The Case Against Kobe Bryant

So the other day, Paul Pierce revealed his all time top five NBA players, and it's making headlines because he left LeBron off the list.  My biggest gripe is he had Kobe in the top five.  That's wrong, and I'll tell you why.

Paul's list, for the record:

Jordan
Kareem
Russell
Magic
Kobe

My top ten, for the record:

Michael Jordan
Magic Johnson 
Larry Bird
Bill Russell
LeBron James
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Tim Duncan
Shaquille O'Neal

You can scoff at my placement of any given player, I won't argue if you flip guys a few spots here or there.  But those are the best players in the history of the NBA.  All of these guys were more dominant than Kobe Bryant, and it isn't even close.  Oscar Robertson revolutionized the PG position and averaged a triple double when that was essentially impossible to do (and yes, he has a ring).  Probably the best 'all around' guard in the history of basketball.  LeBron, Shaq, Chamberlain and Kareem were centerpieces of title teams for two different franchises.  Larry Bird is possibly the league's greatest shooter as well as its greatest passer, and is right up there with Jordan in terms of best clutch player ever.  Duncan had multiple iterations of championship success on teams that were built around him, as opposed to Kobe, who was handed three rings by Shaq early in his career.          

Let's dive into that a little.  Laker fans have this revisionist fantasy that it was always Kobe's team because the Lakers shipped out Shaq.  The Lakers moved on from Shaq because if the two star players couldn't coexist, you're better off with the younger, healthier player.  Of course under Kobe's leadership, the Lakers immediately went from NBA Finalist to out of the playoffs.  Don't worry though, he made up for it the next year by exiting in the first round after quitting on his team in game 7 vs. Phoenix, where he scored 1 point on 3 FGA in the second half.  What a beast.  Meanwhile that same season, Shaq was collecting his fourth ring, with another franchise in another conference (with arguably a better superstar in Wade).  But the 3-peat squad was Kobe's team?  Nets coach (and former Laker) Byron Scott said in 2002, 'What can I say, just too much Shaq.'  But don't take his word for it, take everyone else's-- as Shaq was voted Finals MVP every year of the 3-peat.

Kobe wasn't simply along for the ride, he was a contributor.  But if you replace him with Paul Pierce or T-Mac, or if you go back in time and put LeBron on that team does the outcome change?  Flip it around and take Shaq off of that Laker team.  Young Kobe and a bunch of role players.  How far does that team get?  I've already pointed out what a mid-peak Kobe and a bunch of role players looks like, and it isn't pretty.  So wipe those rings off of his resume for this argument.

You can make the strong argument that if it weren't for Garnett's injury in 2009 (which kept the Celtics out of the Finals) and Perkins injury in game 6 of the 2010 Finals (Celts got beat up inside as Kobe shot 6-24 from the field and shot a million FTs in game 7), he wouldn't have any rings without Shaq.  But his team won, so you have to hand it to him (like Shaq did).  Of course you'll have to remind Laker fans that Pau Gasol, Metta World Peace and Lamar Odom were also on that team, but hey.  The good news is Kobe followed up that season with a 2nd round sweep loss to the Mavs, the deciding game being a 122-86 massacre.  This is reminiscent of the Lakers 2008 Finals loss to the Celtics, where two games after blowing a 24 point lead and losing at home to the Celtics, Kobe and the Lake Show mailed in a humiliating 39 point loss to the Celtics in a decisive game 6.  When the chips are down, nobody hung it up quite like Kobe.

Now there are other anecdotes, such as deliberately elbowing opponents in the face multiple times when he was mad at them, and not understanding why he was called for a foul; inventing that stupid jaw-jutting pose later in his career; raping that chick and then saying to the press that he should've paid her to keep quiet like Shaq does (Bravo, Kobe.  Committing rape and breaking the bro code in one fell swoop is a hell of a feat).  But those are just reasons not to like him less than they are reasons to keep him out of the top five.

I hate the Lakers and it still hurts my ears every time I hear Magic call Kobe 'The Greatest Laker ever.'  Kobe has a hard time cracking a top five of the Lakers in my book.  

