Kobe Bryant's Consistency and High-Volume Shooting Games

[ElGee]

Imported from a tangent in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1047676&start=180#p24782072

Neil over at B-R had a post a while ago about consistent vs. inconsistent individual performances and his findings were consistency gives the team a greater chance to win. In other words, it is better to have a guy with game scores of 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 in a series than 15, 45, 15, 45, 30.

When we call Bryant “inconsistent,” it's not a description of his season to season numbers, but instead a description of his game performances – really his shooting – from game to game as a high volume scorer. Consider the 3 best wings of the generation, Jordan, LeBron and Wade in their primes:

Frequency of “good” shooting games vs. “bad” – Regular Season FG%

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                  >50%  <40%     PPS
============================================
Jordan (91-98)    52%   14%      1.30
James (06-10      49%   17%      1.39
Wade (05-10)      47%   17%      1.39
Kobe (00-10)      39%   29%      1.26

*Kobe (00-10) shoots over 50% 39% of the time and under 40% 29% of the time. He's averaged 1.26 points per shot.

*Wade (06-10) shoots over 50% 47% of the time and under 40% 17% of the time. He's averaged 1.39 points per shot.

*James (06-10) shoots over 50% 49% of the time and under 40% 17% of the time. He's averaged 1.39 points per shot.

Jordan (91-98) shoots over 50% 52% of the time and under 40% 14% of the time. He averaged 1.30 points per shot. His numbers would obviously be better if we inlcude 87-91.

*As of this year's All-Star break.

So, relative to the players he's being compared to, Bryant is a streaky shooter.

--

As far as his raw scoring numbers go -- which seems to be a huge sticking point for a lot of his fans --he also just happens to shoot the ball a lot more than anyone else. We shouldn't minimize an outburst like 2006 -- which does statistically hold up to some of the better recent scoring seasons -- but for some people extra shots at a low percentage in favor of passing for a better percentage shot isn't good. This was NO-KG's point vis-a-vis Malone shooting more. Or any player, really.

If Bryant can "only" get 22 good looks a game, and those shots yield 30 points (1.36 points/shot), should he take 6 more forced shots at a low percentage or pass to a teammate for a better shot? That's the thinking, and it's fairly obvious what the better answer is. In this hypothetical, some people are in awe by the raw scoring numbers despite the 6 forced shots producing 5 extra points (0.83 points/shot, which would be horrendous). Assuming that were true, it's not that Bryant's overall performance isn't good, it's just that he actually "undoes" some of his goodness with those kinds of decisions.

So how much more does he shoot it..well...more?

Post-Shaq (since 2005), Kobe has a whopping 64 games with 30+ FGA's. LeBron has 25. Wade 13. In those games, Kobe and LeBron average 41.6 ppg, Wade 41.3 ppg. But most NBA stars don't hoist 30 a night unless they have it going fairly well, which doesn't seem to hold true for Bryant, who's FG% in such games is significantly lower than his overall average during that span (45.5%)

Wade shoots 48.8% in such situations. LeBron 47.7. Kobe, 43.8%. Only 13 of those 64 games were over 50% shooting for Kobe. Wade and James have fairly normal distributions of scoring and percentage, Bryant is all over the place.

Games with 30+ FGA's since 2005

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        #    % of Games     PPG     FG%     *Difference from Overall FG%
========================================================================
Kobe    64   13.9%          41.6    43.8%    -1.7%
Wade    13   3.2%           41.3    48.8%    +0.4%
James   25   5.3%           41.6    47.7%    -0.7%


EDIT: Found TS% for these games: Wade 56.4% (-0.4) James 55.9% (-1.4) Bryant 54.0% (-2.4)

All this is to illustrate what the eye is seeing: Bryant's shot selection leaves something to be desired and (as a result?) he's streakier, as a scorer, than other elite wing players. And that's probably not a good thing.

