Another example of MJ's immodesty. Players admire his skills, pay him homage publicly, but privately despise his ego.
"Kobe is a terrific talent and one of the best players in the game right now. But GIVE ME A GODGIVEN BREAK, PEOPLE. He can't lick Jordan's shoes. Kobe, on a team without Shaq, but still with MORE talent than MJ had when he came to the Bulls, ends up driving the team into the ground. MJ, on a team with no solid NBA starters excepting himself, led his team to the playoffs in, I believe, every year but his second, dominated his opponents, and even prompted the Jordan Rules when his Bulls teams played the Pistons. Even without Shaq, who ever heard of the Kobe rules? Kobe has won 3 titles... because he is playing with one of the 3 most dominant centers of all time. But Jordan is THE most dominant guy of all time, and, when it is all said and done, Kobe will go down in history as a very good player who couldn't carry a team to the next level." imalex13
Funny, with all this talk about Kobe. People forget. Anyone remember David Thompson and how great he was going to be? They anointed him the greatest player that ever lived because of his athleticism. Anyone remember "the next Magic Johnson" Penny "loafer" Hardaway? The "Nickle" played with Shaq too, was hailed for his greatness when MJ left for a while, and ended up on the scrap heap in Phoenix after his body failed him. Let's give the "anoint Kobe" talk a rest until he has shown his ability to play year after year at the same high level. See how well "The Truth" Iverson has responded after his MVP year as his body breaks down? My guess is that his wimpy legs, already suffering from tendonitis at age 24, Kobe doesn't have too many years of spring left. Part of being a great athlete is longevity, as it is often a mental toughness that can overcome the body over a career. Then he becomes just another jump shooter from outside, with no ability to slash. Kind of what MJ is now. Yes Kobe has 3 rings, but Don Nelson has more. So does Havlicek, and Sam Jones. So what? Kobe at best is being called the "second coming" of MJ. Let's wait until we see the "first coming" of the next real superstar.
Magic at least had some public graciousness, or an attempt at it, in spite of his verbal gaffes. Jordan can't be accused of this, he says things like,"Patrick's (Ewing) career will never be complete, and I gave him his opportunity when I retired" (played baseball). Please, what poor taste. With all the accolades he has received, lord knows why he feels he has to give them to himself. His tongue wags too much on and off the court.
Kobe has all the rings, but Iverson has the street cred. Wednesday, February 26 Taking it to the street -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Chris Palmer ESPN the Magazine It's the game. The life. The walk. The talk. The clothes. It's that thing you can't exactly put your finger on. It's that thing that makes it real, as the kids say. Having street cred means players wisely get out of your way on breakaway dunks. It's tough to define "street cred," and impossible to earn. But I know it when I see it. And so do you. And so do kids from suburbia who wear T-Mac jerseys they'll never grow in to. To today's young athletes, the guys who set the tone for what's cool from Martin Luther King Blvd. in L.A. to Madison Ave., NYC, street credibility is everything. And it's nothing that can be bought or created by And1 or Reebok. It's not about running around with ice chains and bad tattoos. It's not about being a superstar on the police blotter. That's stupidity, not credibility. It's not something that can be earned with a slick, new TV commercial. It's not something that can be had by acting a certain way or listening to certain music. The under-20 set, the NBA's core audience, is too smart for that. AI. Steph. KG. Odom. Spree. Rasheed. They boast the street cred that Kobe or VC will never have, no matter how many times they show up at Rucker Park in Harlem, like Kobe did last summer. They can own the place for a day, but even a 15-year-old white kid from Nebraska would call him a phony if either dared say "yo, yo" or "whassup wit my peeps." But like fame, true cred is fleeting. That's right, you can't earn it, but you can lose it. And KG won't be legit when he's 39. Or even when he hits 30, for that matter. Stephon Marbury personifies street cred. Coney Island-bred, handle born in the streets, just the right inflection in his speech, the can't-F-with-me strut. The little things. But he's also got an aspect of street cred that no worthy hipster can be without: mystery. Stephon Marbury is head and shoulders above Kobe Bryant when it comes to street cred. Don't let 'em get to know you. It's credibility's secret ingredient. Unless