Kobe Bryant: Where Does a Superb Season at 33 Place Kobe Among the Legends?

Rahul DJun 4, 2018

Where does this superb season at a relatively advanced age propel Kobe Bryant in the ladder of greats?

I will be honest here.

Despite being a die-hard Lakers fan and Kobe admirer, I had privately come to terms with the fact that the best seemed to have come and gone for Bryant once the 2011 postseason concluded.

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Still, it was not exactly a bad place to be. Five-time NBA champion, two-time Finals MVP, highest scorer in Lakers history, regular season MVP, second-highest scoring game ever—the list goes on.

In my mind, there is a definite hierarchy when one is ranking the achievements and play of the greatest players in NBA history.

There exists a very definite "Immortal Six." These are the six players who completely transcended the game, the ones who any basketball fan worth his salt would be able to recognize by a single name. They were the icons, the ultimate ambassadors of the sport. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird.

These six were a class apart. Their level of play, their uniqueness, has been impossible to replicate. That does not stop us from unsuccessfully anointing successors. The fact that we do keep comparing new players to them in itself is a testament to how much we miss them.

Below the Immortal Six is a dogfight between another six to eight players. Each one in themselves are legends but lack that it factor that made their superiors so indomitable. Each of the Immortal Six had a quality that alone made them legendary.

For Jordan, it was his mindset which commanded him to not defeat, but eviscerate his opponents every time he stepped on the court.

The Magic Man was a sharp contrast. It was his effervescent personality, that ever-present grin, along with the manner in which he completely transformed the type of basketball played at a sagging franchise (at the time), and turned it into a 12-year hegemony.

Basketball is about putting the ball in the basket and stopping your opponent from doing so. Bill Russell is the greatest ever when it comes to the latter. He could score two points per game and his value to sports’ greatest-ever dynasty would not have decreased.

Abdul-Jabbar had two things that set him apart from the other thousands of players to ever suit up. The first was obviously that he owned the only shot in NBA history that had a guarantee of successfully reaching the rim on every occasion it was released: the skyhook.

The second was the fact that he simply never seemed to fade. His longevity is, in my opinion, the greatest in sports. Unless Cristiano Ronaldo wins the European Golden Shoe once more in 2022, Kareem’s winning Finals MVPs 14 seasons apart (1971 and 1985) will not be topped in terms of a feat of longevity.

Chamberlain is the most intriguing. He was not a born winner in many people’s eyes, nor was he someone who could light a fire under his teammates' skins like Michael or Magic could.

However, it was his sheer, unparalleled, incomparable individual dominance that comfortably ensures him a top-six spot.

No one in any sport could ever do exactly what he wanted the way Chamberlain could throughout his career. This article is not about him, but I cannot resist one incredible anecdote.

Wilt’s greatest feat, in my opinion, was not his 100-point game, 55-rebound game or his 50-25 season. It was his 1968 season, in which he ranked first in rebounds, first in assists and fifth in scoring.

Take into account that when his coach berated him for not scoring, he responded with a three-game stretch averaging 55 points per game, and you’ll know he could have also easily led the league in scoring if he wanted to. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and nobody could stop him.

Larry Bird, in my opinion, has the weakest case for the Immortal Six. I feel his X-factor that made him immortal (pun not intended) was that when one looked at him, he came off as unathletic and awkward.

When tipoff occurred and the game commenced, he then did a good job of changing people’s minds. The fact that he won back-to-back-to-back MVPs and made four straight Finals in his prime even though he was rarely capable of dunking the ball is something you can say about no other player.

Under these six are Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving and Moses Malone: again, in my opinion.

Each and every one of them has exerted a dominance over the game which only the Six can surpass. Each is capable of being the best player on a legendary championship team.

However, none has that one particular, non-play related quality that sets them apart, as Michael, Magic and the others do. Duncan’s monotonous consistency is legendary, but far surpassed by Russell.

Robertson’s all-around play and affinity for triple-doubles was matched by Magic in a far more difficult era. Jerry West couldn’t play above the rim, just like Bird, but unlike the legend, he didn’t win three MVPs nor three championships.

