How close is SGA to Peak Kobe?

[Lalouie]

peak kobe won 5rings, so sga is 5rings close

no matter how good sga becomes if he doesn't win rings he won't even be in anybody's convo with anyone else much less kobe

[HMFFL]

Far off.
Kobe was must see television.

Sent from my SM-S928U1 using RealGM mobile app

[bledredwine]

league is a complete joke now. Kobe could average 40 ppg in this era easy. SGA is really good but please let's not compare him to Kobe

Basically this.

[ballzboyee]

This constant comparing players in today against Bryant is getting laughable at this point, the recency bias is just silly. This doesn't even go on to mention how different the league was when Bryant played compared to let's say a league SGA has played in so here are a few comparing the 20 seasons Bryant played compared to the 7 seasons SGA has played:

League TS%: 57.4% (SGA) vs. 53.6 (KB)
League Offensive Rating: 112.8 (SGA) vs. 105.5 (KB)
League Pace: 99.2 (SGA) vs. 91.7 (KB)

Which is to say, SGA plays in a league that has promoted offense over everything, where Bryant played in a league that was arguably the most grind it out in the leagues history, especially the beginning of his career. This is something that is constantly talked about yet seemingly ignored in these conversations.

I mean guys openly admit to not taking heaves so their percentages don't suffer these days. I'm not faulting these younger players, but the use of advanced data we've seen over the past 10 years in the league coupled with the leagues promotion of scoring, it's crazy how you can try to use Kobe's percentages against him against guys playing with these advantages.

I know the hate for Kobe runs deep, but these arguments lack an sort of context.

why do people keep doing this stuff? EVERY metric we look at adjusts for all of this already. Its' so weird that people will know what something like TS% is but not understand that we look at TS%+ or that PER and WS and VORP are league adjusted as well.

Like you said, they are just subjectively weighted metrics -- not statistics. You can't really normalize them across eras for comparative purposes. To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

[Jedi32]

The reality here is that the myth of Kobe Bryant and the actual Kobe Bryant are probably further apart than any other player in history, due to his circumstances.

Kobe was great, had maybe the best work effort of all time, tremendous team success and accolades, and he should be celebrated for that...but he stacks up poorly when compared to his peers from other eras, specifically those that came after him.

Pfft.

Kobe was playing on one knee from 08 on and those years alone would put him in the HOF.

Don't forget Kobe lost 3 years of his peak playing with the likes of Smush Parker and Kwame Brown.

that was when his ego wouldn’t allow him to play with a better team mate, right?

Whose fault was that again? Undoubtedly someone else, I’m sure.

Are we really still posting lies like this? It has been widely known that shaq’s clash with Dr Buss was the reason he was traded. Shaq even disrespected the man on television but let’s just put it all on Kobe though right. SMH

[Han Solo]

Kobe won five rings with one team. He’s not close to him.

[RB34]

This constant comparing players in today against Bryant is getting laughable at this point, the recency bias is just silly. This doesn't even go on to mention how different the league was when Bryant played compared to let's say a league SGA has played in so here are a few comparing the 20 seasons Bryant played compared to the 7 seasons SGA has played:

League TS%: 57.4% (SGA) vs. 53.6 (KB)
League Offensive Rating: 112.8 (SGA) vs. 105.5 (KB)
League Pace: 99.2 (SGA) vs. 91.7 (KB)

Which is to say, SGA plays in a league that has promoted offense over everything, where Bryant played in a league that was arguably the most grind it out in the leagues history, especially the beginning of his career. This is something that is constantly talked about yet seemingly ignored in these conversations.

I mean guys openly admit to not taking heaves so their percentages don't suffer these days. I'm not faulting these younger players, but the use of advanced data we've seen over the past 10 years in the league coupled with the leagues promotion of scoring, it's crazy how you can try to use Kobe's percentages against him against guys playing with these advantages.

I know the hate for Kobe runs deep, but these arguments lack an sort of context.

why do people keep doing this stuff? EVERY metric we look at adjusts for all of this already. Its' so weird that people will know what something like TS% is but not understand that we look at TS%+ or that PER and WS and VORP are league adjusted as well.

