I never understood why people saying Kobe using Jordan’s moves was a bad thing. In life if you want to be great, you normally study the greats and put your own twist on things. The fact that Kobe can replicate these legends moves almost perfectly speaks to Kobe’s greatness.
Michael Jordan had a commercial saying “BE LIKE MIKE” and every kid in the world who played basketball wanted to play like MIKE, but frankly only one player every even got close and that was Kobe Bryant. Kobe readily admits that he’s a thief and that is one of the reasons he was so unstoppable for such a long period of time.
Jordan told Kobe to go pass Karl Malone on the all-time scoring list and here is how Bryant reacted to that.
“It was more of a thankful feeling to Michael and the players who came before because I’ve learned so much from them,” he said. “And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve literally just stolen (stuff) from them — like spin moves and pull-ups. It’s not me passing these players. It’s us.”
A lot of younger players could learn a thing or 100 from watching Bryant’s footwork and the way he creates space for his shot.
He is getting old, so he is struggling now, but go watch tape from Prime Kobe there wasn’t a deadlier scorer ever in the NBA.