Los Angeles Lakers: Three Reasons why Kobe Bryant is Overrated
By Jason Reed
1. The Over Reliance on his Championships
If I had a dime for every time I heard the five rings argument used regarding Kobe Bryant I think I would be a millionaire. While five rings does add to the legacy of Kobe Bryant, which don’t get me wrong is a great one, it does not make him a better player than some of the other all-time greats. Quite frankly, all of Bryant’s rings came with a similar trend of his team.
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Let’s be honest, Kobe would not have won his first three rings without Shaq. While Kobe himself was a good, young, player; there is no way that the Lakers would have had a three-peat without Shaq playing the glass. Then, Kobe could not win another ring until Pau Gasol and a decent Andrew Bynum was added to the Lakers. Kobe needed guys to get offensive boards, because of the shots he missed.
Look at the trends, it is so obvious what they are. In 2008-2009 the Lakers were third in offensive rebounds per game, the next year they were fourth. In both 2000 and 2001 they were top five, the only outlier being the 2001-2002 season when they placed fourteenth in a year where Shaq missed fifteen games.
Kobe Bryant has needed that specific dynamic to win rings, and without that dynamic he may have never won any rings. Kobe Bryant is a great player and great leader, but we cannot use his five rings as justification for him being an all-time great, as he only won when his own deficiencies were covered.
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Don’t get me wrong, Kobe Bryant is a fantastic player and certainly is one of the greatest off all-time. However, we often get caught up in our own love and bias for players, and the fact of the matter is that Kobe Bryant is overrated within the Los Angeles Lakers community. Put him on the Boston Celtics, and everybody would be dismissing his legacy.