Kobe Bryant: Best Player of the Last Thirty Years (At Least)
It is the shortness of memory, as well as a certain hubris of each age, that leads us to assume that the best player of the last three or so generations must be the G(reatest) O(f) A(ll) T(ime). To settle that discussion, many players prior to Michael Jordan must be considered.
However, if we confine ourselves to the three players from comparatively recent memory, each dominating an era, though in different ways, namely Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, the choice is clear: Kobe Bryant.
As for LeBron James, he has sought out winners more so than making them, yet has fewer championship rings than Jordan or Bryant. As such, only if LeBron finds leadership qualities in himself, along the lines of an aging Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, let us say, to get another ring or two as his team's elder statesman, is he even in the discussion.
If, then, we are looking more or less at the post-Dream Team era, this leaves two and only two as potentially the greatest: Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
Before we look at Kobe Bryant's career, and the common objections to his GOAT resume, let us first look into the era of Michael Jordan, and the reasons that he is synonymous with his sport, even beyond his accomplishments.
In the 1980's, the controversial but undeniably business-savvy David Stern wanted to increase the profitability of the NBA, which had struggled badly as a business in the seventies. It also must be noted that the ABA, though it folded, had changed public perception of isolation play and recognition of individuals, such as Julius Erving, in a team sport: Prior to the ABA's streetball style, it was considered in poor taste for an individual, such as George Mikan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to dominate a team sport like basketball, so much so that all four men had rules changed to lessen their dominance, either at the NCAA level, in the pros, or both.
By Michael Jordan's era, however, the precedent of Julius Erving, a high-flying isolation specialist, had changed public perception of one-on-one play in basketball, and what is more, the social upheaval of the sixties and seventies, followed by the neo-capitalism of the eighties, had changed the culture from "we" to "me".
Thus, David Stern, and Nike with him, saw in Michael Jordan's storms of scoring, unprecedented for a guard, an opportunity to sell name brands through a single person, unthinkable just fifteen or so years prior.
This had two substantial results: (1) No matter how many shots Michael Jordan, the all-time leader in usage percentage, took, it would offend sponsors to call into question whether or not he should pass more, (2) The flagrant foul rule seemed conveniently timed to prevent, let us say, the New York Knicks of that era, and other teams planning to replicate Detroit's notorious "Jordan Rules", from grounding Air Jordan.
We can also point to the 1990's as the decade in which palming the ball became generally acceptable for crossovers, in which pushing off the defender in plain sight became commonplace, and in which traveling calls became a bit more lenient, all of which made Jordan's explosive offense that much more potent.
Prior to this, the Detroit Pistons had been highly successful in limiting Michael Jordan's team accomplishments:
That brings me directly to the first piece of evidence in favor of Kobe Bryant, even over Michael Jordan. Jordan did no weight training until after being manhandled by the Pistons, whereas Kobe Bryant, knowing that coming directly from high school would require beefing up, was legendary for his weight training from the very start, resulting in him having, perhaps, an extra fifteen pounds of muscle over Jordan. In other words, "Kobe Rules" would not have worked.
Then there is the fact that Kobe Bryant's clutch threes compilation rivals that of, for instance, Reggie Miller, a statement that cannot be made of Jordan.
However, there are, on the face of it, certain reasons Jordan might seem clearly superior to Kobe Bryant, starting with raw statistics. How do we account for Jordan having more points per game, and even a fraction more of an assist per game? The answer: The eras in which they played.
Look at the peak years of Jordan and Kobe as scorers, namely Jordan's 1986-87 season and Kobe's 2005-06 season. In '87, the NBA averaged 109.9 points per game, while in '06, it averaged just 97 points per game. This alone negates any case that Jordan was a more innately prolific or efficient (for his era) scorer than Kobe.
The next objection, however, is raised more often, and was likely the one that Kobe Bryant hated the most: The idea that his first three NBA championships were overwhelmingly attributable to the presence of Shaquille O'Neal.
The problems with this idea are many, starting with Shaq's injuries and lack of conditioning, resulting in at least two of those rings being with Kobe as the hero, Shaq as the sidekick, but the greatest problem with this hypothesis runs even deeper.
What, other than an iron work ethic, did Kobe Bryant have that Shaquille O'Neal, by the time of the Lakers '00-'02 three-peat, utterly lacked? In a word, it was speed, and an offense that waited for Shaq to lumber into the low post not only limited Kobe's individual statistics, but likely cost the team rings in the long term.
The fact that the Lakers fell apart about the time Shaq left is attributable to a myriad of factors, such as feuding in the front office, the absurd notion of acquiring overpriced, over-the-hill talent such as Karl Malone, and the morale-breaker of Phil Jackson deciding to sell a book at his team's expense, trashing his best players.
Then, there was fall of the Lakers, yet again, after their 2010 championship, but before we get to that, let us consider just how little help Kobe Bryant really had in getting his post-Shaq rings.
His best teammate, in 2009, by far, was Pau Gasol. Pau Gasol would most likely not be in the Hall of Fame but for the lucky break of playing alongside Kobe Bryant, and no sane person would compare him, as a sidekick, to Scottie Pippen. A case could be made, therefore, that Kobe Bryant had less help in 2009 than Michael Jordan did in the late 1980's, and while Kobe won a ring, Jordan got sent home three years in a row by Detroit.
What about the post-2010 Lakers collapse? The causes were typical of how the Lakers organization self-destructs: Phil Jackson blaming Kobe Bryant, once again unfairly, and the Lakers seeking washed up players, such as Steve Nash, forcing Kobe Bryant to work through injuries as, yet again, a one-man show on what was supposed to be a team.
Why, then, is Kobe Bryant treated so unfairly by the press, even to this day? When Michael Jordan took the most shots, this was seen as leadership, but when Kobe did it, the press called him selfish. Jordan's brusque demeanor was generally seen as a sign of a great competitor, while Kobe was accused of just being a mean and nasty guy.
The reason is simple, and it is not Michael Jordan's fault: Money. Michael Jordan lucked into saturating the sports sponsorship market, leaving little room for Kobe. The press, not fearful of offending sponsors with Kobe as with Jordan, did what it usually does: Try to tear down the best and brightest, because such negative faux-journalism, sadly, sells.
If the shoes were Air Kobe's, and Kobe Bryant had starred in something like Space Jam, we would all rightly see Kobe Bryant as synonymous with modern basketball, before and after his untimely departure. As for LeBron James, he kissed up to the media long enough to win them over, which was not a priority of Kobe Bryant, and is unrelated to basketball achievements.
