92' Clyde or 12' Kobe?

[way2dynamc]

Drexler- 25ppg 6.6rpg 6.7apg 1.8spg .9bpg 56TS% 29years old, lost in NBA finals


Kobe- 27.9ppg 5.4rpg 4.6apg 1.2spg .2bpg 52.7TS% 33 years old, lost in the 2nd round


There was a debate in another thread that this would be a mismatch if the 92 vs 12 Dream Teams played.


Discuss

[MisterWestside]

92' Clyde easily

[TheXFactor]

lol Kobe easily.

[Ginobili]

92 Clyde, definetely.

Much better all-around player on both sides of the court, and a more efficient scorer. The tiny difference in scoring doesnt make up for all this.

[kasino]

I wouldn't say both sides of the ball
for all the forcing he did on offense I give it to Clyde
but Kobe is still the better defender

[C-izMe]

Accidentally pick Kobe but its Clyde by a distance. That Clyde in the league now is second only to Lebron.

[tsherkin]

Kobe, at least Kobe now, is not a better defender than Clyde Drexler in 92.

Kobe has been of marginal defensive value for some time, he's fallen off very sharply in that regard. There's no way Old Kobe compares to prime Drexler on defense. Prime Kobe, different story, but the Kobe of the last three years has been pretty average (and at times worse than that) on defense, except against Rondo, where he can safely get away with ignoring him outside of 15 feet.

[kasino]

No I have to disagree
he is still fundamentally sound and this was he's only time not being an elite defender(still better then most of the league)
he's not scored on and while not the help defender some others are still above average

I see no reason why he would still get such an honor if he wasn't the defender we(well apparently not you) think him to be

[tsherkin]

No I have to disagree
he is still fundamentally sound

That is flatly wrong, he's been gambling way more than usual, is slower than usual and doesn't exert any kind of serious impact on the defensive end. In his prime, with the quickness he had, he was a disruptive individual defender who balanced team defense with strong on-ball defense but that hasn't been the case for several years now.

He's got some fantastic bigs behind him that clean up his mess and deny second-chance points, and that's made a big, big difference. To begin with, perimeter players have comparatively limited defensive impact unless they're really, really bad, and Kobe isn't really, really bad on defense. He's just not particularly good any more.

He's been selected on reputation alone to a bunch of All-Defensive Teams that he hasn't at all earned.

[Josephpaul]

Drexeler here. Just a tad bit better overall another than scoring but the lakers
Offense was everywhere this year

[ThunderDan9]

The Glide.
He was at his peak right then.

[Josephpaul]

No I have to disagree
he is still fundamentally sound

That is flatly wrong, he's been gambling way more than usual, is slower than usual and doesn't exert any kind of serious impact on the defensive end. In his prime, with the quickness he had, he was a disruptive individual defender who balanced team defense with strong on-ball defense but that hasn't been the case for several years now.

He's got some fantastic bigs behind him that clean up his mess and deny second-chance points, and that's made a big, big difference. To begin with, perimeter players have comparatively limited defensive impact unless they're really, really bad, and Kobe isn't really, really bad on defense. He's just not particularly good any more.

He's been selected on reputation alone to a bunch of All-Defensive Teams that he hasn't at all earned.

AT All? Dont be silly , he's be contention all other elite guards in the leauge

[tsherkin]

AT All? Dont be silly , he's be contention all other elite guards in the leauge

He doesn't remotely resemble an elite defensive guard, no.

He's a net neutral on the defensive end; that's not impact, that's not causing problems, which isn't the same thing.

[Josephpaul]

If he wasn't there's no way he would be on back to back defensive teams.Unless you think selection team is rigged?

[tsherkin]

If he wasn't there's no way he would be on back to back defensive teams.Unless you think selection team is rigged?

I think the guys who run the team selections make a lot of mistakes.

Or do you agree that Kareem was an All-Star caliber player when he was selected in 88-89 as a 10 ppg, 4.5 rpg player playing 22.9 mpg?

