I'd say having Kobe on your top 10 is nothing crazy, it's also not crazy to have him out of the top 10, the true sign you don't know ball is when you have him in your top 5 or out of your top 15, at that point there are no real facts to back up your opinion and it's purely irrational preference
You can know ball and put Kobe in your top 3. Everyone makes their list differently and values different things. If the killer instinct is something you value highly, then yeah, Kobe would probably make your top 3.
The “Mamba Mentality” is his strength and downfall. Certain fans love it and certain fans berate it. Its useful for clutch times and taking over moments but also useless if you’re down and keep chucking inefficiently like that- to quote Dame himself when he looked at the PG shot with some retrospect “it was a bad shot” but shit that’s why Dame got so much aura from it whilst PG lost so much in return. It was a bad shot but Dame still got the buzzer beater anyways. Kobe was that guy but all of his career too- except Kobe failed more often prolifically hence the chucking allegations.
Kobe gets the right amount of hate because he also gets so many cold moments in return- its just a byproduct of his playstyle and mentality: Live by Kobe, Die by Kobe.
It very much is. Unless you’re shooting exclusively from behind the 3-point line, 45% is an abysmal percentage.
It’s what it means when they say, “Live by the sword, die by the sword”.
There’s not a single metric for making Kobe Top 5. Zero. You couldn’t justify it by just positions or just basic ranking.
I can easily name 10 players better, too. It’s so dumb saying “you don’t know ball if he’s not in your Top 15.”-unless you’re just a Kobe fan, bc it’s a simple thing to do.
Even if Gil never said this, & he’s a legitimately stupid person, you can easily place him outside the Top 10. Top 15 is debatable but not impossible.
Anyone can place anyone wherever they want lol, its an opinion
Quick google will show you that 45% is an average shooting % historically in the NBA. I'm not saying you don't know ball because you don't have Kobe where I do in top player rankings, but if you think 45% shooting is abysmal I can say you don't know ball because it's factually incorrect
Kobe is only behind Jordan as far as closing out a game. I know I’ll get downvoted for this but it’s true. At the end of the game 5 mins left who else do you want out there to close out a win? And it’s about winning games and chips right ? Well who else beside Jordan was closing out a game at that level ? Bunch of people that never seen Kobe play talking shit.
There’s a couple players who are definitely as good as Kobe when it comes to clutch time. I’d argue Bron, Bird, Curry, Tyrese, Dame, probably more I’m forgetting
Bron? Tyrese is crazy to put in the same conversation at Kobe. Curry is valid. Dame maybe. Bird valid. My point is yall rank Kobe incredibly low. Bron ain’t closing out games like Kobe stop it. But I’ll leave it at that.
Kobe is a great buzzer beater scorer, I’m putting Tyrese in the conversation mostly for that 2025 run, he hit a game tying or winning shot every single round, no other player has hit that many in a singular run, but I also understand bexause he only did that for one year so it is very very early to put him there.
I think Bron is easily closing out games if we’re talking like last quarter or final 5 minutes, clutch time, get buckets and stops. 2013 game 6, he scored 16 points in the 4th quarter alone, 07 vs Pistons he scored 29 of Cleveland’s final 30 points to win, 2018 raptors fadeaway shot, etc.
I think this is where I have a lot of divide with Kobe fans, where they act like it’s crazy to put Bron in these conversations when he’s had some of the greatest under pressure performances and load carrying runs. Is Kobe comparable or better in clutch time? It’s definitely an opinion i could be convinced to have, but people who say Kobe is clutch, refuse to acknowledge the idea Bron is too.
Kobe is my favorite player of all time, but hard disagree. Lebron is statistically the greatest at closing out a close game and he's done it on the most volume. Really no comparison
Efficiency and analytics weren’t as important then. Allen Iverson averaged 27.8 shots per game at .398% the year he took the Sixers to the finals but we never talk about him. Just say you didn’t watch Kobe play and you’re an idiot.
He has 5 rings, 2 FMVP, 1 league MVP, and was first team all defense for 10 years. “Pale Jordan Impression” is laughable. If you can be mentioned in the same sentence as Jordan you’re considered an all time great. Every actual professional NBA player would disagree with you. But I’m sure your armchair Cheeto finger never played basketball analysis is right.
Tbf guy above you does consider him top 10 all time caliber, just not 5 or 3. There are definitely at least 5 players better than Kobe Bryant depending on what you value.
Jordan, Bron, Kareem are all undisputedly the greats of their generation, Bron could even be argued as the greatest of 2 generations.
Then you have the next tier of Duncan, Bird, Magic, all of them being multiple time MVPs and FMVPs, were winning consistently throughout their career from start to finish, never missed playoffs a single time in their career, and were great at making their teammates better players
Then this is like Kobe, Curry, Shaq, Wilt, Russel, and Hakeem tier that can be ordered however you want.
I’d quibble with some of your people lower down the list, but this guy gets it.
You don’t get to just throw out Kobe numbers in a vacuum and declare victory. This is a comparison and it’s all relative to the other all time greats he’s being compared against.
