Mamba Or The King: Who’s Better? | First Take | May 23, 2017

Kobe Bryant was like the next thing to Michael Jordan is incredibly cool LeBron is even

better

mainly because he's two inches taller and 40 pounds heavier. I mean, he's just a bigger player who has a lot of the same skills as Kobe. Kobe was

better

at ma

king

difficult shots. than anyone who lived there with Jordan, but LeBron doesn't have to

take

difficult shots because he makes his entire team

take

easier shots, which is actually a more valuable skill, except sometimes the way he feels at the end of games in the fourth quarter. He feels like the guy who can make the difficult shot is maybe better than the guy who creates the easy shot, even though that's not true.

Look, Patiska says LeBron is clearly better than Kobe and in terms of championships, I think it's important to count championships when we're tal

king

about the best player, one of the two best players on a championship team. LeBron was always, without a doubt, the best player on every team he played on. Kobe played with Shaq, where he was actually a B to Shaq's 1st when they reached the third title. I mean, Jack won MVP and Finals MVP every year, you could argue that Kobe was bigger against the Spurs and those were really the finals in the Westpac which, in any case, when you only count the championships, it's also you lose something if that's the only one.

What you're doing is magic and Byrne is still an argument. Bird got three, Magic got five. I think there's a recognition that Magic was playing with a slightly better team, at least with a deeper bench than Bird, and Bird got hurt, so that was limited, you know? the championships, so it's not just about championships in a playoff, maybe you would look at the championships, the truth of the matter is, according to all the analysis, you know, all the empirical evidence says what brother, you don't need to get to a playoff . LeBron is the best player. Given that Michael Jordan, Kobe was better than Duncan, maybe not as good as Shaq, there is no one in the argument with LeBron and this entire era he spent more time as clearly the best player in the world than any player in my lifetime except Michael Jordan, listen.

In that sense and from that point of view, I agree with you that LeBron James is a better talent. My problem is that we don't take the intangibles into consideration as much as we should and let's look at it from the analysis you talked about about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, while Larry Bird to me was a better individual talent because he could shoot considerably better than Magic, he was also a fabulous pastor at the forward position and obviously won championships, but not that many, the reason you love a comparison like that, Max Kellerman is because they both could be trusted to do whatever they did to accentuate their greatness, whether they were Whoever they were, whatever made them great, we didn't leave, they didn't leave that. at the door when the money came Tom when we look at LeBron and Kobe that's where I think we parted ways because even though LeBron has matured to that point where there's no longer any question about that as what concerns him for a long period of time of time in his career was a big question.

I declared religiously for the

first

46 minutes. I'll take LeBron James over almost anyone in the world of all time, with the exception of maybe Jordan, and even that's a maybe, the problem is when you get to that money, Tom, that clutch on the that you sit down and then everything falls apart and you grab the ball and say here, take me to the promised land. LeBron is not someone who is going to be on that list most of the time and in a lot of people's eyes and no one is going to question that Kobe would be on that list when the money came Tom and it was time to give him the ball, whether in the final against Indiana, whether in 2001 in the postseason, whether in 2010 against Boston or in between times.

Kobe at a younger age was so sensational that LeBron had to grow into something real over a significant period of time and that's the difference in what LeBron learned. Kobe had an empty head. The last point Matt LeBron was pushed to that elevated level of play. Kobe. took it MJ took it these are guys you knew from the moment they arrived, they belonged there. LeBron was pushed, trained, nurtured, instructed in that elevated position, that's the difference. I agree with that and had read having this discussion, including a championship they won. after he choked in Dallas in 1011 in the 2011 championship when LeBron choked in the fourth quarter, I actually went on the radio and openly apologized to Kobe Bryant fans for telling Kobe to say, look, he was wrong about LeBron being better than Kobe. he doesn't know, he just choked and Kobe would never have looked better like that, okay, right, so Bran had to grow into what he grew up to be, but my god, what does he have to do to eventually prove it, isn't he?

So? Even more interesting is that hopefully it was a blessing to develop into this and then when I've asked the last final questions for you, I'm just going to do this because there's a basketball player who had my own opinion, it wasn't just four quarters. against Dallas these four times that LeBron has not appeared in a fourth quarter of an NBA final in 2007, in a fourth quarter in 2011 and another in 2014-2015, he was not present in some of those situations, there is no doubt, but he's matured to that level of greatness, so I would ask you this simple question at the end, what it boils down to is this and I'll ask you what's great as LeBron is: how much faith did you have in him until he didn't, but not now? but since he was mature and how much faith you had in him compared to the faith you had in Kobe, I want to address that Kobe gives you the feeling that you always want him and that's why you want that guy on your team, but in fact, yeah You look at what happens often, Kobe's team became less efficient at the end of games, even in decisive games.

LeBron doesn't give you the same postseason, yes, and applause, yes. LeBron doesn't give you the feeling that he loves it the same way. the ball was in his hands, he's not that good at one thing and then when you make the tough cut, what you find is that LeBron James makes his team better close and intertwined in playoff games, so that's what that I would say and I would even say If you want to say that that wasn't the case and that Kobe had that on LeBron at the end of the games because you just say: I'll forget all the bad, all that statistical nonsense, all I know is that a lot of times I'm among the greats of all time. teams, it all comes down to those last few seconds.

I want the guy on my team who wants it at that moment. That would be the tiebreaker if it were a tie. What I'm telling you is that if LeBron doesn't match Michael statistically. Jordan by the most sophisticated metrics, but even then Jordan had LeBron didn't. What I'm telling you is that there isn't that much closeness between LeBron and Kobe and all the other areas. LeBron, it's all Kobe on top.