RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Kobe Bryant)

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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#101 » by cupcakesnake » Tue Aug 8, 2023 10:03 pm

Vote: Jerry West
Alternate: Big O


Everytime I get a fresh dosage of new Jerry West footage that I haven't seen, I just love him more and more. He has the best all-around game of any shooting guard, and that he's on my short list of most versatile players of all-time. He's as DPOY-level as a guard can possibly get. His hands are incredible, he's got that elite focus and toughness, and he's an outlier athlete with great length. On offense, I think he's the second or third best player of his era (I think Big O is a little better and Wilt is an interesting debate). Guards who could score like that in that era are extremely rare and special. The shooting was as good and as versatile as it came in an era with no 3-point line, and he tops it all off with strong playmaking.

Oscar is probably an even bigger offensive monster. 60s Jason Kidd with a pull up jumper. I like Big O's raw fire power in that larger frame, but Jerry West's defense and hustle is a significant edge to me.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#102 » by f4p » Tue Aug 8, 2023 10:04 pm

OhayoKD wrote:Are we classifying AD, Draymond and Giannis as wings?

Because the Kawhi's and PG's and KD's are certainly nowhere near "prototype defenders" of today


Colbinii wrote:
f4p wrote:
One_and_Done wrote:I would have Dirk well ahead. Moreover, if D.Rob or West get up this round I think you'd find support for Dirk over Kobe from the same voters backing West and D.Rob. Unlike Kobe, Dirk actually plays like a modern player.


i mean slow-footed big guys have tremendous issues on defense in the modern era. very athletic wings are the prototype defenders of today. i'm much more confident kobe adapts to modern offense than dirk suddenly gets a lot faster.


Are they?

I feel the best defenders are the PF/C hybrid's who can switch and have elite mobility [Bam, Draymond, JJJ, Mobley, Claxton] or are a GOAT-level POA defender [Caruso, Smart].


prototype as in the thing people are trying to copy, not the best of the best (obviously the taller you can be while still being very mobile, even better, but only so many of those to go around). a very athletic wing with the height to switch against a lot of people is a more valued modern defender than a slow big guy who will be hunted and who you have to work to hide. i would say the kevin love's and kanter's of the world being disappeared because of defense, and even someone like jokic having the "playoff defense" issue hanging over him is a much bigger change for someone like dirk than wondering if kobe would shoot less mid-range iso's in a more modern offense.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#103 » by One_and_Done » Tue Aug 8, 2023 10:20 pm

There are a lot of great players in NBA history who have had attitude issues, and we’ve already voted in some like Shaq, Wilt, Jordan and Magic. I see those issues as either things that should also be held against those players, or things that are distinct from the problems Kobe causes. Let’s start with the second aspect first.

Where Kobe’s attitude is different to some players is that it hurts you on the floor. A lot of players are weirdos or toxic off the court, but then when the whistle blows you’d never know it. Kurt Rambis used to steal soda from the team facility in his bag and take it home so he could stock up. Karl Malone had sex with a minor. Jordan punched a team mate. On the court though, those guys all came to play and the stuff off the court was forgotten. To some degree Jordan should get a minor tick against him because his running down team mates is something that had the potential to hurt team chemistry, though it never did in reality so who knows, but this is the sort of thing that’s not relevant to my basketball assessment of a guy.

Then there’s the guy whose attitude actually hurts the team’s results on the floor. Kobe falls squarely into this category. The first reason is because he would refuse to play in the way the coaching staff wanted to maximise their chances of winning. This is so well documented I don’t feel the need to get into details here. This applied on offense and defense. On offense Kobe would either disregard the system, or have tantrums or pout (Owly mentioned some of these examples, Phil Jackson has 2 books on them). On defence for most of his career he was prone to inconsistent effort, probably so he could conserve himself to use that energy on offense. In his last few years in the league, and had less energy than usual, that led to comical lack of effort on D, all of which has a bad effect on team morale, and thus an effect on team performance.

It isn’t good for team performance when your star player drives the other star on the team, who is better than him, off the team. It isn’t good when the team isn’t stacked for the first time, due to the lack of said star, and you then demand a trade. It isn’t good when you call out your team mates in public. Now to some degree these last elements are true of guys like Wilt and Shaq, and they get dinged for them. Shaq could be lazy on D, or act childish. Shaq didn’t like staying in shape. Wilt had a whole host of problems, and I wouldn’t have voted for him yet anyway. But Kobe is definitely worse.

