LeBron James and Kobe Bryant will forever be linked to each other, and Los Angeles Lakers great Byron Scott was the latest to compare the two on a live show of the Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast. When speaking about Bryant’s mentality, Scott pointed out the biggest difference between him and James.
“The difference between those two is Kobe don’t want no friends,” Scott said. “He ain’t tryna be your friend on the basketball court. He ain’t trying to be your friend. He ain’t giving you all this lovey dovey s***… Kobe’s trying to take your heart. That’s what he tried to do. And I know there’s a lot of guys in the league back in the day that would say, ‘Well, he don’t have friends,’
“Again, like I said, he was like, ‘So?'” Scott continued. “He didn’t give a damn. ‘I got championships,’ that’s what he cared about. Leaving a legacy on that basketball court. He didn’t care about making friends and all that other crap. He cared about winning. That’s the biggest difference between those two is Kobe wants to kill you on the basketball court.
“He wants to make sure when you play him again that you have that thought in your mind, ‘This guy destroyed me,'” Scott added. “So he’s already taken your will. That was his mission. To take your will every time he played you. There were some guys he did, and there was some guys that would stand up to him, and they would battle. Those are the guys he had respect for.”
Bryant wanted to step on your throat and rip your heart out. He wasn’t interested in being friends with his teammates either, and rubbed many the wrong way with his approach to leadership. Bryant wasn’t the kind to put an arm around you and tell you how great you were. All you would get is tough love. If you sank, he wanted nothing to do with you. If you swam, you had his respect.
James, meanwhile, has had a completely different approach. He has been on good terms with his great rivals like Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry for years now. James definitely wants to get the better of Durant and Curry, but doesn’t believe he needs to keep them at a distance.
James is also far kinder to his teammates than Bryant was. Hall of Famer Dwight Howard got to play with both of them on the Lakers and spoke about the difference between them.
“Kobe’s an a**hole. Not saying he’s an a**hole to me. I’m just saying, like his personality, he’s an a**hole. He doesn’t give a f**k. Bron give a f**k. He wants everybody to like him. He wants to joke around, laugh, and have a good time. I just think they’re two ends of the spectrum.”
What we can gather from all this is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. The approaches were different but led to great success anyway.
Bryant won five titles, two Finals MVPs, one MVP, and two scoring titles in his career. As for James, he has four titles, four Finals MVPs, four MVPs, one scoring title, and one assists title to his name.
