Alright, here goes…
I can’t deny his personal skills or accomplishments, but Kobe Bryant was one of the last throwbacks to that mid to late 90s mentality of hero-ball, that is to say not a team player. That garbage brand of b-ball where play after play teams would dump the ball to the team “star” at the top of the key and the other 8 players clearout to watch the one-on-one showdown. That shit made basketball hard to even watch in the mid to late 90s. Of course the Bulls won a 3-peat and a 72 win season in that era, the league was garbage and the Bulls were like 1 of 3 teams at the time who knew how to run legitimate plays as a team.
It’s great to see a resurgence of fundamental team ball over the last decade, like the Spurs, Pistons, Celtics, and now the Warriors. I always thought Kobe stymied the Lakers from winning more championships than they did because of his mentality, plus the organization capitulating to him.