How close is SGA to Peak Kobe?

[EArl]

About 5 rings off.

[tsherkin]

About 5 rings off.

If you aren't going to pay attention to the OP, why post?

[Big J]

Kobe was a harder worker, more intimidating, more petty, more clutch, and proved it in the playoffs. SGA has done jack **** in the playoffs.

[juju14]

SGA with another 50 piece.

We sure this not a close debate?

Peak Kobe averaged 35+ PPG... in 2006. And that also happened to be the season he dropped the 81 point game. Kobe had 27 40+ point games that season, Shai currently has 9 with only 21 games to go

SGA doesn't belong anywhere near the Kobe conversation until he actually does something in the playoffs

Shai more efficient tho.

[Pelon chingon]

Let me tell it like this, as a purple bleeding Kings fan. Not even remotely close.

[Manimal]

He's closest to a rich man's Corey Maggette

Best comparison I've seen for him. Good work.

[dhsilv2]

You're obviously referring to my post -- only youre doing nothing but making strawman arguments. I never said SGA was an "equivalent defender" to Hakeem, which implies some sort of career comparison -- what I said was that if you compare SGA, this season, to Hakeem in 94-95, the season *you brought up*, there wasnt a *large gap* between them defensively -- which is absolutely true. In 94-95, Hakeem was already past his prime and had regressed from his peak defensive years -- this isnt really controversial. You mention for example that Hakeem lead the league in DRTG 5 years in a row, well, *by your own stat*, he was 5th in DRTG in 94-95, while SGA is 4th this season (and the only guard in the top 5). But if you want to try and stretch that out into me saying they were "equivalent defenders" to try and score argument points, sure.

There is a huge gap between them defensively. You are simply taking BPM and ex post facto trying to fit it to a narrative with the insinuation being that -- because BPM implies it -- they are somehow having equivalent seasons. Therefore, so the argument goes, it must be true that they are "similar" -- which is laughable. It is absolutely not true. Shai is on any level an equivalent defender to Hakeem. In 1995 Hakeem finished third in DPOY voting and after coming off back-to-back DPOY awards. 1995 Hakeem was only 32-years-old and still in his prime. He was Finals MVP and dominated the playoffs. He was not in anyway "past his prime."

Second, you're again trying to strawman the rebounding argument as though I compared him to a modern NBA big, and that I only used DRB% to make the comparison (if anything I would use ORB% if I was using just one rebounding stat, since its by far the most valuable) -- but no, he wasnt doing well relative to the league in 94-95, which is what I said. I dont have his exact rankings in the playoffs at hand, but a quick look shows he wasnt top 10 in the RS for any of TRB%/DRB%/ORB%, and his playoff rebounding numbers were worse than his RS numbers. Also -- you're comparing him to Shaq as though he dominated Shaq? Shaq had an ORB% of 14% in 94-95 in the playoffs, Hakeem had 5%, that's literally triple Hakeem's rate. TRB% of 18 vs 14. Shaq flat out murdered him on the glass in the 94-95 playoffs. And again, this isnt something Im bringing up -- these are your examples, Im just pointing out the holes in your arguments, while you keep misrepresenting what I said.

Look, man, he led the league in rebounding several years and was a monster on the glass. He was not one of the better rebounders, he was the best rebounder in the league throughout segments of his career and one of the greatest of all-time on the glass. He also led the league multiple seasons in rebounding percentage on both ends. He wasn't out there trying to kill himself on the glass every night to prove a point in a physical era, so as his value to franchise expanded the need for him to fill up the box score diminished. His job was to lead the team's offense primarily and be a defensive anchor. Old saying goes jack of trades, but master of none. There is no doubt that Hakeem's numbers on the glass were reflection of Houston's desire to protect their star player. Context is important, and this is what your argument lacks. You simply took the numbers without context and plugged them into a terrible argument based upon stats are far too removed from the raw numbers and events on the court to have any real value. The analytics always results in reductionist mathematical arguments such as this that have no real feel for the game.

