RealGM Top 100 List #12

[Reservoirdawgs]

3) Kobe has a pretty large list of failures too, not just 03, 04, 05-07 and 11, but also the titles he could have won them if he hadn't sabotaged his team, and the titles they won in spite of his antics (largely thanks to Shaq being so awesome it didn't matter). Again, I cover this extensively on page 1, it's all quite well documented.

At this point, you're actually hurting your cause by being so intellectually dishonest. It's like how you dismissed the quotes from Jordan or have dismissed Shaq's poor attitudes and antics while continuing to overstate Kobe's attitude issues. I don't think anyone denies that Kobe has a poor track record as a teammate and with attitude issues. However, you are over-stating the issues and making them to be bigger than they really are. Both Kobe and Shaq are to blame for the drama between the two of them. While Kobe was more of a loner and did not engage his teammates (and his self-inflicted issues in 2004 which ultimately affected the Lakers as admitted by his teammates and his coach), Shaq was an egotistical prick who has caused drama wherever he has gone and did not properly take care of his body which also affected his team. Jerry Buss decided to keep Kobe and trade Shaq because Shaq was old, had injury issues, and wanted five years at over $20 million a year and he did not believe that Shaq was worth it (which turned out to be accurate). Not only that, but Kobe was receiving four times as many fan letters as Shaq and his jersey was tops in the league and he was much younger. At the time I thought it was a mistake to not keep Shaq and sign/trade Kobe, but in retrospect the Lakers were correct. Shaq only had two more high quality seasons and then injuries/drama/old age caught up to him and he wasn't worth $20 million a year.

Lots of players in the Top 10 had attitude issues. Jordan punched a teammate in practice, talked crap about his teammates to the media and to their face, and would gamble at nights before games. KAJ was a loner and aloof guy who kept to himself and was by all accounts (at least according to the recently released Showtime book) a prickly teammate. And those are just the top two guys in this project. Kobe is not the only person with attitude issues, nor will he be the last. However, you're ignoring or dismissing other player's issues and only focusing on Kobe, which is intellectually dishonest. Either be consistent or stop bringing up this "point". I think there are a lot of great arguments to vote for other players over Kobe for #12. This isn't one of them.

[ardee]

Vote: Kobe Bryant

A look at Kobe's relevant career: 2000-2013:

Early years and emergence as a superstar: 2000-2003

Spoiler:

But in any case, let's take a look at an overview of Kobe's relevant career, which starts in 2000. Warning, this'll be a long post.

2000: Played the sidekick role perfectly to one of the GOAT peaks. Averaged 23-6-5 on +2.4% TS in a very slow and inefficient era. Doubled up as one of the top perimeter defenders in the league: it's hard to call anyone but Payton definitely better. He torched the Kings in the first round to 28 ppg on 50% from the floor. This was the only series that went the distance so they definitely needed it. In the next round he locked up Jason Kidd: badly. The guy had one good game where he shot 8-13, other than that he went 1-6, 5-9, 1-9, and 3-13. Along with a 25% TOV. Kobe was a beast on defense that year. We all know his heroic games 6 and 7 performances against the Blazers. The Finals were poor, admittedly, but the ankle injury is obvious, and he still won the Lakers a game by himself in game 4 OT.

Overall, I'd say this is on par with any Pippen year outside of '92, '94, and '95. The only players I'd definitely take ahead of him that year were Shaq, Duncan, Malone, KG and Mourning.

2001: The birth of superstar Kobe. I feel everyone knows how good his Playoffs were that year, but his regular season is underrated. Especially in the start of the season, he was outplaying Shaq. Shaq was having trouble with fouls and free-throw shooting (REALLY bad, was going through a sub 40% stretch), so Kobe took over early and averaged 32-5-5 on a 117 ORtg for about 30 games, while Shaq was at about 24-13-4 on 106 ORtg. For the first half of the season before the AS Break, it's arguable Kobe was the best player in the league, considering if you remember Kobe was still ELITE on defense that year.

He then began suffering some niggling injuries, and the team suffered. Then Shaq got his groove back, and once Kobe was healthy as well the team was clicking on all cylinders. They were both more or less on cruise control against the Blazers, and then took turns dropping 40/15 games on the poor Kings. Kobe had his best ever series against the Spurs, and was 32-7-6 on 121 ORtg against the entire Western conference. He really was playing better than Shaq at that point. If someone wants to use the Finals gap (Kobe still did play well after game 1, 27-9-6 on 55% TS) to rank Shaq ahead for the whole Playoffs, I guess its fair, but Kobe WAS the driving force for the offense for the majority of the Playoffs for the best Playoff team ever.

He was undoubtedly second to only Shaq that year. I can't see any reason to rank Duncan over him that year, not when Duncan had a real solid team around him with a D-Rob who led the league in WS/48, and got so badly trounced and destroyed by the Lakers.

2002: A bit of a down-year for him. He still had a good regular season, 25/6/6 on a 112 ORtg, but didn't hit the heights of 2001. Worth noting he had to carry the team more with Shaq missing 15 games. The supporting cast was pretty poor by that point. Fisher played the whole season for a change, but Grant was gone, Horry was aging, and the Lakers were dependent on guys like Samaki Walker and Devean George for reliable contributions. It was impressive the way Shaq and Kobe got the team to a title that year. Kobe was the best player in a beatdown of the Spurs and MVP Duncan, and against the Kings he put up 31/11/6 in games 6 and 7, him and Shaq dragging the Lakers back from the abyss. He also had his best Finals of the Shaq era, 27/6/6 on 62% TS against the best defensive team in the league.

I'd rank Shaq/Duncan over him (hard choice between those two that year), and I can see some kind of argument for Garnett but don't buy it. This was the best supporting cast KG ever had before 2004, and they still finished with a below average defense and got roasted by the Mavs. I'm not seeing the impact that year. In 2003 I'll rank KG ahead because of his improved offensive game and he really did do less with more. This year I think Kobe's value as an offensive constant able to put consistent pressure on the defense. beats out whatever KG was doing.... especially since I really don't like his defense that year. I have no clue what 2002 KG was doing against the Mavs, it looked like he was playing some kind of crazy one man zone. Furthers my point I made earlier that Minny KG is overrated on defense. So, Kobe is third.

2003: One of the best years of his career. Perfect storm, his all-around game really came together. His 3-point shot was like a pull-up 5 footer at that point, had it almost on automatic. He averaged 28-8-7 for the first 40 games, almost LeBron-like. He really had to carry a pretty awful team for some time with Shaq out. Still, the team was dysfunctional and plodding by the half-way point, 19-23 through 42 games. Phil asked Kobe to take a bigger role in the offense, and he did. 41-5-3 on 59% TS over the next 14 games, leading the Lakers to a 12-2 record over that stretch, putting them over .500 for good and into the thick of the Playoff seedings. He closed the year out with several more monster games, including the 55 point one against Jordan with 9 threes, 42 in the first half.

At the close of the regular season, I'd say Kobe was right there with Duncan and KG for the best player in the league. He was very effective against the Wolves, but I will admit that the injury + shot selection a little out of control in the Spurs series harmed the Lakers. Still, if Horry's shot had gone in in game 5, Kobe would have successfully made up for it all by leading the Lakers back from 25 down, and was anyone stopping a 4th straight title then?

I have him 3rd this year, behind Duncan and KG. Shaq and McGrady battling it out for 4th/5th. I can't see Shaq over him this year, not when the Lakers season turned around after it was KOBE who took a bigger role and put the team on his back.

So far, we're looking at a very good sidekick year where he was in the 6-7 range in the league, and 3 top 3 years, one of which he was the second best player in the league.

The in-between years: 2004-2005

Spoiler:

Going onto the rest of his career:

2004/2005: The two worst years of his prime, I'm clubbing them together. 2004 in particular really smarts. He's coming off an epic season that propelled him into the MJ discussion, and now his raw numbers and efficiency drop across the board, plus he misses 17 games. The raw numbers are explainable, he was now splitting possessions with three other HOFs, and it's possible that all of them were affected by a system that just did not fit the roster very well. Still, it was a notch below '01 and '03, and even '02. He still kept it up defensively though. He had a terrible Rockets series efficiency-wise, but then killed the Spurs (30/6/6 over the four comeback games). Average against the Wolves and had the worst series of his career in the Finals. He played well defensively though, locking down Rip, converse to Shaq who killed it offensively and was a sieve on defense. I place equal responsibility on those two for the Finals loss. In any normal year, it'd be enough for me to rank both out of the top 5, but this was such a weak year that after KG/Duncan I have to rank Shaq and Kobe at nos. 3 and 4. I'll say this, Kobe is probably the weakest number 4 as far as I can remember, in 2004.

2005 is an underestimated year. 28-6-6 on 56% TS, 109 On-Court ORtg with a truly terrible supporting casts. I've seen several nonsensical posts about how good guys like Brian Grant and Chucky Atkins were and it makes me shake my head. If Kobe and Odom had been healthy they'd have still made the Playoffs (32-29 through 61 games), but Rudy's retirement and the injuries just really took their toll. Kobe still performed well individually, started the season averaging 29-7-7 with a bunch of triple doubles in the first 30 games, with the Lakers at 16-12. I still have no problem ranking him possibly near the end of the top 10, this was a very strong year for the league. Nash, Duncan, KG, Dirk, Wade, Shaq, McGrady, and Stoudemire would all be over him.