One reason Kobe is worse involves the reason Kobe acting out. When Magic wanted his coach fired in 1981, the thing is he was kinda right. The coach had helped the team win the championship in 1980 by following the previous coach McKinney’s up-tempo offensive system. He’d been too hesitant to change it while McKinney might come back. Once it was certain McKinney wasn’t coming back, and Westhead had the confidence that came from winning a title, he wanted the team to play more through Kareem. This is all detailed in Showtime. It was a terrible decision, and Magic getting Westhead fired actually helped the team win more. Kobe’s tantrums weren’t because the team wasn’t doing all they could to win; it was because they weren’t winning his way, or because he felt disrespected, or some other personal nonsense. Freezing Shaq out of the 2004 finals is a good example. His refusing to shoot in the 2nd half of a game 7 in 2006 in Phoenix because he was reacting to criticism about not passing enough is another. Also while Shaq was no choir boy, some of his behavior in this respect was correct; getting SVG fired did result in the team winning a title. Off the court Shaq was a goofball. On the court he played the right way on O and helped the team win. His laziness on D we ding him for.

Ultimately Kobe’s attitude is distinct from most stars, and should be majorly dinged. The claims he would just play more efficiently today is not borne out by his 20 year career, and we can’t just give people a new personality in these rankings. It’s not like Kobe didn’t get told he had to play a different way to help the team win more during his career. He wasn’t interested.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#104 » by OhayoKD » Tue Aug 8, 2023 10:45 pm

One_and_Done wrote:There are a lot of great players in NBA history who have had attitude issues, and we’ve already voted in some like Shaq, Wilt, Jordan and Magic. I see those issues as either things that should also be held against those players, or things that are distinct from the problems Kobe causes. Let’s start with the second aspect first.

TLDR: Kobe winning 5 championships, leading elite offenses(even goatish by the standard used for last thread's inductee), and posting strong creation metrics is all noise/luck because those few snippets of kobe's career I've cherrypicked to build a narrative were definitely representative of how Kobe consistently played or didn't play...

Do you do this with players like KD, Shaq, and MJ who've all had similar(documented)"selfishness" issues? Or do you only project players worst moments as determinenitive of their entire careers when it's the ones you don't like
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#105 » by f4p » Tue Aug 8, 2023 10:47 pm

i haven't actually thought about what these numbers really mean (other than quick thoughts), but i was looking at my expected championships spreadsheet and thinking about how tough some of kobe's title runs were and wanted to see who had played the highest combined SRS in history and who had won against the most combined SRS in history. turns out, kobe comes in 1st in both measures. by a lot. i'm actually kind of surprised he's that far ahead of someone like duncan, who had huge longevity and tons of contending teams, or even pippen, who obviously added some above and beyond jordan. +22 over pippen in SRS for wins, +23 over duncan for SRS for opponents. shows why his actual vs expected delta is so high, because he played a ton of good teams.

