Nah he came up big down the stretch in too many playoff games during that three peat especially at times when shaq was off the court due to foul trouble. Kobe also wasn’t just another all star guard lol. He was all nba second team in 2000 2001 and first team in 02 as well as making a defensive team all 3 years. Kidd is prolly the only other guard with comparable accolades in that stretch
It’s way too early to say lmao. I can’t rmr the last time a draft that had two rookies that could make an all defense team (Wemby and Ausar). Jaime and Lively have also looked pretty good so far. Brandon Miller’s shown nice flashes. Podziemski’s been a nice surprise for Golden state. What we’ve seen so far from these guys so far makes it hard to say this draft is gonna be bad tho.
These three dudes have a combined 1 mvp, no rings and 2 finals appearances as a main option. It’s hard to argue that any of them belong on an all time top however many list. But it’s also even harder to argue jimmy over harden lol. Harden has scoring titles and assist titles and is a former MVP. Jimmy doesn’t fold in the playoffs the way Harden has many times before and he’s ofc got much better defense but the argument ends there.
Rockets are legit and will make the playoffs via playin
Shaq and Kobe is prolly the greatest duo ever considering the fact that most other elite duos still had a better supporting cast around them. Kareem and Magic had Worthy as well as Byron Scott and Cooper. MJ and Scottie had Dennis, Harper and Kukoc. KD and Curry ofc had the rest of the death lineup. Shaq and Kobe on the other hand had Rick Fox and Fisher, which just isn’t the same.
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.