Is Kobe really an inefficient scorer?

[Jimmy76]

Though of course, in any thread you mention Kobe Bryant, someone comes out and says HAHAHAH HE AIN'T JORDAN.

you dont think this comes from kobe fans pushing him over jordan constantly?

People keep saying this.. But are there really THAT many people that think Kobe is better than Jordan? I hardly ever hear someone say that. And I just ignore the ones that do.

how the hell are there so many kobe vs jordan threads?

just a vocal minority i suppose

[Dat Pass]

People keep saying this.. But are there really THAT many people that think Kobe is better than Jordan? I hardly ever hear someone say that. And I just ignore the ones that do.

how the hell are there so many kobe vs jordan threads?

just a vocal minority i suppose

I dont know.. I honestly rarely see people say that Kobe is better than Jordan.

Hes not and he never will be. I do think Kobe has a shot at one of the best careers of all-time though. How many players can say they were one of the best in the league going into their 15th season? And I could easily see him playing 20 seasons. A Kareem type career. Probably not as good though.

[KINGD]

People compare Kobe/Jordan because they are the 2 best SG ever. Pretty simple.

[semi-sentient]

Nice work. Can you do that for each of them through age 30? I'd appreciate it. Magic's numbers are only through age 31 anyway. And while Magic's efficiency will be at the top regardless, it should be noted that both the Lakers' style of play (lots of easy transition buckets) and Magic's lower ppg volume as compared to the other three contribute to that.

No problem. In addition to going through age 31 for everyone, I also started at age 21. Note that these are the primary things that are excluded for each player using that criteria:

- Magic's rookie season and 95-96 comeback season
- Jordan's 2nd 3-peat and Wizards comeback
- Bird's 88-89 season (which is when he was injured) and beyond
- Kobe's 1st three seasons when he was a bench player or played a limited role

That allows me to line up 3 players (Magic, Jordan, and Kobe) perfectly, and lessens the age gap with Bird who came into the league at 23.

Anyway...

Ages 21-31

Code: Select all

Player   RS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF       PS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF
======   =======================      =======================
Magic    .610     .538     +.072      .595     .538     +.057
Jordan   .586     .538     +.048      .579     .543     +.036
Bird     .570     .538     +.032      .555     .535     +.020
Kobe     .558     .530     +.028      .545     .527     +.018

Complete Careers

Code: Select all

Player   RS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF       PS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF
======   =======================      =======================
Magic    .610     .538     +.072      .595     .537     +.058
Jordan   .569     .535     +.034      .568     .541     +.027
Kobe     .557     .529     +.028      .543     .527     +.016
Bird     .564     .537     +.027      .551     .537     +.014

The biggest increase can be seen in Jordan's numbers, with Bird coming next. Kobe and Magic are barely affected.

[Jordan23Forever]

Kobe and Magic's numbers aren't affected because Kobe is 31 and Magic retired at 31. Also, did you include MJ's 1986 "season"? Do you average out the full seasonal value or do you do it by games played? Basically I'm curious if 1986 was weighted as an 18 game season or a full 82 game season in your calculations. Thanks for taking the time.

[semi-sentient]

Kobe and Magic's numbers aren't affected because Kobe is 31 and Magic retired at 31.

Magic's aren't affected because he was just as efficient in his first (79-80) and last (95-96) season, which were the two that were removed.

Kobe didn't play enough for it to really have any much of an impact, even though he was much less efficient those seasons than his overall average indicates.

Do you average out the full seasonal value or do you do it by games played? Basically I'm curious if 1986 was weighted as an 18 game season or a full 82 game season in your calculations. Thanks for taking the time.

I pretty much just crunch the numbers and come up with the value according to how TS% is supposed to be calculated, which is PTS / (2 * (FGA + .44 * FTA)).

[Jordan23Forever]

So you calculate it based on the actual values? Meaning you add up all the point totals for each season in question and then the FGA/FTA totals etc.? That's the proper way to do it, but it's a lot more work, which is why I asked. I did the same thing for my earlier calculations when I was determining league averages each season. It's a lot of work.

The shortcut would just be to average out the TS% for the seasons in question.

[semi-sentient]

So you calculate it based on the actual values? Meaning you add up all the point totals for each season in question and then the FGA/FTA totals etc.? That's the proper way to do it, but it's a lot more work, which is why I asked. I did the same thing for my earlier calculations when I was determining league averages each season. It's a lot of work.

