The debate over who is the greatest NBA player of all time rages on, but Kobe Bryant often gets left out of the discussions and Draymond Green knows why.
Green laid out why people like to leave the Lakers legend out of the GOAT debate on a recent episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq.
“Here’s why I think he’s not [in the conversation],” Green said told Shaq. “Because, number one, he played with you and people hold that against him. Number two, I think Kobe kind of fell in a weird time. And what I mean by that is Mike [Jordan] left the league. When Mike left the league, y’all were dominating. And then you left the Lakers. When you left the Lakers, they had a few rough years, it wasn’t great.
“They didn’t have a great roster. Rudy Tomjanovich, that was that was an epic fail like it just wasn’t great. And while it wasn’t going great, there was a young guy in Cleveland starting to make his hay. And so, in the years where Kobe could have been dominating, which he was from a number’s standpoint, they weren’t winning. So in those years, LeBron [James] was making his hay and starting to make his name as the best player.”
The four-time Warriors champion went on to explain that he thinks LeBron James started his historic run before Kobe had a chance to cement himself as one of the top players in the league.
“And I think the amount of time that it was a consensus that Kobe was the number one in the league, like the top guy, I don’t think it was long enough for everybody to say to put him in that conversation, because Bron then came and put his name in the conversation,” Green continued.
“And so I don’t think he accumulated enough people saying that he dominated the way Mike dominated in the length of the time that Mike dominated, Bron the length of time that he’s dominated. I don’t think Kobe dominated himself for that length of time. And I think that’s why people don’t put him in the conversation.”
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