MVPs: 1. Finals MVPs: 2. All-NBA 1st Team: 11. 2nd Team: 2. 3rd Team: 1. All Star: 18. MVP: 4.
Defensive POY: 0. All-Defense 1st Team: 9. 2nd Team: 3.
Points Champ: 2.
Career Averages: 25 PPG/ 5 RPG/ 5 APG/ 1.4 SPG/ .5 BPG/ .482 eFG%/ .837 FT%.
Best Season: 35/ 5/ 4/ 1.8/ .4/ .491/ .850 (2005-06).
Postseason Averages: 26 PPG/ 5 RPG/ 5 APG/ 1.4 SPG/ .7 BPG/ .480 eFG%/ .816 FT%.
Best Postseason: 30/ 5/ 5/ 1.7/ .9/ .492/ .883 (2009).
Championships: 5 (#1 player on 2, #2 player on 3). Runner-ups: 2 (#1 player on both).
Why he's below Oscar Robertson: Kobe was a master of self-promotion. He publicly compared himself to Jordan so much that we all started to. He decided his legacy was about championships, and we all went along. But look more closely, and there's not a single thing Kobe did better than Jordan. When he passed Shaq as the Lakers' best player in the 02-03 season, they missed the Finals, then got upset by the Pistons in 2004 (with Kobe posting just a 23-3-4), then they missed the playoffs entirely when Shaq left before the next season. He had truly terrible shooting performances in the closeout game 6 of the 2008 Finals and game 7 of the 2010 Finals. There was no way I could put him above Shaq, and after a close comparison, I went with West and Robertson as the two better guards.
Why he's above the rest: Okay, so what if he's not as good as Jordan and not as clutch in the postseason as his reputation suggests? He's still great. He finished his career with 25 PPG in the regular season and 26 PPG in the postseason despite barely playing as a teenager and finishing his career with a couple seasons diminished by injury. Between the ages of 20 and 34, his scoring average jumps to 27 PPG, matching LeBron's and West's numbers in that age span. He was a top-2 player on 7 Finals teams, in my opinion, which is top-10 all time. Top-10 scorer and top-10 winner earns Kobe a high ranking even if he had more of Elgin Baylor in him than Michael Jordan.
Highlights:
Game Video:
Comments