He is a professional American basketball player who plays shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. Bryant enjoyed a successful high school basketball career at Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, where he was recognized as the top high school basketball player in the country. He decided to declare his eligibility for the NBA Draft upon graduation, and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the thirteenth overall pick in the 1996, and was then traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned himself a reputation as a high-flyer and a fan favorite by winning the 1997 slam dunk contest. Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000-2002, and their loss in the 2004 NBA finals led to O'Neal's departure from the team, in the following the 2003-2004 season.
There is no doubt this is one of Dwight Howard’s strong points. He led the NBA in blocks in the 2008 and 2009 seasons (Harasymiw 20). He also won the defensive player of the year award in the 2009, 2010, and 2011 seasons (Latest Headlines-NBA news. This is something Shaquille O’Neal never accomplished (Latest Headlines-NBA news). Not to say Shaq wasn’t a good defensive player.
His electrifying senior season earned him accolades such as McDonald's All-American and North Carolina's Mr. Basketball to name a couple (JockBio). In the McDonald's All-American game, Paul was teammates with the teenage phenomenon LeBron James. Chris Paul showed the world what type of player he was going to be, collecting ten assists and playing to get his teammates in position to score (Wake Forest: Men's Basketball). His pass-first approach to the game was special in itself, but what separated him as a superstar was his ability to score, as well as see the floor as arguably the best passer on the floor at all times. CP3 is notorious for manufacturing baskets when there seems to be no holes in the defense.
It’s a pretty high bar that has been set, and if you ask me, LeBron is nowhere near it. Towering at 6’8 just two inches taller than Kobe, he was eight time NBA All-Star and was the first Cavalier in franchise history to win the NBA’s most valuable player award. Do you think the Black Mamba is concerned? Nope. The Black Mamba 6’6, a shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers since 1996, a span in which the team has won five NBA Championships.
Many believed that people graduating from high school were still kids and were too young to be thrown into such a “grown up” and high profile situation. Few believed he would succeed and felt players “should be required to grow and develop in college the years after they graduate high school to allow them to grow and develop both physically and mentally” (Hilton). This marks the first significant event in the transformation of Kobe Bryant’s public identity in a negative way, and the beginning of Bryant’s path to perseverance. Skip to four years later and to the first NBA championship for Bryant, who was now an all-star, and the Lakers alongside Shaquille O’Neal which silenced any doubt about Bryant’s maturity or work ethic due to his age, changing his public image to a superstar. He now had all the sponsors and fame chasing him along with all the money that comes with it.
He did not make his junior high basketball ball team, and just barely made the junior varsity team as a sophomore. Although, he couldn’t make varsity, he worked as hard as he could to make it the next year. He felt very achieved when he made the team is junior year and was a starter his senior year. Even though Bill was not
Spoiled: The Best Two Basketball Players of All Time The sport of basketball was created over a hundred years ago in the year 1891 by Dr. James Naismith at a YMCA where they used peach baskets and soccer balls. Over the past century, basketball has evolved into one of the most popular sports in the world and it has given us some of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen. We have seen plenty of great players over the years, like Jerry West, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Wilt Chamberlain, but in my opinion the two best basketball players ever to play the game are Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Watching them play basketball is like watching poetry in motion! I just can not get enough!
In basketball these numbers demonstrated some of the most suffocating defense the league had seen that season and also the three Hall of Famers, Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman, would actually go on to win All-Defensive First Team Honors, which would actually be the first time in NBA history where three players on a single team would win this award. To go along with the category of defense, the Bulls would also have an astonishing margin of victory during the regular-season, post season, and the two combined. The bulls had a marginal victory of about 15 PPG even though this wasn't the best in the regular-season, falling short to the '72 lakers which had a 15.9 PPG, the bulls stayed consistent through the playoffs were they maintained the 15 PPG margin. Even though they we're ranked number 2 in NBA history in both categories, regular-season and post season margin of victory, they were number 1 in the two of them combined being a more consistent team than that of teams like the '86 Celtics, '67 Sixers, '72 Lakers, '87 Lakers and the '64 Celtics whose rosters contained basketball patriarchs like Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Magic
(born January 17, 1982) nicknamed Flash or D-Wade, is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat. Awarded 2006 Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated, Wade has established himself as one of the most well-known and popular players in the league. He had the top selling jersey in the NBA for nearly two years, as he led the NBA in jersey sales from the 2005 NBA playoffs, until the mid-point of the 2006–07 season. [1] After entering the league as the fifth pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, Wade was named to the All-Rookie team and the All-Star team the following eight seasons. In his third season, Wade helped lead the Miami Heat to their first NBA Championship in franchise history.
LeBron James understands what it means to be a team player. For example his style of play and winning success is to involve his teammates and Kobe relies on his individual performance to pull his team to victory. The difference is noted and evident with their assist and field goals attempted statistics. Throughout LeBron’s career (10 years) he has accumulated a total of 5,302 assist which is roughly 6.9 assist per contest. Kobe is not known as the pass first player.