RealGM Top 100 List #8

[HeartBreakKid]

I don't see why, even without taking into account RAPM, Kevin Garnett still seems like a better player than Kobe Bryant, the fact that KG dominates that stat is a gigantic feather in his cap, but it's not like there aren't other tangible reasons for him being a dominant player, his boxscore stats aren't exactly common either.


Regardless, I don't have either player going at this spot, no reason in talking about Bryant if no one wants Bryant here.

[drza]

I've seen a few folks like MagicMerl and Purch question whether Garnett is getting too much credit for the Celtics' dominant defense for reasons such as Thibs' excellent schemes, the presence of other solid defenders on the Celtics, and the fact that the Timberwolves never had a top-5 defense in Garnett's tenure.

One approach to addressing this would be through multi-year RAPM studies like DocMJ's spreadsheet, but clearly that approach isn't attractive to some in this thread.

I made a long post about KG's defensive approach and impact a few threads back, that had very little RAPM in it and spent much more time with a scouting-like tone and anecdotes. Analysis of that sort very quickly points out how elite and unique KG was on defense over his entire career (including his time in Minnesota), but it doesn't do much to apportion credit for the Celtics' defense.

Thus, here's a case that I made specifically about the Celtics' defense from 2008 - 2011 that really drives home whether the Thibideaux scheme plus the other starters on the Celtics were able to continue to produce good (or even reasonable) results without Garnett. Spoiler alert: they weren't. Not even close. Interestingly, this post was written a few years ago in response to a very similar argument being made that Thibs and the other Celtics starters get short-changed by Garnett getting so much credit as the anchor.

Spoiler:

There's a lot more to it than just Garnett joining the Celtics. For starters, Pierce missed half the prior season, and the only other guys that were somewhat steady for the Celtics were Gerald Green, Al Jeff, and Delonte West. Kendrick Perkins was only get around 22 MPG, so while he was solid defender he wasn't getting the minutes to have enough of an impact -- and let's face it, when you're FC partner is Al Jeff then you're in bad shape.

Rondo came in and was already a decent defender in his first season. He's quick and while not a great man defender it doesn't matter when you have KG and Perkins backing you up. Ray Allen has always been a solid defender, and when you put all of that together in addition to the motivation those 3 guys had upon coming together, well, they were pretty fantastic.

Oh, and they hired a guy named Tom Thibodeau that off-season. I think he had a little something to do with that improvement as well.

The thing is, because of Garnett's injuries in the past 4 years we can test exactly how the Celtics have played with and without him with a huge sample size each way. We also have a huge sample size with the starting unit without Perkins. I spent some time looking through 82games.com's 5-man units and this is what it told me about how the Rondo/Allen/Pierce units have played with every combination of big man the Celtics have had:

Garnett and Perkins: 112.4 points/100 possessions, 97.3 points allowed/100 poss; 3475 minutes
Garnett w/o Perkins: 111.9 points/100 possessions, 99.3 points allowed/100 poss; 914 minutes
Perkins w/o Garnett: 109.5 points/100 possessions, 112.1 points allowed/100 poss; 1981 minutes

Now, let me be clear. Since Garnett arrived in 2007, the Celtics' main starting group (Rondo, Ray Allen, Pierce, and Perkins) in a Tom Thibideaux defense have given up 112.1 points/100 possessions when any other player besides Garnett was the 5th player on the floor with them. Just for clarity, the worst defense in the NBA this year gave up 112.7 points/100 possessions. And again, we're talking huge sample sizes here, from well over 200 games that Garnett has played in and 60 that he hasn't over the past 4 years. Conversely, with Garnett in the the line-up (with or without Perkins) the starting unit has given up 13 - 15 fewer points per 100 possessions.

