ESPN.com’s Jemele Hill posted an absurd article about Kobe Bryant being better than Michael Jordan yesterday, and it was even the website’s headline for a short while. I almost punched a hole through my computer while reading it, and briefly considered never visiting the site again, but I calmed down and figured I’d try to refute it.

We will take her points one by one as the article progresses. I tried to use statistics from corresponding years in regards to their age because if I just took career averages, it would be an absolute slaughter. This is how she starts:

Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan.
Not more successful.
Hasn’t had a bigger economic impact.
Hasn’t won more MVPs.
Hasn’t won more titles.

So he is better in individual statistics, team success, and overall impact, but somehow that leads to her conclusion that…

…he’s a better player.
Kobe can do everything Michael did, and even a few things Michael couldn’t do.

She proceeds to tell us not one thing Kobe can do that Michael can’t do.

Kobe is just as good a defender. His killer instinct is just as pronounced.

Looking at 2006-07, Kobe is averaging 1.4 steals/ game and 0.4 blocks/game.

In 1990-1991, when Jordan was the same age as Bryant is now, he averaged 2.72 steals/game and 1.01 blocks/game.

In 87-88, when Jordan was only 25, he became only the second player to record 200 steals and 100 blocks in a season. The only other player to do that was…..oh, look at that: Michael Jordan, who did it the previous year as well. Considering, in his prime, he is universally considered one of the top defensive guards ever, I think we can put this one to rest.

Kobe can’t please anyone. And it doesn’t help that most people suffer from revisionist history when it comes to Jordan, forgetting that he was just as poor a teammate and a ball hog and that he ran off coach Doug Collins like Kobe ran off Phil Jackson the first time.

Revisionist history?!? It sounds like you are trying to revise history. With a starting five of consisting of three no names and a still young Scottie Pippen, Collins encouraged Jordan to shoulder to load and take on as much responsibility in the offense as possible. Which is why in ‘88, he averaged 32.5 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 8.0 assists while winning defensive player of the year. No one has come close to individually dominating a season since. While he may or may not have gotten Doug Collins fired, he did not drive his 9-time NBA championship winning coach to temporarily retire because he was a ball hog like Bryant did to Jackson.

In fact, you could argue that Jordan was even worse. Far as we know, Kobe hasn’t jacked up any of his teammates the way Jordan punched out Steve Kerr and Will Perdue at practice.

Can’t argue he didn’t get a little competitive at practice, but when he punched Steve Kerr in the face, he had already won four championships. The uber-competitive Jordan pushed his teammates to be better all the time and his temper may have gotten the best of him, but regardless, scuffles with teammates at practice are irrelevant as to whether someone is or isn’t a good teammate on the court.

Again looking at the stats when they were about the same age, from 1988 to 1990, when Jordan battling the Pistons in the playoffs, Jordan averaged 8.0 and then 6.3 assists/game. Kobe’s career high is 6.0, which was 2004, the year he missed 16 games and the Lakers didn’t make the playoffs.

While he may have punched him once, Steve Kerr, along with John Paxon, Craig Hodges, became three of the best three-point shooters in history for the primary fact that Jordan made them better. The same cannot be said for Smush Parker and Brian Cook, at least not yet.

…you’re delusional if you think Jordan wouldn’t have had any ego issues playing alongside a player with Shaq’s star power.

That is easy to say, and impossible to prove. He did play alongside one of the 50 greatest players of all time in Scottie Pippen, though, and they got along famously. What could Jordan have done with Shaq as his center? Probably made it his mission to destroy any team he was playing, just like he did with everyone else. Would they even have lost a game the whole season? Maybe two or three? David Stern would have had to forcefully break them up just so the league could be competitive.

The best-player argument shouldn’t be determined by personal dislike. But if you want to take it there, fine. Jordan was hardly the ideal husband, but only the tabloids were brave enough to venture into his personal life. And what about those gambling issues? If Jordan’s life had been covered like Kobe’s, we would have an entirely different opinion of His Airness.

Michael Jordan did get scrutinized for his gambling issues. In 1993 when the issue surfaced, he was constantly on the front page of the papers, and a former gambler even wrote a book about him. The NBA conducted an investigation into his gambling activities to make sure nothing illegal was going on. And surprise–there wasn’t.

I’m also sure he wasn’t the ideal husband, just like most NBA players probably aren’t, but he was never accused of raping anybody, and whether it is fair or not, something tells me that is where the personal dislike for Kobe comes in.

This one is my favorite:

Jordan was guarded by the likes of John Starks and Joe Dumars, who were fine players but weren’t nearly as skilled or physically imposing as LeBron, D-Wade, Tracy McGrady or even Vince Carter.

Really? Because I never see any of them guarding Kobe. The last Heat/Lakers game I watched, Jason Kapono was guarding him most of the game; and in the last Lakers/Cavs game, the assignment went to Eric Snow or Sasha Pavlovic. Something tells me Hall of Famer Joe Dumars was a little tougher.

Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Patrick Ewing will be among the best centers ever, but none of them affected the league the way Shaq and Tim Duncan have. There are two two-time MVPs in Kobe’s own conference (Duncan, Nash), which is a problem Jordan never faced during his championship runs. Seven-footers weren’t launching 3s back then. Magic Johnson and the Lakers were on a downward spiral, and the Pistons were on their last legs. It was Michael and everyone else. That’s not the case for Kobe.

Let’s look at the list of all-time greats who could not win a title when Jordan was playing: Charles Barkely, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, Reggie Miller, Clyde Drexler, Hakeen Olajuwon, David Robinson (both Clyde and the Dream were benefactors of Jordan’s first retirement, Robinson his second), and I’m sure some I am forgetting. Yeah, it was Michael and everyone else. Michael and a bunch of other Hall of Famers and/or all-time greats on teams spread throughout the league that couldn’t win for one reason: Jordan simply refused to let them.

Kobe’s 50 in four straight was nothing short of amazing and he is by far the most dominant player playing the game today. Let’s just not get carried away.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer