Kobe Bryant
Kobe, like most of the other recent players near the top of the all-time greats, started out with an advantage. Because he did not attend college, he had more seasons in which to pile up numbers. Of the top 7 active players on this list, none played more than 2 seasons of college basketball.
About a decade ago, there was a big uproar because Kobe Bryant had never won an MVP award, and people thought it was a travesty that one had never been awarded to him. But if you look at it, he wasn't even the best player on his own team until 2004-05, and that was the first of three straight seasons in which the Lakers didn't even win a playoff series. The fact is, until 2008, there was no way Kobe could have won an MVP, despite the fact that he was easily the best player to never have won. That season, playing with a new attitude, he won the only MVP he ever deserved. Here is a comparison of him and LeBron James from that season:
Kobe - 28.3 pts, 6.3 reb, 5.4 ast, 1.8 stl, 0.5 blk, .459 FG%, .361 3P%, .840 FT%
LeBron - 30.0 pts, 7.9 reb, 7.2 ast, 1.8 stl, 1.1 blk, .484 FG%, .315 3P%, .712 FT%
Looking strictly at the numbers, LeBron was the better player that year, but the Lakers finished 12 games ahead of Cleveland in the win column, and advanced two rounds farther in the playoffs, so Kobe was the more valuable player that season, and he was the only player from 2006 to 2013 to supplant LeBron as the best player for an entire season.
Kobe played in 7 NBA Finals and won 5 championships, and though he was not the best player the first four times he reached the Finals, he was easily the best #2 player ever on a championship team. Think about it: two of the 9 greatest players in history were on the same team at the same time during their best years. Had their egos not clashed, we may have been looking at the greatest dynasty in history. Instead, we have two great players who had their best years together but were still able to win titles later on with different supporting casts.
Kobe has the sort of resume necessary to be considered one of the greatest of all time. He has the longevity, with 15 years as a star player. He's a great offensive player, as shown by his pair of scoring titles and his 11 All-NBA First Team appearances. He's also great on defense, making First Team All-Defense 9 times, and he's a winner, with enough championships to fill up one hand. The biggest thing that held him back was that lull in the middle of his career, missing the playoffs or losing in the first round three straight times in what should have been his best years.
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