{"id":74573,"date":"2025-08-17T07:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T07:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74573\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T07:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T07:49:11","slug":"stephen-a-smith-explains-why-kobe-bryant-and-lebron-james-will-never-eclipse-michael-jordan-in-the-all-time-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74573\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith explains why Kobe Bryant and LeBron James will never eclipse Michael Jordan in the all-time rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stephen A. Smith has given his explanation behind LeBron James and Kobe Bryant never being able to eclipse Michael Jordan in the all-time rankings.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Bulls<\/a> icon won six NBA championships and made an impact like no other player in the history of the league.<\/p>\n

He was the most complete player in his era, and while many who came after tried to do what he did, few achieved success at his level.<\/p>\n

Kobe Bryant<\/a> and LeBron James<\/a> are two players who are often brought up alongside Jordan in debates of being the greatest of all-time.<\/p>\n

Many have their own say in what order these players can be ranked, but ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith believes Bryant and James cannot eclipse Michael Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelPhoto by JEFF HAYNES\/AFP via Getty ImagesSmith believes James\u2019 failure in the 2011 Finals puts him behind Jordan<\/p>\n

Jordan was 6-0 in NBA Finals, an achievement which is impressive and not many can boast.<\/p>\n

While Bryant and James have a combined nine championships to their name, both have lost several times in their trips to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

James has a 4-6 record in the Finals, while Bryant has lost twice. Although Smith gave them their respect, he revealed that they also had poor performances in some Finals games, which is why Smith believes Jordan will always be the top name in the all-time rankings.<\/p>\n

\"LeBronPhoto by Victor Decolongon\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cYou go back to LeBron and his greatness and you say, \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s there it\u2019s legit\u2019 but we do remember the Finals against the Mavs, we do remember that you struggled in the fourth quarter of four consecutive games. We do remember that J.J. Barea and Jason Terry were guarding your a_ _ and you didn\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

James averaged only 17.2 points in the 2011 Finals, which is the fewest in his Finals career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just saying you\u2019re looking at something like that, that doesn\u2019t stop you from being number two, but it\u2019ll stop you from being number one, cause you know what Jordan would have done because Jordan did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo those kind of things again it\u2019s all debatable in people\u2019s eyes, but not to me when it comes to Jordan,\u201d Smith added.<\/p>\n

Smith reveals why Bryant ranks behind Jordan<\/p>\n

Bryant had a great career with the LA Lakers<\/a> and won five championships with them.<\/p>\n

This included securing a three-peat with Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a>. Bryant, however, had lost twice in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

The Black Mamba modeled his game after Jordan<\/a> and Smith believes the fact that he secured one fewer championship than his mentor puts him behind \u2018The Jumpman\u2019 in the all-time rankings. <\/p>\n

Smith said: \u201cThen they say, \u2018Well, why not Kobe?\u2019 Kobe idolized and practically it was the greatest imitation of Michael Jordan we may have ever seen in terms of style.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill came up one title short, still got beat up in the NBA Finals twice. You remember that and so it\u2019s like you\u2019re up there, you\u2019re great but who you aspired to be, you never caught nor eclipsed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith has given his explanation behind LeBron James and Kobe Bryant never being able to eclipse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,7896,7232,1385,590,85],"class_list":["post-74573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-michael-jordan","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}