Why Kobe Bryant may be slightly overrated?
Kobe is without a doubt the second-best shooting guard to ever play the game. He is also a top ten player of all time in my book. In his prime, blessed with athletic ability and godly footwork, he was a scoring machine.
Despite all his accolades though, he may be slightly overrated. Many people consider him to be the second best player to ever play the game after Michael Jordan. That to me is quite absurd. In this article, I mention two things that are not mentioned when talking about the greatness of Kobe Bryant.
#1 Poor field goal percentage
Kobe Bryant took a lot of shots. naturally the more shots you take the more you make but at the same time, the more you miss. While Kobe does not have a bad field goal percentage but 45% is certainly not great.
In comparison, Jordan has a has a 49.7% field goal. Even Dwyane Wade who is below Kobe in almost all shooting guard lists, has a 48.3% field goal. Kobe simply was not the most efficient player in basketball. LeBron James, for example, boasts a 50.4% field goal percentage.
This can amount to the fact that Kobe often had to carry a load of an entire team on his shoulders. The other theory could be is that Kobe was not a willing passer. It probably was a mixture of both those theories.
Kobe is number three on the list for field goals attempted only beaten by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Karl Malone. He also holds the record for the most shots misses in the NBA.
I do not mean to demean his greatness but simply would like to point out the fact that Kobe was a great scorer but not the most efficient scorer.