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

[lessthanjake]

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.

In retrospect, it’s actually pretty incredible that that team was so good when they had Odom, Bynum, and Artest, on top of Kobe not being the easiest star. Honestly, probably Phil Jackson’s masterpiece in terms of man management.

[One_and_Done]

1. Kobe Bryant
2. George Mikan

These pro-Kobe posts are confirming my view that the pro-Kobe vote is not due to any sort of modermist views, but is driven by a kind of 'achievenent/accolades' metric which is kind of the antithesis of how I rate guys. Almost every Kobe voter has an old timie candidate next, which is instructive.

I don't see why Mikan dominating 3 years before Russell arrived matters, given how much the league had changed in that time. It certainly isn't compelling to me, as I wouldn't have voted Russell in yet for era reasons.

You cite the same 'combined SRS' metric that was debunked as invalid in the Hakeem threads, and is even more invalid here for reasons that have been explained already. Do I really need to explain again why beating 4 opponents with an SRS of 4 might not be as impressive as beating 4 teams with an SRS of -1, 3, 7 and 7? It should be common sense, and that's before we even factor in other context like injuries, teams coasting in the RS, era difference, etc.

[f4p]

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?

yes, people know kobe played tough opponents, but this tough? far and away #1? wouldn't you pick duncan? same conference, but with 22 more playoff wins (157 to 135). now i knew duncan hadn't beaten a lot of +6 teams in his career, but still you're essentially starting with kobe in a deficit. if you told me he just edged duncan out, i might believe it. but winning by 30? that's a fairly amazing turnaround. i could have believe kobe/mj/duncan/shaq all up near the top, but not a standout amongst them. the difference between kobe and duncan is more than the career total for barkley, or reggie miller, or moses malone. it's giannis plus jerry west combined.

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

yes, i agree they are great. i'm actually saying it should be viewed as quite impressive to play a combined 62 SRS worth of opponents in 3 years and beat them all. the fact it was close in a few series is basically inevitable when you play that many good opponents. jordan's best 3-year run would be 55 SRS, and only if you call 93/96/97 as consecutive years. duncan doesn't have a single 3 year run above 35 in the playoffs. russell's entire career is below 62. there are guys in the top 25 with no or only 1 playoff run even above 10. i would say being this far ahead has given me an increased appreciation for the relative strength of kobe's opponents.

[penbeast0]

... guy who played in the 40's. with the plumbers. and not even the good plumbers. ...

I strongly resent the implication that plumbers weren't as good during the 1940s. Seriously, technology in plumbing hasn't improved that much and it was an era where blue collars workers took their jobs seriously and raised families on that single income.

[f4p]

1. Kobe Bryant
2. George Mikan

These pro-Kobe posts are confirming my view that the pro-Kobe vote is not due to any sort of modermist views,

are they supposed to be driven by modernist views?

but is driven by a kind of 'achievenent/accolades' metric which is kind of the antithesis of how I rate guys. Almost every Kobe voter has an old timie candidate next, which is instructive.

has anyone really mentioned accolades? certainly no one is rating him highly because of his all-defensive teams. and yes, he achieved a lot. winning 5 titles against arguably the toughest slate of competition ever would seem to be pretty good, considering we only have 3 guys who have won more and they've all already been voted in long ago, and two of them (kareem and russell) got theirs by going through way less total competition, with all 11 of russell's titles or all 6 of kareem's titles involving less combined SRS than just the lakers 3-peat (kareem's 6 title total of 44.4 is even less than kobe's total just from 2008-2010).

I don't see why Mikan dominating 3 years before Russell arrived matters, given how much the league had changed in that time. It certainly isn't compelling to me, as I wouldn't have voted Russell in yet for era reasons.

well, yes, you are the most extreme era partisan in this project. you won't even vote for oscar or west either, so this doesn't seem compelling evidence against mikan. also, why would the league talent change so much in 3 years? as mentioned, it's not as if there was some wave of talent that came. what if he had dominated the year before russell got there? what is the demarcation between counts and doesn't count?

