Yes I do realize this is big claim, to have the 10 greatest dunks of Kobe Bryant’s career all wrapped up in this blog post. I will admit that there is a good chance that I may be missing some out of the equation. And I look forward to getting your help on adding to this list. But for now, here are the top 10 dunks of Kobe Bryant’s career that I could dig up after several hours of research. Enjoy!

1. Dunk on Steve Nash

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2. Dunk on Dwight Howard

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3. Dunk on Yao Ming

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4. Dunk on Ben Wallace

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5. Dunk on Kevin Garnett

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6. Double Clutch Reverse vs. Hornets

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7. Reverse Windmill against Rockets

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8. Posterizing Latrell Spreewell

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9. Another Reverse on the Kings

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10. Behind the Back Reverse vs. Utah

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It seems like every other game or so, LeBron James has one of those dunks that has you and your work buddies “buzzing”, talking about how amazing it was around the Coffee Maker in the break room. LeBron James is never short on providing highlights of some of the most ridiculous dunks you have ever seen, especially in a game.  Here are 7 from this season (so far. many more to come) that had me jumping out of my seat when I saw them.

1. Two hand rim shaker!

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2. Off the Wall? This one is crazy!

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3. Reverse 2 hand dunk from Shaq

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4. The Statue of Liberty

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5. A Windmill Reverse? In a Game?

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6. True Power and Speed

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7. The Mo Williams to LeBron James Back Cut

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The Lakers were down by 2 98-96 to the Memphis Grizzlies in Memphis tonight with about 5 or so seconds to go when Kobe Bryant did it again. More late game heroics from one of the greatest clutch players the game has ever seen. Here’s the video highlight from the game. What’s remarkable also were the two big shots he hit right before this to keep the game close, leading to his final three to win the game. The guys is just incredible!

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This is Kobe Bryant’s 5th Game Winning Shot this season and we still have a couple months worth of games to go in the regular season. Can’t wait to see the game winning shots he hits in the playoffs!

1. Receiving Ball In The Post

In today’s game you will often see players getting fronted when trying to post up on the block. Many times this actually works and the player who is posting up is unable to receive the ball and the play is broken. This is one of the most underappreciated skills Kobe Bryant possesses. He has the trained skill of being able to shield off a defender every time on the offensive end and prevent him from fronting. When was the last time you saw Kobe get fronted and not get the basketball? Never!

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2. The Pick n’ Roll with Pau Gasol

The Pick n’ Roll, the play once mastered by Karl Malone and John Stockton and now widely used throughout the NBA game is once again masterfully run with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. The difference is that their version of the Pick n’ Roll is even more complex. Which is has to be because of the advances defenses in the NBA have made in stopping it. The video below gives you an idea of how Pau and Kobe run the pick n’ roll in clutch situations.

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3. Mid-Range Jumper from All Angles

NBA players these days are great at two things, points around the rim or in the paint and 3 pointers. But the mid-range game has been lost for the most part in the NBA. One of the things that makes Kobe Bryant so great is that he has developed a dominate mid-range game making it impossible for defenses to double team him at certain times of the game.

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4. Ball Protection in Traffic

As Kobe has gotten older and slowed down in his overall athleticism, it’s been amazing to see how crafty he is going to the rim and how he can protect the ball so well before finishing. Somehow he always finds a way to not get stripped, even with 2 or 3 guys swiping at the ball as he is going to the rim.

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5. Free Throw Shooting

Practice, form, and repetition. Kobe Bryant is one of the best high volume free throw shooters in the history of the game. What do I mean by this? For players who actually get to the free throw line 5-8 times or more per night, he is one of the highest percentage at the line in the history of the game. People always talk about how clutch Kobe Bryant is. One of the reasons behind this is due to the fact that you can’t foul him at the end of games because you know he’s going to hit his free throws.

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Now it’s your turn! What other specific skills of the game do you admire of Kobe’s?

It’s not going to be a walk in the park like it was back in 2000-01. It’s going to be a grind to the end. With fellow contenders in the West Denver Nuggets and the Celtics, Cavs, and Magic all lying in the East this year will be much tougher than last year. And that is why there are 10 things the Lakers need to improve on if they want to repeat as champs this year 2010. Here they are:

1. Better Defend the Point Guards

It’s no secret to the entire NBA that the Lakers have troubles guarding quick, penetrating point guards. Derek Fisher isn’t getting any younger. And Jordan Farmar is simply incapable of shutting down the opposing teams point guard. Every contending team has a point guard that gives the Lakers trouble. Billups, Mo Williams, Rondo, and Jameer Nelson. If the Lakers don’t find a way to fix this problem, they could be going home early.