–

See5 noted his macroscopic consistency. Certainly, Bryant's sustained excellence from 01-present is a major bright spot on his resume. But there's been little discussion in this thread of the changes in his game over that time period. In 01 and 02 he was an elite 2-way wing player. In 2003 he basically turned the 3-point shot into a jump shot. That was part of the transformation into a more explosive, higher variance scorer. In 2006-2007 lots of shooting (from what I can gather, the most polarizing period in people's assessments of him). From 2008-2010 a little more balance -- better decision making, shot selection. If there were a version with optimal shot-selection/playmaking, defense and rebounding, then yes, that peak would certainly be top 10 peak of all-time. Maybe top 5. But there isn't...

His advanced stats from that time:

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     WS/48  On/Off      Roland
====================================
03   .210   10.3      
04   .210   5.8      
05   .145   2.7
06   .224   12.4        14.8
07   .199   5.9         12.4
08   .208   7.1         12.0
09   .206   11.9        12.6
10   .160   12.3        11.7

For me, those versions of Kobe have all had comparable impact on the game. The earlier versions more complete but not as good offensively. The middle versions more one-dimensional and shot-happy (excluding 05, where he just flat out struggled). The later versions probably exerting the smallest defensive impact with the largest offensive one (I'd take healthy 2010 Bryant over, perhaps, all of them).

Hope that shed some light on the issue and the semantics involved. It is the subtle differences that separate elite players, after all.

[ElGee]

Post-Shaq (since 2005), Kobe has a whopping 64 games with 30+ FGA's. LeBron has 25. Wade 13. In those games, Kobe and LeBron average 41.6 ppg, Wade 41.3 ppg. But most NBA stars don't hoist 30 a night unless they have it going fairly well, which doesn't seem to hold true for Bryant, who's FG% in such games is significantly lower than his overall average during that span (45.5%)

I'd be fascinated to see the inverse breakdown of this--which stars get their 30, 40, 50 etc on the fewest FGA. Obviously, 3s and FTs need to be considered too, but I think that it'd be an interesting study. Would probably make sense to do wings (due to higher number of 3PA) and posts (lack of 3s), but. Food for thought.

Doubt you'll see this comment hidden way down here, though.

Well, 8 wing players have over 20 40-point games in the B-R database. 30 is hit too commonly and 50 too rarely, so 40 it is. I used players scoring primes, which are pretty clearly delineated in this case. Here were the results:

Games with 40 Points of More, Wing Players

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                 TS%    % of Games     
Arenas (04-07)   68.9   9.3%   
James (05-10)    66.9   8.7%
Carter (00-07)   66.7   5.3%
Wade (05-10)     66.1   6.8%
Jordan (87-98)   64.6   19.0%
McGrady (01-07)  63.4   8.4%
Kobe (01-10)     62.1   13.6%
Iverson (99-07)  60.7   12.2%


Interesting note: Iverson's teams won 75% of their games when he went over 40, despite his poor percentages and often playing on mediocre teams.

[ElGee]

I do think that it does him some injustice to strictly focus on FG%, but it's still a solid comparison. I'd really love to see those numbers redone using TS% though (above 60% and below 50%). I'm willing to bet that things would change quite a bit, especially if we're using identical seasons to compare (from 2005 onward -- seeing as how rules changed to favor wings and all).

I included TS% in the first table in of the first post. Again, B-R doesn't have a filter so we can't easily calculate # of games over 50/under 40 TS%. I think it's fair to mentally curve that data up a little for Kobe.

The 05-10 overlapping period was an interesting point. I was using primes in attempt to capture what I was asking, but Kobe then gets a bunch of years under different rules. So, here are the FG% numbers just from 05-10:

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       >50%   <40%  PPS    TS%
===============================
Wade    56%   26%   1.39   56.8
James   48%   17%   1.37   57.3
Kobe    40%   30%   1.33   56.4


Bryant's distribution is almost identical, but his efficiency goes up. I left PPS in just for consistency. And I think there is an error with Wade's # of games under 40% in the original post -- it should be closer to 25% as seen here.

