Former NBA player Chandler Parsons made some comments regarding Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant that ruffled some feathers recently.
He said there’s an argument to be made that there are players who are currently in the NBA — more specifically, Stephen Curry and Nikola Jokic — who are better than the late shooting guard.
Former NBA player Ron Harper, an old teammate of Bryant, took exception to Parsons’ remarks. Harper took to X and defended Bryant while taking some jabs at Parsons.
Why do we post dumb stuff when the guy saying it is a bum on the court? Why
— Ron Harper (@HARPER04_5) January 17, 2025
Don’t listen to these 🤡
— Ron Harper (@HARPER04_5) January 17, 2025
Parsons got off to a promising start to his NBA tenure, as he averaged 15-plus points per game in three of his first five seasons in the league and was a meaningful contributor for some Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks teams that qualified for the playoffs.
But he agreed to a four-year deal worth around $94 million with the Memphis Grizzlies in the summer of 2016, and his career went all downhill from there. Injuries plagued Parsons during his time in Memphis, as he never logged more than 36 appearances in any one of his three seasons with the squad.
Additionally, even when he was healthy enough to suit up for Memphis, he looked like a shell of the player he was earlier on in his career. He scored just 7.2 points per game across 95 total regular-season games with the Grizzlies.
Parsons was eventually traded from the Grizzlies to the Atlanta Hawks. In early 2020, he was hit by a drunk driver and suffered serious injuries, according to his legal team. He wound up never playing in the NBA again afterward.
As for Parsons’ comments, though Jokic and Curry have carved out legendary careers in the NBA, they haven’t won at the level that Bryant did when he was in the league. Bryant captured five championships while playing with the Lakers, and no player in the league today has more than four titles to their name.
Granted, Curry isn’t far behind Bryant in that regard. He has won four rings since he started playing in the NBA, and he most recently led the Golden State Warriors to a banner back in the year 2022, when the team defeated Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in six games in the championship series.
