In 2012, Kobe needed 38 points during the season finale to win the scoring title. He chose to sit out the game instead to rest up for the playoffs. Kevin Durant won the title with an avg of 28.06. Kobe came in 2nd with a 27.86 avg
by glassesref90
@National Basketball Association
25 Comments
2012 Kobe was a 5x Champ lol. He didn’t give AF about regular season awards.
Dude was a winner. Period.
He already had multiple scoring titles at that point, championship meant more to him.
Pretty sure the rest of the starters sat that game as well so it would’ve been weird if he was the only starter playing chasing a scoring title lol.
Totally remember this. Before it was announced that Kobe would sit out, all of the Kobe haters were all “teehee, no way in hell selfish Kobe doesn’t score 40 in the 1st half”….and when they announced that he was going to miss the game, they switched it up to “smh, Kobe has no heart”.
Kawhi isn’t the only player who load manages?
Sitting 8 of the last 10 games gave him the rest he needed to get crushed by OKC in round 2.
he probably could have had 100 if he didn’t sit against the Mavs and just kept chucking
Not mamba mentality
And the OKC youngboys beat LA 4-1 in the semis, proving rest is for the weak
Opposite of David Robinson when he needed 33 pts to capture the scoring title over Shaq last game in 1994 so he dropped 71 pts.
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mickey mouse scoring title for kd
who gives a shit about the scoring title?
Kobe learned some lessons along the way.
I mean unless he was averaging 38 it seems pretty fair to say KD won it then…
That’d be good for 8th this past year.
Sounds like Bron from 2021 I think when Embiid won it? But only he took the game off to rest in general because they missed the playoffs and he said it was wack to win the title and not even be in the postseason
given that he was only a season away from a catastrophic achilles tear, probably good choice
So what you are saying is Durant won the scoring title and went to the Finals in 2012.
Really worked out well for that piece of shit, didn’t it?
Ok and
Will surely be downvoted but this is the opposite of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If Kobe would have played that game and scored 40+ points to secure the scoring title, we’d be getting “Mamba Mentality” comments for days. He sat out and he is still being praised for focusing on the championship.
Even his scoring titles are fake smh.
No one really cares about scoring titles.
MJ’s are mentioned only contextually, as he proved that his squad’s Jordan-centric triangle offense helped them gain their 6 titles.
But before the rings, he was considered to be a “ball hog” and “a scorer who could never win”.
Usually, being a scoring champ does not correlate to great team success– especially if that player is not very efficient.
Hence, many great players, including Kobe and Bron, often opted to not manipulate the record books when they could have easily done so. That includes scoring titles, 40-point games, 50-point games, triple doubles, and so on.
Huh? Is this supposed to be interesting?
But I thought Kobe didn’t rest games because he thought there could be a young fan who came to see him?