[Optimism Prime]

Post-Shaq (since 2005), Kobe has a whopping 64 games with 30+ FGA's. LeBron has 25. Wade 13. In those games, Kobe and LeBron average 41.6 ppg, Wade 41.3 ppg. But most NBA stars don't hoist 30 a night unless they have it going fairly well, which doesn't seem to hold true for Bryant, who's FG% in such games is significantly lower than his overall average during that span (45.5%)

I'd be fascinated to see the inverse breakdown of this--which stars get their 30, 40, 50 etc on the fewest FGA. Obviously, 3s and FTs need to be considered too, but I think that it'd be an interesting study. Would probably make sense to do wings (due to higher number of 3PA) and posts (lack of 3s), but. Food for thought.

Doubt you'll see this comment hidden way down here, though.

Well, 8 wing players have over 20 40-point games in the B-R database. 30 is hit too commonly and 50 too rarely, so 40 it is. I used players scoring primes, which are pretty clearly delineated in this case. Here were the results:

Games with 40 Points of More, Wing Players

Code: Select all

                 TS%    % of Games     
Arenas (04-07)   68.9   9.3%   
James (05-10)    66.9   8.7%
Carter (00-07)   66.7   5.3%
Wade (05-10)     66.1   6.8%
Jordan (87-98)   64.6   19.0%
McGrady (01-07)  63.4   8.4%
Kobe (01-10)     62.1   13.6%
Iverson (99-07)  60.7   12.2%


Interesting note: Iverson's teams won 75% of their games when he went over 40, despite his poor percentages and often playing on mediocre teams.

Hm. Not quite what I was asking--is there a way to see the average FGA in games over 40 points for those guys?

[ElGee]

Oh - I had that too:

Arenas 25.6
Wade 26.6
James 27.6
Carter 27.7
Jordan 29.5
McGrady 29.6
Kobe 30.4
Iverson 30.6

Thought TS% was more of what you were asking though, because in 60+ point games someone might take more shots than a counterpart would in a 40-point game. Anyway, the results are really similar as we would expect...

[italianleather]

Oh - I had that too:

Arenas 25.6
Wade 26.6
James 27.6
Carter 27.7
Jordan 29.5
McGrady 29.6
Kobe 30.4
Iverson 30.6

Thought TS% was more of what you were asking though, because in 60+ point games someone might take more shots than a counterpart would in a 40-point game. Anyway, the results are really similar as we would expect...

Need to add in ppg for a better picture.

[Doctor MJ]

Consistency with a volume scorer makes sense as a valuable thing. Also probably not a coincidence that Kobe's both less consistent and less efficient than the Jordans and LeBrons. Taking tougher shots leads to both.

Now consistency with non-volume scorers is probably a much more debatable thing. A player who can only play a certain way is possibly likely to be more consistent than a player who can adjust how he plays according to team needs and opponent strategy.

[ElGee]

Consistency with a volume scorer makes sense as a valuable thing. Also probably not a coincidence that Kobe's both less consistent and less efficient than the Jordans and LeBrons. Taking tougher shots leads to both.

Now consistency with non-volume scorers is probably a much more debatable thing. A player who can only play a certain way is possibly likely to be more consistent than a player who can adjust how he plays according to team needs and opponent strategy.

Hmmm. What did you have in mind? I still want my defensive anchors to be consistent on defense, my playmakers to be creating offense and my shooters to hit their shots.

[semi-sentient]

Thought I'd add a little to the conversation by looking at what Kobe, Wade, and LeBron did in the post-season. I separated it by 2 periods to reflect the rule changes in Kobe's case, and I also added in the number of times each player faced a top 5 defensive team.

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                    >50%  <40%     PPS     Top 5 Defenses
=======================================================
  Kobe (00-04)      28%   33%      1.21    10
  Kobe (06-10)      38%   24%      1.33    5
  James (06-10)     34%   32%      1.38    5
   Wade (05-10)     58%   30%      1.40    5

Edit: It'd be interesting to see what Jordan did as well, but I didn't feel like going that far back since it's a manual process. Wade's numbers are pretty phenomenal though. Even if you take out that ridiculous 2006 run he's still shoots above 50% more than Kobe and LeBron. The only thing about Wade is that he's played considerably less games than either.

[ElGee]

^^^Nice addition Semi. The lesson, as always, is that Dwayne Wade is really good. It's a smaller sample, but it includes 4 games in 2007 in which he clearly wasn't himself.