And again, let me be clear. I'm not saying that the other 4 players are bad defenders, or that they don't also play a role in the Celtics' defensive results. They're not, and they do. But the thing is, individually, the other 4 Celtics have some things that make them effective defenders but also things that make them LIMITED defensive players. By themselves, they can't play stifling team defense even in an excellent Thibideau scheme, because alone they aren't enough. What they need is the one defensive player to build the whole thing around...the guy who is able to erase their mistakes, to help them to recover when their man beats them, and to make sure that they are in the right places at all times.

In short, to be successful on defense, the other Celtics need a defensive anchor.

When Garnett's around, the Celtics team defense is elite. When he's not, the defense falls off a cliff. This is with Thibs still running the show. You can swap out the 2nd best defender, no problem. Swap out Garnett, and the main unit stinks on defense.

[Doctor MJ]

Were I making such a table, I'd use the standard deviation-scaled PI numbers that I put together in my spreadsheet. I could make such a table here, but sufficed to say, I think Robinson looks quite good by that method too. Really I"m more curious your take on your approach and on mine.

Why did you choose NPI here?
What do you think about using the variance of the data in each yearly study to normalize across years?

I chose NPI because it isn't influenced by priors and so it's "cleaner" for comparisons and more comparable across years. Its main disadvantage (noise/stability) is less of a problem when we're looking at a decade of info - I wouldn't present one year of Player X's npi vs. one year of Player Y's, but when we're talking about many years' worth, it's less of an issue for me.

Regarding normalization, with ridge regression, the numbers should be reasonably normalized already supposing the same lambda is used. Regardless, I have normalized all npi rapm numbers year by year anyway, and the difference is minimal (I suppose this would make more of a difference with PI rapm though).

Okay. With Garnett in particular it's seemed crucial to use PI since NPI seems to round him down, but as I think about it, I've got no reason to think that applies to his Boston years. I'm a bit wary of going too much from a player's NPI peak due to noise, but using it year to year in a situation where we don't have reason to expect an issue doesn't bother me much, even as I'm still more comfortable with a prior.

Re: supposing the same lambda is used. Doesn't seem like something we should assume though. The numbers I saw from year to year seemed to vary a good deal. Maybe when in your work you've settled on a preferred lambda, but in general my impression was that from Sill on the standard was to let the lambda drift to whatever gave the most stable results in a given data set. Glad though that however big or small an issue it is you're normalizing.

I think you make some solid points here. But to be clear, Garnett was able to specialize in Boston too right, with so much offensive pressure off him? And to be fair, Garnett didn't have to be a true rim protector so to some extent his defense is extra-specialized in a sense too. It's hard to remember because he has become such a major offensive liability, but Kendrick Perkins was a fairly solid rim protector in his Boston days.

Well I'm saying that Robinson got not only to be a defensive specialist but a particular sort of defensive specialist, and no, I don't consider having Perkins for 25 MPG anywhere near as nice as having Duncan for near 40.

True, and so my question #3 really comes into play here: Were Garnett's first 4 years enough to offset any prime advantage Robinson has? To you, they were. I'm not as confident though (I think it's fairly close, but I'm really high on Robinson's prime).

Makes sense.

How comfortable do you feel that Garnett just isn't doing as much at the rim as Robinson? Garnett's P&R def was probably better (I don't think it's a blowout here though), but Robinson has a clear advantage in rim protection.

Great question.

I don't dismiss the rim issue. It's something. At the same time though it's clear when you look at the numbers in Boston that the team worked as it did without shot blocking really being on the radar. What that says to me is that the role Garnett played actually depended on him not focusing on shot blocking in the traditional sense, and that if you threw most shot blockers in there there would be an outright choice that had to be made to go against their shot blocking tendencies.

Admittedly Robinson might be the exception to this. He was very agile. Still, I expect you'd find his shot blocking numbers would go down playing Garnett's role. He's still have something of an advantage on that front, but not as big as you might expect, and then there are the question marks as to his ability to truly handle the mental/leader side of the role.