Code: Select all

Rk    Player Name              Opp SRS - Wins   Opp SRS - Total
1     Kobe Bryant              144.64           209.06         
2     Scottie Pippen           122.12           182.03         
3     Tim Duncan               115.6            186.13         
4     Shaquille O'neal         111.55           183.5         
5     Michael Jordan           111.29           157.16         
6     Tony Parker              101.91           180.11         
7     Dennis Rodman            100.13           130.17         
8     Manu Ginobili            98.67            168.04         
9     Lebron James             92.88            174.89         
10    Horace Grant             90.07            135.43         
11    Stephen Curry            83.82            109.13         
12    Draymond Green           83.82            109.13         
13    Kevin Durant             80.83            139.56         
14    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar      70.03            128.29         
15    Magic Johnson            69.22            108.6         
16    Robert Parish            68.19            120.89         
17    Kawhi Leonard            66.77            115.58         
18    Sam Jones                61.31            70.63         
19    Clyde Drexler            61.07            128.74         
20    Dirk Nowitzki            60.2             136.47         
21    Bill Russell             60.01            69.33         
22    Pau Gasol                59.42            128.01         
23    Hakeem Olajuwon          58.56            119           
24    Rasheed Wallace          57.88            140.26         
25    John Havlicek            57.79            84.95         
26    Karl Malone              57.55            156.91         
27    Wilt Chamberlain         51.9             124.06         
28    James Harden             48.84            139.53         
29    Larry Bird               48.64            92.2           
30    Kevin McHale             48.37            94.11         
31    Dwyane Wade              48.31            89.18         
32    Ray Allen                46.83            98.06         
33    Isiah Thomas             46.19            82.66         
34    David Robinson           46.04            95.04         
35    Shawn Marion             44.26            116.06         
36    Gary Payton              44.19            113.96         
37    Russell Westbrook        44.11            110.1         
38    Paul Pierce              43.86            98.72         
39    Chris Paul               43.8             112.17         
40    Jeff Hornacek            43.55            110.41         
41    John Stockton            43.28            139.65         
42    Kevin Garnett            42.88            111.07         
43    Bobby Jones              42.26            86.35         
44    James Worthy             42.13            78.82         
45    Julius Erving            41.86            89.33         
46    Patrick Ewing            41.3             122.81         
47    Dwight Howard            40.26            95             
48    Steve Nash               39.5             115           
49    Terry Porter             35.67            106.73         
50    Chris Bosh               35.38            51.58         
51    George Mikan             35.2             36.32         
52    Jimmy Butler             34.73            84.18         
53    Kevin Johnson            33.84            94.12         
54    Walt Frazier             32.18            62.31         
55    Chauncey Billups         32.18            94.58         
56    Wes Unseld               31.81            81.77         
57    Jason Kidd               31.58            115.91         
58    Bill Walton              31.36            41.16         
59    Dikembe Mutombo          29.14            89.65         
60    Willis Reed              29.06            53.94         
61    Jack Sikma               28.24            57.46         
62    Jayson Tatum             27.79            48.64         
63    Charles Barkley          25.59            94.78         
64    Elvin Hayes              24.95            52.56         
65    Moses Malone             24.42            71.13         
66    Bob McAdoo               23.21            62.92         
67    Reggie Miller            22.97            89.1           
68    Bob Cousy                22.76            34.8           
69    Gus Williams             20.69            40.59         
70    Ben Wallace              18.05            55.12         
71    Jerry West               17.28            81.99         
72    Adrian Dantley           17.26            35.12         
73    Damian Lillard           16.94            69.29         
74    Alonzo Mourning          16.59            64.05         
75    Anthony Davis            15.32            39.83         
76    Nikola Jokic             14.95            36.85         
77    Hal Greer                14.79            62.82         
78    Vince Carter             14.36            77.22         
79    Giannis Antetokounmpo    14.02            38.41         
80    Dave Cowens              13.17            35.87         
81    Luka Doncic              12.61            30.81         
82    Rick Barry               12.51            41.69         
83    Sidney Moncrief          11.47            76.3           
84    Billy Cunningham         11.37            30.09         
85    Allen Iverson            11.02            46.49         
86    Alex English             10.31            48.98         
87    Dolph Schayes            10.17            50.46         
88    Nate Thurmond            10.14            66.2           
89    Grant Hill               8.25             42.63         
90    Oscar Robertson          7.97             50.46         
91    Paul Arizin              7.81             34.16         
92    Larry Nance              7.14             41.48         
93    Tracy McGrady            7.12             40.17         
94    Artis Gilmore            6.43             37.28         
95    George Gervin            5.7              29.98         
96    Dan Issel                4.32             27.58         
97    Bob Lanier               3.98             47.01         
98    Dominique Wilkins        2.48             52.96         
99    Carmelo Anthony          2.47             75.51         
100   Walt Bellamy             0.97             36.41         
101   Cliff Hagan              -4.95            16.08         
102   Bob Pettit               -5.87            15.61         
103   Elgin Baylor             -12.08           46.56         



edit: poor elgin baylor

also edit: since people have asked about horry before. he actually clears kobe in both measures by as much as kobe clears everyone else (227 combined Opp SRS, 168 won against).
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#106 » by HeartBreakKid » Tue Aug 8, 2023 10:58 pm

I'm not surprised. The ability between West and East was very imbalanced for an incredibly long time. Kobe's entire time as a relevant correlates with most of that time.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#107 » by OhayoKD » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:00 pm

f4p wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:Are we classifying AD, Draymond and Giannis as wings?

Because the Kawhi's and PG's and KD's are certainly nowhere near "prototype defenders" of today


Colbinii wrote:
f4p wrote:
i mean slow-footed big guys have tremendous issues on defense in the modern era. very athletic wings are the prototype defenders of today. i'm much more confident kobe adapts to modern offense than dirk suddenly gets a lot faster.


Are they?

