What’s the difference between Jordan mentality and Kobe mentality?

Superficially they seem similar – in actuality they are quite different.

This is something casual NBA fans won’t notice. They just look at the fact that they are both 6′6 shooting guards with similar movesets and similar ‘killer instinct’ and ‘cold blooded’ and ‘will to win’ and they lump them both together. But there’s a number of differences between the two.

• Jordan has a significantly better career. He has more awards in every category – MVPs, rings, FMVPs, DPOY, scoring titles etc the awards that Kobe leads in All-Star, All-NBA and All-Def is based on the fact that Kobe played 5 more seasons than Jordan did.
• Jordan has significantly better stats in every category, particularly efficiency. Jordan leads Kobe by 5 PPG (8 PPG in playoffs), 1 RPG, 1 APG and 5% FG%. This is because Jordan trusted his teammates more and had better basketball IQ. Kobe never saw a shot he didn’t like no matter how tough it was. Jordan was not like this – he recognized opportunities and knew which were the smart shots and which shots he could delegate to his teammates. Kobe didn’t have this trust with his teammates and often forces his shots which is why his efficiency is much lower and why he wasn’t as willing of a passer.
• Jordan was more athletic – he had a higher vertical and was able to score in more creative ways. This is why Jordan leads Kobe in rebounding and also was able to dunk much more effortlessly – not to say Kobe wasn’t a great dunker but he wasn’t Jordan level. There’s a reason why he’s not Air Kobe and Jordan is Air Jordan.
• Jordan was more polished offensively and naturally gifted. He came out of college coached by Dean Smith and naturally had a gift for basketball. Kobe probably worked twice as hard as Jordan did but didn’t end up being quite as flawless in skillset. He would try to copy Jordan’s moveset like his fadeaways but he didn’t quite know how to utilize them as well i.e he didn’t create as much space on his fadeaways and he didn’t use them at the right moments, often unnecessarily. You often see Kobe pump fake or jab like 5–10 times before going to the basket which is NOT something Jordan would do.
• Jordan also was more naturally accepting of the triangle offense which Kobe often outright went against Phil Jackson – this is why Phil Jackson always picked Jordan over Kobe and called Kobe ‘uncoachable’ in his book.
• Jordan is also more polished defensively as well. Despite Kobe’s 12x All-Def selections, nobody ever thought of Kobe as DPOY material. Jordan on the other hand actually did win DPOY because he was a stellar ball stealer and on ball defender. Kobe was inconsistent with his defense. He started off being a solid defender along the same lines as Eddie Jones (the starter at the time) but his defense gradually dropped off in his later years, his All-Def coming more from reputation rather than actual ability. This is why you always hear Kobe having ‘duels’ with other players – Jordan rarely so.
• Jordan was more well liked than Kobe around the league and in the locker room. Although Jordan was known to be harsh to his teammates, that was only when he felt his teammates didn’t perform up to his expectations. But otherwise Jordan had good humor, loved to joke around off court, play golf with his buddies, play cards all night, etc he even ended up being great lifelong friends with the Chicago Bulls security guard and the utility guy who picked him up from the airport as a rookie. He was known to be good friends with BJ Armstrong, Charles Oakley, Patrick Ewing, etc (although notable he and Pippen/Grant were not as close). He donated his Wizards salary to help the families of the victims of 9/11 and gave away his earnings from the Last Dance documentary to charity.
  Kobe was not like that – he was a loner who didn’t have many friends in the locker room or around the league. When Kobe had the rape trial, none of his teammates backed him up and when Kobe confronted them about it, they said they didn’t know Kobe very well as Kobe had never hung out with them. Kobe’s life was ALL basketball – that’s all he lived and breathed. While this level of dedication is admirable – it was also to an unhealthy degree where he didn’t participate in most of the social activities that Jordan would participate in hence distancing himself from his teammates. In addition to that Kobe was an asshole just to be an asshole – for example telling Julius Randle and Jeremy Lin they were going to be traded to their face or telling Smush Parker he hasn’t earned the right to talk to him yet. That’s not what Jordan would do. That’s just being an asshole for no good reason.

tldr is Jordan had the better career, had better stats, was more offensively and defensively polished, was more coachable, and was the better teammate than Kobe was. Kobe is superficially similar because he is the ultimate Jordan impersonator – he tries to copy all of Jordan’s moves and Jordan’s mentality but as the saying goes – the facsimile often isn’t as good as the original.