On the other shoe, I think it's reasonable to say that Garnett couldn't play the more classical stay-by-the-rim role as well as Robinson, but if I'm inclined to consider what role more important than the other here, it would be the one more proven against the most modern offenses.

[The Infamous1]

No one has responded to me about David Robinson's playoff/elite team struggles. That's why he normally drops so far. Otherwise he'd be top 8 or top 5 on every list.

Have people changed their views on this?

That's why he's not comparable to Garnett, not to mention the longevity.

DRob 90-98 vs. KG 97-08 vs. top 10 defenses in the playoffs:

DRob: 22.1 PPG, .536 TS%, 11.9 Reb, 3.1 AST/2.5 TOV, 1.2 Stl, 3.3 blk
KG: 20.1 PPG, .510 TS%, 11.4 Reb, 4.3 AST/2.9 TOV, 1.2 stl, 1.3 blk

vs. not top 10 defenses:
DRob: 24.9 PPG, .564 TS%, 12.4 Reb, 2.7 AST/3.4 TOV, 1.3 stl, 3.0 blk
KG: 23.3 PPG, .531 TS%, 13.4 Reb, 4.6 AST/3.0 TOV, 1.5 stl, 1.9 blk


Do you think its just a coincidence that KG's monster series came against bad defenses (02 Mavs, 03 Lakers, 04 Nuggets, 04 Kings)?

You have the same numbers for the other players mentioned in this thread(Magic/Bird/Kobe/Hakeem/Dirk etc)

[Doctor MJ]

KG's teams lost even when they had HCA. KG had HCA 2 years in a row in his prime and lost both times.

C'mon you're better than this.

In the first of those years they were the 4th seed playing the 5th seeded 3-time defending champion Lakers. Over the second half of the season the Lakers started getting serious and went 31-10, good enough to be the best team in the entire league...which of course everyone always knew they had the talent to be. No one on the planet saw Minnesota as the favorite there, and no one serious used the Lakers winning as expected as a referendum on KG>

The next year Minny had HCA in the first two rounds and won before getting to the WCF and playing, of course, the Lakers. From the all-star break until they coasted at the end of the year, the Lakers went 22-4 and left no doubt once again that they were the most talented team, and the best team when they had everything going for them.

Any attempt to use these series as evidence that Garnett's teams were glaringly worse in the playoffs falls apart with the slightest glance.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I've seen a few folks like MagicMerl and Purch question whether Garnett is getting too much credit for the Celtics' dominant defense for reasons such as Thibs' excellent schemes, the presence of other solid defenders on the Celtics, and the fact that the Timberwolves never had a top-5 defense in Garnett's tenure.

I think in general, the success of Chicago's defense, even with tons of injuries lends credence to the Thib's factor.

2011 = -7.0
2012 = -6.3
2013 = -2.7
2014 = -6.2

Had Thibs coached Minnesota while KG was there, I would expect high rated defenses too. I'm a big believer in team defensive schemes being the most important factor on that side of the court.

[DannyNoonan1221]

I am liking the KG/Dirk discussion. But this spot comes down to Bird/Magic. I am voting for Bird

I won't go into RAPM as it is relatively new to me, has been hammered into the ground and I have come out on the somewhat anti-rapm. Its a great measurement but its core function is to measure units and not individual players. It can show us some really interesting things about a player and maybe help support an argument, but doesn't do much more then nudge someone in the right direction. In my opinion, you can't go year by year and compare RAPM numbers between two players, especially when you're talking about a difference of +/- 1 point. In my mind, comparing a +5 and a plus +6 tells you one thing- they were both more than likely really good, but I don't like using it to say it clearly states the +6 guy is better than the +5 guy.

I have mentioned earlier that these threads haven't done so much for separating Bird and Magic for me, but definitely has moved them together further down my list. They were 4/5 in my pre list. Gonna stick with them but at the 8 and 9 spots.

