*Former Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton wouldn’t name Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or the late Kobe Bryant as the best players ever in the NBA.
“Well, I wouldn’t use those three,” said Stockton via Oddsshark Sports. “Some of those three or one of those three wouldn’t be even in my Top 5. I hate that question and I get asked it all the time. Who are you guys… who is anybody to say ‘Well, it’s either of those three’?”
Kobe won five championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, and some fans consider him a copycat of Jordan.
Many fans regard MJ as the greatest basketball player of all time. As Basketball Network reports, he “won five MVP awards, six Finals MVPs, and the Defensive Player of the Year trophy in 1988,” the outlet writes, noting that LeBron, a four-time MVP and a four-time champion, “is perceived as MJ’s closest competitor.”
Stockton wouldn’t give any of them GOAT status. He said, “Wilt Chamberlain, they changed rules to negate how dominant he was. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, leading scorer and shot blocker in the history of the game for 40 years, is it? Now I know LeBron passed him and things like that, but he passed him with three-point lines and change of rules. There’s so many guys that I would put in that handful first five, and I’m not certain that the guys that are suggested are always the ones that I would put in there with them.”
In the comments of Odds Shark Sports’ Instagram post, one user wrote, “He’s so Jealous of Jordan. Jordan’s the reason his fingers have no rings.”
Another added, “The more time passes the less people realize how great Chamberlain was.”
A third wrote, “Great take by Stockton,” adding, “Kareem is definitely top 3 and best center of all time. Also he has 6 rings and 3 college championships.”
One IG user commented, “Kobe was never in those conversations. He won two chips as the main guy and was abysmal in game 7 of his last final win. Moreover, he is the least efficient player in those conversations. Kobe is barely a top 10 player, if that.”
Check out Stockton’s full remarks in the Instagram clip above.
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