Jamal Crawford is just one of 10 players who managed to play 20 seasons in the NBA, and in that time, he got to face some of the game’s greats.
He went up against the likes of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but who was the best he ever faced? Well, that would be one Kobe Bryant and Crawford explained what made Bryant so special.
“Guarding him was like no other,” Crawford said. “He was literally the best player I’ve ever played against. He had no fear. He could go 1-for-15 and think he was hot. His work ethic, his skill. When you knew you were going to play against him, he wanted to take your heart but you lost sleep the night before.”
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Kobe has his fair share of detractors, but at his peak, he was almost impossible for anyone to handle. He won back-to-back scoring titles by first averaging 35.4 PPG in 2005-06 and then in 2006-07, he put up 31.6 PPG.
Bryant made the All-Defensive First Team both seasons too, which shows just how terrifying he was to go up against on both ends of the court.
Bryant would finish his career with averages of 25.0 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 4.7 APG, 1.4 SPG, and 0.5 BPG, winning five championships along the way. He won an MVP in 2008 and his 12 selections to the All-Defensive teams still remain the most for any guard in NBA history.
Jason Richardson Believes Kobe Bryant Is The Second-Best Player Ever
Jason Richardson was also a contemporary of Bryant’s and he believes Kobe is the second-best player of all time. Richardson realized that when he faced off against Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2010 Western Conference Finals.
Kobe went off for 37 points in their closeout victory in Game 6 of that series and Richardson stated he went on a whole other level. Bryant would then go on to win his fifth championship by beating the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals that year to further establish himself as one of the all-time greats.
Richardson and Crawford are hardly the only contemporaries of Bryant’s to have had some big praise for him over the years, of course. Dirk Nowitzki also called him the best player he ever faced and Isaiah Thomas said the same. Tracy McGrady, meanwhile, called Kobe the most skilled player in NBA history.
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