Now we enter Kobe's true prime. Right now we have a top 2 year, two top 3 years, a top 4 year (admittedly very weak), and two years where he's close to the bottom of the top 10. Not bad for a pre-prime guy.

The volume years: 2006/2007

Spoiler:

2006: What a season. What a player. I'm going to leave this to the best poster on the board, ShaqAttack, because he had a GOAT level post on '06 Kobe.

In hindsight, I think Nash was a good choice for 2005, though I was in the "Shaq was robbed" crowd at the time. However, I don't think Nash was the right choice in 2006. I'd go with Kobe in 2006.

First I will say that since the MVP is the closest things the NBA has to a best player award, I try to keep best player in mind to some degree, though of course, I don't always think it should go to the best player since games played and record are factors. But to me, 2006 was the most obvious year he was the best player in the league. I think he was the best in '07 as well, but you could at least make the case for Duncan in '07 and Paul in '08.

Anyway, not only were Kobe's individual feats exceptional in 2006, but they led to the Lakers overachieving and exceeding most expectations following a 34-48 season. Phil asked Kobe to carry the offense because many of the players didn't know the triangle and probably due to their lack of talent as well, and he did so in a remarkable way.

Warning, this will be a LONG post since I will look over their entire supporting casts.

Kobe only had one other player on the roster you could call a legit NBA starter, and that was Lamar Odom who was inconsistent throughout the first half. Odom averaged just 14/9/5 on 45% shooting and just 53 TS% in the first half, though Kobe still carried the Lakers to a .500 record at 26-26 while averaging 35/5/4 on 44/34/84 shooting and 55 TS%. Odom was obviously a good player, but he shouldn't be your second best player by a huge margin as he was on the 2006 Lakers when he was relied on to play 40.3 mpg. We saw how valuable Odom could be when he became the 3rd guy after Gasol was acquired and he was noticeably more comfortable playing his game. His versatile skill set can obviously be an asset with his strong rebounding, ball-handling skills at 6'10" and the ability to get the rebound and create or finish the fast break by himself. This was also the last year Lamar played a lot of the 3 which had been his position as a young player with the Clippers and when Phil tried Odom in the Scottie Pippen point forward role with mixed results, though passing has always been one of Lamar's strengths and he did lead the Lakers with 5.5 apg while averaging just 2.7 turnovers. Lamar did have talent as a scorer as evidenced by his transition game, he could be a threat to create off the dribble, had the length to finish, and while I wouldn't say he was ever a good shooter, he did shoot 37.2% on 3s in 2006 while making one per game. However, Odom couldn't go right which made him predictable, as mentioned, he wasn't a great shooter, and perhaps most importantly, he lacked the consistent focus and aggressiveness to be a really good scorer so scoring really wasn't his forte as evidenced by the fact that his season high was 27 points in 2006. However, Odom became more consistent late in the year and played like a borderline all-star averaging 16/9/6 on 53% shooting in the second half as well as 43% on 3s and 60 TS%. Kobe also raised his game during this time averaging 36/5/5 on 46/36/87 shooting and 57 TS% as the Lakers went 19-11, a 52 win pace. Pretty impressive to win at that pace with just one legitimately good, but not great teammate.

As for the rest of the team, they had Smush Parker starting at PG and playing 33.8 mpg. Smush was a bit of a surprise for LA this year, but to put things in perspective, despite being just 24 at the time, Smush didn't even last 2 more years in the NBA. Then there was Kwame Brown whose only legitimate asset was his post defense, and he can only be described as a liability at the offensive end. Of course there's the infamous small hands which prevented him from being a reliable catch and finish player around the rim, one of the more basic skills asked of a big man offensively, his footwork and shooting touch were horrible leaving him without a single decent post move, he was a terrible free throw shooter at 54.5% and he could get rattled very easily. Chris Mihm was another starter for most of the year, and while he had a decent offensive skill set, he wasn't much of a defender or rebounder, and the Lakers played their best ball by far after Mihm's injury so he wasn't an impact player. Devean George was one of the few holdovers from the champion Lakers, and while he was a decent defender, he was a poor offensive player who didn't shoot particularly well at just 40 FG% and 31.2 3P% and couldn't create. Then there was Luke Walton whose only real skill was passing. Brian Cook's only value could be as a stretch 4, but he wasn't a good defender, rebounder or post player. Finally, Sasha Vujacic was in the rotation getting 19 mpg despite the fact that he shot a horrendous 34.6% from the floor for the season and even his 3 point shooting was underwhelming at 34.3%.

That's the team Kobe made 7th in scoring and 8th in offensive rating, and I'd bet they were near the top in the second half when Odom finally played more consistently.

Nash's Suns were obviously a more potent offense, and they were 1st in scoring and 2nd in offensive rating, but they had a lot more talent to work with, and had a team who not only fit well in D'Antoni's system, but played off of Nash well as almost all of them were dangerous 3 point shooters, slashers or good open court players. Shawn Marion had a much better year than Odom and made the all-nba 3rd team. Marion averaged 22/11 on 53% shooting with 2 spg, 1.7 bpg and just 1.5 turnovers per game. Obviously, Marion benefited from playing with Nash since his strengths offensively were his finishing in the open court, his slashing and he liked the corner 3, but Marion was already a 20 ppg scorer before he played with Nash so Nash just made him more efficient. Of course, Marion's versatility, particularly defensively was very valuable as well. Boris Diaw was also voted the Most Improved Player as he averaged 13/7/6 on 53% shooting. Diaw has always been a great passer, he had a nice post game, made his mid-range shots, and despite playing a different style, he gave the Suns something similar to what Odom gave the Lakers with his versatility. Diaw was a forward who had entered the league as a guard with the Hawks and was often the Suns' biggest player on the court as the de facto center while being an excellent secondary facilitator. Diaw also didn't start the year as a starter, but played his way into that role and like Odom, got better as the year went on averaging 16/7/7 on 57% shooting in the second half. Nash also got a great year out of Raja Bell who in addition to his defense, shot lights out from 3. No question he capitalized on Nash's passing, but you still have to make the shots, and Bell did just that averaging 14.7 ppg while making 2.5 threes per game while shooting 44.2%, which was 5th best in the NBA, and he was 3rd in made 3s with 197, just behind Gilbert Arenas who only made 2 more, but took one more game to do it. Bell was also 3rd in eFG% at 56.3%. Leandro Barbosa was one of the fastest players in the league and averaged 13 ppg while coming off the bench most of the year. He complemented his speed with a very dangerous 3 point shot as evidenced by his 44.4 3P%, which was 3rd best in the league and his 55.8 eFG%. They also had Tim Thomas late in the year, and he was always a talented offensive player at 6'10" who averaged 11 ppg in just 24 mpg for them while shooting 43% on 3s and had even more shooters in Eddie House and James Jones who averaged between 9-10 ppg, shot about 39% on 3s, made 1.5 of them per game and did it in just 17.5 and 23.6 mpg, respectively. To round out the cast was Kurt Thomas who was one of their few big men, but a good defender and rebounder with a consistent mid-range shot who was definitely better than any of the Lakers' big men excluding Odom. Not surprisingly, Phoenix finished first at 39.9% and led the league with 837 made 3s, 212 more than the Warriors who were 2nd.

Given the enormous disparity in the talent, I'd argue the Lakers having the 8th best offense was more impressive than Phoenix having the 2nd best offense. Kobe's cast was really bad lacking a legit 2nd option, being surrounded by fringe players other than Odom, lacking shooters as evidenced by the fact that they were in the bottom half in 3P% and a pretty mediocre defense(which was actually virtually identical to the Suns' defense statistically.) The only thing you can really say is that the Lakers were a solid rebounding team outrebounding opponents by 2 rpg. Nash's cast certainly lacked size, but there's no question they had loads of offensive talent with more shooters than anyone could hope for, versatile forwards like Marion and Diaw and if you look at their sixth man Leandro Barbosa, he was definitely a more dangerous scorer than any of Kobe's teammates.

There's so many things to look at, but aside from how impressive it is to lead your team to a very productive offensive season while being asked to play 41 mpg and take over 27 shots per game, just look at how each of these team's offenses fared with and without the stars. The Suns offensive rating was a phenomenal 114.8 with Nash on the court, but still respectable without him at 106.4, which was just above league average. Meanwhile, the Lakers had an excellent 112.6 offensive rating with Kobe on the court, but it was horrendous with him off the court at 93.7. Finally, it's worth noting that Nash played 35.4 mpg, while Kobe played 41 mpg as mentioned before. What it comes down to is there's no question in my mind that Kobe was a better player and had a better season, and there's also no question in my mind that the disparity in team success was not nearly as great as the disparity in talent, and Kobe's success was more impressive considering their situations.

The more I think about this season, the more I'm leaning towards it as Kobe's peak over 2008.

Historical stuff from Bryant. This is a year, offensively, I'd rank only slightly below peak Magic/Bird/Jordan/LeBron. He was at his peak athleticism wise, jumper was there, he could basically do whatever he wanted to any defense he wanted.

Undoubtedly the best in the league. To me, when I was watching back then, it wasn't even close. Only Dirk really had an argument. Once Odom started playing at a decent level for the last 30 games, Kobe had the Lakers at a 111.5 ORtg, 0.1 behind the Mavs for the league lead. Kobe was anchoring a league-best offense with ONE other serviceable offensive player. This says it all I think.

