Which of these recent players will ultimately rank above Kobe?

[iggymcfrack]

Basketball is a team game

Notice no one talking about Tmac and Nique and Ai and Barkley - all of whom probably would be one of the best players of any era - what do they have in common
-

Yep no rings - no rings no chance of passing Kobe in a team sport -

No one cares about individual play in a team sport - you guys don’t get the point of basketball-

Clue - it’s not to get buckets, or dibble fancy or mean mug or get contracts -

It’s to win championships-

Jordan without chips ain’t the goat -

T-Mac, AI, Dominique, and Barkley? That they were never the best player in the league? Oh wait that’s Kobe too. That they didn’t play defense? Oh ****, still Kobe. Is it that they don’t rank in the top 100 in career RAPM? Wait ****, that’s ANOTHER thing they have in common with Kobe! Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons none of these players are top 20 guys all-time.

I don’t care about the rings thing so much though. Chris Paul, John Stockton, and Karl Malone all would be in my top 20 all-time even without rings.

Post a list with anyone above Kobe with NO rings?

Post a list with anyone above Kobe with 1 ring ?

No rings: Chris Paul, John Stockton, Karl Malone

1 ring: Kevin Garnett, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dirk Nowitzki, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West

Seems weird to overweight the rings with Kobe. If you’re going on total rings, Sam Jones has 10 and Scottie Pippen has 6 and no one’s banging the drum for them. If you’re going for rings as the best player, Frazier also has 2. Dr. J has 2. Billups was one game away from having 2. Like it’s hard to find a criterion where Kobe’s really a standout player by rings.

[Franco]

They will not kill him in the poll. For one,Tim duncan consistently had a better team but never won back to back.

I never understand this obsession with back-to-backs. What difference does it make if you win 3 in 5 years (2003, 2005, 2007) as opposed to... 3 in 5 years (2000, 2001, 2002 from 2000 to 2005)?

Also "consistently" better teams is very debatable.

Duncan was steady but at no time can you say he was tye best player in the leaque.

I want to see the arguments for someone else being the best player in 2003.

If anything, Kobe is much more infamous for never being even close to the clear-cut best player in the NBA. For a lot of people he never was.

As great as Curry has been,he has always been a sum of all parts!

What the **** does this even mean?

An argument can be made that curry dominated in Lebron’s era and should be above lebron. Everyone ate on Lebron’s watch and he started this whole super team thread that damaged the nba brand .

An argument can be made that everyone won in LeBron's era because Curry won 4 titles... as opposed to Kobe's era where Duncan won 5. Huh.

I see how you lebron fans like to minimize Kobe’s career whenever real players that played the game consistently tell you guys Lebron was never on Kobe’s level..

The same kinds of players that put out gems like "Jokic isn't on the level of Vlade Divac". This is pure appeal to authority nonsense, and besides, there's also a lot of players that have LeBron over Kobe too.

imagine getting owned by michael beasly in practice.you think beasly would've beaten Jordan and kobe in a pick up game ?

Completely irrelevant stuff.

Like, comically irrelevant. What happens in practices doesn't mean anything for someone's NBA career.

The miami team underachieved by winning just 2 rings with 4 all of fame players on the team and in their prime.

"People try everything to downplay Kobe's career!" he says, as he calls 37 year old Ray Allen a "prime Hall of Famer".

I never get this argument from people, specifically in the Kobe/LeBron argument. If you want to use the "underachieving" argument bull, then how about basically every single person on earth saying Kobe and Shaq underachieved and should've won more together? How about Kobe playing like **** in 2004 against the Pistons?

Lebron wanted no part of Kevin durant in the 2 finals they faced each other.

LeBron dropped 51 on KD's head in one of those Finals. It's very arguable he outplayed him in both series.

Durant looked him dead in the eye and dropped multiple 3's on him when it was clear,lebron didn't want to guard durant.

The best players on teams hardly ever cover each other. You should know this, being the Kobe fan and all. Hell, if you want to talk Durant, Kobe barely ever guarded KD when the dude made the playoffs for the first damn time.

Watch on YouTube

Heck,lebron had him and missed the playoffs.

Yawn.

Kobe had the 2-time MVP in Nash and 3-time DPOY in Dwight and won as many playoffs games as LeBron did with Westbrook. I can say stupid stuff too, see?

[jbsays]

Ranking over him.... none of them yet.

Pick to build a team over him from that list.... that's a harder topic to discuss. While Jokic and Giannis haven't had the career Kobe had there is still time for them to build on their legacy. Knowing what we know (i.e. Kawhi's and Embiid's injury history, KD and KG never winning as the #1 guy, and Luka and SGA still being so young) it gets a lot harder for me. Right now Jokic and Giannis are maybe the only ones I'd consider. Kobe was second to Shaq for the 3 peat, but he proved he could win back to back as the best guy on the team. Jokic and Giannis haven't proven that yet.

