Lowest arguable ranking for Kobe?

[Roger Murdock]

I actually find this to be an interesting questions as I think rating him is hard relative to other greats.

Regarding peaks, I absolutely think Kobe's is over-rated. He wasn't on that peak Shaq, LeBron, Curry, Jordan level at any stage. I think theres fair agruments guys like LeBron have 10-12 individual seasons at a higher level than Kobe's best. Guys like Curry and Durant maybe 4-5 at a higher level. Shaq had a few far, far away better than Kobes.

But being the best player in the league is kinda overrated anyway. If being the best player meant winning a championship LeBron would have at least 12, Jordan would have at least 10, etc.... Since the quality of your teammates is probably 75% of the formula to winning a title, having more bites at the apple is probably more important than less bites that are slightly bigger. There a few exceptions to this such as Shaq 2001 when nobody is stopping him and its basically a guaranteed title.

Looking at basketball reference I'd say Kobe has a ridiculous 13 seasons at 'best player on a title team' level. That is freaking absurd. He's given you one of the longest primes ever, and was ridiculously consistent, healthy, and reliable. He could play with stars or carry scrubs. He fits basically any system, etc.

So whats better - having a few individually better seasons or having an all time great longevity? Its a fair question. If you value the peaks its easy to rank Kobe a bit lower.




One other thing about Kobe. I think he was extremely fortunate for the era he played in. The slow, Iso-centric, inefficient offense, tons of long 2's, grind out games etc.... It all fit into what Kobe did well. Yeah Kobe's play style is a bit antiquated and inefficient given what we know about Basketball and offense now. If he played today I think he'd be viewed quiet a bit lower than he is in historical context. However during his era the meta was slow, inefficient, iso-ball, and Kobe was the best in the league at that style of play. Of course you will be a top team when your competition is Melo, McGrady, Pierce, etc doing the same thing as you 65% as effectively.

[Marrrcuss]

I actually find this to be an interesting questions as I think rating him is hard relative to other greats.

Regarding peaks, I absolutely think Kobe's is over-rated. He wasn't on that peak Shaq, LeBron, Curry, Jordan level at any stage. I think theres fair agruments guys like LeBron have 10-12 individual seasons at a higher level than Kobe's best. Guys like Curry and Durant maybe 4-5 at a higher level. Shaq had a few far, far away better than Kobes.

But being the best player in the league is kinda overrated anyway. If being the best player meant winning a championship LeBron would have at least 12, Jordan would have at least 10, etc.... Since the quality of your teammates is probably 75% of the formula to winning a title, having more bites at the apple is probably more important than less bites that are slightly bigger. There a few exceptions to this such as Shaq 2001 when nobody is stopping him and its basically a guaranteed title.

Looking at basketball reference I'd say Kobe has a ridiculous 13 seasons at 'best player on a title team' level. That is freaking absurd. He's given you one of the longest primes ever, and was ridiculously consistent, healthy, and reliable. He could play with stars or carry scrubs. He fits basically any system, etc.

So whats better - having a few individually better seasons or having an all time great longevity? Its a fair question. If you value the peaks its easy to rank Kobe a bit lower.




One other thing about Kobe. I think he was extremely fortunate for the era he played in. The slow, Iso-centric, inefficient offense, tons of long 2's, grind out games etc.... It all fit into what Kobe did well. Yeah Kobe's play style is a bit antiquated and inefficient given what we know about Basketball and offense now. If he played today I think he'd be viewed quiet a bit lower than he is in historical context. However during his era the meta was slow, inefficient, iso-ball, and Kobe was the best in the league at that style of play. Of course you will be a top team when your competition is Melo, McGrady, Pierce, etc doing the same thing as you 65% as effectively.

Wow.... Kobe was a LOCKDOWN defender at his best...but that means he was never on their level???? Stupid af. He used to lock Manu down and thats how the lakers were able to beat the spurs.
I think yall de-value defense strategically.

[Roger Murdock]

^ speaking of all time overrated things - Kobe's defense. Yeah he was amazing in like 2001 - 2004 but after that he skated on reputation.

Worst awards in history - Crash Best Picture, a bad Bob Dylan album winning Record of the year over OK Computer, and like 9 of Kobes all defense awards

[Rainwater]

This one is interesting because Kobe wasnt the best shooter and wasnt the best clutch player... And his rings can be argued that Shaq and Pau carried him. When Shaq left Kobe didnt even make the playoffs than when they got Pau they took off again. Will be interesting to see where people rank him.

Lol at Pau carrying Kobe, completely disrespectful. Did Pippen carry MJ? Lol

[RoyceDa59]

Top 15 at the lowest.

[Rainwater]

12th is the lowest.

