It’s been 3 years since Kobe Bryant retired in spectacular fashion from the NBA. He cemented his legacy with a 60-point game against the Utah Jazz on April 13th, 2016. Kobe is top 10 in everyone’s book, or that’s at least the general consensus, but is that ranking too low for the Black Mamba?
Kobe Bryant came into the league as an 18-year old fresh out of high school. He was selected with the 13th overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets in the
1996 NBA draft and was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers 2 weeks later (actually on draft night but that’s a very complicated story). Nobody that night, except maybe Lakers manager Jerry West, knew that Kobe would become one of the greatest to ever lace them up.
5 titles and 2 finals MVP’s
Kobe won 5 championships in his career, being finals MVP twice. Six less than Bill Russell; One less than Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; The same amount as Ervin ‘Magic’ Johnson and Tim Duncan; One more than former teammate Shaquille O’Neal; 2 more than LeBron James and Larry Bird; 3 more than Wilt Chamberlain. Those are the top 10 players (including Kobe) in NBA history on most people’s lists.
Bryant won 3 of them with Shaq, in a three-peat spanning from 2000-2002. Shaq won the 3 finals MVP’s in those series, which wasn’t really a knock on Bryant as he was 21-23 years old in that span, and O’Neal was in his prime. Shaq and Kobe, widely regarded as the best duo in league history, would go on to reach the NBA finals once more in 2004. They lost in 5 games to the Detroit Pistons and Shaq was traded later that summer, as Kobe felt there wasn’t any more room for the 2 to coexist.
Kobe would go on to win 2 more in his career: He demolished the Orlando Magic in 5 games in 2009 NBA finals, and repeated his trick the next year against the Boston Celtics, beating them in 7 games and getting revenge for the 2008 NBA finals, which they lost to them in 6 games. Bryant gained Finals MVP honors for both, as he proved that he didn’t need Shaq to carry him to a title. That narrative had been around for a while, definitely since Shaq won another NBA title in 2006 with Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat.
NBA MVP; 15x All-NBA; 18x All-Star
The Black Mamba made the All-NBA team 15 straight times out of his 20 seasons: 11 times he made the first team and made second and third team twice each. He’s tied for most All-NBA selections all time with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan. He is also second in All-Star selections, with 18, one less than Abdul-Jabbar. Kobe is also the youngest All-Star starter in history, being 19 days and 170 days old, being selected by the fans to start despite not being a starter for the Lakers that season.
On the flipside, Kobe only won one MVP. A lot of people say that he was robbed of a few of them. He won the award in 07-08 and was in the top 5 in MVP-voting every year but one from 2002 until 2013. The argument of him being robbed holds some substance. Steve Nash won the MVP in the 05-06 season, averaging 18.8 points and 10.5 assists. Kobe on the other hand averaged 35.4 points and 4.5 assists, getting his team to the playoffs. Nash may have had the league’s best record, but the Lakers starting lineup consisted of Smush Parker, Chris Mihm, Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown. No one on that team averaged more than 15 points a game.
Kobe did more of the same the next year, as he averaged 31.6 points and 5.4 assists, once again getting his team to the playoffs. Not a lot of changes were made, rookie Andrew Bynum became the starting center when Kwame Brown was traded and Luke Walton started instead of Chris Mihm. This time he got beat out by Dirk Nowitzki, who averaged 24.6 points and 9 rebounds, as the Dallas Mavericks held the best record in the league.
One of the best scorers the game has seen
Say what you want about Kobe, you have to admit that he’s one of, if not the best scorer ever. He scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, good for second most in a single game in NBA history, only trailing the 100 points put up by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962. He led the league in scoring twice and averaged 25 points for his career. Bryant is also 3rd in all-time points scored
for his career, behind Kareem and former teammate Karl Malone.
Kobe has 135 games with 40+ points; 26 of those were 50+; 6 were 60+ and of course one was 80+. Those are beyond legendary stats. If you take Kobe’s prime (let’s say his prime lasts from his first final appearance in the 99-00 season until his Achilles injury in the 12-13 season) he averaged nearly 28 points per game on 46% shooting. In 3 of those seasons, he averaged more than 30 points per game, with his highest being 35.4 points per game in the 05-06 season.
Defensive menace
Bryant wasn’t just dominant on one end of the court. He was selected to NBA All-Defensive team 12 times, 9 times as a part of the first team. Only Tim Duncan has more All-Defense selections and no one has more first team selections. Kobe’s defense has been underrated a lot in recent times, as the NBA’s scoring averages have risen in recent times and defense has been neglected.
So why is Kobe Bryant still disrespected?
Well, there are a few explanations. The first knock on Bryant is that he only has one MVP. If we grab our top-10 list again, Shaq is the only other one to “only” have one MVP. A point could be made that the 2 cancelled each other out for the award by playing together, just like Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant kind of cancel each other out now. Add to that what I previously mentioned, that he had seasons that were MVP-worthy but didn’t get it, and you get the picture.
The second argument to be made against Kobe is the many missed shots. Kobe is the all-time leader in missed field goals and he led the league in missed field goals 6 times. Granted, that isn’t a great stat. But there are 2 sides to the story: Kobe took the most shots in the league for 6 seasons as well. He’s also 3rd all-time in field goals attempted, behind the same 2 players he trails on the scoring list, Abdul-Jabbar and Malone, who are both big men as opposed to Kobe, who’s a guard.
Next up: “He wasn’t even the best player on his team for 3 of his titles”. Well, that’s kind of true, but not entirely. Yes, Shaq won Finals MVP 3 times to Kobe’s 0 when they won together, but was that because he was their best player necessarily? In the first year of their three-peat, a 27-year old O’Neal was clearly superior to a 21-year old Bryant. But by next year, Kobe and Shaq averaged almost identical scoring numbers. The two went from being Batman and Robin to a legitimate duo, who were both worth as much as the other. Shaq was just able to feast in the Finals, as no team was able to handle his dominant force, but Kobe also allowed him to.
And last but definitely not least: The Achilles injury. Kobe was without a doubt still seen as one of the best players in the game before wheeling his team to the playoffs in 2013. He tore his Achilles just before those playoffs and was never the same. Those last years, where we saw a Kobe on the bench, with packs of ice and bandages around his knees and shoulders, are still fresh in people’s memories. That is not the Kobe we should remember, as he had to battle the undefeated father time while coming back from an injury that has never been kind to anyone.
Instead, we should remember the Mamba. Kobe Bryant has so many records, was such a force on both sides of the court, is the ultimate killer, and yet, he is so disrespected. To me, Kobe’s top 3 no doubt, as he’s the most complete player, with no weaknesses whatsoever, that I’ve ever seen pick up a basketball.
All stats courtesy of basketball-reference.com
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