Nick ranks Kobe Bryant 6th on his Top 50 Players of the Last 50 Years | NBA | FIRST THINGS FIRST

i'm gonna guess that with nick since it's his list he's ranked just right for nick wright but for me no he's ranked too low there's only three players that i would indisputably put ahead of him on any very subjective top 5 50 100 3 000 list and that's michael jordan kareem abdul-jabbar and bill russell so wherever you want to put anybody else kobe bryant would be in my top five but i really don't understand why we're starting with me and kobe bryant since we're talking about nick's nick wright's list i just uh well because i'm not but because of what you just said i'm here to participate i'm gonna yeah go ahead i mean well the reason we're starting with you is because if we started with me it'd be like yes i agree with the list that i put together uh okay so i so the real listen right kobe is six and it's the it's the last 50 years so russell's ineligible so the five guys who are left on the list you know and i won't reveal the order are obviously kareem michael lebron magic and duncan those are the five guys who are ahead of him on the list i am i don't think it is worth spending time at least a lot of time on the fact that rick buker just said he has kobe bryant ahead of lebron james on his all-time list because it is just such an indefensible point like the thing kobe did the best was score and lebron scores more the thing kobe theoretically is better than lebron at is shooting except lebron has a better efficiency oh nick that's on layups except he also shoots a better three-point percentage the thing kobe did the best was clutch shots except lebron has five playoff buzzer beaters and kobe has one and that disregards the fact that everything else to do with basketball or clutch things lebron was better at it i mean okay well well i mean again so wilds you can shake your head at it because again you've been brainwashed by it kobe has won we've seen it on a loop for a hunt for 20 years kobe's one career playoff buzzer beater we're then a pantomime of the michael celebration lebron's got five of them but i don't even want to debate kobe vs lebron because i don't think it's interesting the kobe versus duncan thing i think is interesting because i think there's a real argument there and i have duncan ahead of him and i'm very i'm i'm surprised that two guys who played in the same era and that duncan with a higher degree of difficulty had never had a down year 50 wins every single year of his career the playoffs every single year of his career the only year he didn't win 50 was when the season was 50 and he won the title that year that that you would argue that kobe is ahead of duncan like the lebron thing it's just listen we all have our blind spots that's fine but kobe ahead of duncan is interesting to me and i'm curious why okay sure then no problem uh but i'm curious why you think i love all this together i'll lump all this together for you sure i'll answer i'll answer both of those first of all i i the the there is the difficulty of when you're talking about different eras to make comparisons the competition was different the game was different etc etc so we always reduce these things to numbers even if we take accolades we reduce it to numbers three mvps versus two mvps whatever it might be and that looks nice but it's not reality the value the the what i have is the benefit that i have is that i saw tim duncan kobe bryant and lebron james all play their entire careers and so it's not a matter of me having to measure numbers or accolades or all of that because i'm conscious of all of the variables that are involved but you don't want to get into lebron we'll put that aside because we're never going to solve that between the two of us when it comes to duncan and kobe it's simply this it's that yes you're the duncan never had a down year okay but he was also with a franchise that didn't have down years because of the way their runs of hey they're coached and they had the same coach kobe didn't have that kobe didn't have that experience like he didn't have that that nucleus there were a lot of changes made in terms of coaching and personnel over the course of his career i simply look at the accomplishment of winning three in a row and then two in a row and how difficult that is physically and mentally and that's one of the the the downsides of when i look at duncan and the spurs is that they never won back-to-back championships they never dominated beyond one season and knowing the toll that that takes the challenge that that is that uh that stands as a huge huge accomplishment and i also believe that kobe is vastly devalued for his contribution and what he meant to the first uh 3p team with the with with the lakers kobe was as much the closer as shaq was the starter on that team and whether it was in the finals or whether it was during the regular season kobe was as important to those championships as shaquille o'neal was and i feel like as if as we move on it has become he was definitely the second banana and he was riding shaq's coattails and i will never i will never give in to the idea of that all right uh rick i i do agree with nick's list uh i think colbley is kobe is aptly rated at sixth um in addition to lebron ahead of him duncan ahead of him i got magic ahead of him i'm surprised you you had kobe ahead of magic i think magic is clearly the greatest laker magic made nine finals in 12 seasons with the lakers you know before he retired and you know came back later for a bit um he carried to a large degree an older kareem abdul-jabbar for