First, are you forgetting that Pau played
as a back up to Dwight??? Those are PHENOMENAL NUMBERS FOR A BACK UP CENTER
Dude, you're comparing ALL-TIME greats to current greats. That isn't fair. Its like comparing Chris Paul to Magic Johnson, or Brook Lopez to Kareem. BUT, in a fair analysis, I.E. one based on current realities and statistics, Pau Gasol is one of the better centers in the NBA, period. You can drool about the past, or about the greatest ever, but there are thousands of other NBA players out there, and over 400 a year, and out of that list, Pau is high on it. Also, Kobe had a career high in assists, averaging over 6 dimes per game, which put him actually above 2/3 of the POINT GUARDS in the NBA, so in reality, the whole kobe shoots too much is becoming a bit out-dated, they guy really did change his game last year and became a facilitator when D'Antoni got in his ear and reminded him that, "You have a reputation as a shooter, this means you will naturally open up other shooters as defenders focus on you, so you should use this as a strategy, and PASS THE BALL under pressure because your reputation as a ball hog is giving other players wide-open looks."
that and even Bill Simmons concedes to reality:
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. They landed Shaq, Kareem, Wilt and Dwight for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that (a) they're the f-ing Lakers, and (b) celebrities love Los Angeles (we'll get to this). Since they moved to Southern California in 1960, they've won 63.3 percent of their games, appeared in 25 Finals, missed the playoffs just four times, and never won fewer than 30 games. They haven't picked higher than 10th with their own pick since 1975, when they selected Dave Meyers second and promptly traded him in a megadeal for Kareem. No professional sports franchise has been this consistently good for this long: not the Yankees, not the Canadiens, not the Steelers, not anybody.
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