Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan will forever be linked with each other. They are the two greatest shooting guards to ever step onto an NBA court and while that would be enough to tie them together, what ensured that they would be closely linked forever, was just how similar they were.
Bryant idolized Jordan growing up, and he copied everything MJ did. The scoring moves, the mannerisms on the court, and even the way Michael carried himself in general. Kobe didn’t just want to be Michael, though, he wanted to be even better.
Kobe Bryant Gave His Honest Opinion On Who Is Better Between Him And Michael Jordan
While he would fall short of accomplishing that goal, there are quite a few people who believe that Bryant managed to surpass MJ. Kobe’s career is nothing to scoff at, of course, but he didn’t reach the heights that Jordan did, which is a complement to MJ more than a slight at Kobe. Bryant himself was once asked about who is better between him and Jordan, to which he stated that he would never say that he is better than MJ.
“I will never say I’m better than Michael because in all honesty he’s taught me so many things by observation and also through conversation. I would never say that. I think it’s a bit of an unbalanced comparison, too, because when he came in Chicago, he was able to do things individually that I didn’t have the freedom to do coming to Los Angeles. Our career paths tracked differently, I came in playing a supporting role with Shaquille (O’Neal), which was like really hard for my personality to do. That would be like asking Michael to do the same thing, it’s very hard to do that. So, our careers tracked on different paths, man, but I would never ever say that just because I learned so much from him, it’s just a non-conversation for me.”
Kobe did learn a lot from MJ, and as he points out, it is somewhat of an unbalanced comparison because their career paths weren’t the same. The two men would grow very close as the years went by and ended up sharing a very special bond, which was great to see.
During this appearance, Kobe also stated that if he could pick an opponent from his playing career to be his teammate, then it would be Jordan, which came as a surprise to absolutely nobody. What was a bit surprising, though, is that he called Derek Fisher his favorite teammate of all time.
