At the same time, the guys you named (and Hawks named Tony Allen), they are all coming from excellent team defenses. Ariza and Houston, Wallace and the Cats, Allen and the Celtics, Prince and the 2004 Pistons. Battier has had success against Bryant because, quite frankly, he is one of the best to lead a player into strong help defense. In fact, he's one of the smartest defenders I've seen in years. I've seen guys do a great job on him, but not consistently, and not without a lot of help. As much as I've watched of him (seen more of Kobe than I have of Jordan, who I obsessed over for years), I've never seen a player actually stop him, one-on-one, in two consecutive games. People hate Kobe Bryant, the man...but a lot of people that hate him that way will admit that they love Kobe Bryant, the player...and I feel like that's the main reason for it. For me, the greatest scorer can be three different guys: Kobe, Jordan, or Kareem. Tough choice. Jordan is more efficient than Bryant, Kareem is the all-time leader, and Kobe just has more ways to score the ball than anyone else I've ever seen. I probably won't answer the topic, to be honest, because it's between Jordan and Bryant, in my opinion.