[Blacksheep25]

^ speaking of all time overrated things - Kobe's defense. Yeah he was amazing in like 2001 - 2004 but after that he skated on reputation.

Worst awards in history - Crash Best Picture, a bad Bob Dylan album winning Record of the year over OK Computer, and like 9 of Kobes all defense awards

Agree with your basketball takes, but you’re a Cavs fan ffs, I expect better.

I love Ok Computer, but to call Time out of Mind a bad album is legit heresy. I had an hour commute that year each way and listened to nothing but it for like 3 straight months. Masterpiece

[CobraCommander]

If we expect these guys to all play against each other than the 60s guys are out. The centers will drop due to the modern playstyle. That leaves MJ, Lebron, Magic, Bird. Perhaps you take Curry before Kobe. After that there is no one else.

I take Curry, Hakeem, KD, and Giannis over Kobe. Not for accomplishments but for ability. Had he been drafted by some other team other than the Lakers, I don’t see him doing more than these players did on some crap teams without the same recruiting power.

I think you're selling Kobe a bit short. His 09&10 title teams were good but not all time great rosters or anything. They weren't more talented than the Bucks team, Hakeems 95 team, or any of Curry's teams. And Durant has played with more talent than anyone ever and he still hasn't led his own team to a title yet. So as of right now, other than Hakeem in 94, none of these guys have done more with crap teams. They've all had good to great teams and have done less.

That's not to say in a fantasy draft scenario they wouldn't or couldn't do more but in real life they haven't, not yet at least. But that goes to show the inherent bias against Kobe. People just treat him like he didnt really do what he really did lol. One of the best winners in NBA history but you don't think you can win with him. Ok.

Exactly....I think he does have the rings and in game performance to back up him being one of the best to ever do it.

Kobe didn’t back down or play seconds to anyone- he had unrealistic confidence and worked hard to make his inflated self image match in the real world.

Tmac,Vince, penny and a lot of guys with as much athleticism and skills as him never did what he was able to do based on dedication to winning...that matters

[CraftylikeaFox]

There are 7 players whom I would absolutely take over Kobe. In alphabetical order:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Larry Bird
Tim Duncan
Lebron James
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Bill Russell

Anybody who thinks Kobe ranks over one of those guys is imho wrong.

I have a huge problem with this statement because I do not think Duncan and Russell were better than Kobe. If you want to say that you feel those two were better, then you have a right to your opinion... however, you cannot dismiss others who feel otherwise, and there are more people who think that Kobe was better than those two.

Remember... this is the same Tim Duncan who never won a back-to-back ring despite having the best FO, best coach, and deepest squad in the league for the majority of his prime. The same Tim Duncan who lost a finals MVP to a Tony Parker, not even to a Shaq or a Durant. The same Tim Duncan who was captain of the first USA Men's basketball team to not win the Olympic gold in 40 years! The "best PF in history" thing is also a silly cliche that some commentator said a long time back, and is repeated by blind-witness hipsters today. Tim Duncan was a Center, who only played at PF while the Spurs still had Robinson because that was the efficient decision for their team. If Duncan was a PF, then so was Hakeem... and I'd take Hakeem over Duncan any time. Hakeem had better skills on offense... skills that took the game of basketball forward from where the NBA was when he joined. Hakeem was also better on defense.

And Bill Russell has more rings due to the strength of his old Celtics team but he what else does he have? Apart from being able to play defense at a high level due to his athleticism and size, did he take the game of basketball forward in any other way due to talent or skills that he exhibited? Wilt was his contemporary, and if Wilt was on the same team as him, then Russell would have been sent to the Celtics bench due to redundancy. Could any of Kobe's contemporaries send him to the bench? The only player at his position that could have sent him to the bench is the GOAT, MJ, who was done by the time Kobe got going.

There’s absolutely more non Laker fans who think that Duncan was better than Kobe. If you did a poll without Laker fans Duncan would win in a landslide. Putting their resumes next to each other makes it easy. That’s why your arguments against him are reaches, like not winning back to backs and team USA performance.

[lakerz12]

There are 7 players whom I would absolutely take over Kobe. In alphabetical order:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Larry Bird
Tim Duncan
Lebron James
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Bill Russell

Anybody who thinks Kobe ranks over one of those guys is imho wrong.

I have a huge problem with this statement because I do not think Duncan and Russell were better than Kobe. If you want to say that you feel those two were better, then you have a right to your opinion... however, you cannot dismiss others who feel otherwise, and there are more people who think that Kobe was better than those two.

