Originally posted on 06/08/2018:

Quote Originally Posted by jrgum3 View Post
I would take Kobe before Lebron but not MJ. He had that killer instinct that Michael had and was the closest thing the game has seen to Jordan imho.
I hate this whole "killer instinct" trash so much. It's like how there was this widely thought idea that Kobe was clutch and Lebron wasn't, even though clutch stats showed quite the opposite, AND that Kobe's shooting in "clutch" situations was actually NOT GOOD. He just took all the shots so was bound to make some. Same reason why it's somehow impressive to people when Kobe repeatedly scored 40 on often mediocre shooting and Lebron casually scores 30 on incredibly efficient shooting while also enabling all his teammates and making them better. Points are just a sexier stat and easier to glance at from the box score

And even having to state that MJ is better than Kobe seems laughable at this point. Yeah, no shit. The unsexy thing that elevated MJ above the rest was his midrange shooting and accuracy at that unguardable fadeaway. Kobe tried to take the same shots and was just straight up worse at them. Like, compare their shooting percentages. Why does nobody seem to care about shooting percentage? It says quite a lot about a player's efficiency

Last point is, Kobe won 3 of his finals as not even the true leader of his team because he was with Shaq. It's like people forget how goddamn dominant Shaq was in that era. Kobe was doing a somewhat better version of what a lot of the good scorers in the league could've done at that point. Shaq was Shaq and had no equal. He was the x-factor.

Kobe is honestly lucky that he even somehow won 2, yes only 2, championships without him. 1 of those was against the Orlando Magic in a series where they suddenly forgot how to shoot, and the other had a game 7 vs. the Celtics where Kobe played and shot like trash and they STILL won. Like, lol. Imagine the Cavs winning a finals game while Lebron played like trash. It's not fathomable, and it says something about the value these players held to their respective teams.