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Scottie Pippen: “LeBron James Hasn’t Passed Kobe Bryant”

Scottie Pippen was on SportsCenter last night to talk about the NBA Playoffs, and gave an interesting take on the LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan debate.

Pippen thinks James shouldn’t be compared to Jordan or Bryant because they play different positions.

“I don’t think he’s surpassed Kobe at all, no. And I don’t think he should be compared to either of those players, because they play different positions. Kobe and Michael are both 2-guards. They’re both scorers. They’re mostly like a Kyrie. They’re looking to score the basketball when it hits their hand. They’re not looking to make plays for anyone on the floor. They’re not looking to be a facilitator. That’s the role that LeBron plays because he’s such a dominant and powerful force, and he’s a great passer.”

Pippen thinks LeBron has ways to go before reaching Kobe’s status, but he’d also rather see LeBron get compared to Magic Johnson.

“I like to compare him to Magic. I think he plays a lot more like Magic, a lot more like myself — how I played, but obviously he’s more dominant than both me and Magic because of the way that he plays the game. His physicality, his athleticism surpassed Magic as well as me.”

Pippen’s LeBron-Magic comparison might be on the money, and there are certain similarities in both their games. LeBron truly is a far better playmaker than either Jordan or Bryant, averaging seven assists per game through his first 14 seasons. Jordan averaged 5.3 and and Kobe 4.7.

LeBron James (27.1 PPG) may not have as high of a scoring average as Jordan (30.1 PPG) did, but he is clearly ahead of Bryant (25.0 PPG), and I easily rank LeBron over Kobe. I do not rank him over Jordan though. (I wanted to add a ‘yet’, but being a Jordan fanboy, I’m not there yet…)