Like you said, they are just subjectively weighted metrics -- not statistics. You can't really normalize them across eras for comparative purposes. To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

I don’t have a dog in this fight but you should write more stuff. What a great post.

[runtmc]

This constant comparing players in today against Bryant is getting laughable at this point, the recency bias is just silly. This doesn't even go on to mention how different the league was when Bryant played compared to let's say a league SGA has played in so here are a few comparing the 20 seasons Bryant played compared to the 7 seasons SGA has played:

League TS%: 57.4% (SGA) vs. 53.6 (KB)
League Offensive Rating: 112.8 (SGA) vs. 105.5 (KB)
League Pace: 99.2 (SGA) vs. 91.7 (KB)

Which is to say, SGA plays in a league that has promoted offense over everything, where Bryant played in a league that was arguably the most grind it out in the leagues history, especially the beginning of his career. This is something that is constantly talked about yet seemingly ignored in these conversations.

I mean guys openly admit to not taking heaves so their percentages don't suffer these days. I'm not faulting these younger players, but the use of advanced data we've seen over the past 10 years in the league coupled with the leagues promotion of scoring, it's crazy how you can try to use Kobe's percentages against him against guys playing with these advantages.

I know the hate for Kobe runs deep, but these arguments lack an sort of context.

why do people keep doing this stuff? EVERY metric we look at adjusts for all of this already. Its' so weird that people will know what something like TS% is but not understand that we look at TS%+ or that PER and WS and VORP are league adjusted as well.

Like you said, they are just subjectively weighted metrics -- not statistics. You can't really normalize them across eras for comparative purposes. To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

This board is seriously underrating the season SGA is having this year.

So first of all, you're cherry picking one of Hakeem's playoffs runs as indicative of his overall value, but sure, let's set that aside and go with it because it actually wont matter with the season SGA is having. Second, BPM is rate-adjusted (and Hakeem played 42mpg in those playoffs to SGA's 34mpg this season), so you should be comparing something like their per36 numbers, not their per game stats:
Hakeem 94-95 playoffs: 28.1p/8.8r/3.8a/1s/2.4b on 56.0% TS
SGA: 34.3p/5.4r/6.5a/1.9s/1.1b on 64.4% TS

Also, I just want to point out, 5.4 BPM was still good enough to be 7th in the league that year, basically 1st/2nd team All-NBA, so it's not like the advanced stats were saying Hakeem wasnt a great, all-NBA player. What the stats are saying is that SGA is having a historically great season.

In terms of Hakeem's strengths, a good portion of Hakeem's value was defensive -- but SGA is having a tremendous defensive season as well. SGA was leading the league in DRTG at one point, but it looks like he's now 4th currently in DRTG, he's still 1st in DWS, 15th in DEPM, etc. Last season he was 7th in DPOY voting, and he's got a stronger case this year -- he should make the all-defensive team. He probably isnt going to win DPOY, but I wouldnt be surprised if he's top 5, so there's not much of a gap between them defensively (at least at that point in Hakeem's career). Another big part of Hakeem's value was in his tertiary stats, eg stls + blks -- but SGA's 3 stls+blks per36 as a guard is arguably more impressive than Hakeem's 3.4 as a center.

In terms of Hakeem's weaknesses, that rebounding is pretty glaring -- 8.8r per36 is quite poor for a center, as are his ORB%/DRB%/TRB% numbers. Also, his TS%/TS+ for a center is pretty pedestrian. I dont know offhand the TS% numbers for centers in 95, and Im not going to bother calculating it, but generally centers are several % better than league average -- its about 5% this season for example. Relative to his position, Im guessing Hakeem was likely slightly below average TS%, even if he was slightly above average compared to the league. Meanwhile guards generally have the lowest TS%, and yet SGA is absolutely killing it. That 8.4% gap in TS% is *massive*. And dont forget that BPM is adjusted relative to a player's position.