Remember... this is the same Tim Duncan who never won a back-to-back ring despite having the best FO, best coach, and deepest squad in the league for the majority of his prime. The same Tim Duncan who lost a finals MVP to a Tony Parker, not even to a Shaq or a Durant. The same Tim Duncan who was captain of the first USA Men's basketball team to not win the Olympic gold in 40 years! The "best PF in history" thing is also a silly cliche that some commentator said a long time back, and is repeated by blind-witness hipsters today. Tim Duncan was a Center, who only played at PF while the Spurs still had Robinson because that was the efficient decision for their team. If Duncan was a PF, then so was Hakeem... and I'd take Hakeem over Duncan any time. Hakeem had better skills on offense... skills that took the game of basketball forward from where the NBA was when he joined. Hakeem was also better on defense.

And Bill Russell has more rings due to the strength of his old Celtics team but he what else does he have? Apart from being able to play defense at a high level due to his athleticism and size, did he take the game of basketball forward in any other way due to talent or skills that he exhibited? Wilt was his contemporary, and if Wilt was on the same team as him, then Russell would have been sent to the Celtics bench due to redundancy. Could any of Kobe's contemporaries send him to the bench? The only player at his position that could have sent him to the bench is the GOAT, MJ, who was done by the time Kobe got going.

There’s absolutely more non Laker fans who think that Duncan was better than Kobe. If you did a poll without Laker fans Duncan would win in a landslide. Putting their resumes next to each other makes it easy. That’s why your arguments against him are reaches, like not winning back to backs and team USA performance.

Maybe 25% (or more) of non-Laker fans hate Kobe and the Laker's though, lol. So let's not pretend there's not a bias.

Duncan's resume may be slightly better but there is an argument for Kobe.

Both have 5 rings as the 1st or 2nd best player on the team, which is very rare/elite company.

[dhsilv2]

^ speaking of all time overrated things - Kobe's defense. Yeah he was amazing in like 2001 - 2004 but after that he skated on reputation.

Worst awards in history - Crash Best Picture, a bad Bob Dylan album winning Record of the year over OK Computer, and like 9 of Kobes all defense awards

Yeah for his reputation his RAPM style metrics never saw him at that level and while he could for stretches really hound someone, he didn't have the motor to do it all game like a KG could. And often people confuse what elite guard defense does. It's useful but it pales vs someone like Duncan who's defense for years and years anchored to spur's entire team.

[TOStateofMind]

Would say around the 13-15 area.

[CraftylikeaFox]

There’s absolutely more non Laker fans who think that Duncan was better than Kobe. If you did a poll without Laker fans Duncan would win in a landslide. Putting their resumes next to each other makes it easy. That’s why your arguments against him are reaches, like not winning back to backs and team USA performance.

Maybe 25% (or more) of non-Laker fans hate Kobe and the Laker's though, lol. So let's not pretend there's not a bias.

Duncan's resume may be slightly better but there is an argument for Kobe.

Both have 5 rings as the 1st or 2nd best player on the team, which is very rare/elite company.[/quote]

I'm not saying that Kobe is tremendously worse than Duncan. In fact on my own list I have Kobe only one spot below Duncan and have them both in my top 10. For Laker fans, I definitely see how Kobe could be ranked higher. He means more to that fanbase than a top 10 ranking will ever be able to quantify. But for non Laker fans, stats and accolades are stats and accolades. Stats could probably be a wash, but Duncan has the same amount of championships, more playoff appearances, more MVP's, and more finals MVP's. Those last two things will always be the tie breaker.

[Ugalde]

This one is interesting because Kobe wasnt the best shooter and wasnt the best clutch player... And his rings can be argued that Shaq and Pau carried him. When Shaq left Kobe didnt even make the playoffs til they got Pau. Will be interesting to see where people rank him.

*quoting before the edit*

Pau only joined the lakers in 2008. Kobe led the lakers with smush parker and kwame brown to the playoffs in 2006 and 2007.... took your suns 7 games to defeat them in 2006

I was just going off the top of my head so they missed the playoffs once when shaq left and were first round exits until pau... W.e same thing... The argument can still be made that Shaq and Pau carried.

lol wrecked...when did you become a Suns fan? last year?

[LivingLegend]

He'd be ranked a lot higher had the Lakers gotten Chris Paul

So are we ranking players by how good their individual talent was or how good their surrounding cast was to win championships?

Because Ive noticed for some players that we rank them all time by those 2 different standards to fit whatever narrative.

[No-more-rings]

I think he's a clear top 15 guy, but if we re-visit in 10 years there's a real chance he falls out. Giannis and Jokic seem poised for all time great careers, while KD and Curry aren't finished either. I don't think anyone else in the current league, aside from maybe Luka has any real chance of passing Kobe though.

[Colbinii]

Lowest reasonable is bottom of the top 20. If you're extremely high on Peak Play, lower on Longevity and don't believe many of his All-Defensive selections were warranted.