After the end of the 2010-2011 season, I was content to think that the Immortal Six was locked and sealed for a long time. I simply could not imagine it being broken into unless Derrick Rose or Kevin Durant would win multiple MVPs and titles through the next decade.

I was wrong.

Over the last 44 days, Kobe Bryant has set himself apart from the second tier of legends, and he's making a solid case to be considered one of the five or six greatest players in NBA history.

Sacrilege, one might say. Sure, Bryant is great, but he has never been an icon that transcended the game, like Jordan.

I agree, he is still ways away from matching His Airness. To be honest, I don’t think he, nor anyone, ever will. That is not a slight—Jordan’s resume is simply too vast for anyone to match.

Even if Kevin Durant or LeBron James wins five MVPs and six titles along with numerous scoring records, they will not reach the cult status of Jordan. He has too many memorable moments that will remain embedded forever in the minds of the people: The Shot, The Shrug, The Flu Game or even The Comeback.

His sheer force of personality, his very existence, was greater than his achievements on the court. There is no player currently in the NBA who could be something similar, and there is no one on the horizon.

However, the Black Mamba certainly has an argument to be considered as great, if not greater, then some of the others.

Prior to the 2009 NBA Finals, he was not labeled a winner. That was slightly foolish, considering he was the crunch-time scorer and co-captain on a three-time championship team. Still, he removed that label and then some by winning two more rings, this time as the undisputed leader.

How many players have five championships and two Finals MVPs? Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant and—oops. That’s the whole list.

Bryant is not the greatest winner in NBA history. Russell, Kareem and Jordan have won more, and Magic has won as many. He is still, however, comfortably one of the best.

People claim that his peak level of play does not match up to other legends.

I say: did you see him during that span of 2005-2007?

He took a team whose starting point guard, small forward and center were Smush Parker, Luke Walton and Kwame Brown respectively to the playoffs. The only other serviceable player on that roster was Lamar Odom. There was no bench, and no other real talent in the starting five.

Yet Kobe was simply phenomenal. In the 2005-2006 season, he averaged 35.4 PPG, 5.3 RPG, and 4.5 APG on 55.9% True Shooting. By comparison, Jordan’s highest scoring season (1987, in which he managed 37.1 PPG), he had 56.2% True Shooting. Hmm. Bryant scored 40 or more twenty-seven times in that season, including a ridiculous 81-point game which has become the second-highest scoring game in NBA history.

This is undoubtedly the most dominant scoring season by a perimeter player not named Jordan, and probably the third-best ever behind a few Chamberlain vintages. Don’t forget, though, that Chamberlain at his peak was attempting close to 40 field goals per game along with an additional 17 free throws. During his volume scoring years, his True Shooting never crossed 55%, a mark Bryant has passed in eight different seasons.

In fact, Bryant has been so good for so long, it’s difficult to objectively judge which season was his best.

In 2001, he put together an all-around masterpiece in the playoffs, averaging 29.4 PPG, 7.3 RPG and 6.1 APG on 56% True Shooting as a second option. He also played a far bigger role than Shaq on defense, being handed the job of guarding regular season MVP Allen Iverson after he had lit up the Lakers for 48 in the first game of the Finals. Bryant held him to 23 points on 10-29 shooting.

His all-around play in the 2002-2003 season was also stunning. He managed 30 PPG, 6.9 RPG and 5.9 APG on 45-38-84 shooting, and carried the Lakers offense for most of the season with O’Neal either out of form or injured.

Bryant went on a remarkable tear midway through the season in which he scored 40 or more in nine straight games and 35 or more in 13 straight. In doing so, he became the only player other than—you guessed it—Jordan and Chamberlain, to average 40 PPG for a month.

He did this twice more in his career.

However, his game continued to grow. He passed through that insane scoring phase in 2005-2007 (his 2007 has an argument as well, by the way. He averaged 31.6 PPG with 6 RPG and 5 APG on 58% shooting, along with 10 50-point games in the season. Ho hum).

By 2008, he had become a truly mature player. He began to trust his teammates and inadvertently made them better.

It is no coincidence that a talented power forward who was frequently labeled as "soft" during his Memphis days became an All-NBA player and two-time champion upon joining the Lakers and playing with Kobe.

