the amount of possible hiding spots is dumb

the hook diminishes the balancing mechanic of class speed

i personally think a lot of the power ups are rly lame, even if precision scout is the most fun class in any game ever, its like a faster shooting railgun

all of the power ups are ridiculously strong

with precision you can two shot or three shot every class at medium range as scout

with regen you are basically immortal unless you get cheesed (to be fair a lot of powerups can cheese you) or your dumb

lol fnatic is about to walk thru this lan

kobe was not 50%, he was the skilled shooter they needed to punish teams for tripling shaq

they rewrote the rules on zone defense because shaq was unstoppable

he was a monster, if youre going to act like a kobe bryant was 50% of that duo then i have hundreds of hours of games that prove you flat out wrong. phil jackson unabashedly admitted repeatedly that their strategy was to ride shaq because he pretty much couldn't be defended. The three championships the lakers won UNDOUBTEDLY were on shaqs back who had MONSTROUS performances in every series.

in 2004, the year they lost to the pistons in the finals, shaq was 32 years old and kobe was 26. kobe at this point had already insulted shaq and called him old, slow and fat (great teammate). the pistons had an elite defensive center in ben wallace. and best of all, the pistons were going to play kobe and shaq 1 on 1 and force them to carry their team, not rotating help as often as other teams would. by all accounts kobe should have been a monster in the series.

the result? shaq played a good series, he had a couple of monster games, and one or two duds. kobe was atrocious, one of the worst playoff series for him ever, and the most telling of all is that in the game where detroit was able to keep shaq off the court because of foul trouble kobe couldnt create ANYTHING. total dud and disappeared when his team needed him the most, he needed shaq to draw defenses to play the way he wanted. THIS IS KOBES PRIME AND WHEN SHAQ IS 32

lets list better players: wilt chamberlain, bill russell, kareem abdul jabbar, magic johnson, larry bird, hakeem olajuwon, karl malone, tim duncan, shaq, michael jordan, isiah thomas (and tbh id throw more in there like dr j, moses malone, charles barkley, clyde drexler if we're including personality)

i can also list the shooting guards who would have won 3 (or more) championships with shaq if they had him in 98-04: wade, jordan, drexler, penny if he didnt get injured, mcgrady same deal, reggie, gervin and probably curry, harden, and AI. Again, shaq was a monster and by 98 he was smarter about using his unreal ability. in 95 shaq outplayed hakeem olajuwon in the finals, again: shaq outplayed hakeem olajuwon in the finals. when he was 23. hakeem. in the finals.

and do i think michael would have put up with dwight? no, but he would have handled it VERY differently. michael would have pushed him hard as fck in practice, he wouldve challenged him to play harder and practice more, he wouldve held him accountable for his shortcomings all that jazz. but that isnt toxic, thats motivated, thats competitive. kobe doesnt do that. kobe isnt going to push you to practice harder, hes just going to snipe at you to the press afterwards. kobe isnt going to come up to you face to face and tell you to shape up, hes going to call you soft to the press. kobe isnt going to spend hours practicing with you everyday so when its the last possession he trusts you wont fuck it up. kobe has always been the guy to say "hey im doing my part, im not the weak link here" without having that star like ability to make other guys seem extraordinary. michael elevates his teammates, kobe denigrates them.

shaq for a brief time? rofl

kobe from his rookie year until he left was at odds with shaq, with brief periods of respite. and if you ask phil jackson (the one man who was able to make them bear each other if only for a brief period) its because kobe was always the outsider. phil writes about how when he took over when the team reviewed film there would be the team (with shaq) sitting there and then in the back would be kobe with his hoodie up not speaking a word. kobe just doesnt communicate with his team well on or off the court, this isnt a mystery or an opinion, kobe is one of the few star nba players who is a true introvert.

and you ask why i consider kobe an overconfident idiot in games? well maybe its the fact that hes awful in the clutch and cant play in actual offensive schemes, but i think more telling is the article you yourself linked. kobe talks about how when he plays he only sees the hoop, and he needs to be yelled at to notice anything else, what is that if not really really shitty game sense? and kobe does work harder than michael, i will never debate that, but i would argue that work is less fruitful. michael used to play 1v1 with scottie after practice for hours, it benefited both and built a connection that blossomed on the basketball court. kobes never had a scottie. i didnt say kobe didnt work as hard or had worse mechanics, i said that kobe didnt have michaels physical gifts (which he clearly doesnt), michael was an athletic freak on par (almost) with lebron and he had freakishly large hands, kobe doesnt have the physical gifts michael did.