Magic
Kareem
Shaq
Jerry West (his numbers are better than Kobe's across the board, look it up)
Elgin Baylor (truly ahead of his time, he could play in the league today)

Chamberlain is in the conversation-- though like Shaq, half of his career was spent elsewhere, when he was there, he was the focal point of that team.  Unfortunately for West and Baylor, they played in the time of Russell, otherwise who knows how many rings they would've had?  (West also was voted Finals MVP in a losing effort to the Celtics in '69, and eventually won a ring after Russell retired.)  Hell, George Mikan is probably a greater Laker than Kobe (and no, I'm not saying he was a better player; 'greatest Laker' is a different animal).  But find a Laker fan who has heard of George Mikan and I'll give you a cookie.   

As far as where I'd actually rank Kobe...looking at all this evidence, it's tough.  Once you get out of the top ten, it's a crap shoot.  Dr. J (shoutout to UMass!) was a champion and an MVP in two different professional basketball leagues.  Karl Malone (second most points in NBA history) and Kevin Garnett (League MVP in the Western Conference, dragging a mediocre team to the conference finals in 2004; Defensive Player of the Year, NBA Champion in the Eastern Conference in 2008-- and I bring up the conference thing because it matters, it's more than two different franchises, it's traditionally two different styles of team building and play) are both in the conversation (with Duncan and McHale) as the best ever at the PF position.  Was Kobe ever in the conversation for best ever at his position?  Maybe it's unfair because Jordan is ahead of him, but these things matter when you're debating top five all time players, literally the best of the best.  It should also be noted that KG averaged 24.2 points, a league-high 13.9 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.5 steals and 2.2 blocks per game in that MVP campaign.  Talk about carrying the load for your team.  

I could go on with players who were more versatile than Kobe (Pippen, Havlicek, Pierce himself) and still had championship careers while managing to not make it all about them, but at that point you're really deconstructing what 'all time great' means, and a lot of that is subjective.  With that in mind, I honestly can't give you my final ranking here, beyond saying Kobe definitively is not a top ten player in my book, let alone top five.  But top 20 all time isn't too shabby, it's not like I'm saying he couldn't play.  But I do believe he's massively overrated because he played in LA and because he rode Shaq's coattails to rings he never would've gotten without him.  

To put him ahead of LeBron is laughable, and I can't stand LeBron.  As I said earlier, you could put any iteration of LeBron on that Lakers 3-peat team and achieve the same result.  Now put Kobe on the Cavs teams that LeBron brought to the Finals for years.  Kobe checks out and that team wins 25 games.         

Kobe was flashier than his contemporaries.  He built a career doing a poor man's Jordan impression.  His playing style, some of the mannerisms.  But he never really understood Jordan.  Jordan would score as many points as it took to win the game; Kobe would score as many points as it took to be compared to Jordan.  Kobe wanted everyone to tell him he was the best.  Jordan didn't want anyone to be able to say they were better.  That's the difference between the two, and that's the difference between a true competitor, elite among the elite, and an extremely talented player who excelled when it was convenient.  Kobe's final game encapsulates his career perfectly.  60 points on 50 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) shots in a game where his team had already been eliminated from postseason contention.  Style over substance, "Mamba mentality" to the end.

One last unfortunate side-effect of his tragic death is that nobody other than anonymous jerks on the internet will ever have the balls to reexamine the legacy of perhaps the most overrated player in the history of the NBA.  You can accuse me of being biased because Kobe beat the Celtics in the Finals, but the Celtics also beat Kobe in the Finals.  LeBron has eliminated the Celtics multiple times (on multiple teams) and I still rank him ahead of Kobe.  This is intended as food for thought rather than a hit piece (though admittedly it reads like a hit piece occasionally), but again it's filled with facts that are overlooked regarding the ranking of the all time NBA elite, so I thought it was worth talking about.  I'm sure some people will disagree, though I don't expect to be arguing this heavily because I've already presented my case fairly thoroughly.