King James Salutes Kobe Bryant, Calls Him G.O.A.T. on His Birthday

Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is 41, and King James found the perfect way to wish him a happy birthday.

LeBron delivered a very special message for Bryant. Guess what… He called him the GOAT.

“Happy Born Day Kobe Bryant aka Black Mamba!” King James wrote.

Happy Born Day @kobebryant aka Black ?!!!! #Legend #Icon #Goat Laker Nation Stand Up ??

— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 23, 2019

Well, Bryant isn’t quite interested in the GOAT debate. But, LeBron is, and he has mixed feelings about it. That’s the impression he leaves with his comments.

In an interview with Jim Hill of CBS, LeBron talked about his comparison to Bryant, saying it’s “unfair” to the Black Mamba.

“I think that’s unfair,” he said. “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.

“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. Mike had his path, Mike was the greatest. Kobe had his path, Kobe was the greatest. I had my own path, hopefully someday someone will say I’m the greatest.” 

Well, Bryant doesn’t even think about the whole thing. That’s what he said during an interview with ESPN’s Mike Greenberg.

“It’s hard for people to believe, but I really don’t care. I’ve moved on. So, you have a career. You do the best you can with the 20 years I was very fortunate to play, and then you shelf it. You’re done. You move onto the next thing, so now I’m focused on these next 20 years. Those debates are entertaining, I’m sure. It’s fun for people to engage in those, but for me personally, it doesn’t matter. I think the best way to explain it is I typically do not engage in things I can not definitively win.”

Well, if you ask LeBron, he will say that the title he won with the Cavs helped him go straight at the top.

“That one right there made me the greatest player of all time. That’s what I felt. I was super, super ecstatic to win one for Cleveland because of the 52-year drought. Like, I was ecstatic. That day, the first wave of emotion was, everyone saw me crying, that was all for 52 years of everything sports that have gone on in Cleveland. And after I stopped, I was like ‘That one right there made you the greatest player of all time.’

“Everybody was talking about how they were the greatest team of all time. Like, they were the greatest team ever assembled, and for us to come back, the way we came back in that fashion, I was like ‘You did something special.’ That was, like, one of the only times in my career I felt like ‘Oh s—, you did something special.’ I haven’t really had time to really sit back and think, but that, that was a moment.”