kobe is a great defender. 1 on 1. the issue is that in the nba theres so much more than just making sure your guy doesnt score, and just as kobe talked about how he only sees the hoop and literally needs to be yelled at to see anything else, when kobes defending he only sees his man. its not his fault if someone else gets beat after all. kobes help defense has always sucked, and hes been a perennial defensive allstar because its a popularity contest.

kobe is the most overrated athlete of all time. i wish, i really do, that i could provide a comparison of him to another overrated player like pele or terry bradshaw, but kobe is literally on another level. he doesnt have fans, he has a cult, and that cult (much like kobe himself) suffers from serious tunnel vision where they continually say "oh kobe never gets beat for the score, hes so good on D" or "sure he didnt make it, but kobes the only player in the league that can even attempt shots like that" and its like GOD DAMN DON'T YOU SEE? the best player isnt the most skilled, its the one who gives his team the best chance to win and kobe didnt do that

gr8 post

contributed a lot, ur clearly a pro bballer can u maybe impart some wisdom on us?

this thread is exactly why kobe gets away with being such a bad teammate

since phil jax left kobe has ZERO accountability to anyone in the lakers organization, coaching him is impossible because he doesnt respect anyone

ever since kobe entered the league hes used the media to turn LA against his teammates, it was always others that got lit up in post game interviews (Shaq, Bynum, Gasol, Dwight), no one rips on their teammates more than kobe. when anybody else does it its giving up on their team, but when kobe does it its just his "intense competitive fire"

rofl

i know this attitude towards kobe just wouldnt exist if he didnt have the EASIEST first couple years in the league, he got to play in the triangle with a physical freak. shane battier said it best "shaq has strength like your dad had when you were a kid"

then he got two more championships with pau gasol and andrew bynum being coached under one of the greatest coaches of all time and playing in a league that was weaker than in the years around it and suddenly kobe is considered one of the top ten players of all time. ridiculous

what makes it all worse is that people like to defend kobe with michael jordan (people tend to try to defend EVERY douchebag in a competitive setting by comparing them to michael jordan)

michael jordan was not only one of the greatest teammates of all time, but he got away with being an aggressive dick because he knew how to use it. it was a motivating tool for him to build others up, not break them down and run them out of town. where kobe never hangs out with teammates, michael would always be there with them whether it was gambling (lol) or just shooting the shit.

where michael is a basketball genius, kobe plays like an overconfident idiot. where michael is an athletic freak, kobe is just not all that.

dwight didnt leave because he was soft, he left because he was forced to play in an offensive system that kobe had the pleasure of seeing as a suggestion. and that when the media started to gang up on him towards the end (while he was playing thru an injury...) kobe continued to add fuel to the fire instead of defending him, because kobe will NEVER defend anyone else.

o and kobes also a shit defender because he surprise surprise is incapable of playing help defense, i guess if someone else gets beat he just sees that as their fault

lol kobe isnt getting a sixth ring

a rough idea of when would be neat

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you can see his hand not move until after he toggles because thats krimz not flusha rofl

flusha hasnt been that skinny since he was 12

but the only way i see ldlc winning the bo3 is if they get overpass and CT start out of the random map selection (between inferno nuke and overpass) so im not that sympathetic to them, and i really dont consider them the better cs players if you look at who's better on which map and which maps were vetoed

fnatic are better on mirage/inferno/cache/nuke (maybe)
ldlc are better on cobble (why is this in the map pool in a major)/overpass/dust2

which of those maps strike you as less gimmicky?

to say that fnatic should be punished more harshly because their boost was more effective is dumb

the glitched texture violation, which is the infraction that dreamhack is citing for replaying the round, is present in both boosts

people are just angry because one boost ruins the map and one just gives happy enough time to reach friberg spot

you cant call the fnatic boost illegal without also calling that boost illegal, glitched textures are present in both

or if its the pixel walking that bothers you then there is the NiP spot on B used by LDLC that utilizes pixel walking

tbh if the map selection wasnt dumb af at dhw this probably never would have been an issue. making the 3rd map random of the three remaining is dumb.

they should each get one more veto to decide the 3rd, we probably wouldve been watching nuke instead of overpass if that was the case

dignitas is slightly uncomfortable on overpass/cobblestone, but they probably knew that ibp was bad on both so why would dig veto either? they probably vetoed dust2 (every NA teams dream map) and some other map that they wouldnt want to play ibp on, not waste one of their vetoes on a map that ibp likes less than they do.

what? they have 2 wins, theyre guaranteed to get out of groups

unless you meant they cant go out in groups anymore?