The shortcut would just be to average out the TS% for the seasons in question.

Yeah, that was a lot of work. I basically had to get all the regular/post season totals (PTS, FGA, FTA) for each year so that I could determine the differentials for each player, and that took a good chunk of the day. Needless to say, I did little to no work today -- at work that is.

[Vinsanity420]

Though of course, in any thread you mention Kobe Bryant, someone comes out and says HAHAHAH HE AIN'T JORDAN.

you dont think this comes from kobe fans pushing him over jordan constantly?

But which team's fans do not overrate their franchise player? There are plenty of Heat fans that think Wade is the best right now, or Magic fans that overrate Dwight in the all time bigmen list as well. Neither player is hated on as much as Kobe is.

[Jimmy76]

Though of course, in any thread you mention Kobe Bryant, someone comes out and says HAHAHAH HE AIN'T JORDAN.

you dont think this comes from kobe fans pushing him over jordan constantly?

But which team's fans do not overrate their franchise player? There are plenty of Heat fans that think Wade is the best right now, or Magic fans that overrate Dwight in the all time bigmen list as well. Neither player is hated on as much as Kobe is.

how many "dwight>russel" threads do you see and how many "kobe xyz" threads do you see

[hkhatir]

The thing about Kobe that makes him so great and worries you at the same time is his inclination to take horrible shots just because he believes he can make them.
Kobe has some of the worst shot selection i've ever seen, he's just so damn talented he can get away with it.

[ElGee]

Nice work. Can you do that for each of them through age 30? I'd appreciate it. Magic's numbers are only through age 31 anyway. And while Magic's efficiency will be at the top regardless, it should be noted that both the Lakers' style of play (lots of easy transition buckets) and Magic's lower ppg volume as compared to the other three contribute to that.

No problem. In addition to going through age 31 for everyone, I also started at age 21. Note that these are the primary things that are excluded for each player using that criteria:

- Magic's rookie season and 95-96 comeback season
- Jordan's 2nd 3-peat and Wizards comeback
- Bird's 88-89 season (which is when he was injured) and beyond
- Kobe's 1st three seasons when he was a bench player or played a limited role

That allows me to line up 3 players (Magic, Jordan, and Kobe) perfectly, and lessens the age gap with Bird who came into the league at 23.

Anyway...

Ages 21-31

Code: Select all

Player   RS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF       PS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF
======   =======================      =======================
Magic    .610     .538     +.072      .595     .538     +.057
Jordan   .586     .538     +.048      .579     .543     +.036
Bird     .570     .538     +.032      .555     .535     +.020
Kobe     .558     .530     +.028      .545     .527     +.018

Complete Careers

Code: Select all

Player   RS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF       PS TS%   LG AVG   DIFF
======   =======================      =======================
Magic    .610     .538     +.072      .595     .537     +.058
Jordan   .569     .535     +.034      .568     .541     +.027
Kobe     .557     .529     +.028      .543     .527     +.016
Bird     .564     .537     +.027      .551     .537     +.014

The biggest increase can be seen in Jordan's numbers, with Bird coming next. Kobe and Magic are barely affected.

I know the topic is telescopic by design, but isn't it sort of silly not to include PPG as a reference point here? These guys aren't plugging along with the same volume:

Magic: 19.9 ppg
Bird: 25.0 ppg
Kobe: 28.1 ppg
Jordan: 32.2 ppg

Obviously that starts to delve into more complete elements of offensive production, but I think it's worth adding to a quality chart. The only other point I'd add which no one has (directly) mentioned is the ability of one's teammates affects scoring efficiency numbers.

[Vinsanity420]

how many "dwight>russel" threads do you see and how many "kobe xyz" threads do you see

Why would anyone make a silly thread like that? We all know Dwight is by far the better player.

[Bgil]

Kobe is extremely efficient... I lived in LA for about 6 months this year, and watched just about every Laker game.. for over at least half the games what happened was Kobe ran the triangle, whenever his team comes up with nothing, they pass it back out to Kobe - who then has to take a tough, guarded perimeter shot, and bail them out. Look at the 3rd Quarter of Game 3 in the Boston vs LA series... that happens a LOT with the Lakers during the course of the season.