You cite the same 'combined SRS' metric that was debunked as invalid in the Hakeem threads, and is even more invalid here for reasons that have been explained already. Do I really need to explain again why beating 4 opponents with an SRS of 4 might not be as impressive as beating 4 teams with an SRS of -1, 3, 7 and 7? It should be common sense, and that's before we even factor in other context like injuries, teams coasting in the RS, etc.

debunked by what, lol? playing harder opponents makes it harder to win. i don't know what to tell you. as for your -1/3/7/7 example. you know that actual vs expected titles calculation you like so much? you know what it does? it accounts for playing a -1, 3, 7, and 7 set of opponents. because it goes series by series, not by cumulative numbers. it does exactly what you recommend, because i understand the math quite well that equipotent opponents is the easiest way to win. of course, over careers that span more than a decade, the effects that might show up in a single playoff run tend to even out for everyone as it's not really possible to just play the same level team over and over again, even as you go up in rounds to the conference finals and finals.

as for injury adjustments, well, we will have to just commend those to the sands of time. unless you would like to give me the injury adjustment for every team ever? there's about 1600 team-seasons to look at.

[f4p]

... guy who played in the 40's. with the plumbers. and not even the good plumbers. ...

I strongly resent the implication that plumbers weren't as good during the 1940s. Seriously, technology in plumbing hasn't improved that much and it was an era where blue collars workers took their jobs seriously and raised families on that single income.

i was talking about how well the plumbers played basketball. i'm sure they fixed a mean toilet .

[One_and_Done]

We have explained so many times why cumulative SRS is a poor method for working out how tough your opponents were. You just keep repeating it anyway. How about you just cite a year or years you think Kobe beat tough opponents and people here discuss that specific title run with context? For instance, 09 was cited as a tough slate. Except one of those teams was the Houston Rockets with T-Mac amd Yao out with injuries, so were they really a tough team?

But more than that it's obvious why it's invalid, per the example I gave. You're almost certainly going to find it easier to beat 4 teams who each had an SRS of 4, than 2 trash teams then 2 teams with 60 wins and a 7 SRS. It also rewards arbitrary /poor RS results, as we explained to you in the Hakeem thread. Why am I punishing a 65 win team for having done so well in the RS that they have 2 pushover foes in rounds 1 and 2? Why are we letting a team get an artificially worse SRS ranking when they win 65 games and play a 37 win -3 SRS dog in the 1st round? Why are we punishing them for losing to a team who had injuries in the 1st half of the season, but when healthy played like a 60 win 8 SRS team?

You like this metric, it's very pro-Hakeem, but it's like using HCA to champion Jordan. It makes no sense.

[therealbig3]

It’s funny, for as bad as a teammate he was and how uncoachable he was, and how many games he “cost” the Lakers…Kobe had quite a bit of success and came through multiple times on an individual level. Other than 2004…when did Kobe’s Lakers lose a series they should have won? Maybe 2006 against Phoenix because of the 3-1 lead…but they weren’t even expected to be up 3-1 in the first place, that was a 2-7 matchup.

Objectively speaking, I’m also not seeing how 2011 LeBron is any less egregious than 2004 Kobe. LeBron becoming super passive and undershooting was just as bad as Kobe becoming super aggressive and overshooting.

These criticisms of Kobe as a teammate and leader are kind of tired. His criticisms get more publicized because of a very public feud with Shaq and the rape allegations. He became public enemy #1 for a while and everyone wanted to criticize him. But you can point to a lot of bad moments for a lot of players that ultimately were still good teammates and leaders. Kobe is no different.

[therealbig3]

Larry Bird getting into a bar fight and breaking his hand in the middle of a playoff run cost them the title too, that was also worse than Kobe’s 04 Finals.

[lessthanjake]

We have explained so many times why cumulative SRS is a poor method for working out how tough your opponents were. You just keep repeating it anyway. How about you just cite a year or years you think Kobe beat tough opponents and people here discuss that specific title run with context? For instance, 09 was cited as a tough slate. Except one of those teams was the Houston Rockets with T-Mac amd Yao out with injuries, so were they really a tough team?

