Hey, Kobe passes! (ba-dum-tss)

So yeah, like you probably already know, Kobe Bryant passed Michael Jordan on the all-time scoring list. Does that mean he is greater than Michael?

Well, of course! Up until this game Michael was greater, and in fact he was still greater than Kobe all the way through the first quarter, but then, when Kobe scored those free-throws in the second, their greatness was reversed. All the books that have rankings of great NBA players in them were called back to the stores to hastily correct the order and to put Kobe before Michael, all the websites that have the same rankings underwent some massive editing, and even “Space Jam” inserted Kobe’s CGI head over Michael’s body to account for Kobe bumping Michael from the greatness pedestal.

We saw this coming for some time now. Kobe passing Michael on the scorind list – it was bound to happen. It says nothing about their greatness. Is Karl Malone greater than both of them? Jesus, even Karl himself doesn’t think that. MJ was the greatest not because of the number of points he scored (although he did score A LOT of them) but because of many many variables, one of them being his scoring prowess. So just because Kobe played way more than him and managed to accumulate more points – that doesn’t say anything. Kobe was a top-10 all-time player, and he remained as such. He is not a top-5 player, despite what Magic Johnson might say.

And besides, look at the all-time points leaders in the Israeli Basketball League: Doron Jamchi is 1st all-time, with 9,580 points in the Israeli League. Kobe Bryant? 0 points in the Israeli League! Argument settled. If Bryant can’t score a single point in the Israeli League, then he has no claim to the all-time greatest player title.

And one last thing: Have you seen Reggie Miller‘s tweet?

What the hell?! “The Black Cat”?! Can anyone simply make up their own nicknames to players now?! Isn’t there some absurdity filter?! I think that as a punitive measure, Reggie should be suspended from the second place on the all-time three-pointers made list for the next two months. In those two months, he should be relegated to wherever Rik Smits is on that list, with his 3/26 over his entire career. This should give Reggie some time to think about not inventing ridiculous nicknames.

Anyway, can Kobe catch Kareem? A few years ago I would say “yes”, but last season ruined everything… Kobe lost close to 2,000 potential points due to his injuries, and I simply can’t imagine it happening… Well, maybe LeBron will…

“One day Kobe, the third place on the all-time scoring list will be yours. Use it wisely.”