When discussing the GOAT of NBA history, it helps to have a fellow legend to bounce arguments off. WNBA icon Cynthia Cooper recently appeared on the All the Smoke podcast, where host Stephen Jackson asked her to rank three players: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James. It was a tough assignment, but one the four-time champion was ready to take on.
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Cooper didn’t blurt out an answer. She took a moment to think. Eventually, she chose MJ as her number one pick, Bryant at number two, and then James.
No disrespect, however, was aimed at The King. “LeBron is a beast,” Cooper insisted. “The longevity. The game. The pressure he’s been under to perform every single year, and he shows up and shows out.” It’s just one of the challenges of doing a ranking like this—someone has to be at the bottom, even though that person is considered an all-time great.
As for the top two, Cooper seemed slightly conflicted. She named Jordan as number one but couldn’t stray away from speaking about Bryant’s greatness, especially in one area: mentality. “When you talk about mentality, you have to talk about Kobe. When you talk about that assassin-type mentality, you’ve got to mention Kobe’s name every single time,” stated the 62-year-old icon.
Cooper then spoke about what made the late Lakers legend’s work ethic so admirable. “How he confronted the game. How he confronted practice. You put in the work when nobody else is looking.”
It’s unlikely anyone would speak differently about the Black Mamba. He was a workhorse and hated complacency. That’s why he actively disliked teammates who went home right after practice. He didn’t trust those who weren’t always trying to improve their game.
Still, Bryant’s mental toughness simply couldn’t trump Jordan in Cooper’s ranking. “Whatever era he played in, he would have been MJ,” she said about the six-time NBA champ, marveling at the fact that even years later, his greatness is still so hard to fathom. Jordan and Bryant certainly shared similar killer demeanors. That said, Bryant being labeled an “assassin” fits all too well.
Bryant once trash-talked other players to Cooper in Italian
One skill everyone knew Bryant excelled at was talking trash. There’s a story about the Mamba famously learning Slovenian just so he could speak to Luka Doncic in his native tongue—but that wasn’t the first time the five-time champ spoke another language in a game.
During an old interview with Mark Jackson, Cooper shared an interaction she had with Bryant at the 2004 All-Star Game. That night, the WNBA legend and the Mamba spoke to each other in Italian.
“And we’re actually talking about the players. Kobe’s like, ‘Yo, ain’t none of these players better than me.’ And I’m like, I’m looking around but then I realize we’re speaking in Italian, nobody understands us.”
The story aligns with Cooper referring to Bryant as an assassin. He didn’t just learn the tricks of the trade—he figured out how to get inside the heads of his opponents, especially those from overseas. This is the competitor who bulldozed through his best friend, Paul Gasol, during the 2008 Olympics when they were on opposing teams.
Jordan wanted to beat others to prove he was better. But Bryant wanted to bury them and throw away the key—not just to prove he was better, but to show that no one in the world was better.
Cooper was no pushover herself. Her greatness is unmatched in the WNBA. So when she speaks this highly of Bryant, you listen.