Kobe finally got his due MVP in 2008, but unfortunately fell short in the Finals to the hated Boston Celtics.

2009 was arguably Bryant’s best year in terms of success. He won the All-Star Game MVP, averaged 27-5-5 on a career-high 47 percent from the floor, finished second in regular season MVP voting, and won the Finals MVP in one of the most dominant performances in NBA Finals in recent memory.

He averaged 32.4 PPG, 5.6 RPG and 7.4 APG: truly Jordan-esque numbers, as only His Airness himself, along with Jerry West, have also ever averaged 30+ PPG and 7+ APG in a Finals series.

The Lakers averaged 100.6 PPG for the series. Taking into account that Bryant probably assisted on some three-pointers as well, that means he was directly involved in roughly half of all Lakers points scored in the series!

Don’t forget, this was against an Orlando defense that was considered the best in the NBA that season.

2010 was an even more incredible year for him. While his all-around efficiency and numbers dropped somewhat, he put together an incredible series of clutch performances, with seven game-winners through the regular season. Despite a PER of 21.9, he still managed a third-place MVP finish.

He recovered during the playoffs and put together his greatest all-around stretch of basketball of his playoffs career during the Western Conference semifinals and Finals. Over 10 games, he averaged a mind-blowing 33 PPG, 6 RPG and 7 APG, while sweeping the Jazz and beating the Suns in six.

Game 6 against Phoenix is generally considered one of the best playoff performances in recent memory.

He scored 37 points, which is an average day in the office for Bryant. However, if you re-watch the game, it’s more the way he scored those points. The Suns were swarming him, double-teaming him, triple-teaming him in crunch time, but he simply could not be stopped.

When he hit a back-breaking fade-away jumper from just inside the three-point line with five seconds on the shot clock in the final minute, Grant Hill draped all over him and then patted Alvin Gentry on the behind as if saying "It’s all right, man, you tried," you knew Bryant was not going to settle for anything less than the title.

Well, we know what happened after that. To those who sneer at his 6-of-24 performance in Game 7, don’t forget that Jordan has played rather poorly in Finals victories as well. With Gary Payton guarding him in the 1996 Finals, he managed only 22 points on 5-of-19 shooting in the clinching Game 6: 1.3 percent better from the field than Bryant.

Even in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, which everyone remembers for Jordan’s game-winner over Bryon Russell, he went 15-of-35 from the field with only one rebound and one assist.

So really, don’t use the argument of peak play. Bryant has, at various points in his prime, done everything on a basketball court as well as anyone has. The numbers back that up.

Kobe faded somewhat in 2011, but after three straight 100-plus game seasons, what could one expect? It’s not as if 25-5-5 with fourth place in MVP voting is an awful performance. During that season, he passed several legends on the all-time scoring list.

Then, once the lockout ended, the 2012 season arrived. What did it have in store for Bryant? Would he fall further, shooting lower percentages and averaging maybe 22-23 PPG?

The Mamba was ready to prove all doubters wrong. As of today, he is sporting the league’s leading scoring average in 29.4 PPG, 5.9 RPG and 5.5 APG.

Just let that sink in. The man is 33-and-a-half years old.

And he’s walking through the league as if he owns it. At this point, he really does.

It’s fascinating watching Kobe play right now. He can’t drive to the rim at will anymore. Therefore, he uses a bag of post moves, tricks and up-fakes that seems like it will never run empty.

His basketball IQ is beyond genius. Everyone knows that he is going to shoot his fade-away, but no one is capable of stopping it. Just ask Phoenix, Utah, Cleveland and the Clippers: all unfortunate enough for him to drop 40 on them (by the way, Kobe now has more than half of the 40-point games scored by a player in his 16th season or later).

Just when is this guy going to run out of gas? He has played nearly 49,000 minutes in his career, but he is still playing at about the same level as he was 11 years ago, when his prime arguably started during that ridiculous 2001 season.

Therein, according to me, lies Bryant’s argument to crack the Immortal Six. Other than Jordan, no one, and I mean, no one, has been so consistent that they are definitely considered top three players in the league 11 seasons apart.

Kareem’s longevity is legendary. As I said before, he won Finals MVPs 14 seasons apart and titles 17 years apart, something I doubt will be matched.