But more than that it's obvious why it's invalid, per the example I gave. You're almost certainly going to find it easier to beat 4 teams who each had an SRS of 4, than 2 trash teams then 2 teams with 60 wins and a 7 SRS. It also rewards arbitrary /poor RS results, as we explained to you in the Hakeem thread. Why am I punishing a 65 win team for having done so well in the RS that they have 2 pushover foes in rounds 1 and 2? Why are we letting a team get an artificially worse SRS ranking when they win 65 games and play a 37 win -3 SRS dog in the 1st round? Why are we punishing them for losing to a team who had injuries in the 1st half of the season, but when healthy played like a 60 win 8 SRS team?

You like this metric, it's very pro-Hakeem, but it's like using HCA to champion Jordan. It makes no sense.

I agree with your general points here completely, but I do also think it’s true that the Lakers faced some legitimately tough runs during the three-peat, because of how good the Western Conference was. Every single time, the conference semifinals and conference finals were against actually good teams—5+ SRS teams every time, and all but one of those opponents was a 6+ SRS team. Meanwhile, even their first round opponents were actually pretty dangerous. It was the Blazers or Kings each time (who were really good teams in that era), and they were between like 3-4.5 SRS. Usually first round opponents are a cakewalk with no chance to win, but these ones actually solid teams that had a chance for an upset. The finals opponents weren’t incredible (though the 2000 Pacers were actually good IMO)—indeed, I’d say they were basically only equivalent to the first-round opponents, maybe slightly better—but overall I’d say those runs were high difficulty. Teams don’t always face two 5-8 SRS opponents in a playoff run, on top of two other opponents that are also solid teams capable of an upset.

The 2009 run was definitely an easy run, though. The 2010 run was fairly difficult, but not as much as the three-peat teams’ runs though IMO.

[therealbig3]

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.

Can you give me examples of the Lakers losing because of Kobe’s selfishness? Cuz this doesn’t make any sense. They 3-peated, lost in 03 because of Shaq not being in shape which caused a rift, in 04 because of Kobe’s poor Finals, he was hurt in 05, they had no business even making the playoffs in 06 and 07, and then they went to 3 straight Finals and won twice from 08-10. 08 they lost to a dominant Celtics team. So I’m counting 04…one series. The proverbial black mark on his resume.

That’s his prime, and then from 2011-2013 they were a good playoff team that wasn’t a true contender. The 2013 team was torpedoed by Howard, and Kobe was the only reason they even made the playoffs before he got hurt.

Repeating the same thing over and over again doesn’t make it true. I think someone like Bird had more actual opportunity cost than Kobe ever did.

[therealbig3]

David Robinson caused chemistry issues with his constant proselytizing btw, a lot of his teammates couldn’t stand him. He was thoroughly inept as a leader too and couldn’t keep Rodman in check at all, and that combo floundered despite having high hopes. That’s an actual negative on court result due to off court issues.

Can keep going, everyone has problems like this at some point in their career.

[lessthanjake]

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.

Can you give me examples of the Lakers losing because of Kobe’s selfishness? Cuz this doesn’t make any sense. They 3-peated, lost in 03 because of Shaq not being in shape which caused a rift, in 04 because of Kobe’s poor Finals, he was hurt in 05, they had no business even making the playoffs in 06 and 07, and then they went to 3 straight Finals and won twice from 08-10. 08 they lost to a dominant Celtics team. So I’m counting 04…one series. The proverbial black mark on his resume.

That’s his prime, and then from 2011-2013 they were a good playoff team that wasn’t a true contender. The 2013 team was torpedoed by Howard, and Kobe was the only reason they even made the playoffs before he got hurt.

Repeating the same thing over and over again doesn’t make it true. I think someone like Bird had more actual opportunity cost than Kobe ever did.

I do think there’s a tendency for people to label 2011-2013 as years where the Lakers weren’t a true contender just because we now know they had stopped winning at that point. But that’s not actually how it was seen at the time. They had the 2nd best preseason odds to win the title every single one of those seasons (behind the Heat each time). They didn’t win, but they were contenders.

