Why do advanced statistics hate kobe?

[mysticbb]

interpreting stats used in conjunction with game footage

I honestly believe that the most "statnerds" doing exactly this. ;)

, and using several stats, all of which are flawed and tell incomplete pictures, to say that Kobe was only a top 7 player a few years ago.

Uh, where do you got this "only a top 7 player" from? Actually I gave a couple of examples which indicates that Bryant was at least Top 5 player for the most of the recent years, you can even make an argument for him being a Top 3 player for the last 7 years. Only because the conclusion is that he likely never was really the best player in the league, doesn't mean someone is thinking he "sucks". ;)

such as that Kobe Bryant being only the 7th best player in 05-06

Where do you got that from?

[azuresou1]

It's not so much that advanced stats hate Kobe, but that he's generally been top 5-7 good but not the top 1-3 level player that he's hyped to be.

This.

I have to say, I don't like this thread title. It seems to imply that all the advanced statistics met in an alley somewhere and decided to blackball Kobe. That we the fans are the unbiased ones. I don't think the stats "hate" Kobe. They consistently rate him as between the 4th and 10th best player in the league, which is fair. A better question would be "Why do idiot fans still think he's the best?".

This is where I got this. Top 5-7, between 4th and 10th? There is no way Kobe wasn't hands down the best player in the league from 05-07.

[mysticbb]

This is where I got this. Top 5-7, between 4th and 10th? There is no way Kobe wasn't hands down the best player in the league from 05-07.

Uh, well, you get that this board is called "Statistical Analysis"? And you got that the purpose of the thread is to talk about why Bryant isn't rated higher by those advanced metrics?

You have to keep in mind that those stats per se are not biased towards any player. The results are saying that Bryant never was the best. That is a complete unbiased interpretation of a whole set of different advanced metrics. Well, if there is a pattern, maybe the "hands down opinion" of some people isn't that much based on facts, but maybe more on a belief?

Anyway, if you are able to point out some of the flaws of those metrics, maybe we can start an actual discussion about that, but you should always keep in mind that those metrics are applied to all players.

[rrravenred]

This is where I got this. Top 5-7, between 4th and 10th? There is no way Kobe wasn't hands down the best player in the league from 05-07.

Yeah, there are ways he wasn't. Apart from the "statnerd" measures you decry, he placed fourth in MVP voting in 2005-2006 and third in 2006-2007.

His best DPOY placing was in 2007-2008, fifth behind Bruce Bowen.

You can argue that the MVPs are team-record sensitive, sure but I'm still struggling to understand on what basis you state that Kobe was the categorically, undeniably the best player in the league in the years you mention apart from "it stands to reason", "everyone agrees" or "if you can't see that you don't know basketball". Some more information?

[Jimmy76]

This is a ridiculous thread.

When every player in the NBA for the past few years has been saying that Kobe is hands down the best player in the league, with only a few people beginning to change their votes to LeBron or Wade or CP3, I'm inclined to believe them over some cobbled-together metrics that all have flaws.

why are you on the stats board

[azuresou1]

Because I do believe that stats have value... but not in deeming simply who's "better" or the "best" unless there are clear differences.

Weaknesses for every stat, going down the list at B-R:

PER: Does not measure defense other than steals and blocks, is overadjusted for pace by assuming that players can keep up the same production at the same rate, does not tell anything about ability to create for oneself or others, intangibles such as team leadership or the ability to conduct an offense, etc.
ORB/DRB/TRB: Not terrible, but there is a lot of subjectivity in team rebounds
AST%: Assists themselves are a flawed stat, because they don't count fouls drawn, or open, good, blown looks, not to mention that there is tons of subjectivity as to what counts as an assist and what doesn't. If David West catches a pass from CP3 in the high post, how long is he allowed to hold it/what moves can he make and still have it count as an assist? That's all subjective.
STL%: Steals again are a bad metric, because it's inconsistently counted. If a player tips the ball out of someone's hands, and a teammate catches it, sometimes the steal goes to the tipper; sometimes it goes to the teammate.
BLK%: Minor, but only counts blocked 2's
ORTG/DRTG: These are heavily affected by the teammates surrounding you, DRTG more so. Shard dropped from 110 in Seattle to 106 in Orlando, because he gets to play with Dwight Howard.
WS: Entirely a product of how good your team is as a whole. Maybe works on a single team for comparison, but falls apart when comparing two different teams.

hoopdata also posted something interesting in the first post of the second page, which boosts Kobe's PER.

