In light of an article from Bleacher Report that had Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant ranked at the No. 11 spot in a list of the NBA’s greatest players of all time, how Bryant stacks up in NBA history has been a hot topic of late.
Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade recently gave his two cents on Bleacher Report’s rankings and explained that people who faced off against Bryant are “gonna talk top three” when evaluating the Lakers great.
Dwyane Wade on B/R’s Top 100 All-Time Rankings
“I don’t care about that stuff. It literally means nothing. I’ve gotten everything out of this game — and I’m still eating from it.
If my name is even mentioned among the greatest to ever play, I’m cool with that.
You can put me… pic.twitter.com/GfHRu0NV3O— Heat Diehards (@HeatDiehards) July 22, 2025
“If you wanna ask us hoopers who played against Kob, we talking — all of us gonna talk top three,” Wade said. “We all gonna talk top three if you played against Mamba.
“But from someone’s opinion that’s never played against Kobe, will never play the game of basketball at the level that we play it at, having him at 11, why am I up in arms about something like that?”
Players like Stephen Curry, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird were all ranked ahead of Bryant on Bleacher Report’s list.
Wade and Bryant never crossed paths in the playoffs, with the former spending his entire career in the Eastern Conference and the latter being with the Lakers in the Western Conference for his whole pro tenure.
It’s unfortunate that Wade and Bryant never met in the NBA Finals, as two of the greatest shooting guards the NBA has ever seen dueling it out on such a big stage would have made for must-see television.
Still, they faced off in the regular season numerous times over the years, and Bryant gave Wade plenty of buckets across 20 matchups. Bryant averaged 26.1 points per game against Wade’s teams during his career and put together his fair share of standout scoring performances.
For example, in December of 2004, Bryant torched the Heat for 42 points, and he made five 3-pointers in that game as well.
Wade, to his credit, averaged 24.3 points per game against Bryant’s Lakers teams and had a 40-point game mixed in there. He was able to go 11-9 against Bryant in their 20 meetings. Statistically, he was a better playmaker than Bryant in those games.
All in all, Wade seems to understand Bryant’s greatness as well as anyone, and he does have a point in that folks shouldn’t take too much stock in where Bleacher Report ranked Bryant. Rankings are entirely subjective, and a number of factors could have resulted in Bryant landing at the No. 11 spot.
Regardless of his ranking in Bleacher Report’s article, Bryant is universally perceived as one of the greatest basketball players ever, and that consensus opinion isn’t likely to change soon.
