @ 7’1.. Dude is a freak and since Rodman was strictly a defender Gasol would kill that matchup cuz Rodamn wouldnt score JACK..

This is not about individual matchups.
We are comparing TEAMS. And the ’96 were a much better TEAM than the 2009 Lakers. MUCH better.

Say what you want about Rodman but even MJ and Phil said he is one of the most intelligent players when it comes to B-Ball. In their meetings it would only be Phil, Tex, MJ andRodman prior to team meetings discussing game film and techniques. In fact if you have the time life video and book that came out after the 96 season they say it on air. That being said, I think the Bulls would win but a lot of you are on crack saying MJ ould kill kobe, MJ couldnt kill Kobe when he was playing against him. Dont forget Kobe play with MJ before he went to the wizards and at his prime. All you goota do is look at youtube and you will see kobe gotthe best of MJ at times and he wasnt eventhe kobe we know now so dont get it twisted. I think the only reason the bulls win, and it was said earlier, they bulls have more team concept on O and D and the Lakers are not quite there yet but close. That to me is what would win it for the bulls. @#41, great assessment except for the MJ part, I think you just dotn like kobe so thats why you put him down but they would cancel each other out. Kobe actually has better footwork but MJ is tougher around the rim, they both would kill anyone and their mother to win though. Cant wait for NBA2012.

@39 12t

Point taken. But the stats i pasted was from the season where Jordan played baseball, so he actually did have the toughest defender on him and no shaq in the post. But i see what you are saying and Kobe is a better scorer then Pippen, no point in discussing that.

Pippen never really godt the chance to really blossom as a leader, so the comparison is a tough one.

Imaging being a SG/PG during the ’90s. I still have games taped from those days and the annoucers refer to Chicago’s full court press as “unleashing the dobermans” aka letting Pippen and Jordan own their respective matchups lol

If you think Pau could hold a candle to Dennis Rodman you don’t know about basketball period. Gasol is so soft he got punked by KG who I think doesn’t even get in your head like Rodman did. Were talking about a guy that bothered every opponent he ever faced. From the tip his wrapping your arms up getting you tangled…Staring at you while you guys are at the free throw…grabbing your ass…pulling your jersey. Trust me Pau don’t want any part of being on the court with Rodman. By the 7th game Pau would be crying like a bitch for someone to get Dennis off of him. Ask Phil Jackson who he’d rather take?

All u foo’s who call Pau soft would get PUNKED back to infancy if u stepped on the court with that EURO man.. and yes thats directed right at u BIG SHOT BOB.. Shit our whole team was never soft until we played the Celtics and lost the FINALS.. We won the finals this year (the very next year and you GOTS to be hard to make it right back cuz HEY the Spurs aint done 2 in a row) and Pau did it going against a MONSTER in D-Ho so shut the fuck up with that “soft” shit..

And im saying this and i hope all you DIPS will listen.. You talk about us being soft like we BEEN like that for years.. ONE year and all of a sudden we sof forever?? GTFOH with that hater shit.. KMart, Dirk, Bosh, ETC ETC are actually soft players cuz while they should be manning post positions and throwing hooks and BANGING they throw weak flippers (Martin) and resort to faders (Nowitzki, Bosh, Miller, ETC).. Shit Gasol plays the POST.. Hooks, running floaters, spins, EVERYTHING..

Everyone caught that soft shit and acts like it still applies.. If anything Odom is still soft cuz his game aint changed but dont call my man Gasol soft when he spends year after year BANGING down there..

Like i gives a fuck Perkins was allowed to play to his IQ level in a series..

And ur all fucking retarded Gasol would MURDER Rodman.. unless like someone said Rodman got into his head.. if not?? What the fuck does being smart matter when the offensive player is just as smart.. Dont forget it took Gasol 2 weeks to learn the TRIANGLE..

fucking morons..

@ Big Shot BOB

All of that except for the “F’in Morons” part applies to you lol..

Im just tired of foos saying Gasol and our WHOLE team is “soft” and acting like they know what they talking about..

@66

“All of that except for the “F’in Morons” part applies to you lol..”

now you’ve proven you are a LEGITIMATE SOFTY.. boo hoo!

