Doctor MJ wrote:I wanted to say that I'm specifically looking forward to some discussion regarding Kobe vs Dirk. I've never ranked Dirk ahead of Kobe before, but I'm considering it here. So questions for Dirk supporters:
How do you see his playoff journey from '06 to '07 to '11? Was something specific holding him back? How big of a deal was it?
Do you think it is easier to build a championship team around Dirk than Kobe? Do you have concerns about his defense?
How do you see his later years where he stopped being able to move but could still score, could he have still been on a contender like this?
Regarding Kobe folks, I'm sorry but I'm not going to engage with you this time. Too close to his passing. I don't want to be THAT guy, and I'm afraid I will be if I engage here. Sorry, that is a copout to be sure, but a wise one I think.
See if I can get the conversation going with a post I've made before (
https://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/164218149771/kobe-vs-dirk-scouting-boxscores-and-impact ). Would love for folks to push back and/or talk me off my conclusions and/or hit me with some angle I didn't consider.
Kobe vs Dirk: scouting, boxscores and impactOne interesting one, that doesn’t get done often, is Kobe Bryant vs Dirk Nowitzki. Kobe is universally thought of as better in the general NBA lexicon, from casual fan to former players. But, what do their careers look like if we step away from team accomplishments like rings and accolades, and really look at them from a scouting/analytics level? Let’s find out
This is a very interesting, potentially epic comparison, that in my experience pretty much never gets made (not including this project, of course, where Reservoir Dogs has taken a crack at it). But outside of here, there are a million Kobe threads and Dirk is pretty popular on this board too, but rarely (if ever) do I see Dirk vs. Kobe. I think part of that is due to perception…before 2011 it was considered ridiculous around here to put Dirk on Kobe’s level (I remember ranking 2003 Dirk over 2003 Kobe in the 2010 RPoY project, and it was NOT well received). After 2011 people felt better about giving Dirk his due, but he generally gets compared with great frontcourt players. When in reality, I think he and Kobe make one heck of a match-up. So, let’s start digging in and see where it goes.
The boxscoresRegular season, 10 year primes per 100 possessionsKobe Bryant (2001 - 2010): 37.5 pts (55.9% TS), 7.6 reb, 6.9 ast, 4.1 TO
Dirk Nowitzki (2002 - 2011): 34.5 pts (58.4% TS), 12.3 reb, 4 ast, 2.8 TO
Playoffs, 10 year primes per 100 possessionsKobe Bryant (2001 - 2010): 35.8 pts (54.8%), 7.1 reb, 6.7 ast, 4.0 TO
Dirk Nowitzki (2002 - 2011): 33.4 pts (58.5%), 13.5 reb, 3.5 ast, 3.0 TO
I often like to start with the box score stats (regular and postseason) just to get some baseline information out there to look at. Most of us watched both of these careers play out, so we all have images in our heads of what these two can do. But the numbers help to firm up the impressions, and really quantify those contributions. The per-100 numbers aren’t so necessary for two players in the modern era, but for this project I like to use per 100 for everyone for a bit of cross-era normalization.
Anyway, the story is similar in both the regular and postseason. Kobe scores on slightly more volume, with Dirk at better efficiency (but both look really impressive in both). Kobe is more of a playmaker, while Dirk is stronger on the glass as you’d expect for a big (though again, it’s clear that each contributes in the opposite category as well, for their position). From these numbers I don’t think anyone could really get a feel for who was better, but both look extremely elite for a long period.
“The style makes the fight”Both Kobe and Dirk evolved stylistically over time, going from extremely raw (Kobe entered the NBA as a teenager out of high school, Dirk entered the NBA as a teenager from Europe) to extraordinarily polished. Very good arguments can be made that Dirk and Kobe are the two most skilled offensive players of this generation, mixing technique and precision in with physical attributes that already made them mismatches.
They are also two of the most unique talents that the NBA has seen. I think people recognize the uniqueness of Dirk, but maybe don’t always see it in Kobe because he (seemingly deliberately) reminds people so much of Jordan. But ironically, despite his resemblance to his Airness, Kobe is still extremely rare. People forget that before Jordan a shooting guard that was 6-6 or 6-7 and uber athletic was extremely rare. After Jordan it became more of the goal (because everyone wanted to be the next Jordan), but for the most part these bigger 2s handled the ball more like 3s. Kobe, on the other hand, could control his dribble and direct the offense almost like a combo guard…only most combo guards are 3 or 4 inches shorter. Then, while Jordan was always a slasher first-and-foremost (and then later in his career became more of a post threat as his athleticism waned), Kobe always seemed more comfortable operating from the outside-in. He had the high-flying athleticism (and later the strength/footwork to be a great post threat on offense), but his long-range was always more natural than Jordan’s and it was a larger staple of his scoring. This played a part in what has been both a boon and a bane for Kobe…he could always get a shot that he was comfortable with from the perimeter, no matter how he was defended. As such, he is one of the best difficult-shot-makers that I’ve ever seen. That sometimes tempts him to take a lower percentage shot when a higher percentage look (for himself or a teammate) was available, but on the flip-side it makes him a higher-than-expected percentage threat when the offense breaks down and he has to make something happen alone.