2. Trade Vuyacic and Morrison

These are two players on the roster who are not capable of helping the team at all. They are both “shooters” who can’t shoot. Morrison is tradable because of his $5 million or so expiring contract. The only way you could get rid of Vuyacic is by packaging him with Morrison’s contract. This needs to happen before the trade deadline for so many reasons. Mainly because they could bring in a PG that could help with the problem mentioned in #1 of this post.

3. Get Kobe and Artest Healthy

Pau and Bynum have had some minor injuries this year. But Kobe Bryant and Ron Artest have been playing through some serious stuff. Kobe with his knee, back spasms, broken index finger, broken pinky, and bum ankle all need to be somewhat healed to get ready for the playoffs. Artest with his busted finger, and Plantar Fasciitis in both feet need to be healed. I don’t think I really need to explain how these two guys being healthy affects the Lakers.

4. Get Bynum to Play Defense

Not sure what coach PJ and the crew need to do here to get the big man motivated defensively. But I know one thing is for sure, it cannot be offensive touches that gets him motivated to play defense. He needs to learn to bring it every night. Bynum needs to learn a few things from Kendrick Perkins on how to play defensive and make an impact on every game by doing so.

5. Integrate Ron Artest Offensively

Not sure how long this is going to take, but the Lakers don’t have but a few more months longer to figure it out. The offense struggles when he’s on the floor. And for some reason it seems like he’s always having to settle for 3’s. He’s a great post-up player. They need to look for him a little more in the post and get him a little more offensive minded.

6. More Post Up’s For Pau Gasol

Instead of feeding the ball into Bynum, the Lakers need to feed the ball into Pau more to take advantage of his size against other Power Forwards in the league. I think I speak for every Laker fan when I say I would like to see Pau be tougher inside against the smaller PF’s. When Pau has a size advantage there is nobody in the world who can guard him.

7. Need Bench To Build Leads

The Lakers bench has been inconsistent at best this year. In order to keep the starters healthy this year, the bench is going to have to step up their play and build leads so the starters can get more rest at the end of games. And in the case of the tougher matchups in the NBA, the bench needs to at least help maintain the lead built up by the Starters. This is critical to every championship team and the Lakers are currently not doing it.

8. All-Star play from Lamar Odom

Even though he comes off the bench, he’s still the 3rd best player on the entire team! When Lamar is on his game he is doing everything. He’s scoring, rebounding, and he’s even your best defender on many nights. When he is playing at an All-Star level and Kobe is feeling good, the Lakers are nearly impossible to beat.

9. Continued Great Play from Shannon Brown

The word I like to describe Shannon Brown’s play this year would be “refreshing”. He plays hard on both ends of the floor. He can finish around the rim as good as any Laker. And he’s not afraid to take a big shot when asked. If he can continue to play this way throughout the rest of the season and into the playoffs, it definitely increases the Lakers chances to repeat.

10. Home Court in the West

The Lakers need home court against the Denver Nuggets. That’s what this is all about. The Nuggets are a tough team to beat at home in the high altitude, and the Lakers are sure to meet up with them at some point during the playoffs. It wouldn’t hurt to get home court throughout by beating out the Cavs either considering the type of home team they are.

Kobe Bryant is the greatest scorer in Lakers history. In case you didn’t get the memo, Kobe Bryant passed Jerry West as the Lakers all-time leading scorer with 25,193 career points. Big congratulations to Kobe for an amazing career thus far. It’s not like this is just some small franchise record. It’s the Lakers we are talking about. People Kobe has passed on his way to being the greatest Laker scorer of all time include:

1. Jerry West
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Elgin Baylor
4. Magic Johnson

Now that is quite the list. Passing Jerry West also put Kobe Bryant at #14 on the All-Time NBA scoring list. According to Jerry West, Kobe is not only the greatest scorer in Laker history but he’s also the greatest player in Lakers history with all of the things he can do on a basketball court. Check out this post by Mike Trudell on Lakers.com to read more about this fantastic accomplishment that Kobe has achieved as well as a unique interview with the Logo himself Jerry West about the greatness of Kobe Bryant. You Kobe fans don’t want to miss this.

The greatest player on 1 of 2 of the greatest franchises in NBA history. The other being Bill Russel of the Boston Celtics. What does that tell you? It tells me that the 3 greatest basketball players of all time are Jordan, Russell, and Bryant!!!

Thanks to some big plays down the stretch by both Kobe Bryant and Ron Artest, the Lakers were able to sneak out of Boston with a 90-89 victory over the fierce rival Boston Celtics. With under a minute to play Ron Artest makes a tough basket going to the rim with 2 defenders in his face, then follows it up with a solid defensive stance against Paul Pierce by drawing a charge. The very next possession Kobe Bryant with Ray Allen all over him manages to hit a touch fadeway from the free throw line with 7.3 seconds left in the game. Kobe providing game winning shot heroics yet again. This time against the hated team in green. Let me point out a few things that I thought were huge for the Lakers.

