While Stephen A. Smith's disrespects Kobe Bryant, the 3 Lakers he shows love to

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the most popular NBA franchises, also one that has the biggest winning history as it is tied with 17 titles with the Boston Celtics. The team has had some of the best players of all time in the league, which has been made evident by ESPN's First Take Stephen A. Smith.

In what is going to be controversial, Smith has three Lakers on his top 5 NBA bests of all time, but none of them is Kobe Bryant. In order of who Smith thinks are the best players the league has seen:

Michael Jordan is Stephen A. Smith's number one, which is a no-brainer as it is known that the ESPN analyst has the Chicago Bulls legend as the GOAT.

The three next players on the list are the Lakers legends, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson. Finally, the fifth-best player of all time is Bill Russell.

The reason Stephen A. Smith doesn't have Kobe on his top 5

Smith's reason for not having Kobe on his top 5 is because he believes to be too similar to Michael Jordan and with the Bulls legend being the GOAT, the other players brought something else to the game.