Of course. He s the greatest of all time. His skill is second to none.

Him and [Michael Jordan] are neck and neck as far as skill. You can put in athleticism a nd be the best passer and strongest and quickest. But it s about skill. I think th at s how his game is played. That s why Kobe is the top two best ever in just having skill, footwork, shooting the three, shooting the pull up, posting up, dunking on guys and ball handling. It s flat out skill. Him and Jordan are 1 and 1A. They re neck and neck as far as the skills are concerned. Kobe plays his game no matter what with his intensity and focus and he will p lay to win. He also will do what he needs to do to get ready to play. If he sees a mismatch, he ll take it down low and demand the ball. He s one of those guys who will always bring the same intensity every time no matter who s on the court. This will undoubtedly rub some readers the wrong way, as such statements always seem to. That's fine rankings are, of course, a matter of personal preference, D urant's entitled to his opinion as to Kobe's all-time greatness, and the specifi c elements Durant's talking about (the breadth of Bryant and Jordan's skills, th eir commitment to technique, the variety of different things they could do offen sively) might not dovetail perfectly with everyone else's definitions of "greate st of all time." There's still plenty of room to state cases for any number of o ther "1 or 1A" players, from Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson, to Kareem Abd ul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, to Larry Bird and Bill Russell, and any number of o thers in between. Your mileage may vary. Please feel free to argue this on a bar stool to your heart's content this weekend, so long as I am not on the barstool next to you.