LeBron James suffered through one of his most tumultuous seasons in the NBA during his first stint with the Los Angeles Lakers.

For one thing, James suffered the most serious injury of his career halfway through the season – causing him to play in a career-low 55 games.

Though he was only able to suit up for barely more than half the season, when he played, he was extremely effective – producing his typical 27 points per game, 8 rebounds per game and 8 assists per game at age 34.

However, by joining the Lakers, LeBron signed up to be compared to the incredible legends that have worn the purple and gold. Jerry West, George Mikan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and, perhaps most importantly, Kobe Bryant delivered indelible memories to Lakers fans due to their passion, verve… and ability to deliver championships to L.A.

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In a recent interview with Jim Hill of CBS Los Angeles, James claims that it’s “unfair” for fans to compare him to Kobe:

“I think that’s unfair. That’s going to be the only thing that’s unfair in this conversation we have today because I think at the end of the day, we are all different,” James said in his interview with Hill. “Michael’s fans, Michael Jordan himself. Kobe fans, Kobe himself. LeBron fans, and LeBron himself. We’re all different on the simple fact that we all take different challenges, we’ve all had challenges, we’ve all had different courses, but the one thing that’s the same is that we would do anything to play this game of basketball every single day.”

“We would do anything to win and we would do anything to put our life on the line to win basketball games,” James said of the similarities between himself, Bryant, and Jordan in his interview with Hill.

It's certainly going to be a big offseason for the Lakers.