Nick Wright Says Kobe Bryant Never Best NBA Player, Sparks Debate

As Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James' NBA future remains uncertain, the greatest of all time debate continues online and elsewhere.

Some question if James truly is the GOAT. Others argue San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama has already taken the crown.

FS1 host Nick Wright often figures in these discussions. He has long championed James over Michael Jordan as the GOAT. He made that call nearly a decade ago after James' Cavaliers upset the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

Wright rejected the idea that Kobe Bryant belongs in the top conversation. In a clip from his show "What's Wright? with Nick Wright," he laid out his view of the best players by era.

"From '99-2002, Shaquille O'Neal was the best player in the world. From 2003-2007, Tim Duncan... he was the best player," Wright said.

He added that LeBron James became the best after scoring 48 points in a double-overtime Eastern Conference Finals win against Detroit in 2007. James held that spot until 2018, when Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo emerged.

Wright notably left Bryant off the list. "Kobe's the eighth greatest player and he was never the best player in the world."

The author disagrees with this take, despite respecting Wright's past opinions. No one outside hardcore Lakers fans calls Bryant the GOAT, the author notes. Still, the claim that Bryant was never the league's best player does not hold up.

Even before the Lakers traded O'Neal to Miami in 2004, Kobe showed signs of becoming the team's dominant force. The front office chose Bryant over O'Neal in their split.

Wright's pick of Duncan as best from 2003 to 2007 ignores the era's context, the author argues. Duncan won three championships and two MVPs in that span. But announcers and players from the time called Bryant the best in the game.

Bryant claimed back-to-back scoring titles in 2005 and 2006. He earned MVP in 2008 and scored 81 points against Toronto. The Spurs won the title in 2007, the same year James had his 48-point game.

Kobe paired individual feats with team success in the decade, unlike narratives that downplay him. This erasure of Bryant's peak feels like revisionist history, even if he trails James and Jordan in the overall GOAT race.