This shouldn’t even be controversial. I’ve been saying this for years that the numbers don’t support the rep. Tip to Brian
And let’s be clear: The numbers that doom Bryant’s campaign as the king of crunch time are not really statistics. They’re not formulas, or algorithms. They’re really just counting — both makes and misses for the player and the team.
If you’re asking me to pick one guy to make a shot with the game on the line, there’s nothing complex about peeking at the record to see how well he has done that job in the past. Every number in that chart is a real moment of NBA basketball, with ten players on the court, and Bryant in a Lakers uniform, rising, firing, and — most of the time — missing. These things really happened, and as much as you might want to ignore opinion, or theory, there’s no real reason to ignore 79 misses, broken plays, a shocking lack of passing, a coaching staff eager for more team play, and an elite team that gets below-par results with the game on the line.
As long as your mind is open to all that, it has to be closed to the idea that Kobe Bryant is the king of crunch time.
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