But I guess any time you use evidence to support a statement, and not just "trust me bro" or the "eye test", its just advanced metrics Dunning-Kruger because the evidence doesnt support your opinion, right? You're the same dude in here pounding the stats when they showed what you wanted them to, which is why you've mentioned things like Hakeem leading the league in DRTG 5 times. You want to use stats to support your opinions, great, you just want to give your opinion on things, great, but dont talk out of both sides of your mouth saying people that use stats are just examples of "naive scientism" when it doesnt support whatever your opinion is while using them yourself. Then you just look like a hypocrite. And stop using strawmen, its getting old.

Shai's defensive rating this year is not even all that elite, but OKC's team defense is likely carrying some of those numbers considering he chucking like prime Harden or Westbrook on offense. He is having a great season overall, but I could easly make the case that he's at best their third best overall defender. Certainly, he's no Hakeem. It gets weird when using advanced stats you actually attempt to make the argument that Shai is not just the best defender on his team, but somehow comparable in stats where Hakeem's numbers are not just good -- but the best all-time for a center. Hakeem is like the only center ranked in the top 60 in steals per game. He was simply a god on defense. All-time he's ahead of maybe the best defensive player of this era in Draymond Green, and he's a true 7 footer! Think about that for a second and what that means before you try to compare Shai to him in this area. Also, take your blks argument, for example. This is what it looks like all-time:

Rank Player BLK
1. Hakeem Olajuwon* 3830
2. Dikembe Mutombo* 3289
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 3189
4. Artis Gilmore* 3178
5. Mark Eaton 3064
6. Tim Duncan* 3020
7. David Robinson* 2954
8. Patrick Ewing* 2894
9. Shaquille O'Neal* 2732
10. Tree Rollins 2542

Next closest guy is 600 blocks behind Hakeem and all of those players are retired. Hakeem is literally the Magic Johnson of blocks. Like Magic's playoff assist numbers, Hakeems block numbers are likely a stat that will never be broken. No, Shai is not comparable to Hakeem in blocks and steals and the analytics are just noise. Never mind that if were stat for shots contested or altered, Hakeem would obviously be on different planet that any little guard out there on the perimeter.

As a more recent example in regard to rebounding Russell Westbrook was a very good rebounder as a guard, but not I believe a better rebounder than Steve Adams. It was a deliberate strategy In the year he averaged a triple double to get the ball into his hands early.

Analytics are a tool and imo have most value and are best validated by being predictive, but were not I believe devised to be an end in themselves or to retrospectively evaluate players from different eras. They have clearly had a significant influence on changing how the game is played, and rule changes obviously also have had an influence compared to previous eras. I am sure neither Jordan nor Kobe generated 3 FTs from being fouled on 3 point shots, by far the most efficient method of scoring, as Harden did at Houston playing Moreyball, but they weren’t trying to do so as a strategy. SGA and peak Harden both get/got awarded a high number of FTs significantly because of the difficulty of defending them in general Imo btw. but more than a few of those Harden 3 point shot attempts were fairly perfunctory.

As for the topic of the thread SGA this year seems to me to be a more efficient scorer/have better shot selection than peak Kobe. He hasn’t demonstrated the ability to make clutch baskets deep in the play-offs yet, but may well start doing so soon. I don’t see him as a game altering defensive player like peak Kobe, but he can obviously be a component of a team which is elite defensively in the regular season, and we will soon see how this translates to the play-offs as well.

In regard to this and similar threads of course no player can win “ringgz” on his own. Winning games and titles rather than generating statistics as an individual player is the object of the game however. SGS is already leading OKC this year to an all time great regular season record which looks likely to eclipse the regular season record of any of Kobe’s teams.

Actually the entire reason to create BPM was to give us a level of cross era analysis. Same with PER.

RAPM was designed on being predictive. BPM is just a box metric designed to correlate to RAPM for the purpose of historical context. It has flaws in doing that, but that was the intent. Similar to why Hollinger wanted to make PER set to 15 for the league average. It gives it comparative value over time.

[michaelm]

There is a huge gap between them defensively. You are simply taking BPM and ex post facto trying to fit it to a narrative with the insinuation being that -- because BPM implies it -- they are somehow having equivalent seasons. Therefore, so the argument goes, it must be true that they are "similar" -- which is laughable. It is absolutely not true. Shai is on any level an equivalent defender to Hakeem. In 1995 Hakeem finished third in DPOY voting and after coming off back-to-back DPOY awards. 1995 Hakeem was only 32-years-old and still in his prime. He was Finals MVP and dominated the playoffs. He was not in anyway "past his prime."