you grew up in his building, you don't know Steph. And that is by design. Rare is the athlete who is more charismatic than Starbury. He could have sold a million cans of pop or pizzas or whatever. But it never turned out like that. The guy is one big mystery. Most NBA fans don't know the sound of his voice, yet he's been in the league for seven seasons. Mystery equals allure. And in some weird way, allure equals cred. Amare Stoudemire. The kid is LEGIT. Major cred. Even though we've read about him, we don't know the man. He hasn't had a chance to blow our idea of him as a fully credentialed street hipster. My guess is he won't either. Kid is pure, through and through. Look at LL Cool J. Back in the day, nobody could rap like he could. "I'll take a muscle-bound man and put his face in the sand," is what he told us back in 1985. And we believed him. But if he tried to pop that junk today, my grandma would throw her back out laughing. We know the guy too well. He's too polished, too old, too removed from the block. Allen Iverson is going the way of LL. Once the picture of street cred, AI now makes two huge mistakes when it comes to rep: He tries way too hard. And he's become way too big. That's strange considering he's the one guy in the league who doesn't have to raise a finger to prove his street value. But every chance he gets he wants people to know that he doesn't trust anybody -- that he's had a terrible life. But when you live next door to M. Night Shyamalan and pull $13 mil a year, that ain't "keepin' it real." Had Iverson never made it to the NBA, he'd have more street cred than blood cells, but only his boys would know 'bout it. Madison Ave. has caught on, and it's common for a sneaker company to throw a rapper and a baller together in a 30-second spot to promote a product. Reebok (Iverson and Jadakiss) and And1 (Marbury and 50 Cent) have cashed in on their cool quotient. But while it sells, the truth is street cred can't change hands. For a while, And1's streetball tour was the hottest thing going. It was gritty, grimy and unrehearsed. But it couldn't hide the shiny bow And1 put on the street game. Still, their collection of ballers do have major street cred because they look, talk and fit the description to a T-Mac. But it's about perception, and who would feel the same about Hot Sauce after he did Leno or Cribs or Kimmel? LeBron is still in high school, but he already has made a name for himself. LeBron James oozes cred right now without doing a thing. He looks the part, has the game and despite the fact that he's been on SportsCenter seven days in a row, we don't know him at all. That makes him credible in the hip-hop view of things. He hasn't had the chance to prove he isn't pure. But even if he's more Steph than VC, LeBron's street cred will soon be suspect because he's just too damn big. He'll have to walk a fine line to prove his rep, but being himself is what this thing is all about. The reality is there is no definition of street cred -- just the players we know who have it, and those pretenders we know who don't. Chris Palmer is a senior writer for ESPN the Magazine.
Optional-- How old are you, and what's behind your Kobe Komplex? Credibility is nothing more than an opinion of a group of people who, for a plethora of reasons, may or may not know what they are talking about. Anycase it mainly amounts to the label of coolness/hipness/hopness-whatever; to who ever satisfies their tilted standards at that time. ESPECIALLY in poor black neighborhoods where reasoning is skewed to the point of hysterics without the funny part. Kobe doesn't have "street" credibility because: 1. He's intelligent 2. Drive. Not only to be the best baller on the planet, but to actually set a good example in life and be a good role model 3. Has class 4. Most of all: Does not conform to or for the crowd. And that pisses a lot of people off... including you. Compare him to A.I. and you should get what I'm talking about, no comparison. When I was younger, credibility meant everything to me. Now, I could give a rats ass. Unless you're 20 yrs. old, you should know this. He already does. Oh yeah, he's got three (3) rings. THAT'S the bottom line for any professional athlete.
I guess Kobe needs to win 3 more rings to be as good a player as Bob Cousy was. Kobe will need 7 more rings to be as good as Sam Jones. Rings, bottom line.
:shaking head: the "street cred" article would be the most outrageously hysterical piece of junk i've read all year (and i read "chit chat", so that's saying something). tragically, that BS is actually taken seriously by some (young) people. whatever it is that irks you about kobe, attacking him for lack of 'street cred' (i'm still laughing) has gotta be one of the lamest moves ever.