As I was watching Kobe in Game 7, my thought was that if the Lakers lost that the new standard of Game 7 meltdowns would be Kobe in 2010. But since the Lakers managed to rally to win, John Starks in 1994 retains the title, one I'm sure he doesn't want to keep. Kobe at one point was 4-for-19 from the floor. Process that for a second. He finished 6-for-24, including 0-for-6 from three-point range and had a game-high four turnovers. He even missed four free throws. Somehow, he still ended up with 23 points and 15 rebounds.
Anyway, now that Kobe has won his fifth title, been named the Finals MVP for a second time and beaten the rival Celtics, it's time to again look at his legacy. In doing so, I'm going to update my rankings of the 10 best players since 1979, when the NBA started to matter (and because I didn't see anyone before that).
1. Michael Jordan: Remains in a class by himself. Every time someone ratchets up the silly Kobe/MJ comparisons, Kobe does something to remind us why he isn't as good as Mike (like last night's stinker). But it's not a knock on Kobe to say he isn't as good as Jordan because no one is as good as Jordan. We won't ever see a player like Jordan again simply because no one is so pathological when it comes to winning as Jordan was (and continues to be when in the casinos). Keep this in mind about Jordan's career: he only had two real stinkers in the Finals (Games 4 and 6 in 1996 against Seattle, an amazingly low number for having played in 35 Finals games), he was the best offensive weapon in the league from 1986-1998 (save the two years he was off playing baseball) and he was briefly the best perimeter defender in the league (1987-1990) and then spent the 1990s being the second best perimeter defender in the league (behind teammate Scottie Pippen). Once Jordan put it all together in 1990, he simply didn't have a single weakness to his game (the only other player in my lifetime who came close to not having a weakness was Tim Duncan but he was a mediocre free throw shooter). Combine that with his cold-blooded killer personality--Jordan didn't just want to beat you but he wanted to suck every last bit of will you had left right out of you--and he was by far and away the best. The guy won six MVP trophies. It should have been eight.
2. Tim Duncan: Hugely underrated because he played in a small market, didn't outwardly show off his personality, didn't play a flashy game (hence his nickname, "The Big Fundamental") and wasn't white (preventing the old crusty sportswriters from singing his praises constantly). His only weakness was free throw shooting but even that wasn't an abomination. He was probably the best low-post defender I ever saw (Dennis Rodman was really good too). Won the MVP in 2002 and 2003 and should have won in 1999 but was only in his second year and didn't garner any hype for the same reasons his career has been underrated. Later in his career started saving himself for the playoffs because big men start to break down easier and, consequently, never broke down. Like Jordan, he never lost in a Finals series, going four-for-four. Was the MVP in three of them and should have been in all four. Probably should have won two more rings but was denied by Derek Fisher's miracle shot in 2004 and Manu Ginobili's terrible foul in 2006. Best playoff performer of the 2000s. All-NBA first team nine times in his first 10 seasons and first or second team All-Defensive every year of his career, including the just completed one. When he was younger, occassionally defended point guards--successfully. Two things about Duncan really stand out to me. The first is Game 6 of the 2003 NBA Finals, one of the forgotten great individual performances of all-time when he clinched the title with an epic near quadruple-double 21-20-10-8 game. The others are the 2001 and 2002 seasons. In 2001 he dragged the Spurs to 58 wins and the conference finals even though their best perimeter scorer was Derek Anderson. In 2002 he lifted them to 58 wins and the second round of the playoffs even as no other player on the team averaged even 13 points per game and their leading perimeter scorer was an aging Steve Smith at a paltry 11.6 points per game (wait, how did this team win 58 games?). When Kobe had similarly decripit teammates (and in fairness to Duncan, he did have an on-his-last-legs David Robinson who, while bad offensively, remained a good defender), he couldn't win a playoff series and demanded to be traded. Has to be mentioned when explaining why Duncan ranks ahead of Kobe on my list.