When I look to compare the two, their stats a pretty damn close. Magic has the edge in assists and win shares, Bird in points. I call them even in rebounds- Bird grabbed more, but played a more beneficial position for rebounds. I say the same for steals- magic had more steals, but played a more beneficial position for steals. I just see these guys as too close to look at stats. I wasn't born when these two were battling.

And that is why for my deciding factor between Bird and Magic, I have to go with voters/people who were experiencing these two. And for them to enter the league at the same time and leave pretty much the same year, I don't see how I can put Magic over Bird when he was getting the nod over Magic pretty much his whole career up to the injuries. 84, 85 and 86 were both players 5th, 6th and 7th seasons. For Larry to win all 3 MVPs, rookie of the year, and (I know we aren't supposed to consider college in this) ncaa player of the year over Magic has to mean something.

I don't think MVPs is always the best way to judge a player, but when the two players' careers match up so perfectly and its relatively head-to-head, I believe they take on a little more importance in a discussion such as this.

Also, does anyone have any information into how assists were determined, specifically in LA during the 80s? I know this stat has a lot of variance from franchise to franchise, era to era. Were they inflated at all?

[An Unbiased Fan]

I am liking the KG/Dirk discussion. But this spot comes down to Bird/Magic. I am voting for Bird

Question. How about Bird vs Kobe. If Kobe is on par offensively, better defensively, and has better longevity, wouldn't he be higher.

[colts18]

I am liking the KG/Dirk discussion. But this spot comes down to Bird/Magic. I am voting for Bird

Question. How about Bird vs Kobe. If Kobe is on par offensively, better defensively, and has better longevity, wouldn't he be higher.

How do we know that Kobe is better than Bird defensively? Where is Kobe's team impact on defense? His teams were -2.39 on defense compared to Bird's -2.26. Kobe might be a better man defender but Bird was better in help and team defense.

[Baller2014]

Kobe isn't better than Bird on D or O, not that we should be trying to create arbitrary categories to weight, this isn't Pokémon. All that matters is that Bird's impact was greater (much greater) than Kobe. Even as a rookie that was true, he turned a 29 win team into a 61 win contender, something Kobe could only ever dream of doing. Then after his rookie year Bird got even better,

[Purch]

I've seen a few folks like MagicMerl and Purch question whether Garnett is getting too much credit for the Celtics' dominant defense for reasons such as Thibs' excellent schemes, the presence of other solid defenders on the Celtics, and the fact that the Timberwolves never had a top-5 defense in Garnett's tenure.

One approach to addressing this would be through multi-year RAPM studies like DocMJ's spreadsheet, but clearly that approach isn't attractive to some in this thread.

I made a long post about KG's defensive approach and impact a few threads back, that had very little RAPM in it and spent much more time with a scouting-like tone and anecdotes. Analysis of that sort very quickly points out how elite and unique KG was on defense over his entire career (including his time in Minnesota), but it doesn't do much to apportion credit for the Celtics' defense.

Thus, here's a case that I made specifically about the Celtics' defense from 2008 - 2011 that really drives home whether the Thibideaux scheme plus the other starters on the Celtics were able to continue to produce good (or even reasonable) results without Garnett. Spoiler alert: they weren't. Not even close. Interestingly, this post was written a few years ago in response to a very similar argument being made that Thibs and the other Celtics starters get short-changed by Garnett getting so much credit as the anchor.

Spoiler:

There's a lot more to it than just Garnett joining the Celtics. For starters, Pierce missed half the prior season, and the only other guys that were somewhat steady for the Celtics were Gerald Green, Al Jeff, and Delonte West. Kendrick Perkins was only get around 22 MPG, so while he was solid defender he wasn't getting the minutes to have enough of an impact -- and let's face it, when you're FC partner is Al Jeff then you're in bad shape.

Rondo came in and was already a decent defender in his first season. He's quick and while not a great man defender it doesn't matter when you have KG and Perkins backing you up. Ray Allen has always been a solid defender, and when you put all of that together in addition to the motivation those 3 guys had upon coming together, well, they were pretty fantastic.