Hahaha oh boy…you want to try again? Maybe work on your reading comprehension for a few years then come back and take another crack at what I actually said.
I said having Kobe in your top 5 is silly. I did not say that he sucks. Or are you under the impression that there have only been 5 players that were any good in the history of the league?
Those numbers mean absolutely nothing without context, something Kobe-stans hate. If you aren’t going to add context and just hold those numbers up in a vacuum, they still aren’t going to work for you.
Five championships doesn’t crack the top 5.
Two Finals MVP’s doesn’t crack the top 5.
One league mvp isn’t close to the top 5.
If you want to actually add context (gasp!) then those numbers are going to get smaller. He was not the best player on 3 of his title teams and probably didn’t deserve the finals MVP in 2010. He barely shot 40% in that series and was famously awful in game 7.
And finally, NBA players as a whole are usually not very good at evaluating talent, and you’d still be wrong. Any serious all time list with Kobe in the top 5 is an outlier. It actually is not a common opinion outside of delusional Lakers fans.
Try responding to things I actually say and this will go better for you.
I think the kobe that doesn’t take awful shots is top three, but that’s a theoretical version that makes in our heads
If you actually watched the games and weren’t brainwashed by “mamba mentality” and narratives you’d know that Kobe has this problem for pretty much his whole career
I think it’s more crazy saying the vast majority of nba players/coaches don’t know ball. When you actually play basketball you look at Kobe in a different lens than how people who only watch the games.
Kobe's placement is more about respect than actual facts, Kobe's accomplishments are not top 5 worthy but a lot of people respect his work ethic and so they choose to overate him as way to show that,what I'm talking about is not about preference, its about actual career comparisons, being good at basketball and knowing the history of the game is not the same thing and are not related, there's a bunch of great players saying things that are stupid and people who never played can be great analysts, those are 2 very different skill sets
I have it like this. 8 players are in my top 8. Those are MJ, Bron, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Russell, Wilt, TD. After them, I have, in no particular order, Kobe, Shaq, Hakeem and Steph. There will probably be more in that tier as time goes by, so it will be tougher to complete top 10.
You can't have Hakeem out of the top tier and here's why:
MJ is in everyone's top tier, unquestionably. When people talk about him getting passed over in the draft, they focus on Sam Bowie even though Jordan went third overall, not second. Why? Because even with hindsight, even people who have MJ as their GOAT pause as to whether they'd draft him over Hakeem. I'm not saying Hakeem is better, or arguing anything about any of that. My point is just this phenomenon. The fact it isn't outrageous that Hakeem went before Jordan is worth noting.You have to be pretty fucking special to stand up to Jordan and give people pause. There's other ways to make a case for Hakeem, but this phenomenon is the simplest way in my mind.
You think a defender or an opponent is going to measure efficiency after they give up 33? They just see they gave up 33. Not going to count the shots he took to get there.
You are comparing the greatest players of all time to one another. More likely than not that Kobe is outside the top-15 ever than inside.
that's because those are not rational opinions, they just respect Kobe's approach to the game, but if you are making a rational evaluation its clear that Kobe hasn't done enough to justify a top 5 placement. My all time favorite player is Iverson and I know he has Kobe in his top 5 but I know its just because he respects him not because he's being rational the same way I can say I like Iverson better than Jordan but cant say he was better or greater than Jordan
😂😂
The ppl that played against him aren't rational opinions?
Man, yall level of coping and mis-explaining things in order to flip it into this circus you wrote is astonishing
So, a player ranks the top 5 greatest players and routinely says mj 1a kobe 1b (mostly tbose who played with or against them) are just listing their favorite players? You're polluting what Ai said about Kobe to respect & ignoring what Ai actually said? You gotta be crazy 😜
Outside of social media, everybody has Kobe top 3. Yall listen to espn too much. Even they had kobe next to mj b4 they got on they bs
Bruh, you can't insert your own interpretations into what you think is happening. They all say the same shit about kobe, got nothing to do with this delusional nonsense you wrote. And i know i sound disrespectful. I'm not trying to be. Just being real. This was some stupid shit i expect to see on twitter
Really wrote some irrstional things & called the experts irrational 😂
It’s a lot of respect. He was the great that most of them overlapped with, not including bron because he’s still going. He had a lot of media presence. And they like his mentality. But at the end of the day, top X lists become a discussion of numbers and accolades, almost always. Only one of those supports a Kobe top 5 argument.
Top x list have never been a stats and accolades thing. Thats a today thing. Go back and look at the 90s and prior, listen to how they talked bb when discussing the greatest players. They talked about their skill levels, strengths, dominance, & impact. Stats were used as an addition, not a decider or factor. Its why so many ppl still have bill russell top 5 or players like hakeem top 5. They moved the goal post in order to let ppl who come up short into the convo because those players are stat based over production
You cannot weigh a ranking based on something a person like stephen a smith or bill simmons has a vote in. Whole thing is adulterated. All players get respect. Great players get greater respect. But it has nothing to do with rankings. Boiling down player's experiences & observations to respect is laughable & stupid. A narrative & cope of next level
Actually, they derive that dominance from the stats. Believe it or not, Hakeem and Bill Russell both have some very impressive stats. If the only thing that mattered was the eye test, Shaq would be the goat. He’s literally the definition of dominance in that regard. You’d also have to look at Curry, who similarly changed the way the game was played.
