Bruce Bowen's Top 5 All Time List Is So Bad It Has To Be A Troll Job
If you've been following along so far during quarantine, I've been breaking down almost every instance where an NBA player gives us some sort of ranking. We've seen guys from Ben Simmons to Trae Young to Jayson Tatum all get into the action
Which brings us to Bruce Bowen. Not a current player, but someone who played 14 seasons so you would think you could respect his basketball opinions. This is in response to the massive ESPN Top 74 list they put out the other day, with had this Top 10 ranking
The biggest pushback you probably saw online is where they had Kobe. I mean, I dunno who he passes to move his way up but that's not the point of this blog. For the most part I didn't have too many problems with ESPN's list. My problem is with what Bruce Bowen had as his Top 5 of all time.
1. Michael Jordan
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Bill Russell
4. Magic Johnson
5. Tim Duncan
Listen, I know this is a subjective exercise to some degree, but come on. That's a terrible list and one that should cause you a great deal of embarrassment. That's why I'm convinced this is a troll job. In no way can you have a top 5 list and not have both LeBron and Kareem. What are we even doing here? I get his love to Duncan given their history together, I get the love for Kobe given all the battles they had against one another, but I'm sorry how can anyone take this list seriously? You can despise LeBron as a person, think he's in no way the GOAT, but try to explain to me how he is not a top 5 player all time. By every single metric you can think of he makes the top 5. Doesn't have to be #2 if you don't want to put him there for some reason, but to leave him out completely is simply outrageous. Same thing with Kareem. Why do people still disrespect Kareem? It's almost like his 19x All Stars, 2x Scoring Champ, 6x NBA Champ, 6x MVP, 2x Finals MVP, 11x All Defense, 15x All NBA, the all time leading scorer, 4th all time in rebounding, 3rd all time in blocks, the fact that he won his first ring at 23 and then his last ring at 40 while playing 29.9 minutes a night, all never happened. I mean read that list again! You're telling me Tim Duncan's career was better than that? On what planet.
I'll admit, I needed a good laugh today and this certainly did the trick. This is like some shit that Skip Bayless would say because he gets a hard on by slandering LeBron. It makes me sick to my stomach to have to stick up for two Lakers like this, but I couldn't let this slide. I don't care who your favorite team is, there is no excuse for leaving LeBron and Kareem out of your top 5. Shame on you Bruce Bowen, shame!