3. Magic Johnson: Terrible defender aside, Magic had the most versatile offensive game of all-time as his 19-11-8 career averages prove. His epic 42-15-7-3 filling in at center, as a rookie, for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to clinch the 1980 championship remains one of the truly legendary performances of all-time. Overcame getting Paul Westhead fired and a truly awful 1984 Finals that briefly had him renamed "Tragic Johnson" to develop a killer instinct and become one of the two defining players of the NBA's peak in the 1980s, which was best defined by the junior hook over Kevin McHale and Robert Parish that won Game 4 of the 1987 Finals to essentially seal that championship for the Lakers. Magic was the rare player who could completely control a game without taking a single shot (only other players I saw who could do that: Larry Bird and LeBron James) and who got the best out of everyone around him because of his happy-go-lucky personality, his incredible will to win (which he developed as his career went along; unlike Jordan, Bird and Kobe he wasn't born with it) and his unmatched passing skills to set his teammates up for easy baskets both in transition and in the half-court. He definitely was the wizard behind Showtime. He was first team All-NBA his last nine full seasons, was the league MVP three times and Finals MVP three times (and he should have won in 1988 also but James Worthy won because of his Game 7 monster 36-16-10 to beat the Pistons). Magic was also the greatest winner of his era, reaching the Finals nine times and winning five of them. The only things that really make me think slightly less of Magic (and neither of them affect his ranking) is the 1991 Finals, when Phil Jackson decided to put Scottie Pippen on him beginning in Game 2 and essentially rendered Magic ineffective (and he still averaged and 18-12-8 although that's somewhat skewed by a monster 20-assist game in Game 5, which was the one that eliminated the Lakers and ended the Showtime era), and the 1996 comeback that we all agree to claim never happened. Even the 1984 Finals don't negatively sway me much because of the way he bounced back from them.
4. Larry Bird: Ranked slightly below Magic because he lost two of the three Finals they played head-to-head, even though I can't definitively say Magic was better. The only tougher player I ever saw was Jordan and the only player more pathological I ever saw about winning was also Jordan. MJ was also the only player who was more clutch. He was slow, couldn't jump and wasn't much of a defender but he brought the best out of everyone around him, was the most deadly shooter I ever saw and was the best closer of the 1980s. One of two players in NBA history to win three consecutive MVP awards (Bill Russell was the other). Had the greatest basketball sense I have ever seen, if that makes any sense, in that he understood better than anyone else what was going to happen before it happened. The best example of this is the famous steal of Isiah's inbounds pass in the '87 playoffs (which was maybe the best play I have ever seen and definitely the best call ever, by legendary Celtics voice Johnny Most). He also won the best duel I have ever seen, the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the '88 playoffs against Dominique Wilkins (immortalized by Brent Musburger's "You are watching what greatness is all about!"). He won the championship three times and was the Finals MVP in 1984 and 1986 (and somehow wasn't in 1981 when he averaged a 15-15-7; Cornbread Maxwell won it instead with an 18-10). His career didn't last as long as some others (sort of like both Jordan and Magic) because he was always throwing his body around to get rebounds and to grab loose balls and it eventually caught up to him with his back injury but even with his back in traction he could emerge as a game-changer. Wish we could have seen a Jordan-Bird duel in their primes--say, the 1984 Bird against the 1993 Jordan.
5. Kobe Bryant: Just slightly ahead of Shaq because I feel like Shaq wasted a lot of years in his career. Best closer of his era. Most competitive player of his era. Hardest worker of his era. Seven trips to the Finals with five championships (and counting) with two as the best player on his team. Two Finals MVPs, although I feel like he shouldn't have won it this year (Pau Gasol should have). Very, very good one-on-one defender although mediocre at best in all other defensive situations. Has the ability to be the best all-around player ever but not the mindset because too often winning his way was more important than just winning. Just as Magic overcame getting Westhead fired and the "Tragic Johnson" moniker, Kobe overcame running Shaq and Phil Jackson out of LA and a trade demand to reach three consecutive Finals (and counting) and win two of them (although it has to be noted that it took Jackson coming back and Memphis gift-wrapping Gasol to LA in one of the most lopsided deals ever for it to happen). Delivered one of the great playoff games of all-time in 2001 against the Kings which remains the best game he ever played (48 points, 16 rebounds). Once scored 81 points in a game, although I'm not sure if that adds to or detracts from his legacy. The one thing that does detract from his legacy are the 2005, 2006 and 2007 seasons when Kobe, in his prime physical years, missed the playoffs once and lost in the first round of the playoffs twice (has any other star player ever gone through a season as bad as 34-48 while in the midst of their prime?). Ignoring those three seasons when evaluating Kobe's place is dishonest at best. Modeling his game and mannerisms around Jordan's probably caused people (myself included) to underrate him and detract from his accomplishments because they were too busy looking at him in comparison to Jordan as opposed to simply looking at him for what he is, which is one of the all-time greats. That being said, he certainly did a lot to cause that himself by running out Shaq and Jackson and the whole Colorado incident. Ben Roethlisberger needs to study what Kobe did from 2004 onward to make people completely ignore that sexual assault case; Kobe was actually charged, Roethlisberger never was.