2007: The most efficient season of Kobe's career. It also gave a good glance of the game-management and facilitation skills that Kobe would show in 2008-10.

Through 39 games, he had the Lakers at 26-13. In fact, they were 14-6 through the first 20 games before Odom got hurt. Odom was playing like a near AS, averaging 18-9-5 on good efficiency. This should really dispell notions that Kobe at that era couldn't play with good teammates. Walton was benefiting too, averaging 12-5-4 on 50-43-75 through that good start. Kobe was playing steady basketball as the captain of a ship that was cruising along at a 112.2 ORtg, with 28-6-6 on 59% TS.

Then the injuries really took their toll. As soon as Odom returned, Walton got injured. And Odom was playing far worse than he was pre-injury. Kobe continued to play his part-facilitator role, but the team was just too bad for it to be effective. With Kobe, a broken Odom, and a D-League roster, the Lakers stumbled to a 7-18 record over the next 25 games. They were going to be out of the Playoffs, until Phil told Kobe to completely take over the offense. He did, to the tune of 40-6-5 on 58% TS. The Lakers managed to crack .500 for that stretch at 9-8, showing the difference between Kobe taking a step back (like his detractors love him to) and actually taking control of the offense on a terrible team.

His Playoffs were good by his own standards, but not spectacular. His team was so outmatched there really wasn't much he could do. It is memorable for that 45-6-6 game 3 when he threw the kitchen sink at the Suns and somehow came away with a win despite the Lakers getting 86% of their points from him, Odom and Kwame.

He probably was better than in '06 when he really got going, but for the whole season, probably just slightly worse. I'd put him behind Duncan for second best in the league.

The MVP and repeat years: 2008-10

Spoiler:

2008: The promised land. People love to claim that it was just Pau that turned the franchise around but Kobe had the Lakers at 25-11 through 36 games with his second option, Bynum, averaging 13-10. That's one of the worse second options in the league, and Kobe still had them comfortably in the middle of the WCF standings, flitting between the 2-4 seeds.

The Bynum injury, by all rights, should have killed the Lakers season. Possibly scared of the prospect of being the second option again, Odom went into a funk and averaged 12-10 on 42% shooting over the next 11 games. Kobe refused to let the team slip, going into supernova, averaging 34-8-6 on 61% TS in the same stretch, somehow keeping Fisher, Sasha, Turiaf, Farmar and Walton at a 6-5 record until the front office found a way to replace Bynum's production.

The Gasol trade was the best thing to happen to Kobe's career. It showed just how effective he could make a team with one other truly reliable offensive player. Kobe increased his efficiency, rebounding, facilitation and played better defense, with his volume remaining pretty much the same. Gasol's efficiency jumped up from 50.1% FG to 58.9% FG playing with Kobe, and the Lakers went 22-5 in the games that both played.

Overall, Kobe averaged 28-6-5 with elite defense, on 57% TS. The Lakers finished with a 7.3 SRS, and this was on a team with another truly reliable player for less than a third of the season. This was an underestimated carry job by Kobe. The Lakers could have slipped into oblivion at any time but he didn't let them.

The Playoffs were the cherry on the cake. ShaqAttack again:

The Lakers were virtually unbeatable with Gasol at 22-4 excluding the 2-3 minute game and then dominated the West including the defending champion Spurs in 5 during the WCF. The Spurs were no joke either since they had Duncan who was only slightly past his prime and 2 other all-star caliber players in Parker and Ginobili who was at his peak and probably the 2nd best shooting guard behind only Kobe that year. What was so impressive about Kobe's playoff run is that he almost seemed to be toying with his West opponents as he averaged 31.9 ppg, 6.1 rpg and 5.8 apg on 50.9 FG% in 15 games during the 3 West rounds playing that team-oriented style. Despite the finals loss, I still consider this Kobe's best playoff run. He had that game vs Denver when he shot 18/27 overall, 5/9 on 3s and 8/9 from the line for 49 points, and while I haven't seen the game since, I remember him being so hot that it looked like he could have had 60+ early had he pushed the issue, but LA won easily by 15 points.

32-6-6 on 61% TS against 3 top 6 defenses and 50 win teams. The Finals against the Cs was underwhelming, but as good as the Lakers were the Celtics were just so loaded they were clearly outmatched. I'm not one of those Laker fans that think Bynum would've made a difference. The big 3 were playing at a historic level at that point. Hold it against him if you wish, but remember, make sure to hold KG's failures against him too when his team is lacking in comparative talent.

I have Kobe no. 1 again, the last year he will be at this spot. I do think he was the best overall player for '06-'08, and in terms of three-year peaks it's not quite in the '91-'93 MJ, '63-'65 Russell or '66-'68 Wilt level but I think it matches up fairly well with guys like Bird and Hakeem.

2009: I summed this up with a post in a thread I made a few months ago:

I was watching parts of the Lakers '09 Playoffs and it just occurred to me that 2009 doesn't get brought up enough when talking about Kobe's best seasons, and indeed some of the best seasons by a wing, ever.

The Lakers had a 10 game lead on one of the toughest conferences in history. Not to say Kobe didn't have a great cast, but this was a 7.8 SRS team and he was +11.1 on/off for the +/- guys. For an elite team, it doesn't get too much higher, because they aren't going to be putrid when the star is off, they wouldn't be elite then. His +116.1 On-Court ORtg is among the highest we've seen from a player not on the Suns dynasty.

He was also still quite elite on defense, probably the last year he was consistently up there.

The Lakers cruised to a 37-9 record, and then Bynum got injured. Many people feared a slowdown, but Kobe took on the extra load and averaged a 32-5-5 over the next 12 games, leading the Lakers to a 11-1 record. That stretch shows he was still absolutely capable of scoring how many ever points he needed to, just like '06 and '07, he just took it easy to get the team-mates into the game as well.

That stretch put the Lakers in the driving seat for the conference and they cruised from then on. They beat every other contender, home or away. Snapped the Celtics' 19 and 12 game winning streaks, and the Cavs' 23 game home winning streak. Kobe kept them focused as hell, this was probably when his team-mates' fear of him transformed into a determination to please. His leadership had real, tangible impact on the Lakers that season.

Then in the Playoffs, the Lakers stomped. The Houston series was a minor blip where they were losing focus from time to time, but every time they lost they responded with a blowout. After that 118-78 result, did they ever look like losing that series? Kobe was still consistent enough in that series, it was the supporting cast who couldn't keep it together mentally. He did, however, along with Phil, keep getting them back on track and winning all the statement games. He did so while dealing with Battier and Artest tag-teaming him on defense.

The Denver series was his magnum opus. Has anyone forgotten that 'bad mofo' face? Has anyone forgotten all the insane shots he hit with a hand in his face, Dahntay and the other Nuggets playing picture perfect defense? Has anyone forgotten the way he pulled a team that was struggling to close game 1 to a victory by scoring or assisting 13 of the last 15 points? Has anyone forgotten that game 6 when he basically looked untouchable, going for a 35/10 and ripping the Nuggets to shreds while the Lakers won by 30? Has anyone forgotten the ridiculous 35/6/6 overall performance he put together?

I'm not saying he was better than LeBron that year, but this should be considered one of the best seasons by a wing ever. His numbers weren't as good as they used to be, but what was he supposed to do, put up nicer stats when he had Odom/Gasol and lose instead? He did everything his team needed him to, and when his guys were sagging, he picked up all the slack and dominated, as we saw in multiple stretches throughout the season.

Really, I think the only Playoff run by a wing definitely better than this (after Jordan) is '12 LeBron. What do you guys think?

LeBron was definitely better this year. No question in my mind. But Kobe was a deserved no. 2. I can get ranking Wade over him, but I think Kobe played just as well in the later Playoff rounds as Wade did in the regular season, and Wade really didn't have a good Playoffs at all.

2010: A very underrated year for Kobe.

This was the year he completed the development of his post-game, and it was more effective than Jordan's ever was. Here's Bill Simmons on Kobe during the first half of the season, a stretch when Bryant had the Lakers at 25-6 through 31 games (more than half of which Pau missed by the way), averaging 30-6-5 on 57% TS.

I can't remember anyone reinventing himself historically as well as Kobe did these past 16 months. The Olympics, then the 2009 Finals, then the media victory lap that everyone ate up … and then, when it seemed as if we were headed for a decline, he reinvented himself as the second coming of post-baseball Jordan and developed an even nastier, more physical post-up game than MJ had. I can't believe what I am watching. It's staggering. He's like a 6-foot-6 Hakeem Olajuwon. I went into this season thinking Kobe would be able to last just one or two more seasons at a high level; now I'm wondering whether he could play like this well into his late 30s. Why not? I mean, Karl Malone did it. Like Malone, Kobe is a workout freak who takes care of his body and seems predisposed to staying healthy, anyway. Malone averaged a 26-10 and made second-team All-NBA in the 1999-2000 season when he was 36 years old … and then he played four years after that. Kobe is only 31. Could he replicate Malone's longevity and consistency?

He did get injured later on, yes, no one is disputing that. But before that, he was playing as well as he ever had, and picked up at that level in the Playoffs. I don't know why people were shocked in the Playoffs, he played just as well in the first half... For 9 games before his injury, he averaged 37-7-5 on 58% TS!

