Is the question that Scoop Jackson poses. I don't know how he got in contact with all the people that he asked, but the majority opinion was YES. Obviously, I disagree. When describing why Kobe should be a top 10 all time player, the number one response was "5 titles." All I have to say to that is, "Shaq, a down period, and then Gasol."
I thought a better question would be since 2001, the first year that the Wins Produced metric has been out, has Kobe been a top 10 player in any given year since 2001?
2001- 9.8 Wins Produced (#34)
2002- 12.6 Wins Produced (#18)
2003- 18.4 Wins Produced (#7)
2004- 11.8 Wins Produced (#19)
2005- 10.0 Wins Produced (#33)
2006- 13.5 Wins Produced (#20)
2007- 15.3 Wins Produced (#13)
2008- 17.2 Wins Produced (#7)
2009- 14.5 Wins Produced (#12)
2010- 10.3 Wins Produced (#29)
Since 2001, Kobe has never finished higher than the 7th most valuable player in the league. His average placement in terms of value has been the 19th most valuable in the league. So what we have here is a player that has been one of the better players over the past 10 seasons but has not been an elite player in the NBA. Yet, despite this information people still assume that Kobe has been a top 10 player of all time.
The reasons for this probably have to do with the popularity of his team. The media market in Los Angeles. And that he has been fortunate enough to play with great teams his entire career, except for a 3 year period when Shaq was gone and before the great Kwame Brown was traded for Pau Gasol.
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