Why Kobe Bryant Is Still One of the Most Overrated Players in NBA History

As I sat there watching Kobe Bryant win his first championship without Shaquille O'Neal, I felt a sudden sadness—a sadness, that the game of basketball doesn't usually cause.

It wasn't the same sadness you get when your favorite team loses, but it was the type of sadness you get when you realize that justice isn't going to be served.

As I watched Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy at the end of the game infer that arguing about who is better between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan is a legitimate argument, that sadness grew even more.

It was obvious due to the talent the Lakers had that sooner or later Kobe would get his ring without Shaq, and I knew the aftermath that would occur. Since the NBA Finals, the Kobe-Jordan comparisons have not stopped, and let me tell everyone, it's only going to get worse. 

When I finally realized the game was out of reach, I went to my room, sat down in utter silence, and realized that the history of basketball had been changed.

The Kobe Bryant we see today is a much better player than Kobe Bryant, who was on the Lakers during Shaq's heydays.

Now that Kobe has won this title, people will forget this, and he may very well in the mind of these so called "experts" such as Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy be elevated to one of the top five players of all time, if not higher.

He now has four titles, and because of his title without Shaq, Shaq's legacy will only diminish and Bryant's will grow as people start to forget who really led the Lakers to those first three titles.

Before I get into the details of why Kobe Bryant's legacy should not be defined by this title, let me answer this one question, first.

As I was reading an article about Kobe and Shaq, a question arose in the commentary.

"Why is it that no one questions the validity of the rings won by other stars that played with stars?" (Besides Kobe).

The answer I read, by Michael T. Penn, could not have been any better.

"I think it is because most great second options aren't hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread like Kobe is. A lot of people love Kobe so much they want to talk about his three championships without even mentioning Shaq. That in turn leads others without the rose colored specs on to say 'what? those were Shaq's teams!' That's really all you're looking at here.

It's kind of like if someone were to turn around and say 'Scottie Pippen is the best player ever because he won six rings'. Of course the rebuttal would be 'Sorry but Scottie was second banana to Jordan, those were Jordan's teams'. Then someone such as yourself may write an article about how even though Jordan was the man, Scottie was still a star. Like that clears up the issue.

Kobe was of course a great second option on those teams! The problem arises when people try to use those three rings as part of an argument to say Kobe is a better individual player than LeBron James or that he's the greatest player not named Mike or other such over the top declarations of his unstoppableness."

On the next few pages, I'm going tell you exactly how a man with four NBA rings, who at times can be unstoppable, can really be considered overrated.