Raja Bell’s battles with Kobe Bryant are legendary.
One of basketball’s most aggressive wing defenders and a notorious hothead, the former Phoenix Suns guard went toe-to-toe with the Los Angeles Lakers icon on 44 separate occasions from December 2001 to February 2012. The statistics, as you surely already know, indicate that Bryant won those matchups; he’s one of the most gifted offensive players the game has ever seen, after all, while Bell fought and clawed his way to a 12-year career defined by ultra-physical defense and timely three-point shooting.
Who could forget these classic off-court jabs, too?
But what really matters, wins and losses, paint a much more accurate portrayal of just how hotly contested their meetings were for more than a decade. Bell and Bryant ended their careers winning exactly half of the games they played against one another – 14 each during the regular season and eight each in the playoffs.
In a must-read story on Manu Ginobili by ESPN’s Zach Lowe, Bell, despite his relative success versus different championship iterations of the Lakers, quips that he tells people Bryant is the hardest he’s player ever had to guard when asked. But it’s a lie. The former Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns, and Utah Jazz instigator insists that Ginobili is the real answer to that question.
“People always ask me who was hardest to guard,” Raja Bell said. “I say Kobe. That is what people want to hear. But the truth is, it might have been Manu. He’d rev it to fourth gear, get by you, take it back to second gear so you’d run into him, and then he’d make a crazy floater. I made a living studying offensive players. I couldn’t figure him out.”
Bell’s take makes more sense than it seems on the surface.
Bryant’s bag of tricks knew almost no depths. He used his prototype combination of size, skill, and athleticism to frustrate defenders with an array of textbook moves across the floor. Ginobili’s game, though, is among the most unique basketball has ever seen. There’s no good way to scheme against a playmaker who’s just as likely to splash an off-balance lefty three or leave a defender in the dust with a killer crossover as thread pinpoint dimes from 30 feet and make hay in transition with off-beat drives and euro-step finishes.
Think about it like this: If Bryant was classical music, Ginobili – definitely during his prime and still in fleeting flashes – is all jazz. Which style lends itself to more spontaneous bursts of unique creativity? And for what it’s worth, Ginobili enjoyed more team success against Bell than Bryant did, too, winning 17 of the 24 games in which he ever faced off with Bell.
Does that alone mean Ginobili is a more difficult than Bryant? No way. But it certainly supports Bell’s newfound honesty at the very least.
*Statistical support for this post courtesy of basketball-reference.com
(Via ESPN’s Zach Lowe)