I'm not going to lie and say the second half of the regular season was pretty. Coming out of the regular season one could argue he was behind LeBron, Durant and Howard all.

But then he went and had one of his best Playoffs ever. He still struggled with his knee for a bit at the beginning of the OKC series, but after game 5 had his knee drained and then ripped off an all-time hot streak. He averaged 31-7-6 on 59% TS over the last 18 games of the regular season. He was easily the best player in the Playoffs that year, and I think it should boost him over Durant and Howard. I'd still give LeBron the edge that year, with Kobe 2nd. Wade, Nash, Durant and Howard fight it out for spots 3-5.

He had that historic Phoenix series, averaging 34-7-8 on a 135 ORtg, 64% TS!!! People don't appreciate how dominant he was in that series.

His Finals got marred by game 7, but before that he was doing 30/7/4 on 56% TS. Against the kind of defense he was facing, that's remarkable to say the least.

It's hard to argue against what Kobe did in the Playoffs that year.

Overall, I think Kobe from 2008-10 was more impressive than second threepeat Jordan in the Playoffs... But that's just me.

I know that was a ridiculously long post, lemme give it to you in cliffs:

-2000 was a great second option year, comparable to prime Pippen. Got the Lakers out of several tight situations (game 7 Portland, game 4 Indy), and doubled up as the best perimeter defender in the league. Perfect second option to Shaq.

-2001: Underrated regular season, historical Playoffs. Carried the Lakers while Shaq was less than his usual self at the start, combined with him for the best run by a duo in NBA history in the Playoffs, was Jordan-esque in the WC Playoffs (32-7-6 on 60% TS).

-2002: Slightly underwhelming regular season but still solid. Killed the Spurs in the Playoffs, came up big in games 6 and 7 against the Kings with Shaq, and had the best finals of the threepeat part of his career.

-2003: Became a complete player. Arguably his best defensive year, added the 3 point shot. Had an all-time 35/40 point game streak to drag the Lakers back into Playoff contention

-2006/2007: All-time offensive years. Dragged garbage to top 7-8 offenses, and when Odom actually played well and gave him a good second option he took the team to the best offense in the league for that same stretch, in both seasons.

-2008: Peak year. Got his defense back. Showed that he could make a bad team decent as well as make a decent team elite, as soon as Pau arrived. What's impressive is the Lakers had a 7.3 SRS with Pau only playing 27 games for them that year. Historically dominant in the Playoffs.

-2009: lead one of the best Laker teams ever despite Bynum getting injured AGAIN, with Pau again his only real reliable teammate. Dominated in the Playoffs, had possibly his best series ever against Denver, and was decisive in the Finals against Orlando.

-2010: Killed it for the first two months in the regular season, clearly the second best player behind LeBron for that stretch. Developed the post-game. Slipped into injuries, but shook them off in the Playoffs to dominate again. Killed the Jazz and Suns, had a good series against Boston considering the level of defense he was facing.

-From 2000 to 2010, here's how I'd rank Kobe in the league year by year: 8, 2, 3, 3, 4, 9, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2. Other than the blip of 2005, that is stunning consistency over a long stretch. Comparable to prime Bird easily.

-In terms of peak play, Bird was better at his absolute zenith, but Kobe gives you 7 years at that level: 2001, 2003, 2006-10, while Bird has 1984-88. The two extra years make a real difference, at that level.

I don't think I can do more talking about the meat of Kobe's career. I'll answer any questions anyone has, and expand more on 2011-13 later.

[lukekarts]

1) I don't like the use of career stats in this way tbh, it lacks context. D doesn't show up with these stats either.
2) Don't you think Kobe's efficiency was helped by often being on better teams (or being the 2nd banana on offense, when the other team was swarming Shaq)?
3) Kobe has a pretty large list of failures too, not just 03, 04, 05-07 and 11, but also the titles he could have won them if he hadn't sabotaged his team, and the titles they won in spite of his antics (largely thanks to Shaq being so awesome it didn't matter). Again, I cover this extensively on page 1, it's all quite well documented.[/quote]


1. True. I appreciate in that post I was giving an overview, but what the overview does demonstrate is a consistent pattern for Malone in particular - A 5% TS% dropoff in the playoffs. I do feel that is substantial, in fact it will probably be the single biggest drop of any top 20 player (and Malone may be the 3rd worst scorer, efficiency-wise, in the top 20).

2. I agree, but let's not forget Malone did play almost his entire career with one of the greatest point guards (Who will stack up on this list much higher than all but Shaq, of Kobe's team-mates). Also more specifically to the point with Kobe:

2001-2004 RS- 54.4% TS% to 55.2% TS% / PS 50.6% to 55.5%
2005-2009 RS - 55.9% TS% to 58% TS% / PS 56.4% to 58.7%

Interestingly, Kobe stacks up as a more efficienct scorer post-Shaq, RS or PS performances.

In fact, in the era between Shaq and Pau, Kobe was a 58% TS% regular. It actually shows quite the opposite, though this may reflect his prime years more accurately, or it may be why he has his ego about being a leading scorer - give him less help and he can step up?

3. I'm not absolving Kobe of his failures (though I feel you're being harsh about the post-Shaq era - Shaq was not the easiest personality either and went on to become a journeyman) but trying to highlight that he had more successess, and the failures weren't all on his level of play.

[Baller2014]

At this point, you're actually hurting your cause by being so intellectually dishonest. It's like how you dismissed the quotes from Jordan or have dismissed Shaq's poor attitudes and antics while continuing to overstate Kobe's attitude issues.

Take a step back, and read my post with an open mind.
1) I criticised Shaq extensively for his attitude in earlier discussions.
2) I acknowledged Jordan's early troubles as well.
Where Kobe is different is in the scale and the nature of his "antics". The sheer number of nonsense Kobe pulled is amazing, it dwarfs anything Jordan or Shaq did. I'll explain again some of the distinctions, and why they are important.
Example 1- Some posters pointed out that Jordan and Shaq criticised ownership in the past (Shaq because he wanted more money, and Jordan because he wanted the front office to get him more talent). Jordan spoke of maybe leaving in 5 years if they didn't... once his contract expired. Kobe did not turn on the front office because they were trying to lowball him paywise (they were paying him the most they could), and he didn't criticise the front office in 2004 because they were not winning enough. He was angry because he felt he wasn't getting enough credit for winning, and so he basically blackmailed the team into trading Shaq (with almost no turnaround time) and firing Phil, or he'd leave to the Clippers. It is clearly worse to call out ownership and make them do dumb things for your own personal interest, and not the team interest.

If Jordan had said to trade Pippen because he was gay, or because he was stealing his limelight, then it would be comparable. Then, having forced ownership into doing some stupid things they didn't want to do, he then tried to bail within 3 years (while under contract), demanding they trade him. Again, it's not comparable to Jordan's situation, because Jordan was talking about maybe leaving 5 years down the road when his contract expired, because he was sick of the team using him (they were paying him a pittance and forcing him to sit out games with fake injuries), and because he wanted to win. Kobe's power play in 2004 had nothing to do with helping his team win. That's terrible.

Example 2 -Some posters noted that Jordan also used to ballhog... and that's true... Jordan used to ballhog early in his career because he didn't trust his team mates (who were quite bad mostly), but then his team gradually got better and Phil Jackson came in and showed him he could and should rely on that team. It worked, and the team won more, and that was that. Kobe's situation is totally different, because even though he learnt that passing would help the team, and had won them a title, he didn't want to do it because it would hurt his resume padding (this is basically a direct quote from Phil, see page 1). So while Jordan's issue was understandable, and a product of him just wanting to help the team win, Kobe's refusal to play team ball was a product of his desire for personal glory at the expense of the team. That's clearly a different level of bad again.

Example 3 -One poster noted a collection of (contextless) mean things Jordan once said. The thing is, most of those things were said privately, in house, and only revealed years later in books (without Jordan's leaking them). Team mates will often trash talk each other in practise, and if that brings them together fine, as long as they make up and come together on the court. Kobe's attacks on other players are totally different, because they do not take the form of a heated private exchange, or a casual joking remark with a reporter. Kobe often responded to a private disagreement by going public, and ripping his teammate a new one... which, of course, turned the whole thing into a media circus, and created a big distraction for the team to deal with. It also made the conflict worse. Some examples I cited on page 1 include several interviews he gave primarily to rip on Shaq, having his lawyer contact his coach threatening to sue him, telling the press he "didn't care" if his coach was fired (while said coach was trying to coach them to a title that year), attacking Karl Malone in public over an incident that should always have remained private, etc, etc.

Then there's the many, well documented instances of Kobe sabotaging the team game plan on the court for selfish reasons. Kobe's own coach says this. What examples are there of Jordan (or Shaq) doing this? Like I said, it is quantitatively and qualitatively different to other players "negatives".

I don't think anyone denies that Kobe has a poor track record as a teammate and with attitude issues.

It seems like some people do, based on their posts.

Shaq gets his (smaller) share of the blame too of course, though I should note that Shaq wanted a 2 year $60 mill contract extension according to Phil Jackson, which he definitely would have been worth. Even if he wasn't worth his extension, the team would have been better served taking their time about moving him, until they could get the right price. Kobe's attitude, that "he goes before I sign" left the Lakers in a horrible position of needing to move him for less than optimal value.