Oh, and they hired a guy named Tom Thibodeau that off-season. I think he had a little something to do with that improvement as well.

The thing is, because of Garnett's injuries in the past 4 years we can test exactly how the Celtics have played with and without him with a huge sample size each way. We also have a huge sample size with the starting unit without Perkins. I spent some time looking through 82games.com's 5-man units and this is what it told me about how the Rondo/Allen/Pierce units have played with every combination of big man the Celtics have had:

Garnett and Perkins: 112.4 points/100 possessions, 97.3 points allowed/100 poss; 3475 minutes
Garnett w/o Perkins: 111.9 points/100 possessions, 99.3 points allowed/100 poss; 914 minutes
Perkins w/o Garnett: 109.5 points/100 possessions, 112.1 points allowed/100 poss; 1981 minutes

Now, let me be clear. Since Garnett arrived in 2007, the Celtics' main starting group (Rondo, Ray Allen, Pierce, and Perkins) in a Tom Thibideaux defense have given up 112.1 points/100 possessions when any other player besides Garnett was the 5th player on the floor with them. Just for clarity, the worst defense in the NBA this year gave up 112.7 points/100 possessions. And again, we're talking huge sample sizes here, from well over 200 games that Garnett has played in and 60 that he hasn't over the past 4 years. Conversely, with Garnett in the the line-up (with or without Perkins) the starting unit has given up 13 - 15 fewer points per 100 possessions.

And again, let me be clear. I'm not saying that the other 4 players are bad defenders, or that they don't also play a role in the Celtics' defensive results. They're not, and they do. But the thing is, individually, the other 4 Celtics have some things that make them effective defenders but also things that make them LIMITED defensive players. By themselves, they can't play stifling team defense even in an excellent Thibideau scheme, because alone they aren't enough. What they need is the one defensive player to build the whole thing around...the guy who is able to erase their mistakes, to help them to recover when their man beats them, and to make sure that they are in the right places at all times.

In short, to be successful on defense, the other Celtics need a defensive anchor.

When Garnett's around, the Celtics team defense is elite. When he's not, the defense falls off a cliff. This is with Thibs still running the show. You can swap out the 2nd best defender, no problem. Swap out Garnett, and the main unit stinks on defense.

See the issue with trying to create narrative like this, is that the reality of the celtics is that when Garnett went out the game, the celtics were forced to go small with . So basiclly youre evaluating Thibs on the basis that his defense wasnt the same when he didnt have size inside.

Funny thing is, when you added an equally effective defender on the perimiter to any lineup, Thibs was able to get the same level of defense out of his Unit. Meaning that any lineup with Tony Allen producued elite defense

2008
House-Tony Allen-Posey-Powe-Davis (Defensive rating of 99) [91 minutes]

House-Tony Allen-Pierce-Posey Davis (Defensive rating 95) [70 minutes]


2009

House-Tony Allen- Pierce-Powe-Davis (Defensive rating of 100) [145 minutes]

House- Tony Allen-Ray Allen-Powe-Davis [Defensive rating of 99)[101 minutes]

2010

In fact in 2010 the same celtics starting lineup was 10 points better defensively and had a defensive rating of 90 when Tony Allen was inserted into it.


None of that matters, because it's not the issue I have with your argument. The issue I have with your argument comes down to the fact that it doesn't dfferentiate between the cause and correlation. The drop in defense when Garnett was generally out of the linup is a correlation. The cause of it however, is that every single year, excluding 2011, when Garnett went out of the game the celtics were fforced to go extremly small in their frontcourt. Perkings is already an undersize center, but when Garnett was out the game you had him defending the paint next to a 6'6 Glen Davis or a 6'7 Leon Powe.

