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OT: Was Kobe the most competitive player in league history?

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rustywalkedaway said:
Indeed. Kobe was a good athlete, not a great one. Kobe was very competitive, but he was not even in Jordan's league.
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Bruh what are you talking about good athlete?

Dude won the dunk contest and dunked on 7 footers in game action. Was know as a fierce dunker. No one who is just a
“Good” athlete dunks like that. Plus he Had crazy hang time as well.
 
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Cuban-Cane said:
Hard to think of a better one. He was someone limited athletically but just found ways through working on different areas of his game.
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No..that’s impossible to judge or quantify..was he competitive when he was pouting in a game 7..and too say he was “limited” athletic is laughable..Kobe Top 8 all time no cap..RIP..legends live forever 💯
 
LuCane said:
Kobe was up there, but what this thread tells me is some people didn't watch Michael Jordan play basketball as much or as closely as even Kobe Bryant did.

Agree with the poster who mentioned Jordan and Bird. There's an argument for Magic, too, who was more passive aggressive how he went about it. If we're talking about all sports, also consider names like Pete Rose, Walter Payton and Jerry Rice.

Kobe was great. He's definitely in the discussion. He passed tragically. We can pay him respect earned without taking it too far.
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Kobe tried to imitate everything Mj did..it’s been talked about countless times..mannerisms, the way he talked, spoke, played..Kobe was great..but this greatest competitor attribute..is ridiculous to try and quantify.
 
Liberty City El said:



Kobe did the same thing to JR Rider in practice, actually ended his career.
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To compare Rider with Grant is disingenous. Rider partied his way out of the league and didn't retire because of Kobe. He spent one year with the Lakers and wasn't even picked for the playoff roster. He played one more year in Denver when the Lakers opted to let him go (maybe due in part to Kobe). Grant won four rings was an NBA all star and a 4x all NBA defensive team member. That shows his mentality and heart but for MJ it wasn't good enough he didn't see the attitude in Grant that he demanded from everyone around him and basically forced him out.
 
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Hard to measure someone's competitive as an absolute best over another. I'd put him in the elite company of

Jordan
Bird
Isaiah
Lebron

Lebron takes the heat sometimes for deference late in games, but I think that's more of how he's wired as a player instead of how hard he competes. The man took a team whose next three options were (Larry Hughes, Ilgauskas, and Drew Gooden) to game 7 with the big four of the Pistons in one year and then beat them the next year before falling to Duncan's Spurs. You don't do that just on pure talent alone.
 
Man i hated those Celtics teams but anyone who thinks Bird isn't the guy you want taking a shot at the end of the game never watched him play. People forget that Magic's hook shot was almost irrelevant when Bird missed a rare corner three at the end.
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
That last sentence is just a load of horsesh!te.

Kobe played more games. Big f-ing deal.

Bird had more steals per game. Period. You can't even argue that fact, yet you're trying to give me the rankings by total steals.

Kobe got a bunch of "defensive" awards in the 2000s when the NBA wasn't even playing defense. Anyone who actually knows anything about the NBA will tell you that they actually played defense in the 1980s and 1990s.

Seriously, ask any old NBA player to rank defenders, put Jordan, Bird, and Kobe in the mix, and every single one will rank Kobe third in that group. They played in different eras, but anyone will tell you that Jordan and Bird played better defense than Kobe.
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Its absolute sophistry to declare Bird a better defender than Kobe. Bird was a below average individual defender. McHale drew the tougher defensive assignments of guarding the prolific scoring forwards like Big Game James Worthy, Dominique Wilkins, Bernard King, Adrian Dantley etc all. I will say Bird defensive instincts served him well as a off ball team defender.
 
skeeter said:
I got Kobe somewhere 9-12 on my list...

He played stylistically like Jordan, just missed so many more shots than Jordan and the stats bear that out.

I wouldn't argue with top 8...I would argue vehemently with all this top 5 nonsense.
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im curious who your top 8 is.

for me, Kobe 5-6 (MJ, MJ, wilt, shaq are top 4 for me).
 
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AUcane said:
im curious who your top 8 is.

for me, Kobe 5-6 (MJ, MJ, wilt, shaq are top 4 for me).
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Mj (def 1)...next 5 order is tough for me
Magic
Wc
Bird
Lbj
Kareem
Shaq
Olajuwon

-then the next 4some combo of russell, barkley, bryant, big O

- round out top 15: duncan, malone, ???

(Maybe elgin baylor?, d wade, West, mchale, zeke?, durant, nowitzki? for last spot?)
 
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skeeter said:
Mj (def 1)...next 5 order is tough for me
Magic
Wc
Bird
Lbj
Kareem
Shaq
Olajuwon

-then the next 4some combo of russell, barkley, bryant, big O

- round out top 15: duncan, malone, ???

(Maybe elgin baylor?, d wade, West, mchale, zeke?, durant, nowitzki? for last spot?)
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Shaq?

His ****** shouldnt be anywhere near Top 10

Guy waited a whole offseson to get surgery so his *** wouldn't have to practice
 
Kobe was amazing, but I don't think Michael Jordan would let someone beat him walking across a parking lot.

And if you want to talk a guy with limited athletic ability that by sheer will and competitiveness made himself one of the greats: Larry Bird
 
Liberty City El said:
The 90's til 2006-7 was the most dominant Defensive era in Basketball imo.

The 80's was about high scoring & running the floor.

The new era is a finesse style Euro game, that's all about shooting 3's & advanced analytics, Defense has been legislated out of the game.
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So do you think Spo has changed his coaching to adapt to this new style since the HEAT seem to be more of a run and gun then the early Spo years. I'm pretty impressed the way he has adapted to this new team. He has them humming.
 
Liberty City El said:
The 90's til 2006-7 was the most dominant Defensive era in Basketball imo.

The 80's was about high scoring & running the floor.

The new era is a finesse style Euro game, that's all about shooting 3's & advanced analytics, Defense has been legislated out of the game.
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To be fair, what the Pistons did for a while would constitute a felony in most parts
 
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