[Texas Chuck]

[ Also more specifically to the point with Kobe:

2001-2004 RS- 54.4% TS% to 55.2% TS% / PS 50.6% to 55.5%
2005-2009 RS - 55.9% TS% to 58% TS% / PS 56.4% to 58.7%

Interestingly, Kobe stacks up as a more efficienct scorer post-Shaq, RS or PS performances.

In fact, in the era between Shaq and Pau, Kobe was a 58% TS% regular. It actually shows quite the opposite, though this may reflect his prime years more accurately, or it may be why he has his ego about being a leading scorer - give him less help and he can step up?

I find this bit of information particularly interesting and it does seem to go against some of the anti-Kobe rhetoric. I know I personally felt like particularly once Pau joined the team that Kobe forced some shots and looked at their 3 Finals runs together and wondered why in the world was Kobe taking 10 more shots per game in the playoffs. I didn't beat Kobe up about this too much obviously because it was clearly working out just fine for the team.*

But this data here shows that this idea that Kobe's numbers are good in large part because he benefited from these great offensive bigs isn't really accurate. And it probably does go to part of Kobe's extreme self-confidence. Thanks Luke for this break-down--illuminating for me anyway.



* In 08 I think going to Pau more often could have put more pressure on KG to play defense more honestly and while KG is a very good man defender, its his help defense that will wreck your offense. Not sure if Kobe or Phil or even Pau deserves the blame for this and its kinda nitpicky, but it bothered me then and it bothers me now. Pau Gasol was a great offensive player in this stretch of time and he was going good in the playoffs other than his FT shooting woes. And was far more efficient in the Finals than Kobe.

[RSCD3_]

I don't think Malone's defensive impact at his peak was "monstrous". He was a good low post defender because of his strength and his ability to swipe at the ball to force turnovers, but he's not Hakeem or Mutombo out there. Malone was good, not great. Definitely not outweighing Kobe by some significant margin.

Yeah I have a concern about rating Malone and especially dirk as having a bigger impact defensively than Kobe.

What I frequently have heard is that rangy big men like KG or Vertical defenders like Duncan or Deke have the highest possible impact defensively. Malone or dirk aren't either of these and I question how valuable on the defensive end.

Aren't premier level wing defenders more valuable than slightly above average power forwards who can't protect the rim or cover a lot of space.

Especially with stretch 4's how would Karl and Dirk defend them with their below average lateral ability.

What I'm saying is isn't Kobe's relative advantage over his position greater than the two forwards

Enough so that Kobe's impact on defense, especially at forcing more turnovers would be more valuable.

Well what has anyone to say to these points?


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[Senior]

[ Also more specifically to the point with Kobe:

2001-2004 RS- 54.4% TS% to 55.2% TS% / PS 50.6% to 55.5%
2005-2009 RS - 55.9% TS% to 58% TS% / PS 56.4% to 58.7%

Interestingly, Kobe stacks up as a more efficienct scorer post-Shaq, RS or PS performances.

In fact, in the era between Shaq and Pau, Kobe was a 58% TS% regular. It actually shows quite the opposite, though this may reflect his prime years more accurately, or it may be why he has his ego about being a leading scorer - give him less help and he can step up?

I find this bit of information particularly interesting and it does seem to go against some of the anti-Kobe rhetoric. I know I personally felt like particularly once Pau joined the team that Kobe forced some shots and looked at their 3 Finals runs together and wondered why in the world was Kobe taking 10 more shots per game in the playoffs. I didn't beat Kobe up about this too much obviously because it was clearly working out just fine for the team.*

But this data here shows that this idea that Kobe's numbers are good in large part because he benefited from these great offensive bigs isn't really accurate. And it probably does go to part of Kobe's extreme self-confidence. Thanks Luke for this break-down--illuminating for me anyway.



* In 08 I think going to Pau more often could have put more pressure on KG to play defense more honestly and while KG is a very good man defender, its his help defense that will wreck your offense. Not sure if Kobe or Phil or even Pau deserves the blame for this and its kinda nitpicky, but it bothered me then and it bothers me now. Pau Gasol was a great offensive player in this stretch of time and he was going good in the playoffs other than his FT shooting woes. And was far more efficient in the Finals than Kobe.

Pau wasn't the player in 08 that he was in 09-10. He was mainly a finisher. After getting punked by KG in the 08 Finals he got tougher and more of a post option.
RS %Ast FGA
Gasol %Assisted FGA Grizzlies 2008: 58%
Gasol %Assisted FGA Lakers 2008: 66%
Gasol %Assisted FGA Lakers 2009: 57%
Gasol %Assisted FGA Lakers 2010: 57%

Playoffs:
Pau %Ast FGA 2008: 65%
2009: 48.8%
2010: 54%

As for efficiency, I get that Pau helped Kobe get his % up some...but you don't think Kobe did the same for Pau? These efficiency stats don't happen in a vacuum. Kobe missed barely any games from 08-10 but in the games without Kobe in his LA stint Pau's efficiency dropped off as the primary offensive guy (still put up good #s, though). Pau wasn't Hakeem with the Lakers, Kobe was the main guy through and through and if Pau gets credit for raising Pau's efficiency, then Kobe should get credit for raising Pau's efficiency (and really, Lamar's and Kwame's and Vlad Rad's...)

[RSCD3_]

Also Robertson had a reputation for not being the best teammate ( perfectionist ) and throwing passes at people's heads if they weren't ready.

I doubt that this style of leadership was optimal in any capacity and might have led to his teammates underperforming at least more so than what people blame Kobe for



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[Texas Chuck]

[
Pau wasn't the player in 08 that he was in 09-10. He was mainly a finisher. After getting punked by KG in the 08 Finals he got tougher and more of a post option.

See this is the stuff I hope this project moves away from. What does "getting punked" really mean exactly?

Did KG have a better series than Pau Gasol? Sure he did, but he's a better player so we would expect him too, but going back and looking at each game of that series there isnt really a game at all where you can even state KG badly outplayed him. The closest is game 7 but that was a team-wide diaster for the Lakers.

As for the rest of your post you seem to be arguing against points I didn't make so I don't really know what to tell you.

[Texas Chuck]

Aren't premier level wing defenders more valuable than slightly above average power forwards who can't protect the rim or cover a lot of space.

Have we really established tho that Kobe is that? I get he had the ability to be a pretty tough man defender and early in his career we saw quite a bit of that. But for his overall career nothing really seems to support this notion. Meanwhile Malone and Dirk(and moreso Malone imo) were good solid defenders throughout their primes. And just like Kobe gains some offensive advantages based primarily on positional advantages so do Malone and Dirk on the other end. Size matters defensively.

I think Malone has a pretty clear and decisive defensive advantage over Kobe. With Dirk its less, but I certainly wouldn't give any edge to Kobe on actual performance.

[Senior]

[
Pau wasn't the player in 08 that he was in 09-10. He was mainly a finisher. After getting punked by KG in the 08 Finals he got tougher and more of a post option.

See this is the stuff I hope this project moves away from. What does "getting punked" really mean exactly?

Did KG have a better series than Pau Gasol? Sure he did, but he's a better player so we would expect him too, but going back and looking at each game of that series there isnt really a game at all where you can even state KG badly outplayed him. The closest is game 7 but that was a team-wide diaster for the Lakers.

As for the rest of your post you seem to be arguing against points I didn't make so I don't really know what to tell you.

He got outplayed. In a few games it was pretty bad. Where do you think Gasoft came from? He looked tentative all Finals long. I really think KG just got in his head.
Game 1: KG 24/13 Pau 15/8
Game 3: Pau 9/3 on 3/9 shooting
Game 6: Pau 11/8 5 TO, KG 26/14
He averaged 10 FGA. KG's %s stunk all series long but I don't know we can really credit Pau for that since KG was taking tons of those open mid range shots, he just missed.

The rest of the post (Pau's Ast%) was in reference to you saying that they should've gone to Pau more in the finals. I said that 08 Pau wasn't the player (both in the post and mentally) he was in 09-10 and therefore it wouldn't have helped as much as you think. Huge difference between 08 Pau and 09-10 Pau. I mean..Pau was getting assisted on 2/3rds of his shots in 08. That number dipped by more than 10% in 09 and 10. In 09 playoffs he was assisted on less than half his shots!

[E-Balla]

Prime Karl Malone 94-98 PS only
27.2 PPG/11.6 RPG/3.5 52%TS 108 Ortg

Prime Kobe 06-10 PS only
29.8 PPG/5.7 RPG/5.4 APG 57%TS 112 Ortg

Very misleading. Why are we only looking at those years? It's news to me that 06-10 now represents Kobe's peak. Is Karl Malone age 31-35 his peak now? Why are we looking at only these stats and years?

How is this misleading? He took their best 5 years and compared them. Since when was Malone's peak when he wasn't old. The man didn't win MVPs until 34 and his 3 best seasons were 95, 97, and 98.

I'm voting Kobe.

Oscar vs Kobe - I'd take Oscar from 61-72 over Kobe from 2000-2011 but it isn't some big gap. Kobe has 2 more seasons at a high level (and one season almost at top 5 level) outside of that and Oscar was about even as a playoff performer.