6. Shaquille O'Neal: Six Finals appearances, four championships, three as the alpha dog of his team, three-time Finals MVP. Only had one real peer during his career, that being Duncan. As Shaq has gone through his decline phase and bounced around from team to team, I kind of feel like people have forgotten just how dominant he was during the 2000, 2001 and 2002 playoff runs for the Lakers. Or that six years ago, there were many who felt Shaq was the most dominant big man of all-time, something no one has ever said about Tim Duncan (maybe Spurs fans) and no one outside of Lakers fans has ever called Kobe the most dominant perimeter player of all-time. If Shaq had retired after winning the 2006 title with the Heat, I feel like people would still regard Shaq as the dominant force he was and that he would still be regarded as better than both Kobe and Duncan. But instead we've seen him decline since then and that's more fresh in people's minds. I haven't seen Shaq as having had a better career than Duncan since 2005 and only now am putting Kobe ahead of him and that's more because of Kobe's desire to be great that Shaq didn't have. Shaq relied entirely on his physical gifts and rarely was motivated to work out and be dominant. There were only two seasons where Shaq really cared about dominating. The first was 1999-2000, which was when Phil Jackson came in and taught he and Kobe how to win. Shaq won his only MVP award that year (how is it possible that Shaq only has one MVP award?). The other was 2004-2005, when an angry Shaq killed himself to get in shape and prove the Lakers wrong for choosing Kobe over him. Though not as statistically dominant, he altered his game to win with the Heat and should have won the MVP that season (Steve Nash won instead). You could argue that the 1994-95 season with Orlando could fall into that category as well, when he led the Magic to the Finals. But that's it. Three seasons of absolute dominance from arguably the most dominant player of all-time. Somewhere along the line, he decided to stop getting in shape and working out during the offseason, instead decided to "play himself into shape" during the regular season to peak in the playoffs. That isn't necessarily the wrong way to go, especially for big men whose bodies break down faster because of all the weight they have to carry, and it worked to the tune of those four rings and six trips to the Finals (and he may well have won in 2005 as well had Dwyane Wade not been injured in Game 6 of the East Finals against Detroit). But those dominating playoff performances made you wanting more of him from the regular season. Instead, he would put off surgeries until the start of the season and not dominate until the playoffs, which was one source of Kobe's anger toward him. That all being said, we cannot forget just how dominant those playoff runs were. Really, I probably should rank him in a tie with Kobe.