So basiclly you're stating that the reason the celtics were so specatcular defensively when Garnett was on the court was because of him and not Thibs schemes. But the reason the lineup was so effective was because the guards would blitz the pick and roll, and force any penertation into size (Thibs schemes). You take the defense being significantly worse as proof that it wasn't Thibs defense that produced the great results, and rather Garnett, however you completley ignore the fact that there was no size to execute his defensive schemes when Garnett wasn't on the floor. So what your post presents doesn't disprove the fact that the effectiveness of Thibs defensive schemes were what gave Garnett the oppurtunity to be such a high impact defensive player.

To me it's like saying if the defense drops off when Taj and Boozer play together on the floor, that somehow it proves that Noah is more important than Thibs defensive schemes. What happens when you don't have size in a Thibs defensive scheme is that you have to blitz even harder, and put more pressure on the perimiter, because you have no size to stop penetration (This is extremley similar to what happend in Miami). So that's why you see lineups with Tony Allen in them being so succesful defensively, because Allen's ball pressure allows them to better blitz everything on the perimiter and stop penetration. Neither Rondo or Ray Allen were able to blitz that hard that it would make up for the lack of size inside

Thats unless you think old man Rasheed was mobile enough to execute Thibs defensive schemes as the main anchor, you'd Probally have better luck with Boozer

[Texas Chuck]

Fun Bird Story Time:

http://www.nba.com/features/birds_coaches.html

We are playing in Seattle. Five seconds left on the clock and the score is tied and it is our timeout. In the huddle, I am thinking Xavier McDaniel is guarding Larry.
So I said, “Now Kevin, you take the ball out and get it to Dennis and Dennis you can finish that.”
Larry said, “Why don’t you just give me the ball and tell everybody else to get the hell out of the way?”
So I said, “Larry you play, and I’ll coach.”
And he said, “All right.”
So I said, “Dennis, you take it out and you get it to Kevin. Kevin you get it to Larry and everybody else get the hell out of the way.”
That is communication. Before the timeout was over, he leaves the huddle, and I said to myself, where is he going.
And Xavier was right there and Bird said, “Xavier, I’m getting the ball. I’m going to take two dribbles to the left. I’m going to step back behind the three point line and stick it.”
And that is what he did. So when he stepped back behind the line and released the ball, as soon as he released it, his arm was still in the air going to the dressing room. Game over.

[magicmerl]

I am liking the KG/Dirk discussion. But this spot comes down to Bird/Magic. I am voting for Bird

Question. How about Bird vs Kobe. If Kobe is on par offensively, better defensively, and has better longevity, wouldn't he be higher.

Code: Select all

Regular Season
Player TRB     AST    STL    BLK    TOV    PF     PTS
Kobe    7.5    6.7    2.1    0.7    4.3    3.6    36.1
Bird   12.5    7.9    2.2    1.0    3.9    3.2    30.3

Playoffs
Player TRB     AST    STL    BLK    TOV    PF     PTS
Kobe    6.9    6.4    1.9    0.9    4.0    4.1    34.7
Bird   12.1    7.6    2.1    1.0    3.6    3.3    28.0


Bird blows Kobe away if you look at their career per100possession stats. The only thing Kobe does better than Bird is consume shot attempts.

I think Kobe's arguement over Bird begins and ends with his increased longevity, since 4 seasons (and counting) is a lot.

[Baller2014]

4 seasons is nothing when Bird was so much more impactful than Kobe it's not even funny. Besides, in prime years it's only a 2 year advantage (8 v.s 10). That's not close to enough to push you over a clearly superior player, let alone a vastly superior one.

[Texas Chuck]

4 seasons is nothing when Bird was so much more impactful than Kobe it's not even funny. Besides, in prime years it's only a 2 year advantage (8 v.s 10). That's not close to enough to push you over a clearly superior player, let alone a vastly superior one.