However, 11 years on from his first title in 1971, Kareem was clearly not as dominant as before.

His averages had dropped from 31.7 PPG and 16 RPG in ‘71 to 23.9 PPG and 8.7 RPG in ’82. Obviously he was still a top-10 player in the NBA in the latter season, but he was no longer the dominant force of his peak.

That dominance returned during brief sparks, such as the 1985 Finals, in which he was named MVP, but after 1981, he never destroyed the competition all season long in the manner Kobe is doing right now. Kareem’s longevity was more extended, but Kobe’s is (up to now) is more impressive for his age.

Just yesterday, he passed a certain Shaquille O’Neal for fifth place on the all-time scoring list. He has now scored 28,573 points in his career. Only Kareem, Karl Malone, Jordan and Chamberlain have scored more. Only three of those are arguably greater all-time players than him.

In a nutshell, let me put it to you this way. In his 16th season, Kobe is leading the league in scoring and is a top-three MVP candidate. In his 16th season, Shaquille O’Neal was getting traded around and averaging a 13-9. Tim Duncan is not even in his 16th season and is not even managing Shaq’s numbers.

Put it this way. The only players in that second tier one could argue are on Kobe’s level are Shaq and Duncan. While Shaq’s peak in 2000 and Duncan’s prime in 2003 are arguably on the same level and maybe better than Kobe’s, neither could last as long as Kobe has.

He has more rings than either of them as well as more All-NBA selections. If his contemporary big men had been able to sustain their excellence for a greater period of time, it would be an all-out siege on the Immortal Six.

However, they did not. Duncan’s best lasted until perhaps 2007 at the maximum, and Shaq faded very fast after 2005. Kobe has left them in the dust, and now he has bigger fish to fry: the Immortal Six.

I don’t honestly believe that he is right now in a position to challenge Michael, Magic, Kareem and Russell. These four had peaks that were all probably better than his, except for Russell, and their longevity was just as good as his.

Still, being compared to Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird is not a mean feat in itself.

Let’s look at Chamberlain first. He is probably the most dominant player ever, no matter what Shaq may claim. In my opinion, he is No. 1 on the list of the most talented players ever, with Michael, Magic and LeBron in spots two, three and four semi-distant from him.

His peak season was 1967, in which he averaged 24.1 PPG, 24.2 RPG and 7.8 APG, winning the MVP in a landslide along with the title. He finished third in total points, first in total rebounds, and third in total assists—a feat that will never be matched, ever. In the playoffs, he destroyed Bill Russell, averaging 21.6 PPG, 32.0 RPG, 10.0 APG, 6+ BGP, and 56% FG.

Really, Chamberlain’s game was flawless, except for free throws. But in the open court, he could do practically whatever he wanted. If he had the drive of Jordan, or even Magic, he would be without a doubt the greatest player ever.

Wilt destroys Kobe’s peak play (not a slight, no one compares to the Big Dipper in this) and matches up decently in terms of longevity; considering he was averaging a 37-27 as a rookie and winning a rebounding title, field goal percent title and the Finals MVP in his second to last season. He was notorious for failing in the clutch, which is a huge advantage for Kobe, who is a top-five clutch player ever.

Overall, I think Chamberlain has the edge for now. He may not end up being as good for as long as Kobe will, but when he was good, he was the best.

His failings are numerous, though, especially the perceived selfishness and the lack of killer instinct. If Kobe keeps this ridiculous level of play up throughout the season and wins another ring before he retires, the balance is tilted in his favor. A championship ratio of three to one will be too much.

That brings us to a certain Larry Bird. The Black Mamba vs. the Basketball Jesus. The second greatest Laker ever vs. the second greatest Celtic ever. This is intriguing stuff.

Let’s have a look at Bird’s peak, shall we?

Over a five-year stretch from 1983-84 to 1987-88, he averaged a stupendous 27.3 PPG, 9.8 RPG and 6.7 APG. These are seriously ridiculous numbers, and there is a real argument that Bird had one of the three or four greatest peaks of all time.

I discussed previously that Kobe has been so good for so long that it is impossible to narrow down a peak period for him. However, for argument’s sake, let’s consider it to be 2005-06 to 2009-10, the period in which he had the most individual success.

