he was a different animal, but the same beast

As a laker fan he’s better than Lebron.

the distance between the top 5 guy and the top 10 guy is very short compared to the difference between the top 5 and the goat.

so saying you’re not impressed by a guy that makes the top 10 is really confusing.

He was a man that is beyond stats in a way that nerds now need for validating why they like a player. “Dawg” how the kids say it or just a plain ol UNHINGED COMPETITOR, Kobe was a diet MJ for the millennial/ older gen z kids.

I also think especially for laker fans that are homers , the fact that he stuck with this franchise and became the face of it through good, bad to worse times… it bonds a community to someone forever.

A tough shotmaker that could run PnR to perfection when he wanted.

You should wait till the off-season to post these.

He was the best tough shot maker of all time with amazing fundamentals and an elite two way player. Kobe had the footwork, size, , post work, dribbling, jump shot, etc you want from your starting two guard but on top of that he was a menace when defending the perimeter and he took a lot of tough unguardable shots which would usually result in ridiculously inefficient scoring for most players but Kobe was still able to be above league average efficiency with the tough shot selection.

Come playoff time when the game slows down to a low scoring half court offense Kobe’s skillset became much more valuable

He was an elite defender, 3 level scorer and one of the most driven competitors I’ve ever seen. He averaged 25 for a career when a chunk of his career came in arguably the slowest and most inefficient era ever. Hella scoring titles and countless clutch shots. One half of (imo) the greatest duo ever. He followed that up with back to back titles with a squad that was deep but wasn’t loaded with high end talent like other back to back squads we’ve seen (bad boy pistons, heatles, Kd warriors etc). Hé had a generation of kids yelling Kobe when they tossed a wadded up paper into the trash lol. He was also recognized as top dog by the rest of the 2008 redeem team which was loaded with hof’s. He not top 5 imo but for me, it’s hard to put him outside top 10.

If I were to compare a current player to Kobe it’d be Jamal Murray. Is he the best player on his team? No, but it’s hard to imagine the Nuggets winning the chip without him. At least for the threepeat run, that’s what Kobe was. After a lot of … drama lets say, he then went on to win an MVP, lead team USA to gold in '08, three more finals runs, and won 2 FMVPs.

Overall his career arc itself is classic Hero’s Journey, but between the feud with Shaq, the court case, and his general reputation around the league as a hard ass, the pop culture idea of Kobe kinda took on a life of it’s own.

As far a pure basketball goes, Phil Jackson goes into depth about it in his book 11 Rings, but tl;dr he didn’t have the size, strength, vertical leap, or especially hand size of Jordan. Those are all pretty important. But what Kobe did have was a work ethic and ability to develop new skills that inspired millions of people around the world. He could score from anywhere on the court, defend the opponents best perimeter players, and fit perfectly with Phil Jackson’s triangle offense (when he bought in).

It’s also worth noting that in the early half of Kobe’s career, the ruleset favored defense a lot more than it does now. Both hand-checking and zone defense were legal during a decent chunk of Kobe’s playing time, so defenses were more complex than they were in the past and more physical than they are now. There were also way fewer good shooters back then so spacing was atrocious. There were other great offensive players at the time that deserve credit as well, but Kobe’s scoring feats during this period are often graded on a curve because of how hard it was to score. Whether or not that’s fair is up to you.

If you can see how Kobe is a top 10/15 player all time, then how come you don’t get the hype?

A lot of people see Kobe in the 9-12 spots, and I haven’t seen a consensus for Kobe in the top 5 to begin with.

But to answer the question - in addition to the rings, the resume, and the game, Kobe also played for the most glamorous franchise in the league (and in the running for ritziest sports franchise in the world), and if that wasn’t enough, his career arc also played like a Hollywood drama. Enters the NBA as the prodigy, then becomes the charismatic sidekick to Shaq. Wins the threepeat, then the drama becomes too much, the Colorado incident happens, and suddenly Kobe is the pariah. He becomes the Black Mamba, goes into ronin mode, drops 62 in 3 quarters and 81 in Toronto, but struggles to lead his team deep into the playoffs. Lakers make the Gasol trade, he wins MVP, leads the Redeem Team in '08, rehabs his image as the workaholic who wakes up at 4am to practice, takes the Lakers to b2b titles. Morphs into the ageing great who still has it, the living legend, until he tears his achilles - and that is when you got into the NBA. You weren’t there for everything before. And even then, he drops 60 in his last ever game.

In addition to everything else, he was larger than life, and encapsulated Hollywood like no other LA sports star since Magic. For me, that’s why there was and still is so much Kobe hype.

Because people watched him play and felt it was that great?

I don’t have him near top 5 but this idea fans have today that you need to rank every top whatever number of all-time players based on basketball reference resumes is about.

Most of his best games are on YouTube. It’s not like he was in the 1950s and you need someone in their 70s to explain it. Watching someone play > reading stats and accolades