What is the MJ mystique that you speak of? I see this get brought up but no one can explain this “mystique”
It's been explained many times before. It's the fact that Jordan came along at the unique opportunity of becoming the first commercialized, off-the-floor basketball player, and what that globalization did to the collective perception of him as a player to people in his age range and the immediate generation of fans after him...
Most people older than Jordan have a very different outlook on where he stands in history, so do most of the youngins who are now adults but were born during or post 3peat, that didn't grow up in the era immediately under his shadow. It's all of us (99% of the posters on here) who were born roughly 1965-1995, I'm an exception and there are others, but most people born in that window were fed Jordan Mystique and it dominated and controlled the narrative of how we judged basketball players...
First of all, I think Bird >> than Dirk.... 2nd... .Did you even see Bird play.... you didn't see a prime Lake Show, so what can you say about Bird with your own eyes?
I never said I saw Bird, but since we're in the business of being transparent, when did you start watching ball?
If we're only going by what we've seen with our own eyes, sure, Kobe is Top 4 I've ever seen and I can make the argument for Top 2. That's a different question than All-Time but at least it explains why you're ranting so hard, you're not ranking him All-Time, you're just doing on who you've seen, right?
Bird was a tremendous player, definitely top 10 in his own right. But he played on more stacked teams than Kobe had with Shaq and Kobe still went to more Finals and won more rings. And those making the argument that Kobe wasn't a catalyst during the Shaq years are the same people that think the only playoff performances that count are the ones that occur during the Finals.
All the playoffs count. Kobe has a losing case versus Bird period if we are talking about complete postseason moments (all rounds), and has nowhere near a Top 5 case as a postseason performer. Kobe's regular seasons help his legacy in these conversations more than his postseasons, though obviously both matter on the whole....
You just gonna leave out that he was 23 his rookie season while Kobe entered the league at 18? This is the disingenuous garbage you guys like to spew to discredit Kobe. At 22 Kobe put up 28/6/5 (29/7/6 in the playoffs) so it's safe to say he would have been a "Day 1 phenom" if he went to college for four years as well. 
Yes he and magic helped take the game to another level but does that make him a better player than Kobe
I can't pick Larry over a guy that not only could take over offensively but could also shut your ass down defensively
Jordan was busting everybody ass at 24, 25 but y’all think Prime 2005 Kobe wouldn’t do the same to Bird and Magic or 2003 Kobe or Fro Kobe. If you dropped 81 point Kobe back in 1989, Jordan would’ve HATED that nikka. Honestly LeBron should be thankful he’s six years younger. By the time LeBron came into his own Kobe was 30, 31 years old. Let’s say Kobe was born in 83 or 84, they would’ve been the same age and got to play in their primes together. There’s no way you could’ve been arguing LeBron was the best in anything with Kobe over in the West averaging 50 points a month.
