My biggest complaint with Kobe is that he scored a lot of points because he took a lot of shots. Last night for example, he took ~60% of shots from the field for his team which accounted for ~55% (ignoring FTs). In other words, the expected return on his shot was lower than the rest of his team. Now, FTs change that story a bit, but even in the best case scenario he breaks even with his team.
Kobe was a great leader on the court, which is what allowed him to get away with shooting more shots than the rest of his team combined on a regular basis. He also had this "The Lakers are built around Kobe" team structure that made that the expectation.
Look at his career and I think it's a different story.
Isn't that the point of basketball?
EDIT: There's roughly a finite number of shots a team can take in a game. If one player takes most of the shots, then sure they will score a lot of points. But are they maximizing team points? If other members of the team have a higher shooting percentage then taking less shots and passing the ball around will be advantageous.
Regular Season: 878-468 (.652) Post Season: 137-89 (.606)
There is a strong correlation between Kobe Bryant's scoring, and winning Laker's seasons.
However, it is important to view his accomplishments in that light. He scored 40+ points in games because the team basically said "Let's have Kobe score 40+ points today". Because of that, his absolute point totals aren't great markers for individual talent.
we can't really hold kobe's last game against him imo - he's definitely been a ballhog but if it's his last game he should have the opportunity to shoot until his arms fall off
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The biggest knock people seem to have against Kobe is that unlike Jordan, he didn't elevate the game of his teammates.
A quick search shows that an NHL team will generally get around 30 shots per game. If your goal save percentage is about 45%, then you're not going to have a career much longer when the rest of the league hovers around 94%.