Dwyane Wade Defends Lakers Legend After Disrespect Goes Viral

Although Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant never joined forces during their illustrious NBA careers, two of the greatest shooting guards in history always had strong mutual respect.

When Bryant passed away, the Heat legend was present at the memorial service for the Los Angeles Lakers icon. Recently, Bryant was placed at No. 11 in Bleacher Report's all-time player rankings, which clearly upset Wade when he saw it.

The three-time NBA champion jumped to Bryant's defense, sounding off on the article that put him outside the top 10.

"If you want to ask us hoopers who played against Kob, all of us gonna talk top three," Wade said on his podcast. "If you played against Mamba. It's someone's opinion, but someone who's never played against Kobe has never played a game of basketball at the level we play it at. Having him at 11—why am I up in arms about something like that?"

For context, Stephen Curry (No. 10), Wilt Chamberlain (No. 9), and Larry Bird (No. 8) slotted above Bryant in B/R's story. If Wade's opinion about the Hall of Famer were true, he would push Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron James, or Michael Jordan out of the top three.

Social media posts related specifically to Bryant coming in behind Curry have gone viral, gathering hundreds of thousands of views.

NBA Bleacher Report votes Kobe Bryant player of the decade. The same NBA Bleacher report just voted Kobe #11 alltime. 🤔 🤔 🤔

Let’s do the math. The NBA has been around for only 8 decades. How can you be the best player of a decade and not top 10???? pic.twitter.com/YSVCrIaCvM
— Jamar Lewis (@JLewis562) July 17, 2025

Bleacher report focused on body of work? No they didn’t. They have an agenda against Kobe. Nothing is more obvious https://t.co/Gv6hKQexiK pic.twitter.com/MFthkBJ0eN
— Whoz Meech (@WhozMEECH) July 18, 2025

Wade continued, "I remember when Kobe was alive, they had rankings when he played in the league, and they had him low, and I remember one year Kobe addressed it, like, 'Who are these idiots? Why would I listen to these idiots?' And I'm not calling the person who did this an idiot, but what I'm saying is when someone does something like that, Kobe was like, 'This is idiotic to me.'"

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on Bryant's all-time ranking, but the decision of who to listen to in this case is quite simple.

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