[DCasey91]

1. Jokic (marginal impact defender but probably offensive GOAT)
2. Giannis (poor distance shooter)
3. Luka (no defensive impact)
4. KG (not an elite scorer)
5. KD (weak leader; never won a title as the real #1 option)
6. Dirk (doesn't run the offense, no defensive impact)
7. Kobe (career basically over at age 34)
8. Kawhi (frequently injured)
9. SGA (unproven in playoffs)
10. Embiid (durability especially long-term; playoff choker?)

Dirk doesn’t run the offence? Smoking something

Dirk is mad underrated now. I’m just going to say it it’s definitely double standard agenda going on

Of course he didn't. The offense ran through Dirk but Dirk did not run the offense. Someone else brought the ball up, someone else typically initiated the half-court offense and someone else made a pass to Dirk in his chosen set-up spots. That's why Dirk averaged the least assists of any player on this list and had the largest percentage of his own FGs assisted. If the percentage of the time each player had the ball was recorded, Dirk would undoubtedly rank 10th on this list in that measure by a clear margin.

And I agree that Dirk is generally underrated but I ranked him above Kobe here which very few others in this thread did. Which among the players I ranked ahead of Dirk would you take him over?

In general terms with Miller and Curry to an extent pretty much the whole system revolves around them. I don’t class Curry as an ATG playmaker (not an elite passer by any means for his size) and neither of those two but what they made up for is all time shooting, gravity and space to lead into very very easy buckets by sheer overlap.

I happily take Dirk today over Giannis, Garnett and KD.

Why? Monopoly on the ball

All 3 personally leave me short if they were the out and out number one option. All had more assists but weren’t as effective to me as the direct source of offence through and through.

With Garnett/Giannis you can bludgeon ugly style to a win with primary being defensive orientated but Giannis has the volume.

With KD I do think he’s left something wanting. Not to say he isn’t unbelievable but his protection of the ball and pure volume should be better but isn’t.

I can guarantee Dirk would have lower time share on the ball (low usage superstar for a helio) and have better decision making processes within the system to run under. From memory he had serious elite returns on his passes because of how open the court was.

Embiid, no. Bad durability, never will I buy into his offence (I reckon his post halftime splits in the po’s are terrible along with neg turnover) and from markers it does tell that his defence is more impactful in the playoffs which makes sense

SGA no, zero evidence in the playoffs yet

Kawhi? Close but I do think you need capable guard play table setter and that’s few and far between today considering the moulding of guards as more of a scoring option.

[One_and_Done]

Regardless of how important rings are to players, they still have nothing to do with how good you are. If a player is stuck on a bad team he likely can't win a ring, he's not less talented because his organisation sucks.

[FrobeBryant]

Regardless of how important rings are to players, they still have nothing to do with how good you are. If a player is stuck on a bad team he likely can't win a ring, he's not less talented because his organisation sucks.

Funny you say that when in previous posts you've held Kobe accountable for not carrying God awful teams to contention during his down years.

[Special_Puppy]

If you think Kobe is a top 8 player of all time then none of these people

[Edrees]

I think there should be a cap on how many Kobe threads one user can create.

A decade and a half later, the guy's still butthurt from all the times Kobe beat his team. The man probably needs a lifetime of threads to get over the pain. I say let him have his solace.

[One_and_Done]

Regardless of how important rings are to players, they still have nothing to do with how good you are. If a player is stuck on a bad team he likely can't win a ring, he's not less talented because his organisation sucks.

Funny you say that when in previous posts you've held Kobe accountable for not carrying God awful teams to contention during his down years.

I said they likely won't win a title without a good team, not that the star shouldn't be able to get them to play above 500 ball. Kobe's record from 99-07 in games without Shaq is a pitiful 135-137.

[reddyplayerone]

I think there should be a cap on how many Kobe threads one user can create.

I definitely think there's one user here who should be banned from making this same exact thread over and over and over and over again yeah

[reddyplayerone]

Also a big fat LOL in anyone's face who wants to "rank" Karl Malone's pathetic pedo ass

[One_and_Done]

Also a big fat LOL in anyone's face who wants to "rank" Karl Malone's pathetic pedo ass

We can start a different thread on it, but I have no idea what his personal life has to do with his impact on a basketball court.

[reddyplayerone]

Also a big fat LOL in anyone's face who wants to "rank" Karl Malone's pathetic pedo ass

We can start a different thread on it, but I have no idea what his personal life has to do with his impact on a basketball court.

Garbage people who harm children should not be celebrated by anyone with an ounce of decency

And we all already know why you don't get it so this was just a dumb thing to ask

[One_and_Done]

Also a big fat LOL in anyone's face who wants to "rank" Karl Malone's pathetic pedo ass

We can start a different thread on it, but I have no idea what his personal life has to do with his impact on a basketball court.

