Somebody would make the Forbes list if they were given a nickel for every time someone had an MJ-LeBron GOAT debate. In fact, it has been milked so much by TV, radio, debate shows and social media over the past decade, that people have just agreed to disagree for the most part as LeBron James winds down an illustrious career.
Just when we thought it was safe to debate another hoops topic, Shaq was back at it with a Jordan and Bron debate, and he was vouching heavily for his former teammate Kobe Bryant to be moved into that second slot above LeBron James and slightly behind MJ — the man who makes for the blueprint to Kobe’s dominance and whose image should be the NBA logo.
Shaq Says Kobe Should Be No. 2 All-Time Ahead Of LeBron
The late-great Kobe Bryant will forever have defenders of his legacy. He is arguably the greatest Lakers star of all time. He has the same number of rings as Magic, and Shaq wants to take it a step further and just flat out call Kobe the second-best to ever do it.
The Hall Of Fame center appeared on the ‘Fluent and Chill’ podcast to talk about a multitude of things, including all NBA top 10 all-time players. Of course, when co-host Jermaine the OG began to name his top 10, Shaq took issue. What originally started out as a valid top 10 turned bad when he named LeBron and never even bothered to mention Kobe in his center-heavy list.
The hilarious part about the conversation is that he named Shaq last in the top 10 list, and Shaq couldn’t care less about that, as he was too focused on the Kobe disrespect.
When Shaq asked Jermaine who his top 10 was, Jermaine answered almost instantly without any hesitation.
“[LeBron] James, Jordan, Jabbar, Chamberlain, [Bill] Russell, Magic, Bird, Duncan, Olaijuwon, You.”
Before Jermaine could get through the list, Shaq already had an issue with the fact that Kobe’s name wasn’t mentioned.
“So you put LeBron over Kobe?” Shaq asked.
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Without hesitation, Jermaine said yes to Shaq’s question, which resulted in Shaq following up with,“Why is that?”
Jermaine stated that he believed Kobe “did nothing better” than James besides shoot free throws, which was his rationale for why he believed Kobe does not go above LeBron, and also for why he doesn’t make his top-10 list.
The Big Aristotle’s rebuttal to Jermaine’s reasoning was laid out pretty clearly, Shaq basically saying that we all hold Jordan to the highest standard and Kobe literally modeled and molded his game after Jordan almost to a T. In Shaq’s eyes, how could Kobe not be one of the greatest if he was almost identical to the greatest?
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“I think Michael Jordan was perfection, right?” Shaq said. “Who was the closest thing next to Mike?”
“He wasn’t that though,” Jermaine said in response to Shaq’s statement. “He was a carbon copy of J, but he wasn’t as good as J”
Shaq punched back with his response, saying “If you’re the closest thing to perfection, what does that make you? Pretty f–king good.”
The boiling point of the debate was when Jermaine compared LeBron’s legacy and career to Shaq’s, mentioning how just like Shaq, Bron could’ve “folded” but instead came back stronger and “destroyed the league.” He also mentioned how teams were literally put together to defeat LeBron, just like teams were put together to take down Shaq.
LeBron Is Voice Of A Basketball Generation
“With all of the stuff that he had to go through, how many times he could’ve folded, not only folded, how many times he came back better, just like you,” Jermaine said. “How many times you could’ve folded when you squandered or when you were in the playoffs, or when you didn’t do what you needed to do, only except you came back better”
“There’s a generation of kids that don’t know the NBA finals without LeBron James. There are teams that are put together, like when you were running around that were put together to stop you, and you only. That’s the same with James.”
While both sides make some valid arguments with great points and counterarguments, it’s not clear who wins this debate, especially because both Kobe and LeBron were dominant in their own right.
But no matter what the case is, Shaq will always go down swinging, defending his former teammate. These guys almost four-peated. We are yet to see another duo as potent.
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