Dwyane Wade #3 of the Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant #24 of the Los Angeles Lakers. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images/AFP
Greatness usually appreciates greatness, just when Earvin “Magic” Johnson told arch-rival-turned-friend Larry Bird the famous quote “there would never, ever, be another Larry Bird.”
Almost three decades later, a similar message rang through the sports world and it involves two of the greatest shooting guards to ever play the game, Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant.
Wade talked to ESPN’s Michael Wallace and said Bryant was best player of their now soon fading era.
“I do feel—and I’ve said this before the last couple of years with LeBron [James], when he became the best player in our game—that Kobe Bryant is the greatest player of our era,” Wade told ESPN. “There are good young players, but there will never be another Kobe.”
Wade entered the league in 2003 when Bryant, on his seventh year in the league, was just a year removed from his three-peat with Shaquille O’ Neal and the Lakers.
“You hear about the guy being down, struggling with his shot and going through all of those other things,” Wade said. “But what I’ll always see is the guy who has dominated this game at his position for a long time, who performed at a high level for 20 years.”