The Black Mamba When talking about basketball, especially the Los Angeles Lakers, everybody would right away think of Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant has been consistently great for so long that it’s hard to ignore his place in Los Angeles Lakers history. With his 5 championships, Kobe has made the Lakers one of the big names in the NBA with its 16 championship titles. Consequently, it makes Bryant’s rank in Lakers history quite an accomplishment. Also, his opponent Lebron James usually compared to Kobe; but for now, Kobe has five rings, two Finals MVPs, one regular season MVP, 29,484 career points, career averages of 25.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists; he’s made 14 All-Star Games (and won the MVP four times), 10 All-NBA First Teams, and nine All-Defensive First Teams (NBA.com 2013) and Lebron is no way near those statistics. By looking at this data, people can conclude that Kobe is a better basketball player than Lebron James through his: competitive spirit, his ability to score, and his way to championships. Some people may bring out Kobe’s competitive player Lebron James when comparing with Kobe. Who performs better? This debate has spread out in the world. By checking out on James’ and Bryant’s stats; in 2009-2010, Lebron James can score 29.7 points per game whereas Kobe Bryant has 27 points in each game’s night (NBA.com 2010). Even though LeBron may score more than Kobe but Kobe gets more assists than Lebron in that season because he wants to contribute more to his teammates. Therefore, the 2009-2010’s championship belongs to no one but the Lakers. The reason why Kobe averages less on that category is because he has better understanding about his teammates more than LeBron. For the past years, Kobe has learns more about his team and their ability to win the same such as the ability to rebound of Pau Gasol. He also has Steve Nash, one of greatest point guards to ever play this game to do the assists for him. In addition, he has Metta World Peace, one of the perennial defenders in the league that is one of the leaders in steals per game this season. In fact, Kobe also helps teammates a lot in offence as a shooting guard. Only from statistics, we cannot conclude that Lebron performs better than Kobe because data is just numbers. A real superstar not only can create wonderful plays in games, but also should stand out to make the key point in the game. Kobe has beaten the buzzer 6 times in 2009-2010 seasons which even can compare with the number of James’ buzzer beater in his career. Eager for wining in every game, Kobe always performs like a cold-blooded mamba in his games. With his intense stare and play-style, the name “Black Mamba” was given to him. This highly venomous fast-moving land-dwelling snake of Africa is nothing different from Kobe’s play-style. He always tries to be aggressive during the match and if he finds any injury in opponent player then he will strike that injury as a great weakness of the opponent team like the black mamba always does. On the other hand, Lebron always prefers to be like more defensive style which usually afraid to take the winning shot of the game and cannot create much inspiration to his teammates. A defensive play-style will make the game seems boring whereas aggressive play-style will take away the audience’s at some key plays.
Also, Kobe Bryant is clutch. With the game on the line, Kobe always makes difficult shots that almost seem like impossible to block. From statistics, LeBron has been to the Finals three times while Kobe has been to the Finals seven times. Also, Kobe Bryant is currently ranks 4th in NBA history in all-time scoring and 3rd in all-time playoff scoring. Kobe is simply the best basketball player today. Based on the approach and understanding of the game, Kobe has better understanding towards game and he