It's a little strange, no? We are talking about a guy who was maybe the best scorer in the nba for 3-4 years in a row. His lack of playoff success really hurt him. But to me, at that time, there was no better players in the league. it was Kobe, it was Shaq, it was AI, and it was Tmac. For a nice 7 year period, it was just those guys at the top until Lebron and Wade started to get good.
A case could be made for vince carter, but i'm not sure he ever was considered a top 3 player in the world.