Garbage people who harm children should not be celebrated by anyone with an ounce of decency

And we all already know why you don't get it so this was just a dumb thing to ask

I think we can all agree Malone is a pretty horrible person. It has nothing to do with how good he was at basketball though.

[dhsilv2]

If you think Kobe is a top 8 player of all time then none of these people

Why?

[reddyplayerone]

We can start a different thread on it, but I have no idea what his personal life has to do with his impact on a basketball court.

Garbage people who harm children should not be celebrated by anyone with an ounce of decency

And we all already know why you don't get it so this was just a dumb thing to ask

I think we can all agree Malone is a pretty horrible person. It has nothing to do with how good he was at basketball though.

It makes how good he was at basketball entirely irrelevant to anyone with a conscience, and frankly the sooner sports fans understand they don't have to celebrate men who do monstrous things to women and children the better a lot of things will be.

And yes, this absolutely applies to someone like Kobe too! We do not need multiple threads about Kobe **** Bryant all the time!

I guess I won't be holding my breath for that though.

[One_and_Done]

If we can discuss the generalship of Ghengis Khan I think we can discuss these guys bro.

[CobraCommander]

T-Mac, AI, Dominique, and Barkley? That they were never the best player in the league? Oh wait that’s Kobe too. That they didn’t play defense? Oh ****, still Kobe. Is it that they don’t rank in the top 100 in career RAPM? Wait ****, that’s ANOTHER thing they have in common with Kobe! Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons none of these players are top 20 guys all-time.

I don’t care about the rings thing so much though. Chris Paul, John Stockton, and Karl Malone all would be in my top 20 all-time even without rings.

Post a list with anyone above Kobe with NO rings?

Post a list with anyone above Kobe with 1 ring ?

No rings: Chris Paul, John Stockton, Karl Malone

1 ring: Kevin Garnett, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dirk Nowitzki, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West

Seems weird to overweight the rings with Kobe. If you’re going on total rings, Sam Jones has 10 and Scottie Pippen has 6 and no one’s banging the drum for them. If you’re going for rings as the best player, Frazier also has 2. Dr. J has 2. Billups was one game away from having 2. Like it’s hard to find a criterion where Kobe’s really a standout player by rings.

The no ring guys not better the Kobe-

Man I’m not sure on any of the one ring guys- they in the conversation but I don’t think they are on many list ahead of Kobe

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33297498/the-nba-75th-anniversary-team-ranked-where-76-basketball-legends-check-our-list

Only Oscar ahead of Kobe by 1 here....

[jokeboy86]

I said only Jokic and he might do it this year with another MVP and a repeat title. 3 MVPs in 4 years and back-to-back titles even in a shorter career than Kobe’s is hard to ignore and I’m one of those people that has the MVP in 06’ really being for Kobe.

Scott Hastings(who obviously is bias though) had the perfect statement when he said Jokic is like if Magic and Bird. One of the reasons its not hard anymore for me to start moving Jokic up over guys like Kobe is other than Lebron, Magic, Bird is we rarely see a guy with the ability to take over a game scoring wise and also make his teammates better.

Kobe like all of the great scorers would make any team he’s on obviously better with his ability alone but guys like Jokic also make their teammates better. There’s a difference. Jordan and Kobe are good enough to get themselves contracts. Jokic,Magic, Kidd could get other guys contracts.

[FarBeyondDriven]

Luka? Is this a joke? Dude has been in the league for six seasons and has won a whopping 12 playoff games lmao. You know who else was drafted the same year as Luka and has as many playoff wins? Trae. Bridges too and he's won 21 playoff games and went to a Finals. Tatum was drafted the year before and has won 52 playoff games, been to the Finals as well and he's not on this list but Luka is?!! I'll never understand the Luka obsession. He's empty stats in a joke league with meaningless offensive numbers.

People are voting based on the end of their careers. Did you read the OP?

yeah, I did, and he doesn't deserve to be in this poll. It's like people still view Luka as this bright-eyed 18 y/o when in fact he's already 25 y/o. His window to win multiple rings and MVPs started already and will be closed before you know it going by how little he cares for his body.

By the time Kobe was 25 y/o he'd won three championships, was among the league leaders in scoring (when scoring was actually still hard) and was simultaneously making all-nba defensive teams.

To catch Kobe, Luka would have to miraculously stop being one of the worst defenders in the league, become one of the best in fact, win 5 rings and multiple MVPs. All while playing in Dallas while in a brutal Western Conference and do it before his prime is through. He's got about 8 more prime seasons. That's a lot to expect. Impossible tbh.

I'm sorry, but flashy play and winning scoring titles in the easiest era to score doesn't make him deserve to be mentioned as someone that could ever approach Kobe let alone rank above him. I mean, what are we even doing here?

At least with Tatum, he's widely considered one of the better wing defenders while putting up great offensive numbers and he's actually been to 4 ECF and a Finals. Yet he's missing from the poll which is understandable because having him in it is only slightly less comical than having Luka in it.