Kobe v Lebron: Its no comparison...

To all the Laker fans critiquing Lebron: don't make comparisons to Kobe. Lebron deserves a lot of the crap he is getting but lets get the facts straight. Kobe wasn't expcted to be the best player on his team until 2004 and he stunk up the NBA finals that year. Kobe was fortunate enought to be surrounded by the most dominant center of all time, a tremendous coach, winners like Robert Horry and Jerry West as GM who acted as training wheels for Kobe.
Lebron has been asked to be the best player on his team since day one.

And as far as bad playoff performances lets not forget some Kobe's absolute embarassments: 2004 finals games 3-5, 2008 finals games 4 and 6, and games seven v The Suns. I am not saying Lebron is better or that he shouldn't be criticized for his performance but let's not forget that Kobe had more time to grow and always had more tools and when he didn't have those tools he struggled. So to all the people saying, "Kobe struggled in the playoffs but he had three rings" let's not compare. It took Kobe five years in his prime and an unbelievably one sided trade to get Kobe back to the top of the mountain.

But if you are going to compare then lets do it:

Imagine creating a supporting cast draft. The rules are simple, you take the best player off of all the teams that were still alive at the beginning of Thursday (Boston, Cleveland, Lakers, Suns and Magic) and then you draft the best available player from pool consisting of the remaining players roster. If you did that how many picks someone selects a Cleveland Caviler? Honestly. How long until some takes Antwan Jamison (who I would argue is the second best player on that team? You would have to put the following players ahead of him: Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, Pao Gasol, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Vince Carter, Jameer Nelson, Amare Stodamire, Jason Richardson (hell maybe even Rashard Lewis). The truth is if you had this draft there wouldnt be a Cav taken in the top 10!!! Dude doesn't have help. Thats just the truth.

Could you imagine Kobe without Pao Gasol...I can because thats what happened in in 2006-2007. Without a legit center (Kwame Brown) and without a point gaurd (Smush Parker) dude got bounced in the first round!!! And not just 2006-2007 but also in 2005-2006. He did have Lamar Odom (the Lakers answer to Antwan Jamison. Again, Kobe has had this period in his career too. When he was handed a bad team and he struggled in the playoffs in terms of success.

We can criticize his leadership and we can criticize the role he plays on his team (for instance maybe he needs to let his point gaurd be the primary distributor - not him) but it is way out of bounds to say Lebron isn't a championship type player until he is given championship type pieces to compliment him.