Look, man, he led the league in rebounding several years and was a monster on the glass. He was not one of the better rebounders, he was the best rebounder in the league throughout segments of his career and one of the greatest of all-time on the glass. He also led the league multiple seasons in rebounding percentage on both ends. He wasn't out there trying to kill himself on the glass every night to prove a point in a physical era, so as his value to franchise expanded the need for him to fill up the box score diminished. His job was to lead the team's offense primarily and be a defensive anchor. Old saying goes jack of trades, but master of none. There is no doubt that Hakeem's numbers on the glass were reflection of Houston's desire to protect their star player. Context is important, and this is what your argument lacks. You simply took the numbers without context and plugged them into a terrible argument based upon stats are far too removed from the raw numbers and events on the court to have any real value. The analytics always results in reductionist mathematical arguments such as this that have no real feel for the game.



Shai's defensive rating this year is not even all that elite, but OKC's team defense is likely carrying some of those numbers considering he chucking like prime Harden or Westbrook on offense. He is having a great season overall, but I could easly make the case that he's at best their third best overall defender. Certainly, he's no Hakeem. It gets weird when using advanced stats you actually attempt to make the argument that Shai is not just the best defender on his team, but somehow comparable in stats where Hakeem's numbers are not just good -- but the best all-time for a center. Hakeem is like the only center ranked in the top 60 in steals per game. He was simply a god on defense. All-time he's ahead of maybe the best defensive player of this era in Draymond Green, and he's a true 7 footer! Think about that for a second and what that means before you try to compare Shai to him in this area. Also, take your blks argument, for example. This is what it looks like all-time:

Rank Player BLK
1. Hakeem Olajuwon* 3830
2. Dikembe Mutombo* 3289
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 3189
4. Artis Gilmore* 3178
5. Mark Eaton 3064
6. Tim Duncan* 3020
7. David Robinson* 2954
8. Patrick Ewing* 2894
9. Shaquille O'Neal* 2732
10. Tree Rollins 2542

Next closest guy is 600 blocks behind Hakeem and all of those players are retired. Hakeem is literally the Magic Johnson of blocks. Like Magic's playoff assist numbers, Hakeems block numbers are likely a stat that will never be broken. No, Shai is not comparable to Hakeem in blocks and steals and the analytics are just noise. Never mind that if were stat for shots contested or altered, Hakeem would obviously be on different planet that any little guard out there on the perimeter.

As a more recent example in regard to rebounding Russell Westbrook was a very good rebounder as a guard, but not I believe a better rebounder than Steve Adams. It was a deliberate strategy In the year he averaged a triple double to get the ball into his hands early.

Analytics are a tool and imo have most value and are best validated by being predictive, but were not I believe devised to be an end in themselves or to retrospectively evaluate players from different eras. They have clearly had a significant influence on changing how the game is played, and rule changes obviously also have had an influence compared to previous eras. I am sure neither Jordan nor Kobe generated 3 FTs from being fouled on 3 point shots, by far the most efficient method of scoring, as Harden did at Houston playing Moreyball, but they weren’t trying to do so as a strategy. SGA and peak Harden both get/got awarded a high number of FTs significantly because of the difficulty of defending them in general Imo btw. but more than a few of those Harden 3 point shot attempts were fairly perfunctory.

As for the topic of the thread SGA this year seems to me to be a more efficient scorer/have better shot selection than peak Kobe. He hasn’t demonstrated the ability to make clutch baskets deep in the play-offs yet, but may well start doing so soon. I don’t see him as a game altering defensive player like peak Kobe, but he can obviously be a component of a team which is elite defensively in the regular season, and we will soon see how this translates to the play-offs as well.

In regard to this and similar threads of course no player can win “ringgz” on his own. Winning games and titles rather than generating statistics as an individual player is the object of the game however. SGS is already leading OKC this year to an all time great regular season record which looks likely to eclipse the regular season record of any of Kobe’s teams.

Actually the entire reason to create BPM was to give us a level of cross era analysis. Same with PER.

