By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Sharing his opinion about the GOAT, Magic Johnson projected Kobe Bryant among the candidates.
“We know Kobe belongs in that conversation even today,” he stressed when asked if Bryant would be placed in the conversation about the greatest basketball players of all time alongside Michael Jordan and LeBron James if he was still alive during a recent interview with NH ExperienceTV.
“When you think about scoring-wise, nobody could stop Kobe, just like nobody could stop Michael Jordan,” he explained, “When the game was on the line, if I gotta have one guy with that rock, I am going to choose between them two dudes, Michael Jordan or Kobe. Because I know both of them are going to hit the shot or get fouled and hit the free throws to win the game.”
Kobe spent his entire professional career with the Los Angeles Lakers, winning five NBA championships and being named Finals MVP in 2009 and 2010. In 2020, he perished in a helicopter crash. Magic was not the first to mention him in the everlasting GOAT debate, but the majority of views focus on Jordan and James.
Johnson, 65, won five NBA championships, including three Finals MVP awards, starring in the Showtime era of the Lakers.
Kobe Bryant mural
With the Olympic Games heading to Los Angeles in 2028, a new mural of the two-time Olympic gold medalist, Bryant, was placed in the city, in front of The Hollywood Roosevelt and Hotel Figueroa.
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