Another thing, you say today's higher TS% is because of 3s -- I dont think you really understand just how good/efficient SGA has been this season offensively. Let me put this into perspective: SGA's 2p% is higher than Hakeem's *TS%*, by a good amount. That's absurd. In fact, 3s are the least efficient part of SGA's offense -- by far. They bring his TS% down, not up, so your argument makes no sense. To put that into perspective, SGA's 2p% this season is the same as Shaq's career 2p% -- and again, this is straight up 2p%, not including FTs, 3s, etc. Let that sink in -- he's Shaq when shooting from inside the arc -- as a guard --, is above average from 3, gets to the line 10+ times a game, and hits his FTs at a 90% clip. And he's not doing that on 5 shots a game or something, he's doing it at very high volume. That's unreal.

Just to put this in perspective again, no guard in league history has ever scored 32ppg+ on 64%+ TS, except SGA this season. Only Embiid has ever scored more on a higher TS% -- ever. Go look at the best individual seasons by the greatest offensive players in NBA history, and SGA is putting up offensive numbers as good or better. Jordan, Lebron, KD, Curry, Wilt, Kareem, Harden, Kobe, you name it -- his numbers compare well against all of them, even at their absolute peak.

And another thing that gets overlooked in SGA's value are a lot of the little things he does. For example, how little he's turning the ball over this season -- despite scoring 32ppg+ and 6+ apg, he's only averaging 2.5 TO. Hakeem for example was averaging 3.1 TO in those 94-95 playoffs. It might not seem like a huge difference, but those things all add up. SGA's AST/TO ratio, while scoring that much is ridiculously impressive -- better than Curry's, Jordan's, Lebron's, KD's, Kobe's, Harden's. Its ridiculously hard to have the ball in your hands that much and turn the ball over that little. Lastly, SGA doesn't foul much at all, while still being a great defender. He's only averaging 2.2 PF -- Hakeem averaged 4.3 PF. And again, its just another one of those little things he does that just accumulates value that goes relatively unnoticed.

The bottom line is that SGA has no weaknesses, period. There's simply no area of his game that he's even average at. He's having an all time season scoring the ball, on incredible efficiency/volume, he has phenomenal secondary and tertiary stats, all while still being among the best defensive players in the league.

Hakeem is certainly one of the best players ever (Im not sure if he's quite top 10 for me, probably more like 10-14 range IMO), and the stats back it up. But the stats also back up that SGA is having a historically great season -- one of the best seasons in NBA history in fact -- that's not a knock on Hakeem, its just demonstrating SGA's dominance this season.

So basically, if you cant tell why SGA's statline is miles better than Hakeem's 94-95 playoff run, I dont know what to tell you.

As far as the thread, SGA this season is miles -- miles -- better than any season by Kobe.

[druggas]

Pfft.

Kobe was playing on one knee from 08 on and those years alone would put him in the HOF.

Don't forget Kobe lost 3 years of his peak playing with the likes of Smush Parker and Kwame Brown.

that was when his ego wouldn’t allow him to play with a better team mate, right?

Whose fault was that again? Undoubtedly someone else, I’m sure.

Are we really still posting lies like this? It has been widely known that shaq’s clash with Dr Buss was the reason he was traded. Shaq even disrespected the man on television but let’s just put it all on Kobe though right. SMH

Same lies as West trading Gasol for Kwami Brown. It gets regurgitated every few weeks.

[dhsilv2]

This constant comparing players in today against Bryant is getting laughable at this point, the recency bias is just silly. This doesn't even go on to mention how different the league was when Bryant played compared to let's say a league SGA has played in so here are a few comparing the 20 seasons Bryant played compared to the 7 seasons SGA has played:

League TS%: 57.4% (SGA) vs. 53.6 (KB)
League Offensive Rating: 112.8 (SGA) vs. 105.5 (KB)
League Pace: 99.2 (SGA) vs. 91.7 (KB)

Which is to say, SGA plays in a league that has promoted offense over everything, where Bryant played in a league that was arguably the most grind it out in the leagues history, especially the beginning of his career. This is something that is constantly talked about yet seemingly ignored in these conversations.

I mean guys openly admit to not taking heaves so their percentages don't suffer these days. I'm not faulting these younger players, but the use of advanced data we've seen over the past 10 years in the league coupled with the leagues promotion of scoring, it's crazy how you can try to use Kobe's percentages against him against guys playing with these advantages.