West vs Kobe - West is the better post season performer which usually does it for me but I don't really think he was a better regular season player at all. Sure he was efficient but offensively he was second to Oscar in every way. At least Kobe was THE premier perimeter star of his day in probably the toughest era for perimeter players. Defensively I hear about his great defense constantly but Kobe gets just as much recognition on that end and we throw it out the window because of proof his defensive consistency is overstated. Maybe if I saw numbers showing how great on defense West was I'd change my mind but for now I'm taking Kobe for his slightly longer career and (in my mind) better offensive impact for most of his career (even in the playoffs Kobe usually was either great or bad with no in between so his heights meet West's highs).

Karl vs Kobe - Look at them in the playoffs. Malone was not a great playoff performer and he was disappointing. In a 7 game series I might take Reggie Miller over him. No way he's better than Kobe who has runs in 01 and 07-10 better than anything Malone has done.

Moses vs Kobe - Moses was a slightly worse regular and post season guy. I'm higher on Moses than most but I can't put him over Kobe.

Dr. J vs Kobe - At his best Dr. J was a better player than Kobe but on average they're about even. This comes down to Kobe having more random utility years (98-00) than Dr. J and a more consistent level of play. Dr. J had a long lull when entering the NBA for various reasons and Kobe barely has any seasons where he fell off and he doesn't have 2 back to back (Dr. J has 4).

[DQuinn1575]

Aren't premier level wing defenders more valuable than slightly above average power forwards who can't protect the rim or cover a lot of space.

Have we really established tho that Kobe is that? I get he had the ability to be a pretty tough man defender and early in his career we saw quite a bit of that. But for his overall career nothing really seems to support this notion. Meanwhile Malone and Dirk(and moreso Malone imo) were good solid defenders throughout their primes. And just like Kobe gains some offensive advantages based primarily on positional advantages so do Malone and Dirk on the other end. Size matters defensively.

I think Malone has a pretty clear and decisive defensive advantage over Kobe. With Dirk its less, but I certainly wouldn't give any edge to Kobe on actual performance.

I'll bite - make the case for malone having the clear defensive advantage over kobe. I'll admit I give some credence to all-defense selections


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[ShaqAttack3234]

Not sure if my vote counts yet, but if so, I'm changing it to Kobe.

The man was the consensus best player for at least 3 years from '06-'08, and many were saying it through 2010, though I disagree with that, as would most here. Now, if the Shaq years are such a big problem, look at the post-Shaq years and how consistently he led good to great offenses.

2005- 7th best offense/+2.0 offensive rating (and this was while Kobe himself missed 16 games, Odom missed 18 and the Lakers had a midseason coaching change
2006- 8th best offense/+2.2 offensive rating (Cast was Odom, who was inconsistent throughout the first half with plenty of single digit scoring games, Smush Parker, Kwame Brown, Luke Walton ect.)
2007- 7th best offense/+2.1 offensive rating (Odom missed 26 games and Walton missed 22 games)
2008- 3rd best offense/+5.5 offensive rating (Bynum went down after 35 games, and LA then only had Gasol for 26 games during the regular season)
2009- 3rd best offense/+4.5 offensive rating (A better cast than previous years, but Kobe was still surrounded by mediocre shooting as LA had the 12th worst 3P% at 36.1%)
2010- 11th best offense/+1.2 offensive rating (This is a bit of anomaly due to Kobe's bad slump from January on due to injuries after a great start to that point as well as Pau and Bynum each missing 17 games, Kobe missing 9 games and LA was also the 8th worst 3 point shooting team)
2011- 6th best offense/+3.7 offensive rating (And this was a limited Kobe coming off his 3rd knee surgery, while Pau wore down a bit after having to carry too much of the load early and Bynum missed 28 games)
2012- 10th best offense/+1.4 offensive rating (Aside from Mike Brown being a poor offensive coach, the Lakers also had very little outside of Kobe, Bynum and Gasol, and Kobe did miss 8 games while Bynum missed 6, which is somewhat significant in a lockout season. Plus, while Kobe brought the percentage down himself, LA was still the 6th worst 3 point shooting team
2013- 9th best offense/+1.9 offensive rating (This was actually a solid feat by Kobe, who was great offensively regardless of being 34. Mike Brown coached the first 5 games, then Bernie Bickerstaff was interim coach for 5 games before D'Antoni took over, plus, Dwight was pretty ineffective offensively struggling with the back injury and torn labrum, Pau missed 33 games and had his worst season by far due to injuries, while Nash often looked his age of 39 due to injuries that caused him to miss 32 games)

Kobe's great postseason career has been covered with 4 truly great playoff runs to the finals ('01, '08-'10) but Kobe is also one of the better players to lead your offense as evidenced by the fact that prime Kobe was dragging bad casts to top 7-8 offenses, then Kobe gets good casts, but not overwhelmingly good and they're top 3 offenses, and truly great relative to the league. Injuries and age were bigger factors after that, but even a post-prime Kobe kept them comfortably above average.

That takes the Shaq argument out of the equation, and please, spare me the nonsense about Pau being as much/more of the focus of defenses as Kobe. There's no doubt Kobe was usually the primary focus of opposing defenses when he played with Pau.

[Owly]

My one man quest to make an enemy of everyone in the project (okay my comments on the thread so far

Here is how certain players did with and without Nash. Nash showed huge impact on these players and it could be argued that Nash made them stars.

Marion:
Before Nash: .513 TS%, 107 O rating
Nash comes to Phx: .566 TS%, 116 O rating

08 w/Nash: .594 TS%, 119 O rating
08 after Nash: .503 TS%, 99 O rating

Amare:
Before Nash: .536 TS%, 102 O rating
Nash comes to Phx: .617 TS%, 121 O rating

with Nash 2010: .615 TS%, 117 O rating
after Nash 2011: .565 TS%, 109 O rating

Shaq:
08 before Nash: .577 TS%, 100 O rating
08 with Nash: .605 TS%, 103 O rating

09 with Nash: .623 TS%, 117 O rating
10 leaves Nash: .565 TS%, 104 O rating

IF you are going to do this, at least put Dirk in there for consistency. Especially if you are going to try and give Nash credit for Shaq-Daddy.

You'd also want to note that the league Ortg rose from 102.9 to 106.1 taking a chunk out of the player improvements. You'd want to note Amar'e's age (and the expected growth at that point); that Marion only matched his '03 offensive win shares and the pg situation from which Nash was an improvement (34 games of Marbury, then Eisley and Barbosa (not a pg)). Not that Nash didn't help, he clearly did, but "made them stars" would seem to be overstating things.

2) I'm not as high on Oscar as others. Chemistry/leadership is big for me, and that looks to be a big minus for him. Nonetheless, his all-around game suggests he would be very effective in many situations. His impact on the Bucks was big, but it's hard for me to take a guy who seems to poison team harmony. Are there any contrarian accounts of Oscar actually being a good teammate?

Good teammate? Depends what you mean. Is there something that makes him seem like a happy, fun guy? Probably not.

I had a post (not on this site) where there's a few quotes specifically about him elevating teammates but I can't locate it presently I may search again later if anyone's particularly interested, and there's obviously Jabbar in Giant Steps talking about how much he made the game easier in Milwaukee and the suggestion in Tall Tales that he gifted teammate Adrian "Odie" Smith an All-Star Game MVP (at a time when wages weren't so great for lesser players and the MVP winner got a car).

In any case "poison team harmony" seems not only inaccurate in degree but incorrect (or just imprecise with language) in the manner of his influence (his -lesser- teammates were perhaps fearful-respectful; so not a case of causing disunity).

A lot of Oscar voters are using Oscar's results in games he missed with the Royals as their key argument. Just to give some perspective to that:
1) The evidence suggested Oscar was making the Royals 26 wins better. In contrast, Nash was making the Suns 30 wins better in games he missed v.s games he played from 05-11. Nash was doing even better if we exclude the 2009 disaster season, where coach Porter arrived and tried to run the offense through Shaq instead of Nash (the equivalent of Spo saying to Lebron this year: "you did well last year Lebron, but we're going to mix it up next season and try running the offense through Wade, and playing you off-ball more").
2) Oscar's sample size is highly problematic. Almost all the games missed come from 3 seasons out of 10, and those seasons are right at the beginning and end of his time with the Royals (and, of course, those are the seasons he tended to have the least help). In the other 7 seasons Oscar missed between 0 and 5 games, so we have no idea if those were just end of season games where the coach rested all the best players against the Celtics or what (in which case, of course they'd lose, but it wouldn't be because of Oscar's absence). It's interesting to note that a guy who was supposed to have a 26 win impact did not improve the Royals anything like 26 wins when he joined the team. Looking at the team record before and after his first season with the Royals, the win pace difference is significantly less (even if we factor in win pace in games Oscar played). Nash on the other hand certainly improved the Suns consistently with his with/without results (the Suns were not in the playoffs before he arrived, and became a juggernaut with him, then when Nash left the Suns they collapsed completely, even though he was no longer in his prime at the time).
3) Oscar played in a pretty weak era, and doesn't seem to have made his teams good in the way Nash did with the Suns in a tougher era.

Hasn't this been addressed already ...

Bill Walton was a better player than David Robinson, IMO, but oh well.

I'd also suggest that Chuck had a better peak than the Mailman, and should get some consideration for being so utterly dominant on offense.

I’m not convinced he was a better player, but you’d struggle to get Walton in anywhere near soon if people are using or factoring in any variation of career value added.

How was Karl's defense in younger years, how good was 80's and early 90's Malone's defense? How was his horizontal defense, like perimeter and on PnR?

