I don't see why so many of yall are calling him an a$$hole for saying this, if I were in his shoes I'd say the exact same thing. Honestly, does someone criticizing you really affect anything at all? All it is is just a major nuisance and I'm glad Kobe told them to kiss his ass. I don't like Kobe all that much, I hate him when we play against him, but I do respect him enough to give him props for this.
Agreed... he tries WAY too hard to look cool. Both on the court and off it in interviews. I guess you could say he's just embracing the hate, like Lebron/Wade/Bosh are going to need to soon. But Kobe takes it way further than any other star of his caliber that I've seen before.
I don't know about top 3-4. There are 3 that I would take over him in a heartbeat: Dwight, Lebron, Durant. I would also prefer Wade over him due to health concerns, but that one is more debatable. Then, there are a whole slew of players that are arguably on par with him, including Rose, Deron, CP3, Amare, Carmelo.
OK, I think Kobe is pretty overrated sometimes, but Deron, Rose, and especially Amare and Carmelo are not on his level.
Well, I think he dropped off enough this year that those guys can be mentioned in the same breath. Honestly, I can't foresee the Lakers being a worse team if you sub Deron in for Fisher and a serviceable 2 guard for Kobe. Ditto for Rose. And if you sub Amare in for Odom, and a borderline All-Star 2 guard for Kobe, that team would be absolutely frightening. Carmelo is iffy, but I think he's there talent-wise, but he's obviously playing with something else on his mind this season.
That's not really how players are ranked though. Players are ranked based on skill. If it was about stats and wins, these rankings are all flawed.
