Sneaker News 
The illustrious career of Kobe Bryant didn’t end in the way we all would have hoped. Some of us believed that the life-long Laker would capture that elusive sixth championship, but instead we witnessed a valiant yet not-quite-enough (and at times, cringe-worthy) attempt at regaining an old and forgotten form. It can be argued that Kobe’s inability to come to grips with his present self hurt his team, but in his defense, there was never a championship caliber team around him over the last four seasons. Kobe was last to admit that this season was his last through a heartfelt poem that portrayed a Kobe stripped of bravado and filled with acceptance. His heart is there, but his body isn’t, and the only opponent Kobe will succumb to is Father Time.
Regardless of how the final fifth of his career went down, Kobe Bryant will still considered one of the best players to ever play the game. Throughout his career, there were serious thoughts of Kobe being regarded as the single greatest player in history, and even during LeBron James’ surge to the stop, Kobe proved over and over again that he was the baddest baller not only at the time, but to ever play the game. As Kobe Bryant officially begins his “farewell” tour throughout the remainder of the season, let’s revisit some of these legendary moments that put him above MJ and LeBron.
81
We’ll start it off with the obvious: Kobe Bryant, on a Lakers roster that could’ve passed as an NBDL team, dropped eight-one furious points on Jalen Rose, Morris Peterson, and a Toronto Raptors team that left its defense back to the prehistoric age. Michael Jordan’s career-high was 69 and LeBron almost matched that figure with 61.
The First Three-Peat
It’s unfair to compare Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James at age 24, but by then, the Black Mamba had a three-peat under his belt and he was barely entering his peak. Many believed that Kobe would end up with the most NBA titles when it was all said and done considering he had at least a decade of elite basketball left in him, but internal rifts between fellow star Shaquille O’neal and the emergence of other Western Conference teams put an end to a budding dynasty. Kobe did return to the Finals in 2008 and could’ve matched MJ’s figure had the Celtics not come out victorious that year.
No Gold Without Kobe
Kobe Bryant in the 2008 Gold Medal showdown should be regarded as one of the best Olympic performances in the history of the Games. To get to gold, Team USA had a true opponent in Spain that featured the Gasol brothers and a slew of other NBA starters that were equally hungry for the pinnacle award. A prime Kobe scored twenty points at game’s end, but thirteen of them came during crunch-time (not to mention his lock-down defense). Watch the tape – no Kobe, no gold.
Kobe Carries Shaq And The Lakers
The Lakers’ 2002-2003 campaign was a contentious one. The Shaq and Kobe feud was growing by the day and the Purple and Gold, meant to be competing for another championship, sat at just 24-23. Despite all that, Kobe managed to put the distractions aside and add his name to the history books by scoring 40 or more points in 9 consecutive games. That was good enough to tie Michael Jordan’s own 9-game 40-point scoring streak in the 1986-87 season, but Kobe did it much more efficiently, winningly, and at a higher rate (44 PPG vs. MJ’s 41.9).
The Kobe 9 Elite
If we had to select one shoe of the current era to compete against the Air Jordans of MJ’s Bulls days, the Kobe 9 Elite would be a worthy choice. Tinker Hatfield himself calls it one of the best sneaker designs ever, and we’ll go ahead and say its better than every Nike LeBron, ever.
Kobe Outscores An Entire Team
Some will argue that Kobe’s 81-point performance was his second-greatest game of his career, and here’s why: In a late December 2005 game against the Dallas Mavericks, Kobe caught fire and scored 62 points in just three quarters. In the same timeframe, the Dallas Mavericks as a team scored 61. That’s right – Kobe had scored more points than the entire team.
225 Points In Four Games
The single greatest week of basketball happened in mid-March of 2007. Kobe Bryant dropped 65, 50, 60, and 50 in four consecutive games. Phil Jackson said it best: “He just smells blood in the water and he’s going to go after you.”
No Quit
Is Kobe Bryant the comeback king? He recovered from not one but two potential career-ending injuries and also withstood a piss-poor selection of teammates before returning to the Finals. LeBron, however, jumped ship to Miami when things weren’t going his way, and then returned back with a long list of demands. Jordan, on the other hand, felt he had nothing left to prove in basketball, although conspiracy theorists say that Jordan was banned by the commissioner. This also ties into what Phil Jackson said about Kobe: “No. No one can approach that. I don’t expect anybody to be able to model their behavior after that, although Kobe modeled his behavior a lot about Michael Jordan, but he went beyond Michael in his attitude towards training, and I know Mike would probably question me saying that, but he did.”
Double Nickel On The Man Who Coined The “Double Nickel”
Sure, Michael was 40 years old and in the very last season of his career at the time, and it was Jerry Stackhouse who guarded Kobe during most of the game, but the young Black Mamba dropping 55 points on MJ and the Wizards was definitely a sign of the changing of the guard in the NBA. With an astounding 42 points in the first half alone, his performance on the night of March 28, 2003 with Michael visiting Staples Center was no coincidence. You know Kobe came out ready to play. Can you imagine dropping 55 points against your idol?
A Game Of Biblical Proportions At The Mecca
Michael Jordan gets all kinds of recognition for his 55 point performance at Madison Square Garden versus the Knicks in 1995 shortly after returning from his first retirement, but Kobe actually outdid him on basketball’s biggest stage. On February 2, 2009, Kobe stopped by The Garden to drop 61 points, a record in the arena that stood until Carmelo Anthony managed to score one more point for 62 in 2014. Of course, the 2009 Knicks were trash in comparison to the legendary team Michael Jordan faced in ’95, so this is one instance where the better performance is up for debate.
Kobe Wins This Category By More Than A Hair
MJ went bald because he was forced too, LeBron went hairband because he couldn’t cope, but Kobe went Fro-Be and gracefully transitioned to his current milk-dud self. Advantage, the Black Mamba.