1. Dominance Inside by Andrew Bynum

Bynum played well. Now i’m not the typical Laker fan who jumps all over the “Bynum” thing whenever he manages to play a descent game. But for the first time since before his injury last season, Andrew Bynum actually gave the Lakers the dominance inside on both ends of the court that they needed. He matched the physical play of Perkins and Garnett inside, something the Laker big men have always had a hard time doing.

I thought the key point in the game for Bynum was during the first quarter, after KG hit a jumper over him and start barking at him all the way back down the floor. Bynum with KG defending him, caught the ball in the post, went left towards the middle, and jammed the ball right over KG posterizing him. It showed the Celtic bigs that Bynum was going to be a beast to contend with all night!

2. Physicality and Toughness of Ron Artest

More and more I am being convinced that the whole Ron Artest over Trevor Ariza thing is starting to work out. From the very beginning of the game you could see that Ron Artest was ready to play and not be pushed around. He got into a little tussle with Pierce right before tip-off, layed out KG as Garnett was trying to run back down the floor, and ultimately pestered Paul Pierce all night long not allowing him to make any kind of real impact on the game. Even though he only had 11 points in his 31 minutes of play, he came up with a couple big buckets in the 4th quarter to keep the Lakers in the game. It looks like Ron Ron is starting to get healthy after all.

3. The Lakers are the more Physical Team

Who would have thought we would ever say this? But it’s clear now after watching today’s “beatdown in beantown” that the Lakers are the tougher more physical team. They may not do as much talking as the Celtics do, but when push comes to shove the Lakers seem to have the mental and physical toughness it takes to consistently win close games on the road. The Lakers size and strength inside with Bynum, Gasol, Odom, and Artest pushed Boston around inside all night long. And when the game was on the line, the hobbled and injured Kobe Bryant found a way to win the game for his team in the end.

There is One Negative From This Game!

Not all is positive for the Lakers after watching this game. After the Lakers built a 30-17 lead late in the 1st quarter, they watched that lead squander thanks to the play of Celtics PG Rajon Rondo. The Lakers had no answer to Rondo in this game. He drove to the basket at will and made play after play building a 10 point lead for the Celtics going into the 4th quarter. Is Rondo a fantastic player? Yes! But this issue of the Lakers being able to defend and compete at the PG position is more evident than ever.

If they Lakers want to win a championship this season, they first need to stay healthy. But even more important is the fact that they need more help at the PG position, particularly on the defensive side of things. Hopefully Laker GM Mitch Kupchak will see what we all witnessed today and make that Kirk Heinrich move that is being discussed. Otherwise it could be a shortened Playoff stint this year!

The Eastern and Western Conference All-Star Reserves were announced yesterday and course like every season, there are notable players who were snubbed while others should never have made the list. I’m going to leave any arguments concerning the Starters out of this blog post, since you really can’t hold any selective group of people accountable because it’s the fans as a whole who choose the All-Star Starters. So let’s talk about the Reserves that were chosen by the coaches and GM’s around the league. Let’s start with the Eastern Conference.

2010 Eastern All-Star Reserves

1. Rajon Rondo
2. Paul Pierce
3. Chris Bosh
4. Joe Johnson
5. Al Horford
6. Gerald Wallace
7. Derrick Rose

Who Should Have Made It?

1. David Lee
2. Josh Smith
3. Stephen Jackson

Let me start off by saying that New York’s David Lee should have made the team. Over who? You could argue that David Lee has had a better season than Paul Pierce and therefore should be on the team instead. You could even argue that Atlanta’s Josh Smith should have made the team over Pierce considering the type of season he has had. Pierce, as great of a player as he has been, just has not had a great season. With Kevin Garnett expected to skip playing in the All-Star game because of a bad knee, expect one of these 2 players to fill in as his replacement. Now let’s take a look at the Western Conference All-Star Reserves.

2010 Western All-Star Reserves

1. Brandon Roy
2. Chris Paul
3. Deron Williams
4. Dirk Nowitzki
5. Kevin Durant
6. Zach Randolph
7. Pau Gasol

Who Should Have Made It?

1. Chauncey Billups
2. Chris Kaman

Pau Gasol missed 17 games during the first half of the season. How was he chosen to be a reserve? Yes Pau is an All-Star caliber player. But when you miss that many games you shouldn’t be playing in an All-Star game. The Clippers Chris Kaman should have that spot instead. He’s had a better season than Pau statistically. Period. I know the Grizzlies are doing well, and I know Zach Randolph has had a good stat year. But the Denver Nuggets are easily the second best team in the West, and are nothing without their floor leader Chauncey Billups who is having yet another solid NBA season. I think he should be on that list rather than Randolph.

What do you guys think? Who should have made it? Who should not have made it? Also, congrats to Deron Williams for making his first All-Star Appearance. It was long overdue!

