Shaquille O’Neal Bats For Kobe Bryant As Lakers Legend Misses Top 10 NBA Players List

Shaquille O’Neal is far from the only person who finds the exclusion of Kobe Bryant from the top 10 to be mortifying. A whole host of fans – including neutral fans who’ve never rooted for the Lakers in a single game, came out and dunked on the Bleacher Report staff who were responsible for making this list.

Kobe Bryant aside, the Bleacher Report list is quite inconsistent logically

The top 10 players of all time, according to Bleacher Report, have the likes of Tim Duncan and Stephen Curry. Both these players have iffy cases over Kobe Bryant at best. Bryant was dominant for longer than Curry, while he beat Duncan head-to-head as the No. 1 option even without Shaquille O’Neal at his side.

The list also penalizes Kobe Bryant for not being the best player on a team with prime Shaquille O’Neal, while LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Stephen Curry were not viewed through the same lens. Similarly, even though it values longevity, as well as championships, it ranks Kobe Bryant below Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, whom he matches or exceeds in both categories.

The whole list has no consistent theme – longevity isn’t necessarily more important than dominance, except when arguing for the player in question. It flips back and forth between both aspects of the player. The list seems like a roundabout way of keeping Kobe Bryant out of the top 10 more than anything else. The elevation of Stephen Curry into the top 10 seems to be a left field inclusion based on his lack of accolades.

The same accolades that were used to prop up the case for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James were ignored while factoring in where to place Kobe Bryant. They also failed to properly contextualize Hakeem Olajuwon’s incredible back-to-back championships with the Houston Rockets in the 94-95 and 93-94 seasons.

It is hard to make an objective top-10 NBA players list, but consistency and watertightness of arguments is something that every reader can understand and get behind while reading through such a list. This list clearly lacks both of these elements and overall just looks like a jumbled list.