WHY KOBE IS THE BEST PLAYER ON THE LAKERS AND NOT SHAQ:
You forgot to list that you have him as your signature as reason number 1.
I'm not a fan of the lakers, shaq, or kobe. However, I do respect shaq becuase he plays hard. Kobe at times does play hard, but overall, i agree with what physco jackal said. Kobe during the games that ive seen (which have been a fair few over the years) doesn't quite seem to push himself.. he'd rather that a fadeaway drifting towrads the baseline than swinging it to the open man. Now at times (ie last season) he really went hard, and i respected him. But this season (untill recently...) he has gone back to the me first appraoch.
Kobe doesnt care about winning in my opinion. Look at after the lakers won their first title, did kobe come back with the teams best intentions at heart? Fuck no, he came back with the motivation of to show the world how much he had improved. He wanted to be the man, instead of shaq, and that caused problems.. why would ANYONE do that to a reigning mvp and on the defending world champions? the only explanation i can think is he was only thinking about kobe.
Also, when Malone was in the lineup, and payton actually had the ball in his hands, those great players fed off shaq. They made him better, and shaq made them better in return. Has kobe ever truely made shaq better? Apart from throwing an incredible pass occasionally (which he gets credit for.."whoa look at that sensation pass by KOBE BYRANT...").
And on top of that, despite the distractions he brought to the lakers (the rape thing, which may not be his fault, depends if he is found guilty or not) he wasnt 100%, and shaq said it might be better that he should ease into the season, get his feet under him first, which i felt was right. but kobe bites his fucking head off and causes another distraction, bringing up last season and a whole new chapter to the "shaq/kobe feud".
Does kobe work his guts out? Yes
Does Kobe care about winning? Up until a point... imo. You put tmac in kobes position and you watch this laker team steamroll, becuase tracy would play off those great teamates.
You may think this is hating but its not. I don't particularly like shaq, or the lakers. I respect any player who plays hard. Evidence of this is im a new york fan, but alonzo was one of my favourite players becuase of his intenisity.
One day, kobe will learn... but will it be too late? will he be in utah on a 7 year deal when he finally realises how much easier things were when he had shaq alongside him?