I feel the best defenders are the PF/C hybrid's who can switch and have elite mobility [Bam, Draymond, JJJ, Mobley, Claxton] or are a GOAT-level POA defender [Caruso, Smart].


prototype as in the thing people are trying to copy, not the best of the best (obviously the taller you can be while still being very mobile, even better, but only so many of those to go around). a very athletic wing with the height to switch against a lot of people is a more valued modern defender than a slow big guy who will be hunted and who you have to work to hide. i would say the kevin love's and kanter's of the world being disappeared because of defense, and even someone like jokic having the "playoff defense" issue hanging over him is a much bigger change for someone like dirk than wondering if kobe would shoot less mid-range iso's in a more modern offense.

I mean 30+ Marc Gasol was still more valuable than multiple of these defenders combined in toronto but sure. I get the gist. Kobe isn't a wing though, he's a guard, and he lacks the size, strength, and hands of a kawhi or a paul george and even then, those two still get outdone defensively by a tweener like Lebron(especially in a playoff-setting) who himself(excepting small-ball matchups maybe) is not bringing the value a marc gasol who then isn't really matching a ad, draymond, or giannis.

Kobe really wasn't some lockdown man defender post 1st-three peat when he scaled up offensively(though some of that was rs-coasting)

Kobe's like, several tiers removed here defensively. You can say it's still an advantage over dirk because guards being not massively imapctful is less of a positional issue than bigs not being massively impactful, but I'm not really getting how someone maps kobe to(prime defensive)kawhi on defense
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#108 » by iggymcfrack » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:27 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
One_and_Done wrote:There are a lot of great players in NBA history who have had attitude issues, and we’ve already voted in some like Shaq, Wilt, Jordan and Magic. I see those issues as either things that should also be held against those players, or things that are distinct from the problems Kobe causes. Let’s start with the second aspect first.

TLDR: Kobe winning 5 championships, leading elite offenses(even goatish by the standard used for last thread's inductee), and posting strong creation metrics is all noise/luck because those few snippets of kobe's career I've cherrypicked to build a narrative were definitely representative of how Kobe consistently played or didn't play...

Do you do this with players like KD, Shaq, and MJ who've all had similar(documented)"selfishness" issues? Or do you only project players worst moments as determinenitive of their entire careers when it's the ones you don't like


The only player I can think of whose selfishness issues hurt his teams the way Kobe did was Wilt. Neither one of them impacted winning the way you thought they should with their talent due to their attitude issues. I wouldn’t have either player in my top 15.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#109 » by f4p » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:34 pm

HeartBreakKid wrote:I'm not surprised. The ability between West and East was very imbalanced for an incredibly long time. Kobe's entire time as a relevant correlates with most of that time.


yeah, but you have to beat those imbalanced opponents. someone like duncan basically has all the same characteristics, with an even better average team, and is 30 points behind. as is shaq. dirk played in the west with pretty good teams and is at barely 40% of kobe's "win SRS".
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#110 » by f4p » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:37 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
f4p wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:Are we classifying AD, Draymond and Giannis as wings?

Because the Kawhi's and PG's and KD's are certainly nowhere near "prototype defenders" of today


Colbinii wrote:
Are they?

I feel the best defenders are the PF/C hybrid's who can switch and have elite mobility [Bam, Draymond, JJJ, Mobley, Claxton] or are a GOAT-level POA defender [Caruso, Smart].


prototype as in the thing people are trying to copy, not the best of the best (obviously the taller you can be while still being very mobile, even better, but only so many of those to go around). a very athletic wing with the height to switch against a lot of people is a more valued modern defender than a slow big guy who will be hunted and who you have to work to hide. i would say the kevin love's and kanter's of the world being disappeared because of defense, and even someone like jokic having the "playoff defense" issue hanging over him is a much bigger change for someone like dirk than wondering if kobe would shoot less mid-range iso's in a more modern offense.

I mean 30+ Marc Gasol was still more valuable than multiple of these defenders combined in toronto but sure. I get the gist. Kobe isn't a wing though, he's a guard, and he lacks the size, strength, and hands of a kawhi or a paul george and even then, those two still get outdone defensively by a tweener like Lebron(especially in a playoff-setting) who himself(excepting small-ball matchups maybe) is not bringing the value a marc gasol who then isn't really matching a ad, draymond, or giannis.

