Kobe Bryant On Playing Small Forward:

[tugs]

There are these elite lockdown defenders ala Gary Payton, Tony Allen, Bruce Bowen, Ron Artest, etc. Those who will not let their man get past them.Then you have the smart defenders who utilize angles and recognize their opponent's tendencies: where they prefer to drive, their weak hand, their dominant hand; and they force their man to take shots or passes they are not comfortable with or funnell them to his bigs.

In Kobe's case, he can be either, but now he has the luxury to just do the latter.

[john248]

Kobe hasn't been healthy since 2013, so it really doesn't matter if he should've played SF since then when he totaled all of 41 games in the past 2 seasons. It also doesn't matter if he's labeled a "SF" either. You're going to hide him on some spot up shooter. Steph Curry isn't a SF just because he guards Danny Green for long stretches. There are 3 perimeter positions to fill, and Kobe is just taking up one of them.

Hiding him on some spot up shooter is just how he drifts and sucks on defense. You have to play him on a guy that will play on the ball, he's still smart enough to cut off angles and play D well in those situations.

He sucks on defense because he sucks on defense. I don't see a reason why this is difficult to come to terms with. Kobe being lazy and not fighting over screens is bad too. We're talking about a player who's missed 75% of the games the last couple years and is at the end of his career; literally the end. So you propose for him to expend energy on defense when it primary value at this point is his offense or what's left of it? That doesn't sound like a good idea. This isn't Frobe or the back-to-back version of himself anymore (the guy who even in that Finals was put on Rondo to save energy for his offense). Even with his offensive resurgence in 2013, a great offensive year at that, his defense wasn't that good (it wasn't good) outside several motivated games. And there are those who point to these very small sample size of games and use it as proof that his defense is still at a non-negative level which is both wrong and rather reckless use of "proof".

And really, it was ok for him to coast a little on defense if his offensive value is so strong. But we're sitting here waiting for the 15-16 season, and the reality is that his defense slipped even prior to his injured season at the end of 2013, as in a couple seasons prior. With injury and age, we can expect it to be worse. Still leaving him on the other team's worst offensive player or worst perimeter offensive player isn't a bad idea.

And there's really no shame in that; none at all given his age and built up equity of the past. I'd rather see him stand next to a spot up shooter and get burned back door once in a while than see him not really want to cover an on-ball player and get caught in a screen or get lazy and go under a screen.

This isn't even going into his offense which he needs energy for and why he'd be hidden on defense anyways. His offense last year was horse ****. It's clear that he's not the guy who can take a bunch of scrubs and still have a top 10 offense as he used to be. He had a ton of rust, legs weren't really under him, and then shoulder. But hey, it was also age. Wizards Jordan was a year older at 38, and well, not good either as a high usage and low efficiency player. The league average for ORTG was 105.6 last year. In the history of the league of guys who were 37 and older, had a 105+ ORTG, played 26+ mpg, and scored at least 15 ppg are all bigs (mainly Kareem & Malone, 1 season of Duncan 2014) and a season of Dominique Wilkins.

So really, we shouldn't be expecting much if history and what we saw of Kobe last season are indicators. Man defense is something that shouldn't be relied on now and his offense may be nice volume wise but with poor efficiency. It'll be a season where we say...that's pretty good for a 38 year old, just not good in the grand scheme of things.

[Jakay]

Fantastic. He'll be so much better off on D at the three. I don't what you're all complaining about. There's like two or three monster 3s in the league, but even then Kobe will still be able to stay in the game with them. He still can move fast, and he does like to hang around the paint as often as possible, so it makes sense. He's certainly strong enough to play the spot effectively.

I mean anyone who thinks he's not suited to play better defence at the three, ask yourself, does it make more sense for him to be guarding shooting guards most of whom are as quick as PGs now?

[DrewBynum77]

Nowadays not even bigs know how to use their strength, let alone Small Forwards. Most of SF in the league right now are actually "shooting forwards". The so called 3&D.

Most of the time he'll be as good or as bad as he's against SGs. Probably better. If there's a mismatch then just switch.