RAPM was designed on being predictive. BPM is just a box metric designed to correlate to RAPM for the purpose of historical context. It has flaws in doing that, but that was the intent. Similar to why Hollinger wanted to make PER set to 15 for the league average. It gives it comparative value over time.

I am wrong then, unsurprisingly. I don’t claim to understand the advanced metrics, although I probably could have in my youth when I had good mathematical ability. I have some understanding of medical statistics and on that basis can’t see how a number of these metrics can be strictly validated, but am aware you are involved in predictive numbers professionally.

The two examples I gave are still valid though I believe, Westbrook did get rebounds rather than Adams as a deliberate strategy, and Harden looking for 3FTs by incurring fouls on 3 point attempts was a deliberate Moreyball strategy as well which doubtless made him more efficient, not that he wasn’t efficient anyway and that the fouling was unrelated to his skills including being very difficult to defend anyway. I presume you are implying the numbers allow for there being more 3 point shooting now after analytics pointed to this being the way to go. There is still difficulty in comparing eras regardless imo, I have seen it argued that Jordan’s shot was flatter than would be ideal for a 3 point shot because it was optimal for 2 point shooting. If Lebron could learn to shoot 3 pointers I suspect Jordan could have as well had this become a predominant tactic/strategy in his era.

[Special_Puppy]

Kobe was a harder worker, more intimidating, more petty, more clutch, and proved it in the playoffs. SGA has done jack **** in the playoffs.

Do you think Kobe has ever had a regular season as the one SGA is having now?

[Big J]

Kobe was a harder worker, more intimidating, more petty, more clutch, and proved it in the playoffs. SGA has done jack **** in the playoffs.

Do you think Kobe has ever had a regular season as the one SGA is having now?

Yes, he had a bunch of them. If Kobe was playing in this era he'd be averaging 40. It doesn't matter though. If SGA wants to be talked about with the greats he's gonna have to do it in more than the regular season.

[michaelm]

Kobe was a harder worker, more intimidating, more petty, more clutch, and proved it in the playoffs. SGA has done jack **** in the playoffs.

Do you think Kobe has ever had a regular season as the one SGA is having now?

Not that I recall.

Steph Curry has though as I have said, but I doubt he would consider the 2015-2016 season his best overall in the sport and would happily swap it for one of Kobe’s title winning seasons.

[akula1488]

I am one of Kobe's biggest fan but objectively some people are rating Kobe too high. His efficiency is not that great with bad habits of making difficult shots, and the mamba mentality can drive team mates the wrong way.

[Big J]

I am one of Kobe's biggest fan but objectively some people are rating Kobe too high. His efficiency is not that great with bad habits of making difficult shots, and the mamba mentality can drive team mates the wrong way.

Efficiency wasn’t as important in Kobe’s era. His efficiency would be great if he was playing in todays league.

[dhsilv2]

As a more recent example in regard to rebounding Russell Westbrook was a very good rebounder as a guard, but not I believe a better rebounder than Steve Adams. It was a deliberate strategy In the year he averaged a triple double to get the ball into his hands early.

Analytics are a tool and imo have most value and are best validated by being predictive, but were not I believe devised to be an end in themselves or to retrospectively evaluate players from different eras. They have clearly had a significant influence on changing how the game is played, and rule changes obviously also have had an influence compared to previous eras. I am sure neither Jordan nor Kobe generated 3 FTs from being fouled on 3 point shots, by far the most efficient method of scoring, as Harden did at Houston playing Moreyball, but they weren’t trying to do so as a strategy. SGA and peak Harden both get/got awarded a high number of FTs significantly because of the difficulty of defending them in general Imo btw. but more than a few of those Harden 3 point shot attempts were fairly perfunctory.

As for the topic of the thread SGA this year seems to me to be a more efficient scorer/have better shot selection than peak Kobe. He hasn’t demonstrated the ability to make clutch baskets deep in the play-offs yet, but may well start doing so soon. I don’t see him as a game altering defensive player like peak Kobe, but he can obviously be a component of a team which is elite defensively in the regular season, and we will soon see how this translates to the play-offs as well.