the second part of the showtime dynasty um he made his teammates better everyone could shine uh kareem could be his maximum self james worthy could be his maximum self byron scott yeah when they play with magic we've said rarely have we seen superstars particularly in this era be able to do that um so i would have magic ahead of him uh duncan i look you made some great points because that is the knock duncan they never repeated but duncan didn't have the supreme talent particularly with shaq that kobe had david robinson was kind of on the tail end for their first couple of championships then manu and tony parker are great but there's not supreme talent that toby had when he won back to back championships hold on hold on he won and to say to say shaq wasn't the number one guy is revisionist history now i'm not going to diminish kobe i'm with you on that let's not diminish colby and say he was riding shaq's coattails but to say it was even as you kind of implied that's an overstatement it was shack as the hub and the other thing about here's the thing about kobe that's a that's a i have a real issue with kobe's i mean like i said i got him six so i got him high but kobe was not efficient rick and that is a huge he shot 44 for his career he never shot 47 for a season and that's playing eight years with shaq drawing double and triple teams in his prime so that is one of the major things that has to me a lebron and a duncan i know duncan's a big guy but lebron in particular ahead of kobe is that he was far more efficient which makes it easier for your teammates to play around all right there's a few things i want to say off top because i do want to drill into the duncan thing the the lebron part is just objectively speaking an insane opinion to hold the magic part i didn't even think about it is an equally insane opinion magic johnson played 12 seasons in this league pre-hiv nine of those seasons he went to the finals and nine of those seasons he either won mvp of the league or finished second or third now if we want to say magic didn't play long enough so be it now i have kobe ranked the head of shaquille o'neal because of the longevity of it that second the back-to-back all that's fair like all and what he accomplished in his career in those three championship runs those three nba finals they didn't need a closer because the games were not close and the series were not close because shaquille o'neal across those three nba finals averaged 36 15 4 and 3 on 60 percent and after the first finals that went six there we go they never had a team what bro rick you the numbers here's the thing as long as in sports you keep a score the numbers are going to tell part of the story as long as it's not figure skating and it's just like we're going to watch them play and then you know if you draw do you judge it as long as it's like how many points you score then how many points someone scores does tell part of the story but i want to talk about duncan for a second stay here with me on duncan not kobe versus because david robinson was amazing in 99 when they won their first title in 03 david robinson averaged eight points per game right and 05 and 07 just like you said with kobe not another top 75 player for his two rings in nine and ten duncan did not have a top 75 player in 05 and 07. the championship they run in 2014 david or tim duncan was a year removed from being first team first team all nba and this idea of well he had greg popovich kobe had phil jackson well duncan had had manu and tim for a good part of it kobe had shaquille o'neal like the the idea and why did kobe have to go through a brief portion of his career without phil jackson well ask phil jackson who wrote in his book that kobe was one of the reasons he left couldn't deal with it anymore now again i have him six in the last 50 years i have massive respect for what he accomplished but the consistency of duncan not to mention and i should have said this earlier 15 all in all defensive teams and i would argue the second best defensive player of the last 50 years behind only dream like i i the he accomplished everything kobe did just a little bit more and under a little bit tougher circumstances yeah well look phil may have left or decided to leave because of kobe i wouldn't buy everything that phil said in that book but he also came back because of kobe because he saw the opportunity to win with kobe bryant so yeah where their personal relationship is and the difference in that between popovich and tim duncan's relationship now we're getting off the board into very very intangible elements i'm simply going to tell you you don't want the numbers or the intangibles kobe what do we like to use we can't use stats and if i step back i saw them i saw them all play and if you ask me who would i take to start my team who did i think was the best player based on seeing them play in all sorts of situations up close not on tv up close i'm taking kobe bryant thanks for watching subscribe here to get the latest from the show also be sure to check out more of the best clips from first things first or go watch a few segments from our other shows on fs1

Channel: First Things First

Views: 348,390

Keywords: nba, basketball, los angeles lakers, kobe bryant, shaquille oneal, lebron james, top 50, rank, ric bucher, Kobe Bryant, Kobe, Bryant, Black Mamba, Kobe Bean, Best Ever, Kobe is the Goat, NBA 2022 Offseason, NBA on FOX, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA Top 75, Kobe Bean Bryant, 5 rings, Greatest Laker Ever

Id: El-Iy1SQ3Rs

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 05 2022