Is it delusional to rank Kobe Bryant as the 4th greatest basketball player (below Jordan, Lebron and Kareem)?

I can break down Kobe’s career like this:

1996–1998: bench player

1999–2004: second best player on the Lakers team that went to 4 Finals and won 3 championships

2005–2007: missed the playoffs or bounced out of first round

2008–2010: 3 Finals in a row and a 2-peat as the best player

2011–2013: best player but struggled in the playoffs

2014–2016: pretty much a shell of himself at this point

So Kobe’s top 5 argument is pretty much based on what? He was the best player on 3 Finalists and 2 championship teams. Honestly, it’s a pretty weak argument for a top 5 player when you break it down this way.

In fact, Hakeem was the best player on 3 Finalists and 2 championship teams too – also had 1 mvp and 2 fmvps – while also being a much better defender and averaging more in the playoffs. But nobody puts Hakeem top 5 right?

And as much as Kobe fans want to say ‘oh his 2009–2010 teams were full of scrubs’ no they weren’t and they certainly weren’t worse than what Hakeem had to carry to those Finals.

People really need to stop putting Kobe up there – I’m certain its all because of the 5 rings, he scores a lot in the regular season, he’s the ‘closest’ to Jordan kind of BS that casuals all eat up but objectively take a look at his career and it aint it