Kobe really wasn't some lockdown man defender post 1st-three peat when he scaled up offensively(though some of that was rs-coasting)

Kobe's like, several tiers removed here defensively. You can say it's still an advantage over dirk because guards being not massively imapctful is less of a positional issue than bigs not being massively impactful,


that is what i said.

but I'm not really getting how someone maps kobe to(prime defensive)kawhi on defense


i didn't say anything about that.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#111 » by OhayoKD » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:39 pm

f4p wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:I'm not surprised. The ability between West and East was very imbalanced for an incredibly long time. Kobe's entire time as a relevant correlates with most of that time.


yeah, but you have to beat those imbalanced opponents. someone like duncan basically has all the same characteristics, with an even better average team, and is 30 points behind. as is shaq. dirk played in the west with pretty good teams and is at barely 40% of kobe's "win SRS".

Duncan did indeed lead better regular season teams than the other guys did. Well spotted
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#112 » by OhayoKD » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:40 pm

f4p wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
f4p wrote:


prototype as in the thing people are trying to copy, not the best of the best (obviously the taller you can be while still being very mobile, even better, but only so many of those to go around). a very athletic wing with the height to switch against a lot of people is a more valued modern defender than a slow big guy who will be hunted and who you have to work to hide. i would say the kevin love's and kanter's of the world being disappeared because of defense, and even someone like jokic having the "playoff defense" issue hanging over him is a much bigger change for someone like dirk than wondering if kobe would shoot less mid-range iso's in a more modern offense.

I mean 30+ Marc Gasol was still more valuable than multiple of these defenders combined in toronto but sure. I get the gist. Kobe isn't a wing though, he's a guard, and he lacks the size, strength, and hands of a kawhi or a paul george and even then, those two still get outdone defensively by a tweener like Lebron(especially in a playoff-setting) who himself(excepting small-ball matchups maybe) is not bringing the value a marc gasol who then isn't really matching a ad, draymond, or giannis.

Kobe really wasn't some lockdown man defender post 1st-three peat when he scaled up offensively(though some of that was rs-coasting)

Kobe's like, several tiers removed here defensively. You can say it's still an advantage over dirk because guards being not massively imapctful is less of a positional issue than bigs not being massively impactful,


that is what i said.

but I'm not really getting how someone maps kobe to(prime defensive)kawhi on defense


i didn't say anything about that.

Alright fair
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#113 » by HeartBreakKid » Tue Aug 8, 2023 11:43 pm

f4p wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:I'm not surprised. The ability between West and East was very imbalanced for an incredibly long time. Kobe's entire time as a relevant correlates with most of that time.


yeah, but you have to beat those imbalanced opponents. someone like duncan basically has all the same characteristics, with an even better average team, and is 30 points behind. as is shaq. dirk played in the west with pretty good teams and is at barely 40% of kobe's "win SRS".



Yes, you have to beat those teams. That is what Kobe did. He has 5 rings! He won a lot more than Nowitzki did, and won a decent bit more than Shaq did considering Shaq fizzled out in the 00s due to age. I'm not surprised at all he beat tougher opponents, why would anyone be surprised by that?


If I had to guess, the problem with big Timmy is that in some of his deep runs his teams did not face higher SRS teams relative to the 3 peat Lakers. I looked at the 99 Spurs and the 2000 Lakers because they're next to each other and I am lazy, and it seems like in every round the Lakers opponents had a higher SRS.

I'm guessing that the west was at it's toughest during the early 2000s, and that was an era where the Lakers went all the way and the Spurs did not. That probably adds up.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#114 » by f4p » Wed Aug 9, 2023 12:05 am

HeartBreakKid wrote:
f4p wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:I'm not surprised. The ability between West and East was very imbalanced for an incredibly long time. Kobe's entire time as a relevant correlates with most of that time.


yeah, but you have to beat those imbalanced opponents. someone like duncan basically has all the same characteristics, with an even better average team, and is 30 points behind. as is shaq. dirk played in the west with pretty good teams and is at barely 40% of kobe's "win SRS".



Yes, you have to beat those teams. That is what Kobe did. He has 5 rings! He won a lot more than Nowitzki did, and won a decent bit more than Shaq did considering Shaq fizzled out in the 00s due to age. I'm not surprised at all he beat tougher opponents, why would anyone be surprised by that?


the same reason anyone would be surprised when someone leads an all-time stat by a country mile? especially when he has the same number of titles and significantly less actual playoff games won than someone else who shared the conference at almost the exact same time? and that's with the fact that kobe basically stopped racking up "wins SRS" after 2010 while duncan was on very good teams out to 2016.


If I had to guess, the problem with big Timmy is that in some of his deep runs his teams did not face higher SRS teams relative to the 3 peat Lakers. I looked at the 99 Spurs and the 2000 Lakers because they're next to each other and I am lazy, and it seems like in every round the Lakers opponents had a higher SRS.