And then there’s Dirk. No one has ever seen a 7-footer that is such a natural, effortless, pure scorer from the perimeter. He has the jumper of an elite shooting guard, and the ball-handling and court vision of a reasonable small forward. Put those things together, and it is extremely difficult to match up with him. Up through his MVP season the conventional wisdom used to be that he was too good on the perimeter to be defended by a big man, but that he was too tall to be defended by a wing. For the most part this was true, which is why he was receiving All NBA nods early in the decade and rose to MVP status by 2007. However, he had the misfortune in his MVP season of running into the one coach that knew his tendencies well enough (former coach Nelson) and also had a long wing that could play 1-on-1 defense (in Stephen Jackson) that, in conjunction with other factors, allowed a #8 seed to defeat Dirk’s #1 Mavs. That series played a big part in Dirk’s perception as a so-called “failure” for a long time…but it seemingly had the hidden benefit of getting Dirk to focus more on his post-game. Once he mastered that and added it to his other offensive talents, Dirk became nigh unguardable 1-on-1. Which is why many consider 2011 his absolute peak, despite his MVP and most impressive box score exploits coming 4 or 5 years earlier. Plus, because Dirk IS 7-0 tall, he brings a dimension of spacing/defensive warpage that even exceeds his own scoring. This is part of why his impact shows up so well in +/- studies, even better than his boxscore numbers might suggest. Having a 7-footer that can dominate a game from the perimeter, demanding not only a big man to leave the paint (weakening opposing defenses) but often a double if he stepped inside the arc, is arguably the biggest warping effect you can have (which is why I tend to believe his offensive impact might be pretty close to what a modern Bird would have been, despite Bird’s much better passing, because Bird is 3 inches shorter and height really matters for this effect).
Chronology and the story outside of the box scores: the infamous RAPMThe RAPM scores over time help to really tell the story of how Dirk’s and Kobe’s impacts have changed over time as their roles have changed and their games have developed. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have RAPM data for 2001 and that 2002 is only partial season data as well, because that was an important time period, but we have enough data to work with that I feel like I have a handle on what the missing/partial data may have said anyway. Again, the RAPM numbers reported are from Doc MJ’s normalized PI RAPM spreadsheet from 1998 - 2012.
Late 90s Kobe and Dirk didn’t really move the needle much (RAPM values right around 0). Dirk scored a slight positive RAPM in 2000 (+2.3), and in the partial 2002 his RAPM was still at a similar place (+2.6). Kobe, on the other hand, went from a mark of +0.7 in 2000 to a +4.9 in the partial 2002, then he just about replicated that score in 2003 (+5.5). It is pretty universally agreed upon that Kobe took a major step forward in impact in 2001, so I’d guess that his 2001 score probably looks similar to/better than his 2002 and 2003 scorers. So, much as the impressions of the time would have suggested, Kobe took the leap towards stardom a bit before Dirk.
However, in 2003 Dirk’s RAPM scores surpassed Kobe’s to date (Dirk’s score jumped to +7.3 in 2003, an elite amount of team lift) and he maintained that mark like a metronome for the next six years (RAPM between +7.2 and +8.0 every year between 2003 and 2008). What’s really interesting about Dirk’s flat-line major impact is that so much was changing around him. 2003 was the peak of Nellie-ball (where the Mavs had a legit title shot if Dirk doesn’t go down to injury against the Spurs) with Nash and Finley as side-kicks, while by 2008 Dirk had won an MVP and come within a breath of another possible championship in a team with a more defensive philosophy with Coach Avery Johnson and side-kicks Josh Howard and Jason Terry. The situations were dramatically different, the team philosophy at the opposite end of the spectrum, but Dirk’s impact remained rock solid at a level worthy of a reasonable MVP.
Kobe, meanwhile, was entering the most volatile period of his career both on- and off- the court. For the 2004 season the Lakers brought in the aged Karl Malone and Gary Payton to supplement Kobe and Shaq in a posited super-team, and of course Kobe had his incident in Colorado that had to deal with over the course of that season. This was also the peak of the unfortunately public Shaq and Kobe feud, and after the 2004 season we saw Shaq (and Phil Jackson, and Malone, and Payton) leave town. The Lakers (and Kobe) both had their worst season of the decade to date. With all of this going on, it doesn’t surprise me that Kobe’s RAPM values reached the lowest point of the decade in these two years (average of about +1.5).