In regard to this and similar threads of course no player can win “ringgz” on his own. Winning games and titles rather than generating statistics as an individual player is the object of the game however. SGS is already leading OKC this year to an all time great regular season record which looks likely to eclipse the regular season record of any of Kobe’s teams.

Actually the entire reason to create BPM was to give us a level of cross era analysis. Same with PER.

RAPM was designed on being predictive. BPM is just a box metric designed to correlate to RAPM for the purpose of historical context. It has flaws in doing that, but that was the intent. Similar to why Hollinger wanted to make PER set to 15 for the league average. It gives it comparative value over time.

I am wrong then, unsurprisingly. I don’t claim to understand the advanced metrics, although I probably could have in my youth when I had good mathematical ability. I have some understanding of medical statistics and on that basis can’t see how a number of these metrics can be strictly validated, but am aware you are involved in predictive numbers professionally.

The two examples I gave are still valid though I believe, Westbrook did get rebounds rather than Adams as a deliberate strategy, and Harden looking for 3FTs by incurring fouls on 3 point attempts was a deliberate Moreyball strategy as well which doubtless made him more efficient, not that he wasn’t efficient anyway and that the fouling was unrelated to his skills including being very difficult to defend anyway. I presume you are implying the numbers allow for there being more 3 point shooting now after analytics pointed to this being the way to go. There is still difficulty in comparing eras regardless imo, I have seen it argued that Jordan’s shot was flatter than would be ideal for a 3 point shot because it was optimal for 2 point shooting. If Lebron could learn to shoot 3 pointers I suspect Jordan could have as well had this become a predominant tactic/strategy in his era.

Westbrooks is a good example of someone where a metric like BPM just is wrong on. But I'm not sure we need to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater because of that. But yes, unnatural high rebound and assist guys are going to get overrated by the nature of how the formula was written and the creator is aware and trying to update to address this.

I'm not sure I see why the 3 point stuff or foul baiting is a problem for the math though. The league is more efficient today so you're expected as a player to be more efficient. Reggie Miller was doing his leg kicks to get fouled on those in the 90's himself.

Where I think we do have some scaling issues however is that with less minutes for starters and having all metrics set to a league average. We may very well see the stars peaking higher on some of these advanced metrics. This is why I TRY and state where a player ranked in say PER vs just stating PER. I don't think it matters for guys outside the top 10-20 in the league but sure if we want to compare Kobe and Shai. I'm not going going to compare Shai's 30 PER to Kobe's 28. I'll point out Shai is 2nd while Kobe was 3rd in their best PER seasons. And then I'd point out Shai was 3rd last year and Kobe was never higher than 5th any other season than his 28 PER season. Does that mean I think it's wrong to use the absolute values? I'm torn there a bit. I think Doc even had a scaled model he did to address this for a few of these metrics.

[dhsilv2]

Kobe was a harder worker, more intimidating, more petty, more clutch, and proved it in the playoffs. SGA has done jack **** in the playoffs.

Do you think Kobe has ever had a regular season as the one SGA is having now?

Yes, he had a bunch of them. If Kobe was playing in this era he'd be averaging 40. It doesn't matter though. If SGA wants to be talked about with the greats he's gonna have to do it in more than the regular season.

So you're saying that in Kobe's era there were more players as good or better than today's best players? In other words in any given individual season there were 3-4 guys playing as well as Jokic is today.

[dhsilv2]

I am one of Kobe's biggest fan but objectively some people are rating Kobe too high. His efficiency is not that great with bad habits of making difficult shots, and the mamba mentality can drive team mates the wrong way.

Efficiency wasn’t as important in Kobe’s era. His efficiency would be great if he was playing in todays league.

Yes it was. It was just as important in Jordan's era, Wilt's era, and Kareems. What was considered efficient has changed. Not it's value.