I'm guessing that the west was at it's toughest during the early 2000s, and that was an era where the Lakers went all the way and the Spurs did not. That probably adds up.


well this is essentially part of an argument to say that kobe's titles are probably more impressive than they look. like the 2001 lakers actually beat one of the toughest combined SRS's ever and still looked all-time great doing it. it's part of why kobe's "actual vs expected" titles is so high. because you're really not supposed to win 5 when you play such tough opponents. like even outside of championship years, kobe actually beats duncan by about 10 "wins SRS", which i'm guessing most people wouldn't expect give the general perception of how good a non-title spurs team was and a non-title kobe team was.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#115 » by HeartBreakKid » Wed Aug 9, 2023 12:35 am

f4p wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:
f4p wrote:
yeah, but you have to beat those imbalanced opponents. someone like duncan basically has all the same characteristics, with an even better average team, and is 30 points behind. as is shaq. dirk played in the west with pretty good teams and is at barely 40% of kobe's "win SRS".



Yes, you have to beat those teams. That is what Kobe did. He has 5 rings! He won a lot more than Nowitzki did, and won a decent bit more than Shaq did considering Shaq fizzled out in the 00s due to age. I'm not surprised at all he beat tougher opponents, why would anyone be surprised by that?


the same reason anyone would be surprised when someone leads an all-time stat by a country mile? especially when he has the same number of titles and significantly less actual playoff games won than someone else who shared the conference at almost the exact same time? and that's with the fact that kobe basically stopped racking up "wins SRS" after 2010 while duncan was on very good teams out to 2016.


If I had to guess, the problem with big Timmy is that in some of his deep runs his teams did not face higher SRS teams relative to the 3 peat Lakers. I looked at the 99 Spurs and the 2000 Lakers because they're next to each other and I am lazy, and it seems like in every round the Lakers opponents had a higher SRS.

I'm guessing that the west was at it's toughest during the early 2000s, and that was an era where the Lakers went all the way and the Spurs did not. That probably adds up.


well this is essentially part of an argument to say that kobe's titles are probably more impressive than they look. like the 2001 lakers actually beat one of the toughest combined SRS's ever and still looked all-time great doing it. it's part of why kobe's "actual vs expected" titles is so high. because you're really not supposed to win 5 when you play such tough opponents. like even outside of championship years, kobe actually beats duncan by about 10 "wins SRS", which i'm guessing most people wouldn't expect give the general perception of how good a non-title spurs team was and a non-title kobe team was.

I guess I thought that had been covered before around here that Kobe faced and beat the toughest competition (crudely speaking). Who did you think would lead that? Duncan?

The 3 peat Lakers are one of the best teams of all time. I don't think they were ever down played much. Kobe's role on them may have been, but not the team as a whole or their championships (the only criticism I can think of is a ref scandal in 02).

They were nearly defeated in the West in 00 and 02 by titans who had very large SRS as well. Pacers weren't chop liver either for an East team. They got a freebie against the 04 Timberwolves too ;)
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#116 » by One_and_Done » Wed Aug 9, 2023 12:51 am

Not many pre-2011 teams would hold up well in today's much tougher league. The Lakers are not exempt from that reality. They'd still be a great team, but they'd be worse today. Certainly not one of the GOAT teams.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#117 » by lessthanjake » Wed Aug 9, 2023 1:03 am

HeartBreakKid wrote:
f4p wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:

Yes, you have to beat those teams. That is what Kobe did. He has 5 rings! He won a lot more than Nowitzki did, and won a decent bit more than Shaq did considering Shaq fizzled out in the 00s due to age. I'm not surprised at all he beat tougher opponents, why would anyone be surprised by that?


the same reason anyone would be surprised when someone leads an all-time stat by a country mile? especially when he has the same number of titles and significantly less actual playoff games won than someone else who shared the conference at almost the exact same time? and that's with the fact that kobe basically stopped racking up "wins SRS" after 2010 while duncan was on very good teams out to 2016.


If I had to guess, the problem with big Timmy is that in some of his deep runs his teams did not face higher SRS teams relative to the 3 peat Lakers. I looked at the 99 Spurs and the 2000 Lakers because they're next to each other and I am lazy, and it seems like in every round the Lakers opponents had a higher SRS.

