MJ-Kobe Debate Somehow Pops up During Playoffs by Various Sports Writers on Creators.com

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MJ-Kobe Debate Somehow Pops up During Playoffs

LOS ANGELES — It is an argument for another day. Kobe Bryant is not yet finished with basketball, not by the longest, off-balance, fingers-in-the-face shot he has ever attempted.

You can't make comprehensive comparisons between a work in progress and a finished product, particularly when that finished product is Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

But if Phil Jackson is OK with it, who are we to discourage debate? If the coach responsible for Jordan's six NBA titles and Bryant's five-and-counting says, "I think Kobe's as good as Michael," on what authority do we dissent?

Answer: absence of agenda.

When the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers declares that his best player is comparable to maybe the best player who ever breathed, that's a newsworthy development. But when he does so in the middle of the playoffs, with Bryant trying to achieve transcendence on a tender ankle, that sounds a lot like psychology.

No coach calculates his public comments more carefully than Jackson, and few are so skilled at motivation and mind games. If the triangle offense has been the tactical foundation of the Zen Master's success, his ability to direct divas, reach rockheads and maintain control of championship teams has been his defining quality.

Sure, a lot of coaches could have won championships with Jordan or Bryant in their exalted prime. So far as that goes, Bill Russell and Bob Cousy made Red Auerbach look a lot smarter, too. But how many coaches could have squeezed so many effective minutes from the likes of Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest?

More to the point, perhaps, what other coach has so often criticized his star player's selfish streak when it suited his larger purpose? This is the same Phil Jackson, remember, who once published a book in which he called Bryant "uncoachable."

So it's reasonable to wonder whether Jackson equated Bryant with Jordan as a candid evaluation or as strategic ego-stroking. (It's fair to ask, too, whether Bryant pays attention to anything Jackson says.)

Personally, methinks the man doth praise too much.

And methought that before Bryant clanked the three-pointer at the buzzer in the Lakers' 96-94 playoff loss to the Dallas Mavericks Monday night.

Though Chicago's Derrick Rose was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player for the 2010-11 season, ending LeBron James' two-year reign as the league's MVP, Bryant remains the most accomplished player of his generation and, on balance, the greatest.

But at the top of his game, Jordan was better, and pretty much across the board. On a per-game average, he scored more points, grabbed more rebounds, made more steals, blocked more shots, earned more assists and committed fewer turnovers. Jordan won five MVP titles to Bryant's one, and won six NBA titles with a supporting cast arguably weaker than the one Bryant has now or did when he was sharing the billing at Staples Center with Shaquille O'Neal.

Bryant has been a marginally better three-point and free-throw shooter than was Jordan, but he has been significantly less accurate from the floor and much more prone to self-indulgent shots. Though his greatness is irrefutable, it says here that Jordan was greater.

Comparing players of different eras has its perils. The quality of competition and the talent level of teammates are ever-changing variables, as are the effect of nutrition, weight training and wealth on separate sets of characters.

Complicating the MJ-Kobe debate is that Bryant turned pro straight out of high school; that Jordan spent three seasons on sabbatical before an ill-considered encore with the Washington Wizards; that Jordan's best season as a three-point shooter took place when the arc was temporarily moved closer to the basket; and that Bryant, at 32, would seem to have several prime seasons left to play.

Still, from a statistical standpoint, their respective bodies of work attained critical mass a long time ago. Jordan finished his NBA career with 41,010 regular-season minutes; Bryant has 40,163. That's a difference of 847 minutes, or less than 18 non-overtime games. That's plenty of data for a preliminary conclusion.

And here's what it shows on a per-game basis:

Scoring: Jordan 30.1, Bryant 25.3; rebounding: Jordan 6.2, Bryant 5.3; assists: Jordan 5.3, Bryant 4.7; steals: Jordan 2.3, Bryant 1.5; blocks: Jordan 0.8, Bryant 0.5; turnovers: Jordan 2.7, Bryant 2.9.

Case closed. For now.

Tim Sullivan writes about sports for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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