It's easy to include MIchael from 91-98 if we wanted to...

[bballcool34]

Can anyone tell me how to bookmark a thread? This is a good read.

[semi-sentient]

CTRL+D works for bookmarking pages in just about every browser (s/b all, but you never know). Is that what you're asking?

...

I also went ahead and compiled Jordan's numbers for the sake of completeness. I'm going to give 2 different views -- 1st 3-peat and 2nd 3-peat (starting the year he returned). The numbers from his 1st 3-peat are absolutely (Please Use More Appropriate Word) and shows why he had one of the best primes ever. I've also added in TS% using >60% and <50% since TS% tends to be a bit higher.

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                   --- FG% ---   --- TS% ---
                   >50%   <40%   >60%   <50%   PPS     TOP 5 dRtg
=================================================================
    Kobe (00-04)    28%   33%    18%    41%    1.21    10
    Kobe (06-10)    38%   24%    38%    23%    1.33    5

   James (06-10)    34%   32%    34%    27%    1.38    5
    Wade (05-10)    58%   30%    43%    30%    1.40    5

  Jordan (91-93)    63%   13%    41%    24%    1.32    5
  Jordan (95-98)    31%   19%    25%    29%    1.27    5

A few things:

- Jordan, by far, had the lest amount of poor shooting games, and during his 1st 3-peat he had the highest percentage of games where he shot over 50% FG and 60% TS.

- Kobe probably had the toughest road overall, especially from 00-04 where he seemed to always face the best defensive teams. The league average TS% was at it's lowest since the 70's during this period (~.519 average).

- 1/3 (12/37) of Kobe's worst shooting games (as far as TS% goes) came in his 2004 post-season run which greatly skews his percentages. There's no point in leaving it out, but it's something worth noting.

- The league average TS% went up considerably during Kobe's 2nd campaign which partially explains why his numbers improved. During that stretch, the average was ~.541. On a side note, for the first time in history we've had 4 consecutive seasons (2007-2010) where the league average TS% has been above .540.

- The league average TS% during Jordan's 1st 3-peat (91-93) was ~.534 and ~.535 in his last 4 years (95-98).

- If you want to see the historical TS%, see here (goes back to the 79-80 season): http://www.dolem.com/kobe/yearly_ts_percent.txt

- I put together a TS% calculator a while ago just to make things a little easier, so feel free to use it if you like: http://www.dolem.com/kobe/ts_percent.htm

[ElGee]

Good stuff Semi. The one addition I would make is to note the # of series those players played to show how frequently they played a top defense.

Kobe 00-04 played in 18 series. (55.5% top 5 D's)
Kobe 06-10 played in 14 series. (35.7%)

James 06-10 played in 13 series. (38.5%)
Wade 05-10 played in 10 series. (50%)

Jordan 91-93 played in 12 series. (41.7%)
Jordan 95-98 played in 14 series. (35.7%)

Now that I think about it, "average opponent DRtg" (relative to league, RS) is probably the best way to represent the opposing defensive strength. I think Neil did something like this at B-R recently to see who has faced the toughest defenses.

[bballcool34]

CTRL+D works for bookmarking pages in just about every browser (s/b all, but you never know). Is that what you're asking?

...

No, I meant on Realgm, under the bookmarks in the User Panel Section. I've done it before, but can't seem to find the button...

[tsherkin]

This has been a delightful read.

[Jacks4]

haters gonna hate.

[Zeitgeister]

haters gonna hate.

Factual evidence gonna expose biases.

[Jacks4]

wat. everybody already knows that lebron/jordan/wade are more efficient. no point in bringing it up. oh, and them having lower variance is kinda common sense. haters gonna hate.

[Zeitgeister]

wat. everybody already knows that lebron/jordan/wade are more efficient. no point in bringing it up. oh, and them having lower variance is kinda common sense. haters gonna hate.

Unfortunately, not everyone does know that. Otherwise there wouldn't be posts crawling up about how if Kobe wins 2 more 'ships he'll be better than Jordan.

[Jacks4]

nobody says that but kobe homers. lol @ people taking them seriously. oh, and kobe actually has a higher peak TS% than wade. lol