Don’t have the books available to me atm, but here’s how he graded on Rick Barry and Jordan Cohn’s Scouting Bibles (scale went, D, C, B, A, AA, AAA with pluses and minuses for subtle differences, B is average, haven’t got all the grades on the computer but have most)
89-90 (written in 89): AA
90-91: A
91-92: A-
92-93: A-
93-94: B

To give you an idea of what that meant here are the other AA defenders from 89-90: Stockton, Rodney McCray, Craig Ehlo, Dan Majerle, Rick Mahorn, John “Hot Rod” Williams, Harold Pressley, Bill Hanzlik, Bobby Hansen, T.R. Dunn, Gary Grant, Elston Turner, Herb Williams, Wayne “Tree” Rollins, Larry Krystkowiak, Jon Koncak and Charles Jones (there were 19 AAA defenders).

This is fairly inaccurate. He never had a "fantastic team" around him, and certainly nothing substantially better than what Dwight had in his 09 finals run. You make it seem like he had no playoff success beyond 94, where in reality they routinely lost to a bulls team that essentially no one beat in a span of 8 years.

The Ewing theory was based on a 36 year old semi-healthy Ewing, nothing close to prime Ewing, and he still played in part of that finals run, and had a positive impact.

I won't even comment on the super role player statement. That was just bizarre.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

On plenty of occasions Ewing had teams with multiple all-stars, and they still weren't contenders until they got even more stacked under Riley's coaching. Multiple all-stars is certainly a good support cast relative to the guys he is being compared to in the next 10-15 slots. Ewing is a good comparison to Dwight IMO. Not sure who I'd prefer.

If you're going to call starks and oakley legitimate all stars because they made 1 team each in careers that spanned 13 and 19 seasons respectively, there's nothing further to discuss.

It's a fact, yes, a fact that ewing never had a consistent 2nd option in his prime. Starks was a fan favorite and played with as much effort as you could ask for, but he easily flew off the handle and was prone to shot happy scoring droughts. From 92-95, starks had his 4 best seasons as a knick. During that span, he had 60 games where he scored 10 pts or less and shot 40% or less from the field:

http://bkref.com/tiny/EZjDD

The knicks still won more than half of those games during that span with him playing that poorly. This happened 16 times in the playoffs, and they still went 9-7:

http://bkref.com/tiny/Y3Yak

::waits for the counter of "like i said they were so stacked, they won in spite of starks playing that poorly"::

Ewing never had a reliable offensive second option whilst he was in his prime (’88-‘97?). But his best teams did have some very strong defensive talent. Mason, Oakley, Starks and Harper were all excellent in that area.
Pointing out Oakley’s longevity (when talking about his ASG appearances) doesn’t help your case. And the Starks thing ignores that he took a lot of threes (and he was just very streaky), it also ignores that many of those “bad” games are just him being a reserve (27 games of the sample he played 24 minutes or less) and him not having enough shots for fg% to mean much of anything (21 games of 8 shots or less, meaning if he didn’t make 50% he had to be below 40%).

Not that I’d suggest Starks and Oakley are what you’d think of when you say all-stars (and I’m wondering if the “multiple” pre-Riley all-stars is counting Strickland –not technically an all-star - and Mark Jackson who were nice but redundant and for obvious reasons only one would be on court).

Big picture he had good talent there (factoring in D) in the mid-90s, though possibly a little more shooting/spacing would have helped. I don't see him on many people's radar until Robinson gets in.

Chris Paul deserves some traction.

The NBA's all-time leader in offensive rating. The sixth all-time leader in PER and fourth all-time leader in WS/48 behind only Jordan, D-Rob and Wilt.

In comparison to a player like Kobe who is currently in the discussion for #12

Per 100
Player ---- Years ---- PPG ---- RPG ---- APG ---- eFG% ---- TS%---- ORTG----DRTG----WS/48----PER
Paul --- '08-'14 ---- 28.0 -----6.2. ---- 15.1 -----.521 -----.585 ---- 124 ---- 104 -----.267 ---- 26.6
Kobe----- '01-'07 ---- 37.8 ---- 7.6 ----- 6.9 ----- .486 ----- .557 ---- 113 ---- 105 ----- .199 ---- 25.1

As you can see Paul pretty much has a convincing advantage in all categories except two with Kobe's only coming in the form of volume scoring on less efficiency and rebounding. Paul's obviously wins in playmaking and his efficiency is much better than Bryant's. Defense is probably the closest category as both are good in this regard so I think it's pretty much a pick em depending on what you value most.

Playoff Per 100
Player ---- Years ---- PPG ---- RPG ---- APG ---- eFG% ---- TS%---- ORTG----DRTG----WS/48----PER
Paul --- '08-'14 ---- 28.5 -----6.7 ---- 13.4 -----.521 -----.575 ---- 117 ---- 109 -----.189 ---- 25.0
Kobe----- '01-'07 ---- 33.6 ---- 6.9 ----- 6.3 ----- .471 ----- .531 ---- 108 ---- 105 ----- .160 ---- 21.9

Playoffs wise Paul continues to enjoy a big lead across all categories except scoring with rebounding this time around being pretty much a wash. Kobe's scoring has dipped as well as assists for Paul. Both players efficiency have dipped but Paul still has a big lead in this regard. Bryant's defensive rating is a little higher than Chris' but Paul has a much bigger lead on the offensive side of the ball.

He doesn't deserve any traction yet.

He has good numbers but it hasn't translated to playoff success despite the fact that he's had plenty of help. Plus he's only played 9 seasons and none aside from 08 & 09 were truly at a legendary level. He needs more elite seasons and more playoff success before he's mentioned in the top 20 let alone 12th.

Which series has he lost that you’d have expected him to win (and what level of performance would you have liked in those series? Because otherwise. I’m not advocating Paul right now but given the “plenty of help” comment it would be interesting to see where exactly Paul had failed.

Elliot Kalb and Pete Vecsey on Karl Malone.

Kalb :
In my opinion, Karl Malone (though close) was never the dominant or best player in the NBA.
He never took over the league. For almost two decades his play set a consistent standard of excellence. He led his team by example. He led his team well.
Barkley, on the other hand, for roughly two or three years in the early 90's was the best player in the league. Better then Jordan, Better then Karl. Sir Charles dominated the first Dream Team. Charles dominated the 1993 season.

Kalb is weird on Barkley. There’s the above “better than Jordan” and then he compares him with Elvis in a manner that’s supposed to be negative (they weren’t “serious”, which kinda sort of makes sense except both were legends anyway and you’re ignoring that), oh and he signs off “Barkley, love him tender” and has him four places behind Kobe already in 2003 .

Well between 88-91 Barkley avged 27 12 4 while Malone 29 11 3 with Barkley having a clear edge in efficiency on lesser volume, so i hear where you're coming from with the offense part, but when you factor everything else in i wouldn't say Barkley was "clearly better" i would say better but it's not a huge margin when all around games are considered. I don't think the gap is enough to make up for the longevity but that's just my opinion.

Yeah, but then there's Malone benefiting from Stockton, running the floor for easy baskets ect., things that were less effective in the playoffs.

As far as that time

Regular Season
Barkley- 26.7 ppg, 11.6 rpg, 3.8 apg, 3.3 TO, 0.8 bpg, 1.6 spg, 58.4 FG%, 74.5 FT%, 65.4 TS%
Malone- 29.2 ppg, 11.4 rpg, 2.8 apg, 3.6 TO, 0.8 bpg, 1.4 spg, 53.2 FG%, 75.1 FT%, 59.6 TS%

Playoffs
Barkley- 25.1 ppg, 13 rpg, 5.1 apg, 3.1 TO, 0.6 bpg, 1.3 spg, 57.5 FG%, 63.6 FT%, 61.8 TS%, 21 games
Malone- 29 ppg, 12.5 rpg, 2.2 apg, 3.2 TO, 0.9 bpg, 1.3 spg, 46.8 FG%, 77.9 FT%, 53.5 TS%, 28 games

Their TS% gap in the playoffs would be much larger except Barkley's FT% strangely dropped dramatically, but that has nothing to do with how well his game translated to the playoffs, and can likely be attributed to the sample size. While Malone's 53.5 TS% really isn't good for a big man in that era, much less in the West, which was known as more run and gun, especially Don Nelson's Warriors, who Malone's Jazz were upset by in '89, and every star, win or lose, put up bigger numbers than usual against them. Then you factor in that TS% came with Stockton. Stockton averaged 14 apg during the regular season during the stretch you brought up and 14.4 apg during the playoffs.

Malone actually shot free throws better in the playoffs during this time, but he was a shade below 47 FG% compared to over 53 FG% during the regular season. That's a much bigger decline than the usual decline in percentages from regular season to playoffs.

With that said, I don't even think '88-'91 was Malone at his best. I'd say Malone was at his best around '94-'98.

No offense but the free throw thing is an odd distinction. I mean I get that it isn’t an area where the game visibly changes (though you could argue it’s psychological, whether he was too amped or whatever) but ... if you judge on what actually happened then use what actually happened. If it’s hypothetical “how his skills translate” then you’d have to do that (“well it could be luck”) with every number. And note free throw shooting is one of, if not the, most stable factors in the stat line. If we say that’s luck why can’t we say the same of Malone’s shooting (and whilst Malone’s failures might be rationalised in terms of lacking a Moses, Erving, KJ, Olajuwon, Drexler albeit not general at their very best, to take attention away, Barkley’s free throw failure’s are entirely his own doing).


