INTERACTIVE

The great debate: Kobe Bryant vs. Michael Jordan

Like many young basketball prospects, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant came into the NBA heralded as the next Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls superstar many consider the best to have played the game. After a similar number of seasons, here's a statistical breakdown of how Bryant compares with Jordan:

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Sources: Times reporting, NBA

Graphics reporting by Brady MacDonald and Houston Mitchell; interactivity by Lorena Iñiguez Elebee; edited by Les Dunseith and Tim Trepany

Comments (65)

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TristanTandberg at 10:50 AM June 30, 2012

Sweet Graph, Jordan is better, Space Jam, here is a funny joke I saw about Kobe vs. Jordan,

http://ponderingstuff.com/2012/05/28/kobe-vs-jordan/

heero yuy at 4:15 PM September 29, 2011

Since we have no reliable DraftExpress.com reports on drafts prior to 2000-ish we have to rely on video. To achieve a 48 inch jump MJ's head would have to be 6 inches above the rim. I've never seen this. For Kobe to get to 38" his head would have to be 4 inches below the rim, attainable. Though I would still like to see level video of it. People need to check out the real numbers from the pre-draft camp before they go claiming a player has a 40 inch vert.

heero yuy at 4:08 PM September 29, 2011

I would like to know where the sources are for the standing reach, wingspan, vertical leap, and hand size. The standing reach seems suspect to me. A lot of post players barely measure an 8'10" standing reach. Blake Griffin at 6'10" has an 8'9" standing reach. Rudy Gay is 6'8", his shoulders are high on his body, his neck is short as is his head, making full use of his height, and he is super long. He should definitely have a huge standing reach. His is only 8'11" one inch taller than MJ's and Kobe's. The wingspan is also large but is plausible. The vertical leap is way off. Maybe if Kobe got a running start he could get 38" but not from a standing position, which is what a vertical leap is. A 50" vertical? That's one Guinness. As for hand size, Kobe's hands in pictures and video look very small campared to his size. MJ's hands looked huge compared to his size. I am thinking a 1 inch difference is not accurate.

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