He managed 29.8 PPG, 5.6 RPG and 5 APG: Jordan-esque numbers in their own right but a ways off from Bird.

You’re probably saying, “Give it up, you have no argument.”

Thankfully, it’s not always about the simple stats.

First of all, we know Kobe is a better scorer than Bird, that is not an argument. He has scored more than seven thousand points more than Bird in his career, and he has a higher scoring average.

Bird has never topped 30 in a season, Kobe has done so thrice. Bird has never won a scoring title, Kobe has two and is working on a third.

For those who harp on efficiency, here’s a simple stat: Bird’s career True Shooting percent is 56 percent. Kobe’s is 56 percent.

Don’t you love it when that happens?

I will agree, if you’re looking for rebounds, Bird is better. His career average is exactly 10, Kobe manages 5.3. However, you are comparing here a 6’10" small forward who spends a lot of time marauding as a power forward to a 6’6" shooting guard.

Bird’s total rebound percent was about seven points better than Kobe. That’s not a bad margin, especially if you consider that in his athletic prime Kobe averaged nearly seven boards a game.

Now watch this. A lot of people are going to argue about Kobe’s supposed "selfishness" as compared to Bird’s "ability to make his teammates better."

Thankfully, a handy little stat exists called assist percent. It is an estimate of the percentage of teammates’ field goals that are assisted by a player while he is on the floor.

Kobe Bryant’s career assist percent? 24.

Larry Bird’s: 24.7.

Again, don’t you love it when that happens?

So, we’ve established that Bryant is the better scorer. Bird is marginally a better rebounder, pound for pound. They’re about equal in terms of setting up their teammates.

Let’s look at the other half of the game: defense.

Funnily enough, it’s not really a competition. Bryant has a record 11 All-Defensive First Team selections. Since 2000, he has made it to the First Team for every year except 2005, when he missed a lot of games due to injury.

In sharp contrast, Bird made the Second Team in his second, third and fourth seasons, and then never appeared again.

Bird never even had a reputation as a great defender. It was Dennis Johnson who handled the Michaels and the Magics of the league. So swallow that: Kobe guarded the opposing team’s best player throughout his career, and still equaled or surpassed Bird’s offensive production.

Yes, Bird has two more MVPs than Bryant. However, unlike Bryant he usually played with three or four other Hall of Famers on his team, and was therefore on a contender throughout his prime. As it is, most people agree that Bryant got robbed of the award in 2006 and maybe 2007.

Besides those two trophies, which are cancelled out by the two more trophies Bryant has of a different kind, Bird has literally nothing else on Kobe. To those who claim that Kobe rode Shaq’s coat-tails to his previous three titles, it’s not as if Bird won his titles by himself, either.

In fact, in the 1981 Finals, he flopped rather miserably, averaging just 15.3 PPG on 42 percent shooting. The Finals MVP went to his teammate Cedric Maxwell, and deservedly so.

This wasn’t the only time Bird failed in the playoffs: in ’82 and ’83 combined, he averaged 19 PPG on again just 42 percent shooting. In 1985, he foolishly got into a bar fight during the playoffs, breaking his shooting hand and killing the Celtics’ title chances that season.

I will whole-heartedly admit that Bryant himself is not exactly Jordan-esque in the playoffs, but he bombs one or two games from time to time. Bird, meanwhile, has stunk for multiple postseasons.

He won less titles than Bryant even though he played with far superior teammates in an era when only two teams had a chance to win the title year in and year out.

The nail in the coffin is, again, longevity.

Tell me, would you rather have four good seasons of Bird, followed by five transcendent seasons, and then have him not even remotely the same for the rest of his career?

Or would you rather have two Kobe seasons on the bench in which he was fresh out of high school (though his talent was clearly evident), two seasons as a starter in which he was a key player on a championship team, and then 11 (and counting) absolutely phenomenal seasons with really no dip in impact?

If you consider that Bird was a one-way player, it really isn’t a question.

So, there you have it.

That’s where I believe Kobe Bryant belongs in the all-time list of legends: No. 6. The more he plays, the more he will probably climb.

In conclusion, here’s what my list of top 15 looks like right now: