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RE: Defending Kobe Bryant's Honor
That's a good case for his greatness. I always hated Kobe, but loved when he was in the league. I loved his intensity and competitive fire. That being said, there are several players he should be behind in the GOAT discussion. Jordan, LBJ, Magic, Bird to name a few.
There's no way you can put Bird ahead of Kobe lol, what is that based on? As far as all of those other names there is a debate with each one of them. Statistics are statistics, but the confusion lies in putting certain values on certain stats over others. Lebron averages a few more assists and a few more rebounds but does that trump the 2 additional rings Kobe has? And don't even get me started on awards because awards as anyone should really know are imperfect. Pippen could have been the MVP of the 1998 finals, he had great all around numbers, but you know they were always gonna give it to Jordan. Steve Nash has 2 MVPs and at least 1 of them could have easily gone to Kobe. You really have to think sometimes, I think people over simplify stuff! It's funny though because people wanna put Lebron over Kobe because of all around stats, but they wont put Lebron over Jordan even though it's the exact same argument. People just don't like Kobe, plain and simple.
Bird had 3 rings, 3 MVPs and was also credited with some defenive honors. He didn't last nearly as long because of injuries. Bird had to battle tougher opponents to get his rings and was never not the best player on his team. Kobe had Shaq. I don't put a ton of weight on the "rings" argument and to be honest I think LBJ is better than Jordan was. People love to talk about Jordan's 6-0 finals record but he had his share of embarrassing early exits. He had awful playoff games too, the type of games that critics have crucified LeBron for. I'm old enough to have watched all of these guys. I'll be happy to admit Kobe is up there with all of these guys, but I do think he's behind them slightly. It's all opinions though :)