"But lebron didn't accomplish anything until he left, so the point is kinda moot". So young Kobe got to play with one of the most dominant forces of the league and got 3 championships that way, so does that make him a better player than a young Lebron who took trash teams to the finals and beat some pretty good teams in the playoffs? Is that really a conversation of who the better player is, or who had better luck with the situation they were put in? How is that kinda moot?
Kobe is great, don't get me wrong, but he showed no signs of carrying the Lakers, not to the level of Lebron when they needed him to. Put Lebron, put VC, put T-mac in young Kobe's place and Shaq is winning regardless.
Lebron took the cavs to over 60 wins multiple times in his first run, Kobe (after Shaq left) didn't even get close to that until he had a championship caliber team around him.
Saying how "good" or how "skilled" a player is is an incredibly deceptive way at looking at the game. If a player is consistently scoring nearly as much as Kobe is, but doing it in less attempts, who is the better scorer? It doesn't matter if Kobe is taking fadeaways over 3 defenders because it's still only 2 points. The point of any offensive scheme in basketball is to create an easy shot for one of your players, taking a fancy fadeaway in a defender's face is just inefficient and a stupid decision, unless there's no time on the shot clock.
In fact, scoring isn't even Lebron's greatest strength, yet his PPG and FG% is almost identical to KD's. Your eye test only make sense if you put every single make and miss of Kobe's next to every single make and miss of Lebron's, because Lebron just scores more often if you compare possession by possession. Having nice footwork is great if it makes you score more efficiently and more often, but if you can score more without the footwork then there's no point in having that footwork. Why is that so hard for people to understand?
Kobe is super overrated, that is the point. The league became popular with MJ, and ever since MJ got old, the league has been doing anything they could to promote the next MJ. 3 second rules, post up rules, hand checking, everything to help guards win more, and Kobe is the most successful MJ-style guard after that era. Plus he was on the Lakers, the most storied franchise in the league, that's why the league has done everything to make Kobe popular, he was their cash-cow. Don't let that disrupt your sense of logic when comparing a player's ability to play basketball.