[penbeast0]

David Robinson caused chemistry issues with his constant proselytizing btw, a lot of his teammates couldn’t stand him. He was thoroughly inept as a leader too and couldn’t keep Rodman in check at all, and that combo floundered despite having high hopes. That’s an actual negative on court result due to off court issues.

Can keep going, everyone has problems like this at some point in their career.

Can you bring some evidence that DRob was causing issues with anyone but Rodman, who was a walking issue without any help? I've never heard it before.

[therealbig3]

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.

Can you give me examples of the Lakers losing because of Kobe’s selfishness? Cuz this doesn’t make any sense. They 3-peated, lost in 03 because of Shaq not being in shape which caused a rift, in 04 because of Kobe’s poor Finals, he was hurt in 05, they had no business even making the playoffs in 06 and 07, and then they went to 3 straight Finals and won twice from 08-10. 08 they lost to a dominant Celtics team. So I’m counting 04…one series. The proverbial black mark on his resume.

That’s his prime, and then from 2011-2013 they were a good playoff team that wasn’t a true contender. The 2013 team was torpedoed by Howard, and Kobe was the only reason they even made the playoffs before he got hurt.

Repeating the same thing over and over again doesn’t make it true. I think someone like Bird had more actual opportunity cost than Kobe ever did.

I do think there’s a tendency for people to label 2011-2013 as years where the Lakers weren’t a true contender just because we now know they had stopped winning at that point. But that’s not actually how it was seen at the time. They had the 2nd best preseason odds to win the title every single one of those seasons (behind the Heat each time). They didn’t win, but they were contenders.

Sure, but I think it became obvious that Kobe clearly wasn’t the same guy in 2011 anymore, despite a pretty stat line, and they simply ran into better teams. He was also basically the only positive thing about the 2013 Lakers. I can’t really criticize much about Kobe in that post prime stretch. And there certainly wasn’t a cloud of selfishness or attitude issues from Kobe costing them in the playoffs those years, if anything that was coming from someone else (Bynum or Howard).

[lessthanjake]

Can you give me examples of the Lakers losing because of Kobe’s selfishness? Cuz this doesn’t make any sense. They 3-peated, lost in 03 because of Shaq not being in shape which caused a rift, in 04 because of Kobe’s poor Finals, he was hurt in 05, they had no business even making the playoffs in 06 and 07, and then they went to 3 straight Finals and won twice from 08-10. 08 they lost to a dominant Celtics team. So I’m counting 04…one series. The proverbial black mark on his resume.

That’s his prime, and then from 2011-2013 they were a good playoff team that wasn’t a true contender. The 2013 team was torpedoed by Howard, and Kobe was the only reason they even made the playoffs before he got hurt.

Repeating the same thing over and over again doesn’t make it true. I think someone like Bird had more actual opportunity cost than Kobe ever did.

I do think there’s a tendency for people to label 2011-2013 as years where the Lakers weren’t a true contender just because we now know they had stopped winning at that point. But that’s not actually how it was seen at the time. They had the 2nd best preseason odds to win the title every single one of those seasons (behind the Heat each time). They didn’t win, but they were contenders.

Sure, but I think it became obvious that Kobe clearly wasn’t the same guy in 2011 anymore, despite a pretty stat line, and they simply ran into better teams. He was also basically the only positive thing about the 2013 Lakers. I can’t really criticize much about Kobe in that post prime stretch. And there certainly wasn’t a cloud of selfishness or attitude issues from Kobe costing them in the playoffs those years, if anything that was coming from someone else (Bynum or Howard).

I’m not saying their losses were caused by Kobe being selfish, but rather just that those years shouldn’t be swept under the rug as basically just late-career seasons on a non-contender, because that’s not really what they were. Kobe had maybe lost a step athletically, but he was still in his prime getting top 5 in MVP votes and putting up very similar stats to the prior three years. His team simply lost in the playoffs. Whether that’s because the team just wasn’t quite good enough anymore or because Kobe had tough series’s where he didn’t shoot well at all is a question that probably can/should be discussed (for my part, I think it’s a combination of the two, though of course he didn’t play in the 2013 playoffs, so that’s not on him at all). But I don’t think we should hide from those playoffs as if they don’t really count. They are examples of prime (but not peak) Kobe having a good team and he and his team not doing well in the playoffs. His teams also did way better in the playoffs the prior few years before that, and you can’t always win, so I don’t see it as a big deal. I just think we should acknowledge that those years exist and were legitimate failings. Of course, the rest of the nominees on the board had more team playoff failings, so IMO pointing to these seasons isn’t a persuasive reason to vote against Kobe at this point.

