The 10 Best NBA Players to Play for One Team
6. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
Career Win Shares: 172.7
• Career Averages: 25 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists
• 5x NBA Champion (2000-02, 2009-10)
• 2x NBA Finals MVP (2009-10)
• 18x NBA All-Star (1998, 2000-16)
• 11x All-NBA First Team (2002-04, 2006-13)
• 9x All-Defensive First Team (2000, 2003-04, 2006-11)
Which Kobe Bryant performance will you remember most -- the nine straight 40-point games, the four straight 50-point games, or the 62 points in only three quarters? Though Kobe Bryant was a league MVP only once in his career (2008), he always played as if the honor was within his grasp. In total, Bryant placed top-five in MVP voting 11 different times, including the 2005-06 season in which he averaged 35.4 points per game -- the eighth-most ever in NBA history.
For the foreseeable future, Bryant is the last of a long line of Laker greats and is a shoo-in to have his own statue erected in downtown Los Angeles. In the meantime, his legacy reaches far beyond the basketball court, as his first post-retirement sightings were on TV left and right, including an advertisement for the movie Ghostbusters.
