Cavsfansince84 wrote:falcolombardi wrote:
I am fine with kobe as a top 15 peak albeit i think you sell him a bit short (and i surprise myself a bit by "defending" kobe who i am used to troll about because of his stans being super annoying)
He was a great offensive engine who was overated defenseively but was not a targetable weakness (like say, nash), his game sustained well in the post season relative to most, had demostrable success pairing with talented big men and synergizing with them
Like i probably dont put him top 10 but i wouldnt disagree with someone ranking him highly as a resilient playoffs scorer/passer and ranked him above like, bird or garnett based in said playoffs resiliency even if his regular season efficiency is somewhat uninspiring
If the peaks project had not gone the bambi mother way i woukd see myself putting him 11-13 most likely
Sort of hard to say I am selling him short imo without seeing my actual list and my criteria. I barely have Kobe in my top 15 all time and that's even with him having a 10-12 year prime and 5 rings to fall back on so him making a top 15 peak is not an easy sell I would say. Top 20 maybe but even then you're also adding in guys like Wade, Pettit, KD, Reed, Walton and on and on it goes. I'm not sure he is top 20 tbh.
Wade (and kawhi) are valid picks above kobe for peaks but they have thinghs going against them (less durable, less playoffs sample means somewhat less confidence in their results even if they were consistently great their few healthy runs)
Reed or pettit are hard sells as they were arguably worse within their leagues than kobe 40 years later, i wouldnt even bring them up for top 20 talk at all when shai, luka, giannis and jokic are there for current players to fit somewhere in there
Walton was fragile as porcelain and has 1 single healthy prime playoff run
On the other end guys that pcboard and realgm will generally rank above kobe by default i wouldnt be so sure, like larry bird (big scoring drop in the post season)