The only reason this topic is hot is because it involves Kobe. From his early years his detractors are running out of excuses of why he is not one of the greats. Used to be Jerry Stack House was better,no wait The Answer was the heir apperant… then came Vince and cuz’n T-Mac. As time went by and Kobe proved to be the superior player to all who challenged haters said it was all Shaq. How he made it so easy for Kobe to score and that when he left Kobe was doomed to fail because now teams would focus on him and he would avg. maybe 20 -22 pts a game. He set out to prove those fools wrong averaging 35 pts a game just to make a point. So then they labeled him a ball hog cause he staright killing the comp. Along comes Wade and LeBron and these fools cling on to thm as their last hope to say Kobe is now irrelevant, his time has passed. Rrright…4 cookies fo yo ass and counting. So now, ofcoarse, since there is no savior in sight for these haters we have to go in to the legendary teams of the past to prove how inferior Kobe and his Lakers are. Take a tip from Forest. Stupid is as stupid talks.

BULLS ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!

All this prelude is for allowing Artest to call himself Pippen…

QQ shock da poota wit da roota so viciouss!!

QQ NEVA SCURRD like BoneKrushaa ain’t nevvva!

Wooooo, this a good topic and a dillemma for me being that my team is the Bulls and i’m a laker fan.

Also i’m a big Kobe fan (that wasnt allways the case, he’s grown on me).

The fact is, the lakers are soft, Period (i’ll give them a little credit, they were not as soft as last years team, althoug mostly with the same players)! You really cant give a diffinative answer or lean towards the lakers bc there current team doesnt have a great body of work, and they havent played as much as one pre-season game together.

The Bulls were a complete team, offensively and defensively, the lakers are still to inconsistant defensively, but with the addition of ron artest and the consistant development of andrew bynum could help change that, how much only time will tell!

The lakers as a team lack that mental touhness that chi-town and most championship teams have. U say how can a championship not b mentally tough? Most, or all of there mental toughness mostly comes straight from Kobe Bryant! The rest of their mental toughness comes from Derek Fisher, but he is only going to get but so many minutes.

The different players with mental toughness for Chi-Town was Jordan, Pippen, R. Harper, T. Kuckoc,S. Kerr, D. Rodman, B. Williams…..all these guys hit big shots or made big plays down the stretch, and some did both.

These guys were true professionals who brought it every game, i dont care how u word it, u cant say the same thing for the Lakers, period!

If u are “The Best” in anything, u shouldnt have to question focus, consistancy, energy, effort….all of this were questions that followed the lakers all the way to-and-through the finals. That 4-1 series win wasnt as dominating as it looked, and real “BasketBall” minds know this.

On the real, to have success against Pau all u have to do is get physical with him, and its not hard to get inside his head.

I’ll give u 2 different teams and a few players that either totally locked down pau or had a good amount of success, in last years playoffs and this years playoffs.

The obvious is the celtics. The 1st player is KG. He totally locked PG down, i mean 99% of the time he guard’ed him one-on-one. he consistantly forced him to catch the ball 2-3ft outside the paint, hell..there were times where pau caught the ball at the dotted line in front of the free-throw line (laterally that is).

I thought he was playing the three position (SF) out there sometimes he stayed on the peremeter so much. KG might b skinny (but strong), u would have thought pau was trying to post up shaq or somebody.

Kg was stronger, quicker, agile, more athletic and totally focused. All of PG’s strengths turned to his weaknesses, and cancelled out by KG strengths and him being better than Pau in each of those category.

This is another guy who had lots of success guarding PG one-on-one. Kendrick Perkins even punked Pau. Yea he’s stronger, but Pau was so week that when he faced perkins up, all he had to do was bump pau a little and it threw him off what ever move he was doing.

The last guy from this i wanted to mention from this years playoff who had great success against pau, and yea alot of 1-on-1 success (not as much as the previous guys, but way too much) was Chuck Hayes of the Houston Rockets.

Pau could’nt do anything with this guy on the block with chuck hayes’s leverge and low center of gravity. He couldnt move, he had a hard time even putting the ball on the floor when he faced up bc C.Hayes quick hands and strength. Sometimes he litterly had to shoot the ball from the top of his head, “alla” Bill Cartwright/R.Wallace.

