At the time, it appeared that Jerry West needed his purple and gold checked. West, the keen talent evaluator and executive who orchestrated the trade that brought a teenage Kobe Bryant to the Los Angeles Lakers, said during last season's playoffs that LeBron James had better skills as a player than Bryant did. Even more interesting is that a year later, West has not changed his assessment. When reached by telephone on Tuesday, West said he still viewed James as the superior player despite the way this postseason has played out. At the same point of their careers, West said, James has shouldered more of a burden than Bryant while possessing an otherworldly skill set. 'LeBron was required to do so much more for his team,' West said. 'Kobe was in a situation where he had better players around him.' West's view is in line with the NBA's last two most valuable player votes, both won in a landslide by James, with Bryant hardly making a dent in the totals. And yet for the third consecutive season, Bryant is preparing for the NBA finals, while James, for the second straight year, is dealing with a premature ouster from the playoffs. With postseason games on the line, it is Bryant who has been virtually unstoppable on offense, not James. As a result, a month after the MVP award was announced, with James getting all but 7 of the 123 first-place votes and Bryant not getting one, the counterattack has begun, with any number of people in and around the NBA asking the same question: Is Bryant, with all his mileage at age 31, better than James, with all his hype, and accomplishments, at 25? 'I've never seen him play better,' West acknowledged of Bryant, even though he is sticking with James. In what had become the era of LeBron, it is Bryant who is gaining renewed appreciation, one finely tuned dagger jump shot at a time. Bryant is 14 years deep into his career, but James is hardly a neophyte, either, having logged seven. But while Bryant is going for his fifth ring, James is still looking for one. And yet, while James' postseason ended unceremoniously with a six-game ouster in the second round, his name still looms over the finals between the Lakers and Boston Celtics. The anticipation surrounding his pending free-agent decision is intense, and every word he utters is scrutinized. On Friday night, a day off after Game 1 of the finals on Thursday, James will be seen on CNN in an interview taped on Tuesday for 'Larry King Live.' The sound bites from that interview are already being released by CNN and, predictably, are creating a distraction, with James being quoted as saying that Cleveland had an 'edge' in re-signing him when free agency begins on July 1. In some ways, the CNN interview is similar to Alex Rodriguez's decision to opt out of his original Yankees contract just as the Boston Red Sox were innings away from a World Series sweep of the Colorado Rockies in 2007. Rodriguez overshadowed the conclusion of the Series; James has the potential to take attention away from a finals he is not part of. That, in turn, may send some barbs his way but it is worth remembering that James was a worthy MVP winner the past two seasons, cobbling together better regular-season averages than Bryant. (It is also worth remembering that in spring 2007, it was Bryant who created a noisy distraction with his public complaints about the state of the Lakers even as James was leading to the Cavaliers to the NBA finals against San Antonio.) Because Bryant has been around for so long and has gone through so many incarnations, his brilliance, at times, can be taken for granted. There has been Bryant the prep to pro; Bryant the sixth man; Bryant the dunk king; Bryant the All-Star; Bryant the three-years-in-a-row champion, Bryant the troubled teammate, at odds with Shaquille O'Neal; Bryant the accused; Bryant at odds with just about everyone on the Lakers; Bryant the trade demander; Bryant, the trade demander-rescinder, Bryant the 81-point scorer; Bryant the 2008 MVP; Bryant the finals champion again. All throughout, the public has witnessed Bryant as a master of the game's fundamentals. In that category, James is still a work in progress. James has the better body. Bryant has the better body of work. The Miss America trophy is not awarded to the person who looks best in a swimsuit, but to the overall top performer. Bryant scored at least 30 points in 10 of the Lakers' last 11 postseason games. In the Western Conference finals against the Phoenix Suns, Bryant averaged 33.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 8.3 assists. After he supplied the final touches in Phoenix's series-ending defeat in Game 6, including a clutch jumper as Grant Hill cloaked him, Suns Coach Alvin Gentry pointedly asked: 'Was that Kobe or Michael? I couldn't tell.' It was a nice tribute to Bryant, summoning images of Michael Jordan, the player who still stands above Bryant and James. But who stands second? 