I know the hate for Kobe runs deep, but these arguments lack an sort of context.

why do people keep doing this stuff? EVERY metric we look at adjusts for all of this already. Its' so weird that people will know what something like TS% is but not understand that we look at TS%+ or that PER and WS and VORP are league adjusted as well.

Like you said, they are just subjectively weighted metrics -- not statistics. You can't really normalize them across eras for comparative purposes. To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

BPM has some scaling at the high end of the tail issues. This is pretty well known and not something anyone is likely to confuse. As for Hakeem, by 95 his defense had dropped from the god tier he was 93 and prior. So while I'm always open to defense is under valued by most box metrics, I'm not ready to jump on throwing them out. If look at Hakeem vs Shai, I'd want all these qualifiers to be included.

As for the shot selection, ALL players are taking better shots. This makes the league's total shooting better and makes standing out just as if not even harder all else equal. So that argument is dead on arrival.

[slick_watts]

two things can be true at the same time. shai is better than peak kobe. kobe has more accolades and team accomplishments. see, not hard.

tying those accolades and team accomplishments to player impact is always silly since it would logically require you to believe all sorts of other things that aren't true. is pau gasol better than patrick ewing?

kobe wasn't playing in the 1960's. we have the tools and the data to show that this version of shai is simply better than any version of kobe.

[michaelm]

This constant comparing players in today against Bryant is getting laughable at this point, the recency bias is just silly. This doesn't even go on to mention how different the league was when Bryant played compared to let's say a league SGA has played in so here are a few comparing the 20 seasons Bryant played compared to the 7 seasons SGA has played:

League TS%: 57.4% (SGA) vs. 53.6 (KB)
League Offensive Rating: 112.8 (SGA) vs. 105.5 (KB)
League Pace: 99.2 (SGA) vs. 91.7 (KB)

Which is to say, SGA plays in a league that has promoted offense over everything, where Bryant played in a league that was arguably the most grind it out in the leagues history, especially the beginning of his career. This is something that is constantly talked about yet seemingly ignored in these conversations.

I mean guys openly admit to not taking heaves so their percentages don't suffer these days. I'm not faulting these younger players, but the use of advanced data we've seen over the past 10 years in the league coupled with the leagues promotion of scoring, it's crazy how you can try to use Kobe's percentages against him against guys playing with these advantages.

I know the hate for Kobe runs deep, but these arguments lack an sort of context.

why do people keep doing this stuff? EVERY metric we look at adjusts for all of this already. Its' so weird that people will know what something like TS% is but not understand that we look at TS%+ or that PER and WS and VORP are league adjusted as well.

Like you said, they are just subjectively weighted metrics -- not statistics. You can't really normalize them across eras for comparative purposes. To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

Thank you. This should be posted on the GOAT thread as well.

[michaelm]

why do people keep doing this stuff? EVERY metric we look at adjusts for all of this already. Its' so weird that people will know what something like TS% is but not understand that we look at TS%+ or that PER and WS and VORP are league adjusted as well.

Like you said, they are just subjectively weighted metrics -- not statistics. You can't really normalize them across eras for comparative purposes. To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

This board is seriously underrating the season SGA is having this year.

So first of all, you're cherry picking one of Hakeem's playoffs runs as indicative of his overall value, but sure, let's set that aside and go with it because it actually wont matter with the season SGA is having. Second, BPM is rate-adjusted (and Hakeem played 42mpg in those playoffs to SGA's 34mpg this season), so you should be comparing something like their per36 numbers, not their per game stats:
Hakeem 94-95 playoffs: 28.1p/8.8r/3.8a/1s/2.4b on 56.0% TS
SGA: 34.3p/5.4r/6.5a/1.9s/1.1b on 64.4% TS

Also, I just want to point out, 5.4 BPM was still good enough to be 7th in the league that year, basically 1st/2nd team All-NBA, so it's not like the advanced stats were saying Hakeem wasnt a great, all-NBA player. What the stats are saying is that SGA is having a historically great season.

