To each their own, But Kobe has kept quiet on this until the tongue came out. Multiple interviews where he refuses to answer
Of course Ol' Kobe is going to say that...I don't think we could give it to him though. The guy choked in too many big games...MJ always brought it and never needed (that I could remember) his teammates to carry him while he was going 0-10 through a game. I always remember that game 7 vs. the Celtics in the Finals where Ron Artest had to carry his ass until the 4th quarter bc he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Great player...one of the best...but no way I could think 'the' best.
Theses debates are dumb. Who in the world would take Lebron over Shaq? Not a damn person. The same goes for Tim Duncan. Michael was certainly the flashiest player, but he never beat bird and it took him 7 years to get a team to the finals. Tim did it in 2 years, I think. To me, Tim Duncan is the greatest player to ever play the game, but still nobody takes MJ or Lebron over Shaq. If you do, you'd be dumb as a box of rocks.
Your greatest player of all time criteria is super weird. And yeah you take Lebron and Jordan over Shaq every time.
He was asked to rank the three players in the question. Those are some of the most marketable guys who’ve played. If you ask this question to all three guys, the guy with the most 2nd votes would likely win. I’m sure MJ says he’s the best. Kobe already said MJ is better than James. And I’m sure Lebron thinks MJ is better than Kobe. So by default all three would agree Out of those three MJ is better....
Duncan was a beast but Shaq was and still is one of the most dominant big men to play EVER. If Shaq were to play today, 60s, 70s, 80s, whatever he would still dominate. His only knock was his FT shooting. If he shot underhanded and around 75% he would be up there was one of the GOATs. This is why Olajuwon (who was a few notches better than Shaq at defense) takes the cake!!
When Jordan lost to Bird, he was a rookie and had zero hall of fame teammates, Bird had 4 hall of fame teammates.
Jordan never beat nobody to win any of his championships: Phoenix with Charles Barkley and an allstar (KJ), Seattle (GP and kemp, are good players but they aren't on goat levels), Clyde with Duckworth, lol, terry porter, and Utah. Utah was probably the best team that Jordan faced, other than when he lost to a second year Shaq and a watered down lakers team with no star power other than an older Magic. Jordan faced the weakest competition to win his championships. He never faced a team anywhere close to the 86 Celtics. Compare that to Duncan: swept Kobe and Shaq, swept lebron in the finals, lost to the big 3 after ray allen bailed Lebron out (lucky) and then beat the big 3 4-1 the next year. Beat a strong pistons team which actually won a title by beating shaq and company in the finals. Face it, tim's resume is second to none. Except mabye larry bird, who beat every big hall of famer in his career. Michael got lucky that all of the truly great players and great teams got other just in time for him to go on his run. Like I said, I'd start with Shaq or Tim any day of the week over Lebron, Kobe and MJ.
Of course guys like Barkley, Ewing, Stockton, Malone are not considered high on the goat list, Jordan took all the championships from them.
86 Celtics is widely considered to be the best Celtics ever, and is always in the conversation of the greatest team in NBA history. Duncan and Shaq never beat a team of that caliber either. In fact, any team that get beaten is worse than that Celtics team, so nobody in the history of NBA ever beat a team as good as 86 Celtics. The Kobe and Shaq team Duncan beat only won 50 games, which only had two big name and wasn't even a good team(worse than this year's Nuggets to give you a better reference). The Lebron team Duncan beat only won 54 games in an extremely weak east, and Duncan didn't even win FMVP that year which means he wasn't even the best player in his team, how can you give him all the credit of beating a shitty team. It's really not very interesting to have this conversation because apparently you are either trolling or just spitting out nonsense.
Obv not I mean Kobe is extremely competitive why tf would he admit Jordan and Lebron are better than him out of his own mouth? I have a lot of respect for Kobe the only thing that limited his ceiling is talent. But everything else he maximized it and gave everything he had to play basketball at the highest level as long as he could do so.