He typically falls into the 11-18 range/tier for me, which is seemingly always growing.

[Effigy]

In 2020 this board ranked Kobe 12th. Here were the next 12 names.

13. Jerry West
14. Oscar Robertson
15. Dirk Nowitzki
16. Karl Malone
17. David Robinson
18. Julius Erving
19. George Mikan
20. Moses Malone
21. Charles Barkley
22. Kevin Durant
23. Chris Paul
24. Stephen Curry

How many of those could you argue are better than Kobe? I'd say West, Robertson, Durant and maybe Moses have arguments. With Curry also possibly having one, especially when it's all said and done. So from that, I guess you could say the lowest arguable spot for him for me is 17. This doesn't factor in other current guys like Giannis who could end up over him eventually. I probably wouldn't personally rank him that low, but just going for lowest arguable, I think that's his floor.

[HotelVitale]

There are 7 players whom I would absolutely take over Kobe. In alphabetical order:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Larry Bird
Tim Duncan
Lebron James
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Bill Russell

Anybody who thinks Kobe ranks over one of those guys is imho wrong.

Remember... this is the same Tim Duncan who never won a back-to-back ring despite having the best FO, best coach, and deepest squad in the league for the majority of his prime. The same Tim Duncan who lost a finals MVP to a Tony Parker, not even to a Shaq or a Durant. The same Tim Duncan who was captain of the first USA Men's basketball team to not win the Olympic gold in 40 years! The "best PF in history" thing is also a silly cliche that some commentator said a long time back, and is repeated by blind-witness hipsters today. Tim Duncan was a Center, who only played at PF while the Spurs still had Robinson because that was the efficient decision for their team.

I don't have a dog in this fight but those arguments either aren't in good faith or are just really bad:
--he didn't 'lose' a Finals MVP, it went to his teammate in a landslide 4-game sweep series against an overmatched opponent. Duncan didn't need to be a hero there, and Parker played well. Very weird criticism
--the Spurs definitely didn't have the 'deepest squad' for a majority of Duncan's career--the team is famous for having Duncan, Ginboli, Parker, and a bunch of whatever dudes year after year. Go look at those rosters for a second Plus sure Pop is a great coach but it's not like he's a miracle worker that's willing bad teams to victory, it's not like Duncan wouldn't have been awesome if he had a different coach (plus Kobe had Phil Jackson for most of his prime)
--What's the actual criticism in the Olympics thing? Did Duncan not play well in the Olympics? Did he have some direct role in the team losing to Argentina? 'His team lost once' is not an argument that a guy sucks or that your guy is better (and wtf are you bringing up 'captains' for, this aint middle school soccer)
--Not sure who cares if he was a PF or C or why that's a key part of this argument, but Duncan routinely played with other centers after Robinson, all of us over 30 still clearly remember all those dudes like Oberto, Splitter, Bonner, etc starting at center for the Spurs. He was center-ish at times but was also at his best playing in the high post so definitely wasn't a textbook center

[dhsilv2]

There’s absolutely more non Laker fans who think that Duncan was better than Kobe. If you did a poll without Laker fans Duncan would win in a landslide. Putting their resumes next to each other makes it easy. That’s why your arguments against him are reaches, like not winning back to backs and team USA performance.

Maybe 25% (or more) of non-Laker fans hate Kobe and the Laker's though, lol. So let's not pretend there's not a bias.

Duncan's resume may be slightly better but there is an argument for Kobe.

Both have 5 rings as the 1st or 2nd best player on the team, which is very rare/elite company.

I'm not saying that Kobe is tremendously worse than Duncan. In fact on my own list I have Kobe only one spot below Duncan and have them both in my top 10. For Laker fans, I definitely see how Kobe could be ranked higher. He means more to that fanbase than a top 10 ranking will ever be able to quantify. But for non Laker fans, stats and accolades are stats and accolades. Stats could probably be a wash, but Duncan has the same amount of championships, more playoff appearances, more MVP's, and more finals MVP's. Those last two things will always be the tie breaker.

I don't believe you're find any method of looking at stats and coming to a conclusion that Kobe and Duncan are a wash.

Here's a 97-2014 rapm study.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

Clearly missing a few poor Duncan years and has Kobe's but with the sample size a year or two is not moving the needle at all here.

Here's top RAPM numbers, not full careers.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

WS and VORP give Duncan a decided edge in career value. Even their playoff stats tell the same story.

Any argument to move Kobe over Duncan would require significant and fairly great effort to in depth explain how teammates, systems, coaching, and/or roles accounting for the statistical gap both in terms of your traditional box score metrics and the modern advanced ones.