More Valuable (or, Greater) Player: Tim Duncan or Kobe Bryant?

[An Unbiased Fan]

2008.

This. People used to debate this in the 2000s, until 2008. In there primes Kobe got the best of Duncan, and they literally played int he same conference. I think Duncan's legacy got a resurgence with the mid 2010 Spurs.

Both players are underrated. Like take away either from the 2000s and they have 7 titles.

[One_and_Done]

2008.

This. People used to debate this in the 2000s, until 2008. In there primes Kobe got the best of Duncan, and they literally played int he same conference. I think Duncan's legacy got a resurgence with the mid 2010 Spurs.

Both players are underrated. Like take away either from the 2000s and they have 7 titles.

The only debate was among Kobe fans. The informed consensus was quite different.

2001 is often cited along with 08 by Kobe's fans, but Kobe wasn't being guarded by Duncan in 01, he was being guarded by an elderly Dan Ferry and Antonio Daniels. Duncan was banging in the middle with the actual best player by far on the Lakers; Shaq. Duncan wasn't in his prime anymore in 08, and Kobe had a stacked team that year anyway. Of course the Lakers won, because their team was better, not because Kobe was. It wasn't a match up of Duncan vs Kobe, they didn't guard each other.

It's not just my opinion, it's the consensus view. Across Duncan's prime from 98-07 his MVP finishes compared to Kobe were as follows.

98- 5th (Kobe didn't even place)
99- 3rd (Kobe didn't even place)
00 - 5th (Kobe 12th)
01- 2nd (Kobe 9th)
02- 1st (Kobe 5th)
03- 1st (Kobe 3rd)
04- 2nd (Kobe 5th)
05- 4th (Kobe didn't even place)
06- 8th (Kobe 4th)
07- 4th (Kobe 3rd)

So you can see Duncan was generally kicking Kobe's ass in the minds of MVP voters over their primes, and Kobe's only 2 finishes over Duncan come right at the tail end of his prime when Duncan was chilling a little more in the regular season and letting Manu & Parker carry more of the load. MVP voting isn't everything, but it conveys popular sentiment outside LA nicely here.

KG's 04 MVP means alot more than Kobe's 08 lifetime achievement award. Kobe shouldn't have even finished top 3 that year. If KG hadn't suffered an injury in 09, and never been the same again, Kobe would have zero titles without Shaq.

In hindsight, Kobe was less impactful than a number of his contemporaries, including Lebron, Duncan, Shaq, KG and even Dirk. If we included peak only that list grows considerably to include guys like T-Mac, Wade, etc. The current top 100 project on this board agrees, Kobe is never ranked even close to Duncan, and his most recent showing of 13th is probably going to drop considerably next time the project is done. Next time guys like Giannis, Jokic, maybe Doncic, etc, will likely be ranked over him.

[NbaAllDay]

Duncan has the nod.

Kobe was more aesthetically pleasing and overall more loved so understandable some will side with him.

There is more to it than this but Duncan was a near GOAT level defender and had often underrated offensive production. Kobe was clearly on offense however the gap is much bigger on D.

Add in the fact that virtually all advanced metrics favour Duncan (this isn't be all end all but it's fairly overwhelming)

You can maybe argue Kobe for a game or a series or something like that because 'hot' factor but that's not really how evaluating the better player works and Duncan has it comfortably enough.