In terms of Hakeem's strengths, a good portion of Hakeem's value was defensive -- but SGA is having a tremendous defensive season as well. SGA was leading the league in DRTG at one point, but it looks like he's now 4th currently in DRTG, he's still 1st in DWS, 15th in DEPM, etc. Last season he was 7th in DPOY voting, and he's got a stronger case this year -- he should make the all-defensive team. He probably isnt going to win DPOY, but I wouldnt be surprised if he's top 5, so there's not much of a gap between them defensively (at least at that point in Hakeem's career). Another big part of Hakeem's value was in his tertiary stats, eg stls + blks -- but SGA's 3 stls+blks per36 as a guard is arguably more impressive than Hakeem's 3.4 as a center.

In terms of Hakeem's weaknesses, that rebounding is pretty glaring -- 8.8r per36 is quite poor for a center, as are his ORB%/DRB%/TRB% numbers. Also, his TS%/TS+ for a center is pretty pedestrian. I dont know offhand the TS% numbers for centers in 95, and Im not going to bother calculating it, but generally centers are several % better than league average -- its about 5% this season for example. Relative to his position, Im guessing Hakeem was likely slightly below average TS%, even if he was slightly above average compared to the league. Meanwhile guards generally have the lowest TS%, and yet SGA is absolutely killing it. That 8.4% gap in TS% is *massive*. And dont forget that BPM is adjusted relative to a player's position.

Another thing, you say today's higher TS% is because of 3s -- I dont think you really understand just how good/efficient SGA has been this season offensively. Let me put this into perspective: SGA's 2p% is higher than Hakeem's *TS%*, by a good amount. That's absurd. In fact, 3s are the least efficient part of SGA's offense -- by far. They bring his TS% down, not up, so your argument makes no sense. To put that into perspective, SGA's 2p% this season is the same as Shaq's career 2p% -- and again, this is straight up 2p%, not including FTs, 3s, etc. Let that sink in -- he's Shaq when shooting from inside the arc -- as a guard --, is above average from 3, gets to the line 10+ times a game, and hits his FTs at a 90% clip. And he's not doing that on 5 shots a game or something, he's doing it at very high volume. That's unreal.

Just to put this in perspective again, no guard in league history has ever scored 32ppg+ on 64%+ TS, except SGA this season. Only Embiid has ever scored more on a higher TS% -- ever. Go look at the best individual seasons by the greatest offensive players in NBA history, and SGA is putting up offensive numbers as good or better. Jordan, Lebron, KD, Curry, Wilt, Kareem, Harden, Kobe, you name it -- his numbers compare well against all of them, even at their absolute peak.

And another thing that gets overlooked in SGA's value are a lot of the little things he does. For example, how little he's turning the ball over this season -- despite scoring 32ppg+ and 6+ apg, he's only averaging 2.5 TO. Hakeem for example was averaging 3.1 TO in those 94-95 playoffs. It might not seem like a huge difference, but those things all add up. SGA's AST/TO ratio, while scoring that much is ridiculously impressive -- better than Curry's, Jordan's, Lebron's, KD's, Kobe's, Harden's. Its ridiculously hard to have the ball in your hands that much and turn the ball over that little. Lastly, SGA doesn't foul much at all, while still being a great defender. He's only averaging 2.2 PF -- Hakeem averaged 4.3 PF. And again, its just another one of those little things he does that just accumulates value that goes relatively unnoticed.

The bottom line is that SGA has no weaknesses, period. There's simply no area of his game that he's even average at. He's having an all time season scoring the ball, on incredible efficiency/volume, he has phenomenal secondary and tertiary stats, all while still being among the best defensive players in the league.

Hakeem is certainly one of the best players ever (Im not sure if he's quite top 10 for me, probably more like 10-14 range IMO), and the stats back it up. But the stats also back up that SGA is having a historically great season -- one of the best seasons in NBA history in fact -- that's not a knock on Hakeem, its just demonstrating SGA's dominance this season.

So basically, if you cant tell why SGA's statline is miles better than Hakeem's 94-95 playoff run, I dont know what to tell you.

As far as the thread, SGA this season is miles -- miles -- better than any season by Kobe.

SGA is having a great season and the decision by the Clippers to trade him is up there with the worst trades in NBA history imo.

