by Morgan Rouleau

Created on: September 15, 2009   Last Updated: September 20, 2009

First of all, when debating these two amazing players, we have to ask ourselves this question; what does my team need? If your answer is any thing but perimiter oriented scoring, then the player your team needs is LeBron James. LeBron has proven to all that he is a phenomenal talent and he may one day break into the "Immortal six", or even go down as the greatest of all time. LeBron is far more then just the numbers suggest. If you watch him 75+ times a year, you can see that he is one of the most complete players this league will ever see.

I will first compare the type of players that Kobe and LeBron are. I classify them like this in all my conversations about the two. LeBron James is a dominantly athletic player dominating athletes, and Kobe Bryant is a dominantly skilled player dominating athletes. The difference between the two you may ask, well one can be taught.

As in every skill that Kobe Bryant possesses can be taught to LeBron James, but every athletic advantage that LeBron James holds over Kobe Bryant (For example height) cannot be attained by Kobe.

Now that I have that out off the way, I like to go into the versatility issue. Kobe Bryant can play 2 positions at an above all star level, meaning that he could play SG and SF like few others in the league. The only players that would be better than him at those two positions would be LeBron James, and Dwayne Wade.

Kobe Bryant could surely play PG at an above average level as well, but he tends not to pass as much as he should, hence why I didn't include it on the list of positions he could play above all star. LeBron James on the other hand could play PG, SG, SF, and PF at a well above all star level in each category.

If you have any doubt that he could play any of those positions at above all star, then I think you need to look at each positions all stars and realise that he would be better than most if not all of them (excluding obvious ones such as Chris Paul).

If you are looking for a statistical argument, well there is simply no need. Kobe Bryant only beats LeBron James in two statistical categories; three point shooting percent, and free throw percent. That is it, LeBron beats Kobe in every other aspect of statistical analysis.

Now this is of course the biggest fact for me I guess. Age. LeBron is 24, Kobe is 31 and nearing the tail of his career, while LeBron has yet to hit the climax of his. Your team will dominate for longer with LeBron James on it then with Kobe Bryant on it.

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