Who is better? Jordan vs. Kobe

This confirms what I have thought all along:

As you can see, out of necessity Jordan was taking on a large offensive responsibility early in his career; as his teammates got better, he slowly eased back on the workload, and his efficiency improved as a result. Kobe's story is the opposite: with great teammates early, he didn't have to do as much, but when Shaq left before the '05 season, Kobe was actually forced to take a larger role in the offense than even Jordan ever had to.

It's more interesting, though, to look at the efficiency levels the players maintained vs. their % of possessions used. The mark of a truly great offensive player is to maintain a high level of efficiency while taking on a large share of the team's offensive responsibility, and even though Kobe's numbers are impressive, Jordan is consistently more efficient than Bryant no matter if he's using more possessions or not. Also, note the translated defensive ratings: aside from their age-21 seasons, MJ is better (sometimes vastly so) at every turn.

In other words -- and this should be obvious -- when we watch Kobe play, we're seeing a far lesser version of Michael Jordan in action. Similar in style and mannerism, maybe, but when we translate the statistics for era, it becomes very clear that Jordan was actually the one "playing chess" while Bryant "plays checkers."