EDIT: Add to this, understanding of defense is very limited in most locations and the NBA runs strong on reputation and a lot of beliefs that have been over-turned in many circles but are truths not much accepted. By his own standards, statistically he's declined, VISIBLY he's declined. He's slower, he gambles more, he can't stay with the younger, quicker guards nearly as much. He gets passed on defense a lot by his check, more so than was regular to see when he was in his hey-day.

He's OLD, man, it's no surprise. He's got some great bigs making him look better, but from every angle of analysis that includes depth, he's been a null defensive player for a couple of years now. Against Boston, he looks good because he backs RIGHT off of Rondo, hits the defensive boards hard and gambles in the passing lanes, and that works... but that's not something he can do against every team. The Lakers don't have that luxury, so they lean hard on defensive rebounding and what Bynum and Pau can do behind the perimter guys, as well as Artest.

None of that indicates Kobe is an impact defender. Hell, video analysis shows it well enough, matching what the stats say.

Rep rules, man. That doesn't mean you're ACTUALLY a good defender.

[Josephpaul]

Good point but it has to be more than Kobe' s rep. He made 2nd team defensive this year , so Obivously the selection comittie see his decline.

[Kabookalu]

What's up with all the Kobe topics today?

And to be honest Kobe as a man defender doesn't bother me NEARLY as much as Kobe as a help defender, who is horrible. He floats so much, failing to rotate sometimes and blames his teammates for it more often than not. That series against Phoenix in 2010, if the Suns won that series, it would be hard to blame it on Kobe since so many other things should have went wrong if the Lakers lost that series, but I would blame it on Kobe. He was letting whoever he was guarding light him up on the perimeter because he was always caught not guarding his man, and Phoenix of course had shooters fixed all around the perimeter.

I personally value rotation defense over man defense and the Kobe of the past few years has been so bad as a rotational defender.

[Father Time]

No I have to disagree
he is still fundamentally sound

That is flatly wrong, he's been gambling way more than usual, is slower than usual and doesn't exert any kind of serious impact on the defensive end. In his prime, with the quickness he had, he was a disruptive individual defender who balanced team defense with strong on-ball defense but that hasn't been the case for several years now.

He's got some fantastic bigs behind him that clean up his mess and deny second-chance points, and that's made a big, big difference. To begin with, perimeter players have comparatively limited defensive impact unless they're really, really bad, and Kobe isn't really, really bad on defense. He's just not particularly good any more.

He's been selected on reputation alone to a bunch of All-Defensive Teams that he hasn't at all earned.

He dogs it in the regular season, but even recently has been very good defensively in the playoffs, even if it doesn't show up in the stats.

[tsherkin]

Good point but it has to be more than Kobe' s rep. He made 2nd team defensive this year , so Obivously the selection comittie see his decline.

Not really. There's literally nothing that supports the idea that Kobe is a good defender any longer.

Every way you can look at his defense, he's not worth an All-Defensive selection. It's nice that they finally took him off of the First Team, but it was (pardon the pun) offensive that he made it in 2010 and 2011 in particular.

This is a nice place to start if you want to look at a statistical analysis of the problem and the cognitive dissonance between him making the team and what the numbers say.

Being at the bottom is visually striking, but it’s actually not that damning in and of itself. If my knock on Kobe was that he was only the 20th best defender in the league on average, this would not be that horrendous of a knock. After all, big men dominate these kind of lists, maybe he’s still won of the top 5 or so perimeter defenders in the game, no?

No. The more damning thing is that every metric I’ve broken down here has Kobe’s defensive impact as utterly average. -0.8, -0.6, 0.1, 0.1, these are not numbers of someone who is consistently a game changer on defense. The other guys given even half the love Kobe’s gotten over the year, pretty consistently do turn up on these metric doing quite well.

