So one of the Sports Illustrated reporters, Robin Lundberg called Kobe Bryant ‘One Of The Most Overrated Players Of All-Time’. Ok man, obviously this reporter has no clue what he's talking about. Let me break it down here why Kobe is not overrated. Read below and you decide whether or not he is overrated. A couple things to note before reading. 1) I'm only going to point out the reasons why he is not overrated and perhaps best ever/goat; 2) I'm just spit balling here based on my basketball knowledge and because I only had like 5mins to type this up, I wasn't able to do quantify/gather actual data to back up my argument but most savvy folks would get my points. Please excuse my spelling, etc.
Reasons why Kobe is not overrated:
- He has 5 rings. How many players in the NBA history ever get 5 rings? I bet its less than 30.
- He dropped 81 points in a game. Only 1 other player scored more.
- 15x All NBA Teams (How many NBA players in history have more?, I think he might have the most apperances)
- 12x All NBA Defensive Teams - Kobe can play well both ends of the floor. Not many can claim this
- 1x NBA MVP - Not many ever win this trophy. You have to be the best
- 2x NBA Finals MVP - Not many ever make it to the finals
- High school to NBA Legend - Not that many accomplished this. (LBJ, Garnett, Mcgrady, maybe Howard)
- 1x Slam Dunk Champion - nuff said
- 3rd all time list most points scored - over MJ
- 2x nba scoring champ
- 18x all star - maybe most ever
- 2x best espy basketball player
- most all star mvps 4 times
- Oldest player to score 60+ points in a game...his last game hollywood ending.
- Only player in NBA history to score at least 600 points in the postseason for three consecutive years.
- Only player in NBA history with more than 30,000 points, 6,000 assists and 6,000 rebounds.
wow
That's a good case for his greatness. I always hated Kobe, but loved when he was in the league. I loved his intensity and competitive fire. That being said, there are several players he should be behind in the GOAT discussion. Jordan, LBJ, Magic, Bird to name a few.
There's no way you can put Bird ahead of Kobe lol, what is that based on? As far as all of those other names there is a debate with each one of them. Statistics are statistics, but the confusion lies in putting certain values on certain stats over others. Lebron averages a few more assists and a few more rebounds but does that trump the 2 additional rings Kobe has? And don't even get me started on awards because awards as anyone should really know are imperfect. Pippen could have been the MVP of the 1998 finals, he had great all around numbers, but you know they were always gonna give it to Jordan. Steve Nash has 2 MVPs and at least 1 of them could have easily gone to Kobe. You really have to think sometimes, I think people over simplify stuff! It's funny though because people wanna put Lebron over Kobe because of all around stats, but they wont put Lebron over Jordan even though it's the exact same argument. People just don't like Kobe, plain and simple.
Bird had 3 rings, 3 MVPs and was also credited with some defenive honors. He didn't last nearly as long because of injuries. Bird had to battle tougher opponents to get his rings and was never not the best player on his team. Kobe had Shaq. I don't put a ton of weight on the "rings" argument and to be honest I think LBJ is better than Jordan was. People love to talk about Jordan's 6-0 finals record but he had his share of embarrassing early exits. He had awful playoff games too, the type of games that critics have crucified LeBron for. I'm old enough to have watched all of these guys. I'll be happy to admit Kobe is up there with all of these guys, but I do think he's behind them slightly. It's all opinions though :)
Nobody worked harder! just google stories about his work ethic it's completely insane! He was getting up at 4am in the offseason to train for 20 years! He was never afraid of taking the big shot, always willing to take the blame if he missed. He's also somewhat punished for his playing days with Shaq and people take away from what they were doing TOGETHER! Both guys were getting like 30 points a game at one time, it wasn't Batman and Robin, it was Batman and Superman lol.
I couldn't agree more, his work ethic is what I've been trying to achieve with my training. His way of thinking to me is what a lot of people could benefit from, I know I have. Couldn't agree more also that it wasn't a sidekick force, but a team force.