Jeff Teague on Kobe’s 12 All-Defense nods: ‘He wasn’t guarding like that’

Basketball is a game played on two ends of the floor, but Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is best known for his contributions on offense during his playing career. He had a unique knack for putting the ball in the basket, as he averaged 25.0 points per game for his NBA career and led the league in scoring on more than one occasion.

Still, Bryant was a highly accomplished defensive player as well. Across his 20 years in the league, he earned 12 All-Defense selections and was even in the running for Defensive Player of the Year several times. He received the third-most votes for the award in the 2001-02 season and finished in the top five in voting two other times, including during his 2007-08 MVP season.

But former NBA guard Jeff Teague doesn’t seem to think Bryant deserved all 12 of those All-Defense nods. Teague, who played against Bryant, claimed that Bryant “wasn’t guarding like that.”

“I’ma tell y’all something about All-Defensive teams,” Teague said. “They just put anybody on them after — like, if you’ve made it once or twice, three times, they just start putting you on there. Twelve times, All-Defensive team, I played Kobe, bro. He wasn’t guarding like that. He wasn’t, bro.

“Maybe his first, the first four or five he was. After that, bro, he wasn’t guarding like that, bro. Nah, go look. Paul Pierce and them used to cook. Joe Johnson used to cook.”

Teague continued.

“It’s a persona,” he said. “The first couple times he made it, like, ‘He lock up. He guard. He be killing. He be strapping up.’ He probably did that for two or three seasons, and then it just became a thing, like, Kobe Bryant play defense.”

By the time Teague entered the NBA in the 2009-10 season, many of Bryant’s peak seasons as a defensive player at the highest level were already behind him, and that reality could be influencing Teague’s opinion.

After Teague entered the league, Bryant never finished better than 11th in the Defensive Player of the Year voting in any one season, but he did manage to rack up several more All-Defense nods. He made the All-Defensive First Team in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons and then earned a spot on the All-Defensive Second Team in the 2011-12 campaign.

Teague may have a valid point in that Bryant’s reputation might have helped him rack up as many All-Defense selections as he did throughout his time in the NBA, but even if that’s the case, he earned that reputation through stingy play on the less glamorous end of the floor.

There’s no denying that he was a strong defensive player for much of his time in the pros, especially for someone who had to carry so much of the scoring load during his playing days.