The series just didnt go 7gms because of Aronn Brooks, Luis Scola or carl landry, it was also bc of Chuck hayes rebounding and his defense on the block against pau, to a lesser extent Lamar and AB. Go back and look at the series or whatever, but pau got his numbers from offensive rebounding and kobe (Lamar dropped off a few to him, J.farmar and luke gave him a couple to)dropping the ball off to him. If u just saw the score sheet and didnt watch the game, sometimes the numbers can and will fool you.

You see guys such as , Tyson Chandler, Haseem Thabeet (in college) Samule Dalambert of the sixers shooting in the high 50′s and low 60′s from the field, and they are averaging 10, 11, 12ppg.

You like dammm, why dont the get these guys more touches on the block, why? bc none of these guys are low post scorers or have a face up jumpshot. They get their point off of Offensive reb/put backs, alley-oops, great passes from their pg’s (CP3 and Tyson Chandler), (A.miller/Andre igudola to S.Dalembert), and for Haseem Thabeet (A.J. Price and Kemba Walker). When was the last time you’ve seen Thabeet score off of anything thats has nothing to do with Alley-Oops, put backs or catch and finish???? I’m still thinking too.

Perkins strength negated pau’s quickness. With no inside game 2 speak of and no consistant outside threat, the Celtics defended kobe by pretty much going 2 a box and 1 and playing zone behind it. There main objective was just to keep him out of the lane and off the freethrow line.

Then force him to consistantly shoot contested jumpers from all over the court. With out anyone making shots, and low-post game in site thats what he was forced to do. He!!, he was their best post up player….he went to the block sometimes throughout the series, but as soon as he got the ball the dbl team came big and long, and BC’s strategy worked. Force the rest of them 2 make shots, and they did not. Pau passing skills were useless without him drawing a double what so ever, he’s passing the ball to a coverd man.

I got so tired seeing kobe coming off-screens or baseline cuts or whatever, passing the ball down low to Lamar and pau with 12sec’s on the clock, have them dribble a hole in the ball while getting no closer to the rim than they started the first dribble with, through the ball back out to kobe or fisher…..with 4sec’s left on the clock, and kobe has to force up a shot at the buzzer (thats how teams get fast breaks)!

DF is not a shot createor, Sasha is not a shot creator, V.radmon is not a shot creator….. they are guys who spot up and get shots off of someone else….so passing these guys the ball when they are covered with the shot clock running down is pointless.

The last person for the celtics who had great success guarding him was 50yr old PJ Brown. PJ was a solid player in his day, but now on his last leg he shouldnt have been able to guard Pau 1-on-1, or Lamar Odom 4 that matter who also got shutdown by KG, KP and PJB. People were saying if bynum had played than the lakers would have one, we see now that would have not been the case, and he’s another softee. All that Size, once he figures out how to use it, he will b a very solid center. I think he can b a 15-17ppg 10reb 2.5blk’s.

It was kobe against the celtics, Bc no one consistantly gave kobe any help. D.Fisher(MIA),Sasha(MIA),V.radmonvich(MIA),Lamar(MIA),Pau(MIA),Luke.W(MIA),J.Farmar(MIA)….u get the picture.!

I’m sorry reply was so long, i just had so much to say. I might have went off the topic a few times, i just had to state why i said what i did and needed examples. I’ll b Back with a shorter reply next time.

@ ray jones

It’s easy to guard someone when you’re allowed to hack/foul the shit out of them consistently. It was painful not only as a Lakers fan, but as a fan and student of basketball in general to witness the Celtics “play historically exceptional defense” which was clearly aided by the fact that they could push up on and under the Lakers without so much as a whistle blown.

As for Gasol, whose predicament was showcased clearly due to the physicality that was able to be displayed by the Celtics (i.e., being pushed to the ground during a hot play by PJ Brown to clear space so that Pierce could dunk), he was able to average 14 & 10 on 50% shooting DESPITE being virtually raped every time he touched the ball. And as for your example of Perkins dunking on Gasol, I should remind you that Gasol dunked NASTILY on Garnett- your supposed superior athlete- off of his fucking DRIBBLE. What does that tell you? I know what it tells me, sir…

It tells me to ask you a simple question: What developmentally-challenged high school let YOU graduate?

people undervalue pippen alot…especially kids that never watched him…

thats all ima say….