Posts Tagged ‘Bryant’
After each of Michael Jordans retirements the world pined for some sort of replacement and tried in vain to anoint his successor. There have been many pretenders to the throne – Carter, Wade, a young Grant Hill and even Harold Miner, the so-called Baby Jordan. Lebron James will enter the argument but is needing a few rings under his belt before his claim can be taken seriously. So that leaves the only real contender – Kobe Bryant. If anyone comes close then it is him and there are some who claim he has reached the same level as Jordan. Unfortunately time and a new generation of fans can dim the memory as to how great a player was. However, Jordan’s accomplishments can be separated from Bryant’s and there are 3 big reasons why.
Firstly, Jordan led the Bulls to 6 championships which were actually a couple of 3 peats. Whilst Kobe achieved a 3 peat of his own early in his career he has to be considered the Piippen to O’Neal’s Jordan. Without question Jordan couldn’t win without Pippen but Bryant was standing on the shoulders of the impossibly dominant O’Neal. Once Jordan had enough talent and a system that forced him to give up the ball there was no other possible winner in the league when he was playing. It took Bryant another 7 years to get back to the top, albeit as the undisputed leader of his team. Undoubtedly this confirms his greatness but if you look simply at his haul of wins against Jordans the fact that 3 of them came alongside one of the all time great centres whereas Jordan had no dominant big man in any of teams underlines his superiority. Both are competitor supremes but its quite possible that Jordan has an even bigger desire to win than Bryant.
Secondly, Jordan is statistically superior to Bryant. He remains atop the all time scoring average chart and dominated the seasonal scoring category for over a decade. Yes, Bryant has proved he is the best scorer since Jordan with his own titles and phenomenal individual performances to back that up. Even Jordan would have to stand back and applaud the freakish 81 that Bryant has posted as his career high. In most other categories, including the intangible defensive abilities, there is little to choose between them. The one area which seems to be overlooked by many is that Jordan’s field goal percentage is superior. The simple fact is that Jordan was a more efficient scorer than Bryant and in fact made him more deadly. Given that they could be even in terms of shot-making ability and game winning buzzer beaters this fact adds to Jordan’s greatness. Jordan finished his career a 49.7% shooter against Bryant’s current rate of 45.5%. Add to that Jordan put together no fewer than 6 seasons above 50%, a mark regarded as a the watershed for a great NBA shooter, whereas Bryant has not achieved this in his 13 seasons to date. So if you look behind the sensational numbers both men have posted Jordan is a better marksmen by a decent margin.
Thirdly, Jordan quite simply changed basketball forever. There were many great players before him and some also transcended the game. Magic Johnson brought showtime. Dr J took to the air. Bill Russell brought supreme defensive dominance. Jordan rebranded the game again with a spectacular array of offensive armoury never seen before. Get out those old basketball dvds and see for yourself what he was doing in 1984. He took the world by storm and every player wanted to be like him. A generation later you have a league teeming with spectacular athletes trying to outdo each other each week. In every one of them is a kid who grew up wanting to be like Mike and Kobe Bryant is one of them. In almost every way he is almost the second coming – the height, the athletic ability, the competitive fire, the knack for the spectacular, even the way he talks. Its as if he studied those basketball dvds himself as a kid and turned himself into a mini-Jordan. Make no mistake Bryant is an all time great, probably top 5, but he hasn’t changed the game like Jordan did.
For those reasons Kobe Bryant will never be better than Michael Jordan. No doubt he still has plenty left in the tank and there will much more history written by him. But none as illustrious as that written by His Airness.