[azuresou1]

Also, none of those stats tell you anything about player abilities such as the ability to handle, create for oneself, create for others, shooting off the dribble, spacing, vision, post up ability, ability to alter shots, perimeter defense, post defense, help defense, etc.

[Jimmy76]

Also, none of those stats tell you anything about player abilities such as the ability to handle, create for oneself, create for others, shooting off the dribble, spacing, vision, post up ability, ability to alter shots, perimeter defense, post defense, help defense, etc.

they reflect how effective they are

[azuresou1]

Also, none of those stats tell you anything about player abilities such as the ability to handle, create for oneself, create for others, shooting off the dribble, spacing, vision, post up ability, ability to alter shots, perimeter defense, post defense, help defense, etc.

they reflect how effective they are

In a really limited sense. Basketball isn't played in a void, and players can make their team better simply by being on the court. Case in point, Stephen Curry played a game last year (Davidson-Loyala) where he scored 0 pts on 3 shot attempts, had 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 TOs in 32 minutes. His team won by 30.

Statistically, he had an almost nonexistent game. However, he was without a doubt the reason they won by 30. Why? Because he got a hard double the entire game, even when he didn't have the ball. He basically sat in the corner the entire game on offense, and Loyala doubled him because they didn't want him to light them up.

Now, obviously this is an extreme example, and bad judgment on the Loyala coach's part, but the fact is that despite having a non-existent statistical game, he is the reason they blew out a team.

[mysticbb]

Weaknesses for every stat, going down the list at B-R:

So, your main argument is that the scorekeepers are human. Well, I guess that is also true for those who just watch games, right? Keep in mind that everyone who watches the games is way more biased than a couple of numbers.

hoopdata also posted something interesting in the first post of the second page, which boosts Kobe's PER.

Uh, I wrote already that his basic idea has a flaw, which leads to an even more overrating of scorers. He didn't fix the defense issue anyway, which is hardly possible, because the boxscore doesn't tell much about that besides the opponents DRtg.

Statistically, he had an almost nonexistent game. However, he was without a doubt the reason they won by 30. Why? Because he got a hard double the entire game, even when he didn't have the ball. He basically sat in the corner the entire game on offense, and Loyala doubled him because they didn't want him to light them up.

Well, I bet looking up his +/- numbers would have shown that pretty good. So, saying that he had statistically "nonexisting game" is rather wrong.

The point for Bryant was never that he never lead the league in one particular boxscore stat or something like this, he was never able to lead the league in any of those advanced metrics, while a lot of other players done that. Look up what Kevin Garnett 2004 did in PER, Win Shares and +/- for example (or James last season!), Bryant never was even close to something like that between 2005 and 2007.

And I don't even understand why Bryant needs to be considered the best for a particular season, he was great for the last 10 years, which is quite a great accomplishment too. Consistency is what makes great players. He was consistently one of the best players in the league (either Top3 or Top5), and this is something you can also get out of those advanced metrics. Some probably underrate him, but if there is no advanced metric which shows he is the best, you should at least think about that and try to find arguments for other players.

And while we are talking about that, the results of the GM survey are pretty interesting. In all 6 of those which are still available from 2004/05 to 2009/10 Bryant was never listed as the best candidate for winning the MVP or for starting a new franchise. He was listed three times as the player with 2nd most votes, 3 out of 12 chances! he was listed as number 2. In 3 of those 12 he didn't even receive a vote, in all other he was constantly around the 3rd place, which pretty much is on par with what I said before, a Top 3 to Top 5 player for a couple of seasons, but never the best. The players with the most votes in those respective surveys were Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal and LeBron James. That is since the 2004/05 season, and I can find a lot of arguments why those players were better in the last couple of season than Kobe Bryant (especially in 2004/05! btw).