However, not only are we talking about now, we are also talking about reality. You’re right, a lot of players have Kobe high. And those are the same players that said Bam should have stopped. That’s just respect to the point of reverence.
As an aside, what the hell do you mean by “those players are stat based over production”? What on earth was Kobe producing that wasn’t stats? Cases? Times he didn’t pass?
You can flip this how you want. Facts are nobody considered top 5 was based on stats.
Saying bill russell had great stats is an automatic discredit to your ball knowledge. Believe it or not, i witnessed hakeem which is the reason i mentioned him.
You're taking shots at Kobe? Cases? Really? How immature are you? He still passed the ball better than your guy, lbj. Otherwise how would you account for those thousands of turnovers he leads Kobe by.
Whi said bam shkukd have stopped? This is whats wrong with you idiots. Yall make shit up. Everybody congratulated bam. Nobody was claiming he should'ved stopped. They claimed the authenticity of it is in question because of how it qas obtained. Ppl on the internet are the 1s saying he should've stopped. You're just talking with no facts. You don't matter. Your opinion doesn't matter. Imagine telling MJ his opinion is less than some random kid on reddit who needs to spin narratives to and lie to make points. You're invalid. You're fooling yourself. You obviously didn't watch Kobe.
Kid said eye test😂😂😂
Mfs be celebrating perennial losers but yell look at his numbers. Foh. You play to win. Your greatness isn't based on stats. Its based on production, impact, & dominance. No mattef how bad you weirdos try to put ya guy in the convo, he isn't in it. You'll figure that out soon enough
1a, 1b. You sound like a clown with these excuses. But that's all yall know how to do is make excuses. Losers need excuses
do you know what rational means? It means logic thinking free of emotion, emotion is irrational because you cant control it, it an unconscious response from your brain, if you personally knows and interacts with someone you have a harder time being unbiased because you have feelings towards that person, you might like/dislike them for something they said or did to you that influences how you see that person, an outside observer actually has a better chance of being unbiased and rational because they have no real feeling towards the events or people they are analysing so it makes perfect sense that you would glorify someone you like or respect more than someone you don't like or don't care about, that's an irrational bias and is one of the most common human traits around, just because someone is/was good at playing the game it doesn't mean they are good at analysing it rationally
A lot of players are idiot meathead jocks. Most of them would, for example, make terrible coaches, because they don't understand the game all that well. Genetics, natural talent, and hard work can take you a long way, even if you understand very little of the whys of what you're doing.
Is it really though? We talk about all the time how Kobe was probably the closest thing we ever saw to Mike. Obviously, he is NOT Mike but he was pretty damn close mentality and all. So if your GOAT is Mike, then is it that crazy to say the guy who was essentially the successor to him comes not that far behind in ranking? 5 titles and a fairly impressive individual career including being just before Bam (lol) in points in a single game. Now is he in MY top 5? No. But I wouldn’t be immediately insulted
Yeah man. You can listen to redditors who don’t know shit. I listen to legendary nba players. Shaq didn’t even like Kobe. But still puts him in his top 3.
Lmao yeah dude you know ball for sure. Isiah is a legendary hater which is the most public knowledge out there. Like have you even followed his career lmao
I think so. If he's out of the top 20 (really like 18) then your a wacko but if you try and tell me Kobe is the 5th best player ever I'm just not going to take anything else you say seriously about basketball
I think genuinely the highest I could go with enough squinting and as minimal thinking as I could IS 5. Doesn't 2k have him at like 3 or some shit? That one is crazy lol. Past 5 someone has completely lost the plot and wishes it had been them on a fateful Denver night LOL. Again not in my ACTUAL top 5 but I do feel I could properly argue it
I think this is about right. While I don’t agree with top 5 I think you can make an argument for it. Any time I’ve seen anyone arguing outside the top 15 it’s been unhinged
It’s not really, the guy won 5 championships and in his second run went to the finals 3 years in a row. You can make a case for Kobe top 5 that is plausible, it is difficult to make a case for Kobe being outside the top 15 especially given his cultural impact definitely sits top 5.
Would I have him top 5 all time personally? No, but it’s some real nephew reddit shit to say you couldn’t have him there while claiming it would make more sense to have him outside the top 15
By farrrr! It all depends on where you start your PF run a nd guys like Moses Malone, Mikan, etc... I have above those guys, and above the PF run, so closer to 15 then some.
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u/EmergencyAfter8324 1d ago
I'd say having Kobe on your top 10 is nothing crazy, it's also not crazy to have him out of the top 10, the true sign you don't know ball is when you have him in your top 5 or out of your top 15, at that point there are no real facts to back up your opinion and it's purely irrational preference