Lakers: Is Kobe Bryant A Top 10 Player of All Time?
By Eric Yee
Dec 30, 2014; Denver, CO, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) reacts during the first half against the Denver Nuggets at Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
Kobe Bryant announced his pending retirement after the 2015-16 season, but the question remains: is he a Top 10 player of all time?
Kobe Bryant is set to retire at the end of the season, leaving a legend-sized hole in the Los Angeles Lakers organization. There’s no question that Bryant sits among the greatest Lakers of all-time and, by most measures, among the all-time greats in the game of basketball. However, where he falls on an all-time ranking of NBA players is a question worth exploring.
Unless the standards are specified beforehand (i.e. best scorer, best passer, etc.) NBA player rankings are generally purely subjective. For instance, if simply asked “Who are the best 10 players of all time,” and nothing else, the answers would greatly vary.
This is to say, a diehard Celtics fan is far more inclined to place Larry Bird and Bill Russell above the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Magic Johnson.
That said, we decided to answer that question ourselves, with very loose guidelines. For the sake of argument, we stuck to post-merger players, 1976 and on. Seeing that Kareem fell into both eras, we also agreed to include him in our rankings.
Four writers for Lake Show Life ranked their top-10 players in the post-merger era. Those four sets of rankings were then aggregated to determine the consensus all-time rankings.
Much is said about Kobe’s work ethic, killer instinct and innate desire to win; but where does he rank all time?
Next: Co-Editor Eric Yee's Rankings