[uberhikari]

Have we figured out yet why Kobe fairs so poorly in advanced stats. This is something that has confused me for years. I simply don't understand why Kobe's advanced stats are so underwhelming...

[giberish]

Have we figured out yet why Kobe fairs so poorly in advanced stats. This is something that has confused me for years. I simply don't understand why Kobe's advanced stats are so underwhelming...

to me the simple answer is that Kobe was a top-5 player for a few years and a top-15 player for a very long time, but less of an all-time great then conventional wisdom/fams/media claim.

Then the question is why Kobe's acclaim exceeds his impact. I'd say that this is because his best values show up well on highlight reels. His best skill was making difficult shots at surprisingly high rates (given their difficulty). To many people/fans/media/even players this shows more skill and talent than a player who is better at creating good shots.

He would (essentially) always take the last shot. Even if the better play was to pass to an open teammate many viewed passing late in games as weakness and forcing shots over an entire defense as strength/clutch.

Even on defense, he was best at 1 on 1 defense (which people would pay attention to) and weak at off-the-ball defense.

[Magic Is Magic]

Have we figured out yet why Kobe fairs so poorly in advanced stats. This is something that has confused me for years. I simply don't understand why Kobe's advanced stats are so underwhelming...

Well, whenever he was successful (00, 01, 02, 09, 10) he always had a very good team around him.

[iggymcfrack]

Have we figured out yet why Kobe fairs so poorly in advanced stats. This is something that has confused me for years. I simply don't understand why Kobe's advanced stats are so underwhelming...

He was just a pretty good player who was elevated to a much higher status due to playing on excellent teams (3 titles with peak Shaq, should have been more) and PPG. He was always mediocre at getting other players involved, inconsistent defensively, and selfish in late game situations which reduced his efficiency and impact. The way he played the game maximized his acclaim (taking every hero shot hoping for a crazy difficult make for the highlight reels) while often hurting his team compared to doing the little things like making the safe pass.

[Dr Positivity]

Have we figured out yet why Kobe fairs so poorly in advanced stats. This is something that has confused me for years. I simply don't understand why Kobe's advanced stats are so underwhelming...

His numbers are not far off. He has multiple seasons over .200 WS/48, 5 BPM, and is 5th in 02-11 RAPM. One thing that hurt him is he's a better passer than his assist numbers because of the triangle. For example Kobe in 08 averages less assists than Durant has this year, but is much more valuable playmaker, he was basically his team's PG and easily had the ball handling and passing skills to run it all by himself. He was closer to being in the Lebron and Wade camp in terms of ability to handle/pass like a point than Durant. Other than that - he took a lot of midrange shots. Which is cool because he's one of the best midrange scorers of all time and drew lots of double team attention, plus in the playoffs it was valuable to be able to create those shots. But it's not going to look on good in advanced stats as Curry's 3s, and probably deservingly

[Morb]

Pace, FGA, mpg, league averages.

[Fencer reregistered]

What's the argument about the triangle? Something specific (e.g. hockey assists) or just a feeling that the system makes its players less successful than they should be?

[Zeitgeister]

Have we figured out yet why Kobe fairs so poorly in advanced stats. This is something that has confused me for years. I simply don't understand why Kobe's advanced stats are so underwhelming...

In advanced box score stats? He doesn't fair poorly at all in +/- related metrics, quite the opposite. If I had to summarize why he "fairs poorly" relative to popular opinion I suppose its because he plays a bit more of a traditional SG role, he wasn't largely running the offense so his assist numbers could have been a bit higher, wouldn't have made him a better player, but that goes with the general deceptive nature of the box score. He's a 2 so he's not grabbing a ton of rebounds either. While Kobe wasn't an uber elite efficient scorer he was still quite efficient for his time period. So the box score probably underrates him a tad but the general public opinion of him tends to overrate him.