Jason Williams made headlines last week after he made an audacious claim about Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant. In his contentious claim, Williams said that he does not consider Kobe to be in his Top 5 list of greatest Lakers players of all time. Naturally, the former NBA point guard got destroyed on social media for his extremely hot take.
Williams has now taken to Instagram to explain himself amid all the smoke he's been receiving over his earlier comments. The 46-year-old made it abundantly clear that in his mind, Kobe is the Lakers GOAT:
“What's good world?! 💜 So I noticed I kind of stirred the pot so to speak last week with my comments about Kobe. 🙏🏼 I've seen some of your comments, but not nearly all of them… Some are positive, some not so positive!!! The anger that some folks have over this conversation is awesome to me cause it means you care!! 🏀 Now with that being said let me explain what I meant last week. First off: KOBE BEAN BRYANT is the greatest ✨LAKER✨ EVER!!! PERIOD!!! 💯,” Williams wrote.
He then went on to explain his earlier statement by reiterating his point about Bryant not being in his Top 5:
“In the conversation you all heard, my thinking was that we were talking about ALL the greatest NBA players EVER who wore the Laker purple and gold jersey for at least ONE season. I wasn’t talking about the greatest LAKER ever… because of course that’s Kobe!!! Kobe IS the Lakers!!! 💛💜 But in what I was saying, I was thinking about WILT, KAREEM, MAGIC, SHAQ, LEBRON… (That’s my top 5 players who ever played in a Laker jersey *in no particular order* in case y’all wondering!)… those players who—in my opinion—were/are better than KOBE!! That's just my opinion! Doesn't mean I’m saying it’s a fact!! 🤷🏼♂️ So my bad if I've hurt any of y’all feelings, it’s just my opinion!!!” Williams added.
To be fair, Williams did apologize for ruffling any feathers. However, it seems that he even took a bit of a shot at the keyboard warriors out there by saying that he's actually played against these dudes (at least some of them) during his time in the NBA:
“I love this game and I respect this game!! It has nothing to do with Kobe bustin my team’s ass just about every time we played them either. 👏🏼 Really the only difference between my opinion and y'all opinion is that I just happened to play against some of these dudes we talkin about and that's it!! And I’ll do ya one better… The people I've named are way above my talent level!!!! Legends!! GOATs!!! 🐐🏆 #mamba,” Williams said.
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Williams ended his post by saying that all the names on his list are way better than he ever was. We all knew this coming in, though, and it's not as if there was a raging debate as to whether or not Jason Williams should be compared to these all-time greats. There's no denying that Williams was a show-stopper during his prime, but he was never really one of the best point guards in the NBA during his day.
So after going through that rather lengthy caption from Williams that utilized way too many emojis, in my opinion, I think I have deduced what he's trying to say here. According to Jason Williams, Kobe Bryant is the greatest player in Lakers franchise history in terms of having the biggest impact on the organization in general. He's not wrong there. However, he's also doubled down on his hot take about Kobe not being on the same level as Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, and LeBron James, talent-wise.
This has to be it, right? I mean, this is what Jason Williams was trying to explain in his statement? I guess it sort of makes sense. Whether or not he has done anything to appease the masses is an altogether different matter, though.
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