I'm guessing that the west was at it's toughest during the early 2000s, and that was an era where the Lakers went all the way and the Spurs did not. That probably adds up.


well this is essentially part of an argument to say that kobe's titles are probably more impressive than they look. like the 2001 lakers actually beat one of the toughest combined SRS's ever and still looked all-time great doing it. it's part of why kobe's "actual vs expected" titles is so high. because you're really not supposed to win 5 when you play such tough opponents. like even outside of championship years, kobe actually beats duncan by about 10 "wins SRS", which i'm guessing most people wouldn't expect give the general perception of how good a non-title spurs team was and a non-title kobe team was.

I guess I thought that had been covered before around here that Kobe faced and beat the toughest competition (crudely speaking). Who did you think would lead that? Duncan?

The 3 peat Lakers are one of the best teams of all time. I don't think they were ever down played much. Kobe's role on them may have been, but not the team as a whole or their championships (the only criticism I can think of is a ref scandal in 02).

They were nearly defeated in the West in 00 and 02 by titans who had very large SRS as well. Pacers weren't chop liver either for an East team. They got a freebie against the 04 Timberwolves too ;)


To be fair, I think those three-peat Lakers were actually pretty lucky to win in 2000 and 2002. In those years, they won 8 series and were actually outscored in 3 of them (by the 2000 Blazers, 2000 Pacers, and 2002 Kings).
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#118 » by Dr Positivity » Wed Aug 9, 2023 1:40 am

The Lakers during the Pau years had excellent chemistry despite having a lot of mental wild cards like Odom, Bynum and Artest. Kobe has a big ego but I don't have a problem with his leadership, I'd definitely take it over players like Durant and Kawhi.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#119 » by One_and_Done » Wed Aug 9, 2023 1:46 am

Even disregarding the toxic stuff, the stats I noted on page 1 make it fairly clear to me that Kobe just wasn't as goof as other guys in consideration here.

Just what is the statistical argument for him over peak Giannis or Jokic or Kawhi? You have to argue longevity basically. KD has the longevity though, and is also superior on stats.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #13 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 8/10/23) 

Post#120 » by f4p » Wed Aug 9, 2023 2:03 am

Voting Post
1. Kobe Bryant
2. George Mikan



Kobe: As others have shown, he has actually produced very good offenses in his career, belying the idea that he was just a chucker who scored a lot. he dominated in actual vs expected championships. as just shown, he beat the highest combined opponents SRS in history for any of the top 100 type stars. i would actually say that's a pretty impressive thing to lead in. like even if bill russell got 4 rounds to play in and doubled his combined opponents SRS in wins, he would still be behind kobe. by a lot. he's the most accomplished modern player left on the board. but to that point...

Mikan: before this project, i figured i'd be voting for george mikan once we got everyone else out of the way. that's what you do. you vote for all the people who have won an alpha championship, throw in some longevity guys whose careers you remember real well, and then you eventually vote for "that guy". mikan. guy who played in the 40's. with the plumbers. and not even the good plumbers.

but then you think about it, and the guy started his nba career 12 years before west and oscar. those guys played in a modern league, right? and they were nowhere close to the era-relative dominance of mikan. like, not even a little. and then you go back a little further. bill russell won a title in 1957 as a rookie, and we all just lump that in with his other 10 titles. all from the modern nba, right? and yet just 3 years earlier, mikan won a title as the best player in the league. could the league have changed that much? it's not like the league suddenly became massively more popular and money started flooding in and the 1957 talent pool swamped the 1954 talent pool.

while i do think it's reasonable to think that there was a fairly rapid increase in the league talent in the early days, it's hard to think that titles in 1953 and 1954 could really be that different from a title in 1957.

obviously, if you are going to play in the weakest era, perhaps weakest by a bit, you better absolutely dominate. and mikan does. enough that i think that's it's certainly right to start talking about him now. we are talking about west and oscar, and they are seemingly fairly distant 3rd/4th in their era. is a clear cut #1, arguably a bill russell-level winner with wilt chamberlain-level stats, from just 12 years before not better than them? there obviously isn't much to go on as far as stats or videotape for mikan, but what we do have in stats is dominant.

once they start counting minutes in 1952, which is after the lane-widening, mikan leads the league in PER for the next 3 years. actually peaking at 29.0 in 1954. he finishes 2nd, 1st, and 3rd in WS48.

in the playoffs, he leads the league in PER all 3 years. he finishes 3rd, 1st, and 1st in WS48.

in fact, in 1954, the year that is only 3 years before bill russell wins his first title, mikan sets the playoff record for PER (33.6) and WS48 (0.391), records which would stand for a multi-series playoff run until 2009 lebron. the 0.391 WS48 is just enormous. so he had the most statistically dominant playoffs for most of NBA history while winning a title, including winning as an SRS underdog in the finals against +4.3 team.