However, in 2006 Kobe returned renewed (after his first major injury and the Lakers missing the playoffs in 2005), and Coach Jackson also came back to town. Kobe was soon to turn in an offensive season for the ages in 2006, and this touched off his own metronomic high-impact stretch in which he registered RAPM values between +6.4 and +8.1 every year between 2006 and 2010. This time period, of course, saw Kobe win his only career MVP as well as his first two Finals MVPs. For those that had questions as to whether Kobe could really be a megastar and lead a team to the promised land without Shaq, all of those questions were answered emphatically ‘yes!’ during this stretch.
Back to Dirk. After 2008 coach Johnson was out, to be replaced by Rick Carlisle. Carlisle was a defensive coach like Johnson, but by all accounts he was a better tactician and planner. While the Mavs continued to have 50+ win seasons in '09 and '10, they weren’t really championship contenders. And while Dirk continued to measure out with really good RAPM scores (+5.3 and +4.9), it was a step down from his Groundhog Day-like +7.5s through the middle of the decade. Seemingly it took those couple of years for Dirk to perfect the post-game that I mentioned above, for the Mavs to build a team that complimented him fully while also fitting Carlisle’s schemes, and for Carlisle to perfect the way that he wanted to use him. But it all came together in 2011, when the Mavs put on the floor a defensive-minded squad with tough, battle-tested vets at every position that were really strong and their complemntary roles. But a squad that would have been awful without an offensive engine…and it just so happens that the Mavs had one of the best offensive engines of all-time on their squad. Everyone knows that Dirk led the Mavs to the title in one of the more storied “superstar without big name help” runs that we’ve seen. But RAPM also recognized the incredible lift that Dirk was providing to those teams, as his +11.5 normalized RAPM in 2011 marked a career-high for Dirk and entered him into the pantheon of the top-10 highest RAPM scores measured since 1998.
The playoffsDirk and Kobe both have reputations for performing on the big stage. There have been box score numerical analyses done in this project to either argue for or against Kobe’s performance based on scoring efficiency, and those arguments are worth absorbing and filtering. Kobe apparently did have some efficiency blips through the years against good defenses, which we didn’t see with Dirk (who maintains an absurd volume/efficiency ratio from the regular season right into the postseason). I don’t really think that individual scoring efficiency is nearly as important as many make it out to be, but for players that are primarily offensive and more specifically primarily scorers, scoring efficiency has to at least be considered. On the other hand, Kobe has also faced off against some of the best defenses in history throughout his time, and that can certainly affect the old true shooting percentage.
(Aside on playoff on/off +/-)
Interestingly, for those that give any credence at all to playoff on/off +/-, it’s Kobe (even with his lower scoring efficiencies) that tends to look more impressive than Dirk. Dirk’s best postseason mark of his career (obviously) came in 2011 with an impressive +16.8 per 100 possessions, and this capped off a run of three positive double-digit marks in four years (thought the first two were for relatively short runs and thus I give them next-to-no weight as single seasons). However, outside of that period his playoff on/offs are pretty pedestrian compared to the other greats of this generation. He was +6.9 in the 2006 run, but pretty meh else for a career playoff on/off mark (from 2001 - 2014) of +1.8.
Kobe measured out with a positive playoff on/off +/- in every playoff run of his career (at least since 2001) in which his team made at least the 2nd round. His best career mark came in 2003 (+17.4), but he was also really strong in 2001 (+14.2 vs. Shaq’s -0.3, lending credence to those that say that Kobe was driving the bus for that postseason run) and 2009 (+12.4 vs Pau’s +6.8, though Odom measured out best at +16.7). Kobe was also +8.9 in 2008 and +7.6 in 2010, and sports a career-mark of +8.3 that’s right in line with Shaq, Duncan and LeBron.
Bottom line:As I figured before I got started, this is an epic comparison. It’s almost a toss-up, a “what do you like”? Stylistically, in the box scores, and in the +/- stats for both the regular and postseason it’s hard to find a consistent advantage for either of them. Kobe is probably the incumbent as far as this match-up goes, and the saying is that you have to beat the champ to take his place…and I definitely don’t see this as a clear win for Dirk. In fact, with playoffs impact estimates thrown in, that might be enough to tip this whole thing in Kobe’s favor in my mind. But at the very least, it’s a very interesting comp between two players that you don’t often hear mentioned in the same conversations...when the reality is that they performed at a very similar level for a very long time on their way to two inside the inner circle of the Hall of Fame careers.
