Ever since Michael Jordan retired — all three times, really — the NBA has searched for the heir to his throne. Many players have popped up as pretenders to the throne, from Harold Miner to Jerry Stackhouse to Vince Carter. In recent years, people have stopped trying to find a clone and just searched for a similarly dominant great player. If you ever wondered why LeBron James is seen as such a failure, a lot of it has to do with his inability to meet the example set by Jordan. There are many great players in the NBA these days, most of whom have never been directly compared to Jordan. Nevertheless, His Airness says only one player comes close enough to his greatness to merit the comparison. Not surprisingly, that player is Kobe Bryant. Here's what Roland Lazenby, a great writer currently working on a Jordan book, tweeted on Sunday (via PBT): Kobe's ultimate competition is MJ. That's why MJ watches him. MJ made people think what he was doing wasn't human. Ditto the Kobester. I never said Kobe was better than MJ. MJ just told me Kobe's the only one to have done the work, to deserve comparison. Source:Yahoo
I agree. Kobe is the only one to deserve to be mentioned with Jordan. But really it's still not close. Everything Kobe does, Jordan did if first, and Jordan did it better. Kobe is a top 10 player all time imo. But Jordan is the greatest.
