Kobe Bryant. Fierce competitor, a winner, and one of the top 10 scorers ever. But at the same time is one of the top ten most overrated players ever. Kobe is often in the “Best Player Ever” conversation which is absolutely ridiculous. Kobe has shot too much throughout his career, which has often hurt his team. At the same time though, Kobe has a competitive edge to him which people love, and which often intimidates opponents. Kobe’s a great player, but has definitave and very important negatives and positives to his game.
Positives: Notable achievements: 5 nba championships, 2 nba finals mvp, 1 regular season mvp, 2 scoring championships, 14 time allstar, 11 time all devensive team, 81 points in a game.
There are many things to love about Kobe. He’s a winner. There’s no one in the NBA that wants to win more then him, and that will do anything to win like he will. Miss or make he’ll always demand taking the final shot, and a lot of the time he does make it. Kobe has won two championships without Shaq, showing he can win without him. Kobe can shoot from anywhere on the court, making him very hard to stop. Lastly, and most importantly Kobe puts the team on his back and gets his team succes.
Negatives: Notable Stats: Career .45% shooter, career 4.2 assists per game, since Shaq’s departure Kobe’s averaged 22 shots per game
Kobe’s problem has been different in different years. In the Shaq era his problem was that he was not clutch at all. Every time the playoffs came around Kobe’s production would decrease forcing Shaq to score more, which did end up happening. Once Shaq left another problem arose. Kobe’s teamwork. From 2004 to 2007 the Lakers had no supporting cast, so the team was awful. Kobe seldom passed the ball, and took a ton of shots. No one had a problem with it in those days because Kobe had no good players to pass to. In the next few years the Lakers got Bynum (all-star) Pau Gasol (all-star) Ron Artest (all-star), along with Derek Fisher and Trevor Ariza. As well Lamar Odom started playing to his full potential. Even with all the star power on his team in the last 4 seasons Kobe has only averaged 4.4 assists per game. Kobe does not pass enough, and even when he does he’s not very good at getting open shots for teammates.

Reasons for Being Overrated: Elite players make their teammates better. Kobe doesn’t do that nearly as much as other of the best players in the league. He’s a great shooter but plain and simply shoots too much. For example this season generally the more Kobe shoots the ball, the less successful the team has been. Kobe’s lack of teamwork takes him out of the top 10 players ever, and the top 5 players right now. Kobe is an incredible player, but is not as good as people make him out to be. It also makes him one of the most overrated players ever.

Some people are going to go crazy at the statement that Kobe is overrated, so let’s just take a look at the stats. PER is Player Efficiency Rating, which is a rating of a players effectiveness per minute. How does Kobe stack up? Since the 06-07 season Kobe has never been in the top four in PER, and has only cracked the top ten twice. He has never had the best PER out of SG’s (is either beaten by Ginobli or Wade) and has only had a better PER than LeBron once. Now let’s look at Win Shares. This stat examines how Kobe effects the number of wins his team has. Since 06-07 Kobe has not been in the top 10 and has been outside the top twenty twice. The 15 guys that have had seasons with the highest Win Shares are listed below.

1. Michael Jordan
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Wilt Chamberlain
4. Shaquille O’Neal
5. Magic Johnson
6. Oscar Robertson
7. Charles Barkley
8. Tim Duncan
9. Larry Bird
10. Jerry West
11. Dirk Nowitzki
12. Bob Pettit
13. Artis Gilmore
14. Julius Erving
15. Bill Russell

That list is similar to my list of best players ever. Where’s Kobe? Kobe isn’t even in the top 10 Win Shares this season, and he’s not even close to cracking the top 15 ever. Kobe is a great competitor/scorer, and is one of the best in the league right now. But stats prove, that he’s definitely not top ten ever like some suggest, and he is overrated.