Kobe Bryant vs LeBron James: How the NBA's Biggest Superstars Match Up

Dear readers, let's put this hotly contested debate to bed once and for all.

On this day, let's all become legendary by finally deciding on who the better player is between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

With a complete breakdown dealing with each player's offense, defense, intangibles and influence in store, you may just come away with a final understanding on who you believe to be the better player between these two juggernauts.

Honestly, you can't be wrong. There really is no wrong answer because these two players are equally talented, amazing and entertaining to watch. LeBron James will dazzle you one night with a triple-double and a few highlight-reel dunks to convince you, but then Kobe Bryant will come back the next night with 40 points and a ridiculous game winner.

It all lies in the eye of the beholder. Go ahead and check out the breakdown between these two future Hall of Famers.

Offense

Jump shooting

This specific part of the offense isn't up to much debate. Kobe Bryant is obviously the better jump shooter. He was born a jump shooter and he's going to die as a jump shooter. There isn't any type of defense you can play on him that will deter him from making his jump shots. Not even Shane Battier's defense where he puts his hand directly in front of Kobe's face affects him.

Let's not say that Kobe wins by a landslide however. In fact, James is just as good a three-point threat as Bryant is with both players teetering at 33 percent for their careers. LeBron has greatly improved his mid-range and three-point game since joining the NBA.

It's a streaky shot, but as you saw a few nights ago against the Spurs, when LeBron is hitting his jumpers he's the best player in the NBA and it's not even really close. The only problem is that James' jump shot isn't nearly as consistent as Bryant's. As you saw in the NBA Finals, James' jump shot is subject to miss when he loses confidence.

Driving

Back in the day, this would have been a huge debate. In 2012, however, not so much. We're comparing a 33-year-old with a bad wrist to a healthy 27-year-old with the build of your average NFL linebacker.

That's not a knock against Bryant in the slightest because he's doing amazing things for a player at his age and with those injuries. It's just that Bryant has primarily become a jump shooter because of all the abuse he took when he was younger and drove more frequently. We're all sure he could drive, but why risk anymore injuries?

LeBron James, on the other hand, is a freak of nature. He's too big, too strong and too fast to keep up with. He can attack the rim whenever he wants to and it will usually result in two points, either from the layup/dunk or the free throws he'll get when you're forced to foul him.

Passing/Facilitating

One of the few weaknesses to his game, Kobe Bryant isn't the type of guy that's willing to pass. It's all part of that strong mentality he has that he can shoot from wherever, whenever and it will go in because he's Kobe Bryant. There's nothing wrong with that, it's only resulted in five titles, but it does hurt the team.

When Bryant is being double or triple teamed in the final seconds, it's sometimes best just to give the ball up to an open teammate. Kobe forces the issue far too much during pressure situations when he has capable teammates that could easily take the scoring load off of him. Instead of going to Pau down low, Bryant would much rather take matters into his own hands.

Even out of pressure situations, Bryant's decision making with the ball is sometimes questionable. He's averaging less than five assists per for his career and has a career-high of six dimes per game.

When LeBron first came to Miami, Team President Pat Riley propositioned him with the idea of being Magic Johnson. While the Heat have strayed away from that idea as not to have LeBron suckered back into the way he played at Cleveland, it still doesn't take away from what an excellent facilitator James can be when he's passing the ball.

Like Bryant, he can get a little too used to hero ball. Instead of passing it up to capable shooters during crunch time, James would rather take the difficult, contested shot as well.

However, he passes the ball a lot more frequently. Even on a team as bad as the Cavaliers, James was averaging as much as nine assists per game. He recognizes his influence in attracting multiple defenders, so he uses it to his advantage by finding open teammates.

Defense

 You thought comparing their offense was difficult, comparing their defense and coming away with a clear winner is even more difficult to grasp. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are unbelievably good defenders with their own specialties. Whether it's Bryant's shutdown one-on-one defense or James' intimidating chase down blocks, these two share one thing in common and that's being really scary on that end of the floor.

Individual defense

When Kobe Bryant is motivated, he's the best individual defender in the league. He has no problem in getting extremely aggressive, frustrating his opponent into bad shots and instilling fear into the heart of his assignment. Bryant becomes scary when locked up with his assignment in a one-on-one setting because of just how competitive he is.

We don't like losing, but Bryant hates losing. It infuriates him to no end and he's going to make perfectly sure that he's not going to be the one that allows the winning basket.

LeBron James is just as scary an individual on the defense end. He can guard any guard or small forward and can even guard some power forwards and centers if he was called upon to do so. Evidenced by last year's Eastern Conference Finals matchup with the Chicago Bulls, James has little to no trouble in taking on the league's MVP and shutting him down.

One of the league's quickest, most athletic and most energetic players went 1-for-15 in the fourth quarter when he was defended by James. Let that tell you something about his defensive skills.

Team defense

It's not only individual defense that he happens to be amazing at, but it turns out that LeBron James is just as good a team defender as well. Averaging two steals per in every single year of his career, James is a ball hawk and he utilizes his athleticism to show up unexpectedly in passing lanes to cause turnovers, which then lead to fast breaks and then an eventual highlight play.