7. Hakeem Olajuwon: When Jordan retired after the '93 season, all of the great stars of the era felt this was now their chance to win a ring. Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone and John Stockton, David Robinson, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal all failed. Scottie Pippen failed to do so as his team's best player. So did Clyde Drexler. Olajuwon succeeded and won two (with Drexler joining him for the ride the second year). Then Jordan returned and the window was closed except for Shaq (who was still extremely young at the time) and Robinson (who deferred to Tim Duncan to win two rings as a sidekick late in his career). Hakeem was sort of like Kobe. He openly feuded with his team, once being suspended by the Rockets for refusing to play in a game due to a hamstring injury even though doctors cleared him. He even threatened to sue the team over the incident. He even demanded a trade after declaring he didn't want to play for Houston anymore. That demand came on the heels of the 1992 season, when the Rockets went 42-40 and missed the playoffs. Two years later, with Jordan playing baseball, Olajuwon was the undisputed king of the mountain, winning the league MVP in 1994 (even though I think Pippen should have won) and being named Finals MVP when he annihilated Ewing in a much-ballyhooed battle of centers. The following season, the Rockets seemed to be in trouble and finished sixth in the West. Improbably, they rallied to sweep the NBA Finals with Olajuwon dominating a young Shaq, who had a fine offensive series but was embarrassed at the defensive end (and give an assist to Nick Anderson for blowing four free throws, any one of which would have sealed a Game 1 win for the Magic). Hakeem also dominated and destroyed newly minted MVP David Robinson in the conference finals, averaging 35 points a game in the six-game series win. So he rallied, much like Kobe did, from wanting out to becoming the toast of Houston. He probably had the best and most complete arsenal of offensive moves of any center who ever played and his footwork was unmatched. Oh, and I haven't yet mentioned that he led the Rockets to the 1986 Finals, in just his second season in the league, where they lost in six to what is considered by most to be the greatest Celtics team of all-time. For his part, Hakeem put up a 25-12 for the series.
8. Isiah Thomas: His failure at everything since retiring as a player has overshadowed a great career, including three trips to the Finals and two championships. He understood perfectly what it meant to be an elite point guard, setting up teammates for 42 minutes before dominating the last six, or taking over when his teammates weren't converting. Quiet and soft-spoken off the court, he was probably the most ferocious trash talker ever to play on the court and his willingness to never back down personified the Bad Boys era Pistons that won the 1989 and 1990 titles and lost in 1988, when Isiah had his greatest individual moment in Game 6 when he scored 25 points in the third quarter despite a severly injured ankle. He was despised by opponents, so much so that he was blackballed off the 1992 Dream Team by Jordan (who reportedly refused to be a part of it if Isiah was) and others, which he absolutely should have been a part of. That being said, the fact that opponents hated him so much is probably part of his greatness. Two things about Isiah bring him down just a peg: the idiotic comments about Bird being overrated because he was white and the boneheaded moment where Bird stole the ball on his inbounds pass just a few days prior.
9. Moses Malone: His career was eerily reminiscent of Shaq's in that he moved a couple of times during his peak, then bounced around the league during his decline. Shaq has now played for five teams and is hoping to find another to take him on for next season. Moses played for two teams as a rookie, two teams during his peak years and five teams at the end of his career. He played two games for the Buffalo Braves as a rookie, then was traded to the Rockets where he began his dominant run, leading an undermanned Houston team to the 1981 Finals where he averaged a 22-16 in defeat to the Celtics. The following season he won his second MVP award, then was traded to the Sixers following the year when he signed a lucrative offer sheet with Philadelphia. All he did for the Sixers in 1983 was win the MVP of the league and of the Finals as Philadelphia won the championship. He destroyed Kareem, averaging a 26-18 in the series which the Sixers swept. Like Shaq, feuding with management led to his trade away from Philadelphia and he vowed to dominate them (just as Shaq vowed to make the Lakers pay for dealing him) but by that point he had entered his decline (though he did briefly turn Washington into a contender and had a couple solid years in Atlanta). Had Moses retired after the 1990 season, he may be regarded as one of the two or three best centers of all-time (sort of like Shaq after 2006, although Shaq's personality has kept him regarded in such high regard) but he hung around another six years and fell off the face of the earth. Still, Moses was the best big man of the 1980s. (And yes, I know Kareem was around in the 1980s but his best years were in the 1970s and this list is about the 1979 and on period. In that period, Moses was the better player, although Kareem did have one last period of dominance in the 1985 Finals).
10. LeBron James: He has yet to win a title. When he does, he jumps ahead of Isiah. Should he win three, he probably jumps Kobe. Should he get to five, he passes Duncan. If he doesn't win any and someone like Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard do, Durant and/or Howard jump him. The story is still to be written. All I know is the Lakers window to win championships is probably two more years and the Celtics window is probably closed so someone is going to win those in the 2013, 2014 and beyond. Given that LeBron has already won two MVPs (and could have legitimately won as many as five), been to a Finals and delivered one of the great playoff performances of all-time with his 48 Special in 2007, I'd say he's the best bet to capitalize on that opening window. As long as he doesn't go to the Knicks.
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