LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant may be the three most recognizable names to have ever played basketball. Even if you don’t know about the sport, chances are that you have heard of either one of these three players or all three of them. They are three of the greatest players in the history of the game.
There seems to be a clear pecking order between these three. Many will have their own rankings, but MJ is widely considered the greatest of all time, followed by LeBron James. Kobe Bryant is a fixture on many people’s all-time top 5’s. However, there is a statistic that shows Kobe could do some things that neither MJ nor Bron could.
Over their careers, Kobe has individual scoring records that even some of the greatest players in history can’t touch. Kobe has more 40-point games than LBJ and Stephen Curry combined, more 50-point games than LBJ, Kevin Durant, and Larry Bird combined, and more 60-point games than Jordan and LBJ combined.
This is crazy af lol pic.twitter.com/k0hSd5rlyv
— bears 1-2 (@Da1Only16) June 13, 2022
These stats are not to affect the larger debates around all these players but just show the ability Kobe had. While he may have had a lot of help in most of his championship runs with either Shaq as the primary scoring option or a well-balanced squad around him, Bryant backpacked his team more often than people believe.
LBJ has a career marked with consistency and he may become the all-time leading scorer of the NBA because of his remarkable regularity in getting double-digit points games, with him averaging 30 points per game this season at age 37.
MJ’s accolades have always spoken for themselves. It is great that these three players have the sweeping respect of the basketball community, but this shows that Kobe Bryant was a different animal when it came to proving what he could do on the court by himself.