However, he sometimes goes for that steal too many times. He's been caught sleeping on a number of plays this year that have resulted in numerous three-pointers. James would rather go for the steal and double-team an opponent rather than sticking to his own man and playing the individual defense that's made him so feared.

Kobe Bryant is guilty of the same thing from time to time, but not as much. He'll stick on his man the majority of the game and isn't the type to gamble on most long distance passes. Bryant's smart enough of a player to anticipate a sure steal and that's why he's so feared as a team defender as well as an individual.

He's averaged two steals per for his career and at least one steal per in all but his first two years.

Intangibles

Mentality

If LeBron James has a downfall, this is it.

He's by far the most gifted athlete we've seen in NBA history. He can score at will, lock down his opponent and lead his team to victory at the same time. He's won two MVP's for a reason and it's because of his ability to put a team on his back and carry them to the finish line.

The problem, however, is that he can't maintain that consistency that could make him a perfect player. Basketball is as much a mental game as it is physical, and James can't seem to get the mental part down correctly. It's just like golf, when you get frustrated your game is over. In basketball, if you miss a couple of shots, you can't get down on yourself.

Unfortunately for the Heat, that's what they saw out of James last year in the Finals. He's proven to us many times before that he can come through in those types of situations, but it was his inability to adjust to the Mavericks defense that deemed him as a weak mental player.

If you're not scoring one way, you have to either find a different way to score or find a way to integrate yourself into the offense.

On the other hand, there is Kobe Bryant. He may not be the best teammate and he forces the issues at times, but he's an amazing player when it comes to using your knowledge of the game. Bryant has maintained a great consistency in close situations because of the mindset he possesses when the ball is in his hands.

Bryant, and any other athlete that's cold blooded, carries the same mentality into every tight situation. It's not like LeBron's where it changes every game, Bryant goes in with the mentality that he's going to take the final shot and win it. That mentality may result in plenty of missed shots during those times, but I'm not one to argue with someone that has five titles.

Opponents can limit the physical part of the game. It takes a whole lot to throw a player like Kobe Bryant off though. He's too tough in the mental aspect of the game to allow opponents to get into his head, and is a champion because of that mental toughness.

Influence

By influence, I speak of the influence that each of these players have on their teammates.

We've seen each player in similar situations. We've seen how Kobe Bryant plays with excellent, mediocre and poor teams and we've seen LeBron James do the same thing. What we're attempting to compare here is who is more successful at involving their teammates influencing their team.

Kobe Bryant has played with just about every team. He's played with amazing teams when he was paired up Shaquille O'Neal, poor teams when it was just him and Lamar Odom and above-average teams with the current squad he's playing with now. He's gone through a lot of tough periods in his career, but he's come out of it extremely successful and is a surefire Hall of Famer.

What I'd like to compare are those awful Laker teams in the post-Shaq and pre-Pau eras with that of the Cavalier teams that LeBron played with, specifically the 2006-'07 team that made it to the NBA Finals somehow.

In the 2006-'07 season, Bryant led the Lakers to a 42-40 record that came complete with a first-round exit. His best teammates at the time were Smush Parker, Lamar Odom and Luke Walton. Kobe averaged 32 points per game that year.

That same year, James led the Cavaliers to a 50-32 record and made it all the way to the NBA Finals. James' top teammates were Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden.

I will say that Bryant's team was worse than James, but it wasn't that much worse. LeBron's Cavaliers that year was arguably the worst team to ever make it to an NBA Finals. It rivals that of the 2000 Philadelphia 76ers when the best players were Allen Iverson and Dikembe Mutombo.

James was able to lead those teams to the postseason for years because of the influence he carried and how he used that to his advantage. LeBron and Kobe both share similar influences when it comes to attracting double and triple teams, but James knows how to work his way out of those a lot better than Kobe does.

LeBron made All-Stars out of guys like Mo Williams. If you switched those rosters and gave James Luke Walton, Lamar Odom and Smush Parker, I can guarantee you that they are making it past the first round of the playoffs. LeBron finds other ways to win that doesn't purely revolve around scoring and that's why he has a better overall influence.

Overall

This debate between who the better player is will never end. In fact, I'm not even going to answer who I believe the better player is, so I'll let you, the reader, do that for me.

Just take into account every aspect of their game. Just because Kobe Bryant is better in the clutch doesn't make him a better player. That's like saying LeBron James is a better player because he's good at driving and has the advantage of being built like a taller Evander Holyfield. You need to take everything into account when comparing these two because they're both equally amazing.

Don't bring history into these arguments either. LeBron James doesn't have a title? So what? He had one year with a Miami Heat team that had its two best players off the bench hurt the whole year and spent the previous seven years on a Cleveland Cavaliers team that never even deserved to make the postseason.

Of course, Kobe Bryant's going to have more rings. He played alongside Shaquille O'Neal and Pau Gasol, two post players who were unbelievable when they played with Kobe. LeBron never had that benefit, so before you go comparing titles, make sure you realize that the argument is hollow and doesn't make much sense.

It's one of the most heavily debated matchups in the NBA and you, the reader, are going to put it to rest once and for all.