Baller2014 wrote:He looked like the best player, but that's because Shaq had to contend with the Spurs best players, while Kobe went against horrible players. Phil always considered Shaq the superior player in their primes, and said so many times (including in his books), often urging Kobe to run the offence through Shaq like he was supposed to.
I'm well aware of that. I'd never argue Kobe was a better player than Shaq in general in 2001.
This sort of comparison is problematic, because Karl and Kobe had different sorts of teams. Karl tended to have balanced and deeper teams (except in Kobe's 2nd title run), while the Lakers tended to have weak depth, but huge star power. Sure, the players Kobe played with from 99-04 (when Shaq was out) or 05-07 do not compare favourably to Karl Malone's teams... but it's not like for like, because Karl Malone was producing better team results too, his teams weren't playing at a 38 win pace, nor were they winning 34-45 games through his prime either. Because their circumstances were so different, I haven't spent much time comparing their team results, because it's tough to do. Kobe certainly had better circumstances the years he actually won 5 rings though, including being the 2nd best player by a pretty large margin for the first 3.
I don't really disagree with this. I agree this isn't the best way to compare.
Kobe's playoff TS% was only above 537. once from 99-05 and post 2010. So outside the 5 year stretch that Infamous focused on, Karl's 537. TS% would be something Kobe would be proud to own. I don't see how that's slanted, it reflects that Kobe's TS. throughout his career was not as infamous paints it, which is why his career average is 541. TS%, and that Kobe's TS% was at it's best when a) he was noted to have stopped putting nearly as much effort into D, so he could focus on O more, and b) the rules changed to help Kobe.
Again, I covered this. Kobe wasn't even near prime level before 2001, injured in 2004 and didn't even make the playoffs in 2005 so this is a truly ridiculous way to compare.
What do you mean outside of that 5 year stretch? That 5 year stretch was Kobe at his best. How most will remember Kobe when they think back to what kind of a player he was. Taking away a player's best years is ridiculous.
In no way, shape or form was Malone even equal to Kobe in the playoffs, much less better
Let's take Karl Malone's physical, statistical and actual peak, from 88-93 (at age 25-30). Through those playoffs Karl was putting up 28.5ppg and 11.9rpg over a 6 year stretch. I haven't calculated it, but at a glance his TS% looks to be about 54%. If that guesstimate is wrong, please feel free to correct me. So Karl's "worse" playoff numbers are still better than Kobe's cherry picked numbers. On D Karl was still hugely more impactful too. What's the evidence 88-93 Karl was less impactful than playoff Kobe, even cherry picked 06-10 playoff Kobe? He looks more impactful to me.
I didn't do any cherry-picking, but moving on, Malone's TS% is actually 56% during that stretch in 49 games. For comparison, Kobe averaged 29.8 ppg, 5.7 rpg and 5.4 apg on 57 TS% from '06-'10, so he's still better, and while Kobe faced some subpar defenses during this time, outside of the '93 Sonics, Kobe faced the toughest defenses during this time in the '08 and '10 Celtics, '08 Spurs and '09 Magic, while Malone's series from '88-'91 were almost exclusively running teams with the '89 Warriors being the series I'd say was really inflated, though fortunately, that's only 3 games, but in general, I definitely think facing those up-tempo teams from '88-'91 benefited Malone.
With that said, Kobe still scored more on better efficiency during these times and in 30 more games. Plus, I'm not the one even bringing up '06-'10 Kobe. I consider '03-'09 to be Kobe's prime.
And I definitely don't buy '88-'93 as Malone's prime over '94-'98. Of course, I pretty much think of Malone's prime as being from either '89 or '90 until around 2000 despite him essentially being a different player early in that stretch than he was from the mid 90's on.
But if you're going to bring up late 80's/early 90's Malone as his best, you can't mention his defense as much because that version of Malone wasn't as good defensively, and you have to acknowledge that Malone wasn't a particularly good passer yet, plus, he wasn't as good of a shooter. But hey, if you think that was the best version of Malone.
So what are we left with:
- Karl's better on O in the regular season, and is comparably good in the playoffs (depends a little on which numbers you're using, peak to peak, career, cherry picked 5 year samples, etc)
- Karl is massively more impactful on D, regular season and playoffs.
- Karl has much more longevity
- Karl has none of Kobe's negatives
Looking at all that, I don't see what Kobe's argument is.
Kobe was a flat out better offensive player, and clearly the superior playoff performer. No question about and Malone wasn't "massively more impactful" defensively in the playoffs.
Malone might not have the negatives(which have been way overblown in this thread anyway), but at least Kobe's game didn't struggle to translate to the playoffs, and nobody was saying Kobe didn't deliver in the playoffs.
Don't fully agree, but to the extent I do I think it's problematic that Kobe fans are asserting a much longer prime on the one hand, and then trying to reduce the sample to 06-10 on the other, especially when his good defensive period was long over by 06.
I agree to some extent about the defensive thing since you're right that Kobe was at his absolute best defensively before he was in his prime, at least on a consistent basis. But Kobe did tend to play much better defense in the playoffs than regular season during that period, and his '08 season was good defensively.
Let's take Kobe's 2001 playoffs. He put up 29-7-6 on 55TS%, some of which was against porous D, and with Shaq there to take defensive attention away from him. You claim that was better than any playoffs Karl had, yet in 1992 Karl Malone had 29-11-3 on a 61TS% Karl played 16 games that playoffs too, so you can't claim small sample size, and of course Karl's D was much more impactful (even over 2001 Kobe, who was a great perimeter defender). Certainly there doesn't seem to be any clear advantage to Kobe.
Considering how great Kobe's playmaking was(while '92 Malone was nothing special as a passer), and how good of a job he did getting such a high volume of points in the flow of the offense after taking care of his facilitating, I'd definitely take '01 playoff Kobe over Malone offensively, and other than stripping guys in the post, Malone wasn't really that special defensively in '92, I definitely wouldn't say he made a much bigger impact defensively than '01 Kobe, if at all. Plus, Kobe's rebounding was outstanding for a guard in '01, especially playing on a team with a center getting over 15 per game himself.
Aside from the fact that I'd take Kobe's '01 run over Malone's admittedly impressive '92 run, keep in mind that Kobe has 3 other runs that were at least comparable if not better from '08-'10. Malone on the otherhand, never really came close to his '92 run any other year.
But let's take a step back, and this sort of argument reveals just how flimsy the pro-Kobe argument is. We're excluding all the regular season, defensive impact, longevity and intangibles, just to find something Kobe might have an advantage in.
As I said, longevity only makes a difference to me if the players are very close to begin with. I don't consider that to be the case.
semi-sentient wrote:But that's not really the case in the 2001 playoffs.
Kobe looked like the best player at times because Phil reached an agreement with both Shaq and Kobe on how they would play in the post-season. The plan was to let Kobe dominate the offense on the road while Shaq became the man at home. You can't argue with the results either. The Lakers were devastating regardless of who the offense ran through. It really didn't matter who ate first; the results were the same either way.
That wasn't so much a set thing as how it worked out. Phil mentioned that the plan was to start off with the offense running through Shaq and if he was getting doubled, or ineffective, they'd switch it up and feature Kobe more as the game went on/particularly in the second half. In the case of the Kings series, the series started off in LA because they had HCA advantage, and Shaq started the series with back to back 40/20 games and after each one, the Kings focus was sending harder, quicker doubles, which they finally did with some success in game 3, the first road game for LA in the series when Kobe started to go off that series.