I’ll point out also: it’s not that +/- considers Kobe vastly overrated across the board. If I were to post the analogous charts for Kobe on offense, he’d typically look like a superstar. Both Ilardi & Engelmann’s 6 year metrics rank Kobe as a top 3 offensive player in the game.

Now, those are "just" numbers. It's several years worth of studies, and they are numbers that, when given that kind of sample, tend to match what we see when we study things through video recap, but people don't trust numbers and they can be twisted. Still, it's a mega-trend, and it does match the changes you do see if you start watching Kobe on defense.

drza had a comment below the article that went further:

The second aspect, which has been pointed out in comment but could have been presented more strongly in the narrative, is that Kobe doesn’t even stand out among the wings and guards as a defender. Looking at how Kobe compares to a top-20 list is cool, but it gives the impression that he might be just at the bottom of the top-20. But a quick glance through the Ilardi list shows Kobe ranked outside of the top-200 among all defenders (204th) from 2003/4 – 2008/9, and the first Engleman study has him at 522nd among all defenders from 2005 – 2011. I stopped counting in the Ilardi study when I got to 36 PG/SG/SFs rated higher than Kobe defensively and that was only through 90 players overall.

So in other words, not only isn’t Kobe anywhere near the best big man defenders…he’s not even among the best LITTLE MAN defenders. His defense is decidedly average…being outside of the top-200 (let alone the top-500) during the time period that hits much of his athletic prime is a glaringly huge red mark. Especially for someone whose accolades suggest that he’s arguably the best little man defender in history, and on the short list for best overall all-time.

Anyway, there's tons of stuff there.

Bleacher Report did an article about it as well, found here.

That article kind of focused on declining steals and blocks per game, as well as Defensive Win Shares (compared to his own previous marks).

There's a Phil Jackson quote:

“Kobe’s defense, to be accurate, has faltered in recent years, despite his presence on the league’s all-defensive team. The voters have been seduced by his remarkable athleticism and spectacular steals, but he hasn’t played sound, fundamental defense.

"Mesmerized by the ball, he’s gambled too frequently, putting us out of position, forcing rotations that leave a man wide open, and doesn’t keep his feet on the ground.”

Jackson said this in his book “The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul.”

We've had two different RealGM threads about it, here and here.

One of them degenerated into a Lebron/Jordan thread, which was annoying.

All-Defensive Teams are decided by coaches, who have overwhelmingly favored Kobe through reputation. He does not rate well at all in DPOY voting, however, which is voted on by the media.

Just to get that going, think about this. Paydro made this comment in the second thread, but the coaches, who are also responsible for All-Rookie teams, voted Adam Morrison to the team.

Adam Morrison was actually 80th in win shares among rookies that year (at -1.5). He played 29.8 mpg 78 games and 23 starts. 11.8 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 2.1 apg. Not bad-looking stats, right? 37.6% FG, 33.7% 3P, 71.0% FT.

0.18 FTR, remarkable inability around the rim, weak shooting ability from range (all of which were strengths of his in college). 45% TS, 91 ORTG, -2.2 OWS. Now, even Lebron and KD had bad scoring seasons as rookies, although their usage rates were considerably higher, so that's at least a little more understandable. Morrison, of course, continued to suck at a similar level later on his career, but we couldn't know that right then. Long story short, he played some ABYSMAL basketball and he was still voted to the All-Rookie team by coaches who still see things in terms of PPG, "swagger" and other nonsense.

Morrison, by any form of evaluation (be it statistical or video-based, etc) was PUTRESCENT in his rookie season, but the coaches still thought to give him some recognition.

And these are the guys you want to trust with the All-Defensive Teams in this argument?

[tsherkin]

He dogs it in the regular season, but even recently has been very good defensively in the playoffs, even if it doesn't show up in the stats.

Mmm... I would say he certainly tries harder in the PS, but that hasn't mattered for a couple of years either. I would say that he's typically improved on D in the postseason, because he knows that those games matter more, but I don't think that actually sees him turn into an All-D player even then, no.