Kobe Bryant: Why He Deserves to be Considered a Top 5 Player!

Tracy McGrady's Defiant Defense of Kobe Bryant: "Get outta here, Kobe ain't Top-5!"

Tracy McGrady recently took to his Instagram highlighting that Kobe Bryant is often disregarded within the Top 5 All-Time players discourse. Upon hearing the naysayers’ argument for Kobe Bryant not being among the top five all-time players, T-Mac reacted by saying,“Kobe Bryant ain’t Top-5? Get outta here.” T-Mac also highlighted that critics’ main argument for disregarding Kobe was his pairing with Shaq.

Indeed, Shaq was a dominant figure during the Lakers’ three-peat campaign, being the Finals MVP all three times. However, McGrady believes Kobe Bryant’s contributions cannot be refuted either.

To explain his take, the former Houston Rockets star used the example of Magic Johnson playing alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “Didn’t Magic Johnson play with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was the all-time leading scorer? But you wanna sit here talk about Kobe playing with Shaq? You gotta play with great players to win championships, right?” He found it hypocritical for fans to criticize “Bean” for having Shaq while supporting Magic, who played alongside Hall of Fame legends throughout his career.

Even after Shaq left the Lakers, Bryant won two more championships with the Lakers.

On the other hand, Shaq won just one with the Miami Heat. T-Mac wanted to prove how great players need the help of other legends, worthy of complementing their game to win chips in the league. Adding to this, McGrady said, “You wanna associate Shaq with Kobe. But then, when Shaq leaves, he [Kobe Bryant] goes to get Pau Gasol and wins two more but plays for three.

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