Kobe Bryant vs. Michael Jordan: Let’s Give It a Rest

As the basketball community knows, Kobe Bryant signed a three year contract extension worth 83.5 million dollars recently. In his final season of that contract he will be making upwards of 30 million. Not a bad pay day.

Also, when that contract was signed, it spawned several articles that mentioned Kobe Bryant in the same breath as Michael Jordan (for about the 345,897th time). Most of these articles may have been only to suggest that with this extension, it allows Kobe to possibly tie or surpass Michael in number of titles, but even so, we need to stop mentioning these two in the same breath. 

I will not cover up the fact that I am not Kobe's biggest fan, but I like to think I am a bit more objective about Kobe's skill and legacy than delusional Lakers fans are.

Kobe is one of the top ten players of all-time (the rest: 1. MJ, 2. Russell, 3. Wilt, 4. Kareem, 5. Magic, 6. Bird, 7. Oscar, 8. Olajuwon, 9. Shaq). He is the most deadly clutch player in the game today, and one of the most deadly to ever play the game. If my team is down by one with five seconds left in the game, I want the ball in Kobe Bryant's hands over anybody else's in the league. He's probably the hardest working, most intense superstar in the NBA. In other words, the Mamba is a beast.

But Jordan-level beast? I think not.

The thing is, many people who do compare Kobe to Jordan are not just suggesting that he will or can catch Jordan in number of titles, they suggest that Kobe can become the greatest basketball player to ever live. They say Kobe has more pure "skill" than Jordan ever had. Somebody tell that to Jordan or anybody who played against him.

I'm here to debunk the myth that Bryant can ever reach Jordan level status.

Reason One: Statistics

Jordan's overall career statistical line is one of the most impressive in NBA history- 30.1 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.3 apg, 2.3 spg, 0.8 bpg, 49.7 FG percent, 83.5 F...