I'm not one to champion Kobe over Bird, but to suggest that Kobe only has 10 prime-level seasons is simply using an arbitrary defining of prime in an attempt to minimize the clear longevity edge Kobe has. Kobe has far more than 10 high-level seasons. If I'm ultra conservative in looking at Kobe "good" seasons I get 14.

[penbeast0]

Although disappointed by the discussion on Magic/Bird/Hakeem in this thread (it's mainly been about RAPM, Garnett, DRobinson, and Dirk), I think Hakeem's time in which he was arguably the best player in the league is appreciably shorter than Bird or Magic's time as a true GOAT type great. That counts. My opinion that part of that was Hakeem's being unhappy in Houston and showing it on and off the court hurts him too, despite his top 10 talent. Bird and Magic went to better situations by far, but, like Russell, always seemed focused on team winning rather than individual goals.

Garnett just doesn't seem to dominate the way the others did despite the RAPM numbers; we don't know them for earlier greats and the David Robinson numbers seem to indicate that other true GOAT candidates might also have ridiculous numbers. Unfortunately we don't know and I am not willing to assume Magic/Bird/Hakeem were inferior in impact to a Kevin Garnett/David Robinson type player (despite my belief all the way up to the 1995 playoffs that David Robinson was better than Hakeem -- Hakeem changed my mind as he did so many others).

So, Bird v. Magic. The numbers for the two are pretty similar with what seems like a slight regular season advantage for Bird and a slight playoff edge for Magic. The difference maker for me is the intangibles. Bird is the classic alpha dog, just give me the ball and get out of my way type despite his great passing. Magic seems to be more the facilitator; I rate Kareem lower than most because his teams didn't turn into great units despite individual talent until Magic (and arguably Oscar) -- Magic's infectious love of life and basketball make him arguably my favorite player ever to watch (despite not liking teams from NY, LA, or Texas generally) and made it a pleasure for other players to play with and achieve their best with him. vote Magic Johnson

[magicmerl]

4 seasons is nothing when Bird was so much more impactful than Kobe it's not even funny. Besides, in prime years it's only a 2 year advantage (8 v.s 10). That's not close to enough to push you over a clearly superior player, let alone a vastly superior one.

I'm not one to champion Kobe over Bird, but to suggest that Kobe only has 10 prime-level seasons is simply using an arbitrary defining of prime in an attempt to minimize the clear longevity edge Kobe has. Kobe has far more than 10 high-level seasons. If I'm ultra conservative in looking at Kobe "good" seasons I get 14.

How are you determining prime? I just posted about primed comparing Magic, Bird and Hakeem, and I gotta tell you, those guys had some pretty good primes. If I was to extend that same harsh standard to Kobe's prime, his 'prime' would only last a single season (2006).

I'll repeat: Bird has four consecutive seasons approximately as good as Kobe's best season.

If you give Kobe credit for a prime from 00-13 (maaaaybe skipping 12, I don't know how low you are setting the bar), then by the same measure Bird's prime lasted from 80-90, barring his 6 game '89 campaign.

[BallerTed]

In regards to Kobe and Bird

Per 100
Player ---- Years ---- PPG ---- RPG ---- APG ---- eFG% ---- TS%---- ORTG----DRTG----PER
Kobe --- '01-'09 --- 37.5 ---- 7.6 ---- 6.9 ----- .489 ----- .560 ---- 113 ---- 105 ---- 24.9
Bird ----- '80-'88 ---- 30.9 ----12.7 -----7.6 -----.519 -----570 ----116 ---- 101 ---- 24.5

Bird leads in all categories except for two with a clear edge in rebounding and also a convincing advantage as a passer/playmaker. Bird is more efficient but not by a ton. Kobe has the clear victory when it comes to raw PPG and a small edge in player efficiency rating. Defense is relatively close. I would give Kobe the edge as a man to man defender and Bird as a team/help defender. I tried to include their best 9-year stretch. I could easily have included more of Kobe's runs such as '10, but wanted to keep it even. This is a testament I think to Kobe's advantage in longevity over Bird.