As has been said let us see how he performs in the play-offs however. I expect him to be stellar, but you never know. Ask the only player voted regular season MVP unanimously who led a team with the best regular season record ever into the play-offs one year.

[slick_watts]

To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

first of all, you are comparing regular season to playoff bpm here, which is probably not an intended use.

second, bpm is limited by the boxscore, it's designed to be portable. so it struggles with defense. here's what its creator said:

Box Plus/Minus is a very good offensive metric, but it struggles some with defense. As mentioned before, when all you have is a box score, you cannot estimate defense very well. Not including minutes per game in the regression also hampers the accuracy of the defensive estimates. In other words--take DBPM with a spoonful of salt.

this isn't really a problem comparing players at similar positions but comparing shai's regular season dbpm to hakeem's playoff dbpm and declaring the metric faulty is kind of like driving on the rims of a porsche and deciding that sportscars aren't for you.

the great thing is that there's many different metrics out there these days available for public consumption, and they all take different approaches to solving the same problem: estimating player impact. singling out one to make a point about impact metrics as a whole is- well, missing the point. in the case of kobe v. shai peaks i believe you'll have broad consensus among all the highly regarded metrics and that's what is really important.

Also, higher TS% of today's players is simply a reflection of the volume and higher percentages of 3's across the league. It's isn't normalized across various eras to reflect a true percentile rank relative to their peers and to account for variance. Something like rTS is just a raw number and doesn't really tell you that much. Furthermore, schemes today are heavily predicated on matchups and there is lot less freelancing on the court. No long 2's, fewer heaves, and shots have to come out of 2 man and 3 man set plays with the rest of the team spreading the court . None of these advanced "stats" do a good job of reflecting the fact that players also self-select their shooting splits to pump their averages or the fact that coaching staffs are using advanced numbers to draw up schemes and plays. Analytics create favorable shot selections for players and push false advanced stat narratives.

this is a whole lot of hand waving. rTS seems to solve most of the problem you describe in the first couple sentences. the rest of this paragraph is just specious and can be controlled for by using rTS in the first place. like- the fact that there's less freelancing on the court now than there was in kobe's day. a specious claim, but one that is controlled for by rTS, no? comparing player efficiency to their peers solves this 'problem'.

Over-reliance on advanced stats for comparative purposes is just an example of Dunning-Kruger naive scientism. Ya'll just need to pump breaks on this deterministic belief system that these subjectively weighted metrics are absolutist mathematical models that can be used for ranking players across vastly different eras. Advanced stats are only good for understanding certain aspects of a player's performance and that's about it.

i don't think anyone would claim that advanced metrics are 'absolutist mathematical models'. that is a strawman.

[runtmc]

To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

first of all, you are comparing regular season to playoff bpm here, which is probably not an intended use.

Quoting the wrong guy there chief -- dont put my name to those quotes

[slick_watts]

To give you an example, Shai this year has a BPM of 11 on just 34 mpg. Hakeem in 95 when he was Finals MVP averaged 33pts/10reb/5ast/3blk/1.2stl in the playoffs. Hakeem's BMP that year was just 5. BPM maintains that Shai is much much bigger impact player than Hakeem when compared to the league average. Do you honestly believe that Shai is +6 better on the court than a top 10 player and a more impactful defender than maybe the greatest defensive anchor at center ever? But that's what BPM's says. Come on, man. It's a joke.

first of all, you are comparing regular season to playoff bpm here, which is probably not an intended use.

Quoting the wrong guy there chief -- dont put my name to those quotes

lol i'll edit.

[God Squad]

I still take off balance jumpers and yell "KOBE!".

[Pointgod]

Peak Kobe would literally eat in today’s NBA with spacing and lack of defence. Shai is definitely top tier and MVP worthy but Kobe was a different level

[TheGeneral99]

Yeah he's pretty close.

Kobe was unbelievable player and amazing mid-range iso scorer, but a bit overrated as he took many ill-advised shots, was not as efficient as some may think he was, and was a below average 3 point shooter.

[uncleduck13]

Kobe could’ve been so much better if he just simplified the game and didn’t take as many difficult, forced shots .

Shai makes the game look so incredibly easy. Reminds me of Brandon Roy so much.