I always find it interesting how every season, NBA experts always find a way to jump on some other bandwagon than the one’s that are actually the best in the league. Experts and fans are always so quick to count out teams early in a 82 game season, and even quicker to anoint some new team as the “team to beat”. Over the past 2 seasons that team has been the Cleveland Cavaliers. As soon as they start playing well, you get to hear idiots like Tim Legler on ESPN rout off bogus statistics and evaluations that somehow prove that they are the new hot team in the NBA!

I have one very important thing to tell everyone! Don’t sleep on the Lakers or on the Celtics! Are they playing their best basketball right now? Of course not. But assuming KG and KB24 stay healthy, you better believe it’s going to be these two teams in the Finals in June. I’ll bet my Wife’s little Pug/House Dog whose name is Benny on it! Okay I really won’t because my Wife would kill me, but I really do want to get rid of him so if you have any ideas please do let me know.

The Boston Celtics Are The Best in the East

I don’t want to hear statistical arguments as to who the best team is in the East. Let’s be honest with each other. With a healthy Kevin Garnett, there’s nobody in the East who can get past Boston in the Playoffs. Even without KG the Orlando Magic were barely able to squeak by the Celtics in the playoffs last season. And as good as LeBron James looks some nights, his dominance disappears against that KG led Boston Celtic defense.

It’s pretty obvious the Celtics are giving KG the rest he needs during the season and not pushing him to hard. They are saving him for Playoff time and a return to the NBA Finals. Not matter how good of a regular season LeBron James and the Cavs have, they don’t have what it takes to beat the C’s in a 7 game series.

The L.A Lakers Are The Best in the West

We thought the Denver Nuggets would have dominant season and continue what they ended last year. We thought the Spurs by adding Richard Jefferson would recreate the dominance they had earlier this decade. Neither of these two scenarios have played out. The fact is that when push comes to shove, the real competitors for dethroning the Lakers are in the Eastern Conference. The West just does not have anyone competitive and good enough to challenge the Lakers.

Expect the Lakers to lose some weird games now and again. They are the defending champs. They are going to go through their share of injuries, as well as their ups and down’s while still trying to integrate Bynum and Artest into the Offense. But just like the Celtics, when Playoff time rolls around this team will be fully prepared for a repeat championship.

Does Either Boston or L.A Need To Make A Trade Before The Deadline?

In my opinion yes they do. Both teams have fantastic starting 5’s by are lacking some depth on the bench. Both teams have bench players who in previous seasons provided solid play (Glen Davis, Sasha Vuyacic etc.) but have games that have mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth. The Lakers appear to need more help off the bench at the Guard positions while Boston appears to need more help in the Frontcourt off the bench. Look for both of these teams to make 1 deal that will strengthen their benches before the February trade deadline.

The Lakers loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers last night finished off a season sweep of the Cavs over the Lakers. In the big part 2 of this seasons much anticipated showdown between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, it was LeBron who individually got the better of Kobe this time around scoring a game high 37 points and adding in 9 assists. Kobe’s numbers were no chump numbers by any means, adding in 31 points. But it was clear that when the 4th Quarter came around LeBron was “out for blood” and took over the entire last 8 minutes of the game.

Quick Thought: Phil Jackson sat Kobe Bryant out during the 4th Quarter and all the way until 5 minutes left in the game. Not sure what his thinking was with this. Between the 8 and 5 minute marks is when LeBron James got going offensively. In my opinion PJ made a big mistake not putting Kobe back in the game at the exact same time Cleveland put LeBron back in.

Some Thoughts on the Kobe/Lebron Thing

It’s been obvious the past two seasons that Kobe’s athleticism has slowed down tremendously. Add that with the incredible never before seen athleticism of LeBron James and you can see how LeBron can dominate Kobe in a game physically. The best example came from TNT’s Kenny Smith at the end of the game where he described LeBron as someone who “goes through you” to score the ball while Kobe “goes around and over you”.

It’s obvious to me that Kobe Bryant is still transitioning to the softer, older mans game and is not fully comfortable dominating a game with it just yet. There will be a time, just like with MJ where Kobe will feel more comfortable dominating the game with turn around jumpers. But we witnessed tonight how Kobe wants to match LeBron with athleticism but just unable to do it. The ability is just not there for the athletic style game. LeBron wins that battle any day of the week.

Warning Kobe Fans…There Will Be Haters

I’m putting out a warning to all Kobe Bryant fans (myself including) that there will be Kobe Haters approaching you today boasting how LeBron is the better player after his performance last night against the Kobe and the Lakers. But remember that it’s just 1 game. And like Chris Webber and Kenny Smith were quick to remind people at the end of the game on TNT’s Inside the NBA, until Kobe can be dethroned as a champion he’s still the best player on the planet!