Where Do League Executives Think Kobe Bryant Ranks Among Lakers Greats?

Kobe Bryant‘s not-so-secret goal in life has always been to supplant his idol Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player who’s ever lived. But as his career comes to a close, it’s clear that that simply wasn’t in the cards for him. So now the NBA media has been relegated to lesser, but perhaps more interesting, debates about the Mamba’s rightful placement in the historical hierarchy of all-time greats.

Is Kobe a top five shooting guard ever? Emphatically so. Most likely the second best behind Michael. Is he a top ten player of all-time? Probably. Is he the greatest Laker of all-time? Now here’s where things gets dicey. It’s a question ESPN.com recently posed to executives around the league. Here’s how they responded, via Chris Broussard:

ESPN asked NBA executives and coaches who they believed was the greatest Laker of all time, and it wasn’t close. Magic Johnson, who along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar formed arguably the greatest duo to ever play the game, received 69 percent of the votes. Of the 65 respondents, 45 said Johnson was the greatest Laker ever.

Even if that general consensus wasn’t all that surprising, some of the rationale behind those choices was at least a little bit suspect. The top three vote getters – Magic, Kobe, and Kareem – all won five championships with the Lakers. But numbers two and three on the list had notoriously-taciturn personalities, which some of the respondents admitted weighed on their decision.

All things considered, it’s hard to argue against Magic given the overall impact he had on his team, and on the game in general, as a prototypical point-forward. Nonetheless, it’ll give Lakers’ fans and Kobe followers plenty to argue about in the coming years.

(Via ESPN.com)

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