[therealbig3]

David Robinson caused chemistry issues with his constant proselytizing btw, a lot of his teammates couldn’t stand him. He was thoroughly inept as a leader too and couldn’t keep Rodman in check at all, and that combo floundered despite having high hopes. That’s an actual negative on court result due to off court issues.

Can keep going, everyone has problems like this at some point in their career.

Can you bring some evidence that DRob was causing issues with anyone but Rodman, who was a walking issue without any help? I've never heard it before.

Haley said strong religious beliefs -- including those of Robinson, Terry Cummings and Avery Johnson -- caused a rift in the Spurs locker room in the mid-90s.

https://www.espn.com.au/nba/draft2004/columns/story?id=1811526

A former teammate said David Robinson caused a rift in the Spurs’ locker room due to his proselytizing.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/jonathan-isaac-in-sermon-i-invited-my-magic-teammates-to-hear-me-preach-but-none-came

[One_and_Done]

So basically just Haley complaining. Haley who was brought onto NBA rosters soley to be Rodman's buddy. So basically 1 guy in Rodman, a nutjob, didn't care for D.Rob. Excuse me if I take that well salted.

[therealbig3]

I do think there’s a tendency for people to label 2011-2013 as years where the Lakers weren’t a true contender just because we now know they had stopped winning at that point. But that’s not actually how it was seen at the time. They had the 2nd best preseason odds to win the title every single one of those seasons (behind the Heat each time). They didn’t win, but they were contenders.

Sure, but I think it became obvious that Kobe clearly wasn’t the same guy in 2011 anymore, despite a pretty stat line, and they simply ran into better teams. He was also basically the only positive thing about the 2013 Lakers. I can’t really criticize much about Kobe in that post prime stretch. And there certainly wasn’t a cloud of selfishness or attitude issues from Kobe costing them in the playoffs those years, if anything that was coming from someone else (Bynum or Howard).

I’m not saying their losses were caused by Kobe being selfish, but rather just that those years shouldn’t be swept under the rug as basically just late-career seasons on a non-contender, because that’s not really what they were. Kobe had maybe lost a step athletically, but he was still in his prime getting top 5 in MVP votes and putting up very similar stats to the prior three years. His team simply lost in the playoffs. Whether that’s because the team just wasn’t quite good enough anymore or because Kobe had tough series’s where he didn’t shoot well at all is a question that probably can/should be discussed (for my part, I think it’s a combination of the two, though of course he didn’t play in the 2013 playoffs, so that’s not on him at all). But I don’t think we should hide from those playoffs as if they don’t really count. They are examples of prime (but not peak) Kobe having a good team and he and his team not doing well in the playoffs. His teams also did way better in the playoffs the prior few years before that, and you can’t always win, so I don’t see it as a big deal. I just think we should acknowledge that those years exist and were legitimate failings. Of course, the rest of the nominees on the board had more team playoff failings.

I mean, the conversation is about Kobe’s selfishness costing his team wins. Anybody can lose a series to a better team. Sure, they may have gotten hyped up pre season, but looking at those runs in 2011-2013 in retrospect, they just got beat by better teams. It happens. I’m not really seeing anything to pin on Kobe all that much individually. He didn’t even play especially bad in 2011 and 2012, certainly not their biggest issues.

If we want to make an overall criticism of the Lakers in those years, I’m all for it, but Kobe was pretty much the least of their issues.

I still don’t see anything other than 04 where you could be like “yup, Kobe played like crap and had an attitude issue which cost his team in the playoffs”…they otherwise lost the series they were always going to lose and they won series they should have won and also won series they probably shouldn’t have won because of how good he overall was and how much he made his teammates better at the end of the day.

[penbeast0]

It is some evidence however, so thank you.