and of course, by all accounts this is the weak part of his career. from 1949-1951, he average 28.0 ppg on 41.7 FG% compared to 20.7 ppg and 38.8 FG% from 1952-1954. the league was a little faster-paced in the earlier 3 year era, but considering the gulf between these stats and given that he was leading the league in basically everything from '52-'54, he was almost certainly having the highest PER seasons in history from '49-'51. he played 40 mpg in 1952. even if we assume he played 43 mpg in 1949, 1950, and 1951, his WS48 in the regular season would beat 1972 kareem all 3 years for the nba record.

in the playoffs, the statistical difference between '49-'51 and '52-'54 is basically the same. so again, almost certainly at least in 2nd all-time in PER behind 2009 lebron and possibly in first. even if he played all 48 minutes in 1949, he would have the WS48 record at 0.420. so mostly like somewhere around 0.450 WS48 if he played 45 minutes. only 1951 shows a drop off.

and what probably impressed me the most when i started looking at numbers before this project, things that were supposed to impress me about hakeem, mikan stands out as an amazing playoff riser.

Actual Championships vs Expected Championships - 5 vs 2.31 (2.69 delta is 7th), +116% is 13th

how did this happen? well, playoff resiliency. i looked at the last project's Top 33 (just stopped at pippen due to time and less interest in the players below him) plus newer guys like jokic, giannis, embiid, and kawhi and then put in tatum and butler. i would've put in doncic but i only did ages 22-35 and doncic only had one season (though he would have led the list below).

all the data is from ages 22 to 35 and it looks at the BBRef stats PER, WS48, BPM, and TS% and compares each year to the regular season. the resilience at the end is just an average of the normalized increase/decrease for each value. +1 is a top 95% value and -1 is a bottom 6.5% value (couldn't use 5% because the lower values were so low that they were making the average season as slightly "resilient"). for playoff runs shorter than 10 games, the final value was multiplied by "Games/10" so a 5 game, 1 round playoffs would get weighed at 50%. the table is their career average (each playoff run weighed equally to essentially average your resiliency from year to year). mikan comes in 3rd behind kawhi and hakeem. so the guy who absolutely kills regular season stats also shows up as one of the great individual playoff risers ever. and he's a huge team riser as well.

Code: Select all

Rank   Player Name             Career Avg       
1      Kawhi Leonard           0.4561           
2      Hakeem Olajuwon         0.3315           
3      George Mikan            0.3246           
4      Lebron James            0.2747           
5      Bill Russell            0.2548           
6      Walt Frazier            0.2318           
7      Jerry West              0.2142           
8      Michael Jordan          0.2081           
9      Tim Duncan              0.166             
10     Magic Johnson           0.0968           
11     Scottie Pippen          0.0963           
12     Oscar Robertson         0.0865           
13     Kobe Bryant             0.0856           
14     Charles Barkley         0.0779           
15     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     0.0554           
16     Dirk Nowitzki           0.0534           
17     Jayson Tatum            0.0247           
18     Nikola Jokic            0.0205           
19     Shaquille O'neal        0.0179           
20     Moses Malone            0.0093           
21     Dwyane Wade             -0.0021           
22     Chris Paul              -0.0156           
23     Julius Erving           -0.0231           
24     Jimmy Butler            -0.0341           
25     Wilt Chamberlain        -0.0851           
26     Kevin Garnett           -0.1115           
27     Larry Bird              -0.1327           
28     Kevin Durant            -0.1435           
29     Patrick Ewing           -0.1446           
30     David Robinson          -0.1552           
31     Steve Nash              -0.1582           
32     Stephen Curry           -0.1613           
33     Bob Pettit              -0.1624           
34     John Stockton           -0.182           
35     Giannis Antetokounmpo   -0.1975           
36     James Harden            -0.1982           
37     Karl Malone             -0.2959           
38     Joel Embiid             -0.533           



the following table shows how much better a player was in the playoffs to explain how many championships they won. well, it turns out for mikan it would be a massive 13.5 wins per season or 5.0 SRS. even above hakeem.

Image

at some point, winning 7 titles in 8 years, dominating basically every regular season stat that was available, dominating every playoff stat that was available, being one of the great playoff risers ever, and still basically being able to do it all within 3 years of bill russell entering the nba, tells me mikan needs to be above other players from the league's first 25 years who weren't nearly as dominant in their era.

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