[Lockdown504090]

other than deploring these comparisons in the first place,,,,the question always brings in the additional debate of era's and rule changes, and then people go around in circles

i'm surprised there's been no stat summary of comparing players from different eras TO THEIR PEER GROUP.
for instance how good a rebounder is 2025playerX if he is a 14rpg and his top 5 peers are 13.8 ppg, and how do those 5 or 6 compare to the remaining 24. in that way you can understand "dominance" quantitatively

I see the relative true shooting numbers often, but I dont think thats what we are talking about when we look at these players from that era. The bottom like is that bryant averaged 35 ppg on decent relative efficency in a league where teams averaged less than 100. Thats an eyepopping level or burden that bryant was shouldering. When kobe doesnt create the offense there was no offense. if shai doesnt score, the team is still going to score. thats how the nba is now. there was a game against memphis where kobe didnt shoot the ball much and they scored 73 points in total. https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200511140MEM.html

There's a stat for that, its called usage, or what percentage of a team's possessions a player uses. Kobe's career usage rate is 31.8%, his career high was 38.1%. Typically, in any given season, only a handful of players will top 30%, and only twice in NBA history has a player ever topped 40% -- Kobe's 38.1% is actually 4th highest all time. SGA is at 34.5% this season though, so there's not a dramatic difference between SGA this season and Kobe's career high -- in fact, Kobe only broke a 34.5% mark 4 times in his 20 seasons, and SGA's mark this season would still be a top-50 usage rate all-time, so to act like SGA isnt shouldering a massive offensive burden is just flat out not true.

no, because usage only factors when the player is on the floor and doesnt differentiate for pace of play. because the game is faster there are probably 7 or so more possessions than in 2006. and on top of that there were only 7 minutes kobe was not in the game compared to shai who isnot in the game for 14 minutes a game. Usage isnt what I am quite what I am looking for. Zion has a really high usage for example, but he only plays just over half the game.

[markjay]

Strictly hoops, SGA is is closest thing to Kobe since prime Kobe. His scoring package is insane.

For his career Kobe took ~12% of his shots from the 3 to 10 ft area, and 27% from the 16 ft to 3pt area. SGA on the other hand takes 25% of his shots from the 3 to 10 ft area, and only 7% from 16 ft to 3pt.

SGA consistently plays near the paint and uses his footwork to get a lot of high quality clean looks, his shot selection is excellent which is why he's so efficient. Kobe on the other hand, while being the better player, had shoddy shot selection and took a lot of contested long 2s. They are both skilled offensive players who can knock down mid range jumpers, but that's where the similarities end.

SGA's league-adjusted true shooting percentage for his career (ages 20-26) is 106. Kobe's league-adjusted true shooting percentage for his age 20-26 seasons was also 106.

So while you are right that SGA is more efficient, that’s a reflection of changes in league-wide offensive strategies. At a similar stage of their careers, each was similarly efficient in comparison to their peers.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[slick_watts]

Strictly hoops, SGA is is closest thing to Kobe since prime Kobe. His scoring package is insane.

For his career Kobe took ~12% of his shots from the 3 to 10 ft area, and 27% from the 16 ft to 3pt area. SGA on the other hand takes 25% of his shots from the 3 to 10 ft area, and only 7% from 16 ft to 3pt.

SGA consistently plays near the paint and uses his footwork to get a lot of high quality clean looks, his shot selection is excellent which is why he's so efficient. Kobe on the other hand, while being the better player, had shoddy shot selection and took a lot of contested long 2s. They are both skilled offensive players who can knock down mid range jumpers, but that's where the similarities end.

SGA's league-adjusted true shooting percentage for his career (ages 20-26) is 106. Kobe's league-adjusted true shooting percentage for his age 20-26 seasons was also 106.

So while you are right that SGA is more efficient, that’s a reflection of changes in league-wide offensive strategies. At a similar stage of their careers, each was similarly efficient in comparison to their peers.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

this is grotesquely disingenuous. shai's current two-year, mvp level peak's ts+ is far better than any single kobe season.

[Big J]

Do you think Kobe has ever had a regular season as the one SGA is having now?

Yes, he had a bunch of them. If Kobe was playing in this era he'd be averaging 40. It doesn't matter though. If SGA wants to be talked about with the greats he's gonna have to do it in more than the regular season.

So you're saying that in Kobe's era there were more players as good or better than today's best players? In other words in any given individual season there were 3-4 guys playing as well as Jokic is today.

In Kobe’s era it was harder to put up big efficient scoring numbers. Someone like Gasol would probably be putting up similar numbers as Jokic if he was in his prime today.