Okay, as for me I'm leaning Oscar. I'll leave it a while, see if anything persuades me otherwise.

[lorak]

2) I'm not as high on Oscar as others. Chemistry/leadership is big for me, and that looks to be a big minus for him. Nonetheless, his all-around game suggests he would be very effective in many situations. His impact on the Bucks was big, but it's hard for me to take a guy who seems to poison team harmony. Are there any contrarian accounts of Oscar actually being a good teammate?

He definitely wasn't worse teammate than Jordan or Magic. He was - just like them - basketball perfectionist and winner, what sometimes lead - again, just like with both MJs - to conflicts with teammates, who weren't as focused on winning.

[Texas Chuck]

He got outplayed. In a few games it was pretty bad. Where do you think Gasoft came from? He looked tentative all Finals long. I really think KG just got in his head.
Game 1: KG 24/13 Pau 15/8
Game 3: Pau 9/3 on 3/9 shooting
Game 6: Pau 11/8 5 TO, KG 26/14
He averaged 10 FGA. KG's %s stunk all series long but I don't know we can really credit Pau for that since KG was taking tons of those open mid range shots, he just missed.

See this bothers me a lot. You excuse the KG stuff by claiming he just missed shots, but the only answer for Pau missing shots is "he got punked", "KG got in his head", "Gasoft".

I get you are a Kobe guy and thus think trashing Gasol makes Kobe look better. But you are doing so in response to me reading lukekart's post pointing out that Kobe's numbers actually look better away from Shaq and Pau and me saying that changed some of the Kobe narrative to the good.

So I made a pro-Kobe post that you took one small part of(me stating that Pau was more efficient than Kobe in the 08 Finals(which he was btw) and went on full-on defend Kobe mode and in order to do you attacked Pau with a bunch of slanted narrative.

KG is better than Pau. He outplayed him. This is not the biggest problem the Lakers faced tho because they knew going in KG was better than Pau. Pau actually did a pretty good job of minimizing the damage in this matchup. And no it wasnt all to KG's credit when Pau struggled and none to Pau's when KG did.

[shutupandjam]

Vote: David Robinson

I think Robinson is the best remaining player, and I'd easily take him over anyone else who's still around. He's the only elite two way big left, capable of anchoring both his team's offense and its defense. He's probably a top 5 defensive player of all time and one of the game's best offensive bigs ever as well. He never had much help until Duncan came along, at which point he collected two titles in 6 years despite never playing with a great wing. His numbers suggest he's one of the very best in the history of the game, and here's a breakdown:


Elite Box Score numbers
Robinson was absolutely dominant in the box score. In his first NBA game, he had 23 pts, 17 reb, and 3 blk, and he went on to capture the following box score "accolades":

Regular Season
#3 all time in career estimated impact (after LeBron and Jordan)
#2 all time in career ws/48 (after Jordan)
#4 all time in career PER (after Jordan, LeBron, and Shaq)
#7 all time in career ASPM (after LeBron, Jordan, Barkley, Bird, Magic,and Paul)

Playoffs
#10 all time in career estimated impact (after Jordan, LeBron, Hakeem, Magic, Duncan, Shaq, Durant, Bird, and Wilt)
#7 all time in career ws/48 (after Jordan, Mikan, LeBron, Magic, West, and Wilt)
#15 all time in career PER

His playoff failures are clearly overstated - though he wasn't the incredible force he is in the regular season, he was still an elite playoff performer, and probably better than anyone else still on the board. It's also worth noting that the small playoff sample size make the drop less significant than you might think.

Elite On/Off numbers
Though we don't have RAPM for Robinson's prime, he was comparatively dominant in his later years. In fact, he has the second best average "30s" npi rapm (ie average of every year played at ages 30-39). Here's the top 5:

1. Stockton, +4.3
2. Robinson, +3.8
3. Garnett, +3.8
4. Ginobili, +3.5
5. Dirk, +3.5
(Shaq, Duncan, and Nash come next)
...
15. Kobe, +2.6

Additionally, Robinson missed significant time in 2 separate seasons in his prime, 1992 and 1997, so we can look at the effect his absence had on his teams in those years.

In 1992, Robinson missed the final 14 games of the season. With him the Spurs had a +4.5 adjusted net rating (for comparison, the 2014 Heat were a +4.7 this year). Without him, the Spurs plummeted to -5.1 (the 2014 Lakers were -5.2). That's a (huge!) swing of 9.6, and according to ElGee's WOWY charts, the Spurs were on pace to win 24 fewer games without him.

In 1997, Robinson played only 7 games. In those 7 games,the Spurs were a -0.8. In the 75 games without him, they were -8.4, a swing of 7.8. Robinson's absence in 1997 also helps explain how the Spurs went from a 59 win team in 1996 to a 20 win team in 1997.

It's also worth mentioning that in 1989, the year before Robinson's arrival, the Spurs won only 21 games, then won 56 in his rookie year.

This all suggests that Robinson can lift a bottom feeder to contender level. It's a shame we never got to see what he could do with a great wing.

Concluding Points
David Robinson gets beat down all the time for "failing" in the playoffs and getting embarrassed in his matchup with Hakeem. But the truth is he was an absolute force. He was capable of protecting the rim as good as anyone ever, his superb quickness allowed him guard the pick and roll at a very high level and be all over the floor on defense. His offense was terrific as well - he averaged over 25 four times, and in 1994 he averaged 29.8 pts and 4.8 ast. He got to the line at a rate higher than all but four players in NBA history.

Similar to Garnett, he gets knocked quite a bit for not winning in his prime, but no one would have won a title with his teammates, and he still managed to lead his team to at least 49 wins every healthy year he had before Duncan. And when he finally got a great teammate - even though the guy played the same position as him - it only took a year before he won a championship. I know he's not the most popular, but if I'm trying to build a championship team there's no way I pass up on David Robinson in favor of Kobe, Malone, Oscar, etc etc

[Senior]

See this bothers me a lot. You excuse the KG stuff by claiming he just missed shots, but the only answer for Pau missing shots is "he got punked", "KG got in his head", "Gasoft".

I get you are a Kobe guy and thus think trashing Gasol makes Kobe look better. But you are doing so in response to me reading lukekart's post pointing out that Kobe's numbers actually look better away from Shaq and Pau and me saying that changed some of the Kobe narrative to the good.

So I made a pro-Kobe post that you took one small part of(me stating that Pau was more efficient than Kobe in the 08 Finals(which he was btw) and went on full-on defend Kobe mode and in order to do you attacked Pau with a bunch of slanted narrative.

KG is better than Pau. He outplayed him. This is not the biggest problem the Lakers faced tho because they knew going in KG was better than Pau. Pau actually did a pretty good job of minimizing the damage in this matchup. And no it wasnt all to KG's credit when Pau struggled and none to Pau's when KG did.

Don't lump me in with those Kobe-only fanboys. I'm a fan of the team, not just him. You are correct in mentioning that Pau was more efficient than Kobe in that Finals. And I'm saying he improved immensely in 2009-2010. I love Pau for his huge part in the two runs. But he wasn't that guy in 2008. I really don't know how to make this clearer. He was assisted on 66% of his shots in his Laker games in 2008 and that number dropped by 10% in the next 2 years. He wasn't as familiar with the triangle yet. He didn't have Phil's mental wisdom. He didn't have the playoff experience. He wasn't as good in 2008 as he was in 2009-2010. If we can't agree on that then we're going nowhere. I was a little harsh on Pau for his play in the finals, fair. But you're making it seem like he was Shaq and Kobe was just shotjacking for the hell of it. Put 2010 Pau on the 08 Lakers and that series is going 7.

I'll concede that the KG/Pau matchup isn't as bad as I made it out to be. But the Lakers weren't as deep as the Celtics were and they really needed more offensively from Pau than they got. He couldn't provide that, in part due to KG. How much of KG's bad shooting %s can be attributed to Pau I don't really know, but I do know KG loved the mid ranges and he wasn't that hot that series.

[Jim Naismith]

Basketball is a big man's game, and this project seems to like centers, having already selected:

the best centers of the 1960s (Wilt, Russell)
the best center of the 1970s (Kareem)
the best center of the 1990s (Hakeem)
the best center of the 2000s (Shaq)

Moses Malone, the best center of the 1980s, should now be in the conversation.



Awards
3 MVP's, 1 Finals MVP (more than any other player left)

* won MVPs against Bird, Dr. J, Magic, Kareem

4x First Team, 4x Second Team, 1x Defensive 1st Team, 1x Defensive 2nd Team

Rebounding and Scoring
Chairman of the Boards: Top rebounder for 6 years
Elite offensive rebounder:

#1 in Career ORB
had 5 of the top 10 ORB seasons, including #1, #2, and #3 seasons

Great scorer: Top 5 scorer for 5 years, Top 10 scorer for 8 years

Strong Peak, Long Prime
5-year peak average: 26.8 ppg /15.4 rpg
13-year prime average: 23.8 ppg /13.4 rpg

Impact and Dominance
Led sub-.500 team (1981 Rockets) to NBA finals, beating Kareem-Magic Lakers

Moses-less Houston, after trading him away in 1982, won 32 fewer games

Led one of the most dominant champions ever (1983 Sixers), sweeping Kareem-Magic Lakers