Jalen Rose has seen, played and guarded all 3 of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James up close. He ranks them in that order.
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There seems to be a very clear disconnect between how professionals and fans view NBA basketball. Specifically, there is a disconnect in terms of understanding the context between every star’s statistical output. There are, of course, myriad other differences, but this one is most obvious.
As a consequence, newer NBA fans tend to overrate some players based on their stats in the league. The same obsession with stats also causes some legends and all-time greats to get underrated.
Above all, what gets lost in basketball discourse is a process-based view of player and team performances. NBA fans are unable to understand the intricacy and the importance of each subtle move performed by pros on a court – especially on the defensive end – for the most part.
They also can’t properly rate the importance and difficulty of certain shots, and why certain players are forced to take more bad shots than others.
This disconnect becomes most obvious when we compare the careers and skillsets of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. It seems to be a nearly universal opinion on NBA Twitter that James is better than Kobe.
But the hoops community seems to have a fairly split opinion. Some people value LeBron’s playmaking over Kobe’s shotmaking. Ultimately, these are all opinions and are all subjective. But it’s interesting to have a plethora of them to fuel discussion.
Jalen Rose still won’t put LeBron James above Kobe Bryant, alongside Michael Jordan
Jalen Rose was recently a guest on All the Smoke Podcast hosted by Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. The trio talked about a whole lot of things relating to Jalen Rose and his career. Among the topics of conversation was Kobe Bryant and the whole top-5 all time debate. Jalen was resolute in his picks:
“For me to watch him from like ’96, when he wasn’t even appreciated by his own teammates to being in that moment where Shaq ended up running the first 46 minutes of the game, and he ended up being the last 2.”
“And that’s why I started calling him like the remix of MJ. Because to me, he looks like MJ, he sounds like MJ, he moves like MJ, he’s the next best thing!”
“I love Bron, and I know Bron is there every time we do a top-5 list. But every time I do a list, I ask myself, why would I put Bron over Kobe?”
Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes were obviously in agreement with the former Pacers veteran. Jackson gave LeBron his credit as one of the unique forces in NBA history. But for this trio, Kobe ascended a level of greatness that LeBron James is yet to touch.