Though of course, in any thread you mention Kobe Bryant, someone comes out and says HAHAHAH HE AIN'T JORDAN.

But honestly, who cares? Fact is, Kobe Bryant is a legend, a winner, and by the time he retires he'll be widely regarded as a Top 10 player of all time.

Jordan took just as many, if not more "bail-out" shots than Kobe has, so that argument doesn't fly in this case.

That's complete bs for numerous reasons including:

1. The Bulls triangle didn't stall as much (with or without MJ) because
A. Teams couldn't zone and double off the ball to stop the ball from getting to the post player (Kobe, Shaq, Gasol etc.)
B. The Bulls had far more outside shooting around MJ than the Lakers had around Kobe.
C. MJ played 10x more out of the post in the triangle than Kobe does now. If you haven't noticed, post players don't take bail out shots in the triangle, perimeter players do (including Fisher and Farmar).
D. The Bulls initiated the triangle better than the current Lakers do. Part of that is due to the powess of their full-time initiators (Pippen, Harper, Paxson, Kerr etc.), some of it is due to changes in defensive structure (zone, illegal D, defenses have more range now).
E. The Bulls triangle operated much differently. Usually after the Bulls dumped the ball into the post a shot would go up within a few seconds. The Lakers almost never do that. They look for cutters, post and repost, double post, and pass out of the post far more often. This takes time and gives the oppurtunity for more offensive stalls. Additionally, the Lakers post players (Shaq, Bynum, and Gasol) take much more time down their than the Bulls generally did.

and on and on...

[Galis4]

not as efficient as Jordan but Jordan is at the top in this category

No he isn't. Jordan fans like to give you that impression by constantly comparing his stats obtained in a far less defensive era (and one requiring virtually no floor stretching/three point shooting) to the current era

Hahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaa.

The exact opposite is true but if you have to make a point you can change reality right?

[lakers16xchamps]

.

[gsw_ftw]

Only the **** idiot Jordan homers, who suck on his dick all day say Kobe is an inefficient scorer. 45 % is a very good percantage for a perimter player especially in this era when defenses are way better than they were in Jordan's era.

Jordan had hall a famer players so I dont get why people always talk about how Jordan's era was bad. But people nowadays are way more athletic. I think both players are special and wouldnt mind having either. Maybe Jordan is a little more efficient?

[Onus]

It's a significant gap, statistically speaking. But I attribute the differences in that Jordan was able to operate closer to the basket than Kobe does. More of Kobe's shots are from further out than Jordan, probably to 18+ ft while Jordan was maybe a few ft closer.

[DeeDub]

Apple's to oranges. Defense sucked in that era. Lots of wings shot absolutely ridiculous percentages.

1984-85 110.0 on .491
1985-86 110.4 on .487
1986-87 109.9 on .480
1987-88 108.2 on .480
1988-89 109.2 on .477
1989-90 107.0 on .476
1990-91 106.4 on .474
1991-92 105.3 on .472
1992-93 105.3 on .473

Kobe
1999-00 97.5 on .449
2000-01 94.8 on .443
2001-02 95.5 on .445
2002-03 95.1 on .442
2003-04 93.4 on .439
2004-05 97.2 on .447
2005-06 97.0 on .454
2006-07 98.7 on .458
2007-08 99.9 on .457
2008-09 100.0 on .459
2009-10 100.4 on .461

And the distribution for individual scorers was MUCH higher (meaning many more players shot above the average and below the average then do today).

for instance, here are some ridiculous numbers:
Dantley 29.8 on 56% fg.
Worthy 22.0 on 57.6% fg
Magic putting up .638 TS (and averaging over .600 TS for his career)
Kiki V hitting .600 TS five times in his career

I could literally post more than 100 seasons seasons of wing players putting up Dwight Howard-like numbers.

Thanks for pointing that out. The Jordan worshippers still maintain that teams played better defense and it was harder to score in the Jordan era. The game was very different back then and it was a lot easier to score. You can't compare Jordan numbers with today's players straight up any more than you can compare rebounding numbers with players from the 60s with today's players.

[CB4MiamiHeat]

hes not inefficient .. hes actually pretty efficient if you take into account that he gets to the line often and he makes a couple 3s a game.

Hes just inefficient compared to Jordan , or Lebron/Wade if you wanna compare to current players.
He just has those 5-20 ..6-25 .. type games more often