Andrew Wiggins Says Kobe Bryant Is Tougher To Defend Than LeBron James

LeBron James is a better player than Kobe Bryant. A better scorer. A better shooter. A better passer. No question. But that doesn’t mean The King is harder for opposing players to check than Mamba. After Andrew Wiggins faced James for the first time last night, the Minnesota Timberwolves rookie said that Bryant has been his most difficult matchup this season.

You can listen to Wiggins’ full post-game interview here. The comments in question come at the 2:12 mark of the audio file, and were prompted by Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune asking Wiggins if LeBron “has been his toughest challenge.”

Does this mean Wiggins disagrees with our assessment of the tired LeBron-Kobe debate? Not necessarily.

There’s far more to individual offensive effectiveness than scoring, and James has Bryant beat in the macro sense of each of those aspects. What makes the Lakers legend such a tough cover for defenders is his unmatched level of skill from a micro perspective – shot fakes, counters, footwork, and the like.

All of those moves are tougher to stop than dominant post play, driving ability, and overall playmaking. Prohibiting field goal attempts altogether is a bigger goal of one-on-one defense than merely inhibiting them, too, and Bryant is far more comfortable taking difficult shots than James.

Wiggins’ age influences his take, too. The 19 year-old has seen the majority of what LeBron does before, just never a player that uses it all so well. But Wiggins hadn’t faced-off against a player with Kobe’s endless tool shed of tricks before he met Mamba for the first time this season.

Or maybe we’re reading far too much into this, and he simply believes Bryant to be the better player. Or even more incendiary, perhaps Wiggins was throwing shade at James for helping to orchestrate the Kevin Love trade. Nobody knows for sure.

Kobe fans, though, will no doubt act like they do.

What do you think?

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