Playoff Per 100
Player ---- Years ---- PPG ---- RPG ---- APG ---- eFG% ---- TS% ---- ORTG ---- DRTG ---- PER
Kobe ---- '01-'09 ---- 35.3 ---- 6.9 ---- 6.6 ----- .482 ----- .545 ---- 111 ---- 105 ---- 23.3
Bird ----- '80-'88 ---- 28.4 ---- 12.4 ----7.4 ---- .489 ----- .555 ---- 114 ---- 103 ---- 21.9

Almost the same story as the regular season stats. Kobe with the lead in raw PPG and PER. Bird with advantages as a rebounder and a playmaker with better efficiency. Overall I would have to give Bird the edge as the leader in more statistical categories over Kobe. Kobe's longevity does I think make up for some of it but I am not sure it is enough to close the gap between the two.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I am liking the KG/Dirk discussion. But this spot comes down to Bird/Magic. I am voting for Bird

Question. How about Bird vs Kobe. If Kobe is on par offensively, better defensively, and has better longevity, wouldn't he be higher.

How do we know that Kobe is better than Bird defensively? Where is Kobe's team impact on defense? His teams were -2.39 on defense compared to Bird's -2.26. Kobe might be a better man defender but Bird was better in help and team defense.

I saw both play and while Bird was a great hustle guy, Kobe was the superior defender. His man defense, timing, horizontal defense, explosivess, and transitional defense was better than Bird's. Bird's teams had great DRtgs, but that wasn't due to him.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG7Mj5Mifqs[/youtube]

Kobe isn't better than Bird on D or O, not that we should be trying to create arbitrary categories to weight, this isn't Pokémon. All that matters is that Bird's impact was greater (much greater) than Kobe. Even as a rookie that was true, he turned a 29 win team into a 61 win contender, something Kobe could only ever dream of doing. Then after his rookie year Bird got even better,

Well Kobe went to a team that already won 53 games as a 17 year old, so...I'm not sure how we can compare a 23 year old Bird joining a revamped Celtics. The fact the Lakers felt into the abyss even with Pau putting up 17/10 without a healthy Kobe in 2014 should speak to his impact in that regard.

As for offense/defense. how was Bird a better defender? Kobe is regarded as one of the best perimeter defenders of his era, while Bird was always viewed as weak on that side of the ball. In this very project, that has been said too, like in the comparisons to Lebron. Offensively, Kobe didn't just score a lot of points, he also led his team to good ORtgs, even when surrounded by Smush/Kwame.

06-10 Kobe had as much success as 84-88 Bird who had superior supporting casts. Kobe's longevity leads to 11 Top 5 MVP seasons.

Code: Select all

Regular Season
Player TRB     AST    STL    BLK    TOV    PF     PTS
Kobe    7.5    6.7    2.1    0.7    4.3    3.6    36.1
Bird   12.5    7.9    2.2    1.0    3.9    3.2    30.3

Playoffs
Player TRB     AST    STL    BLK    TOV    PF     PTS
Kobe    6.9    6.4    1.9    0.9    4.0    4.1    34.7
Bird   12.1    7.6    2.1    1.0    3.6    3.3    28.0


Bird blows Kobe away if you look at their career per100possession stats. The only thing Kobe does better than Bird is consume shot attempts.

I think Kobe's arguement over Bird begins and ends with his increased longevity, since 4 seasons (and counting) is a lot.

Kobe's 06-10 peak had him at 39.2 ppg, 6.6 apg, 7.3 rpg, 2.1 spg, 4.0 tpg per 100. How does Bird "blow that away"? Nevermind the defensive end where Kobe has a clear edge.

[Baller2014]

Let's talk about Bird v.s Hakeem. Long before Bird had McHale or Parish and his super stacked team, Bird arrived as a mere rookie on a 29 win team. Nobody expected much of this team. He led them to 61 wins the next season with the same calibre of players (the few pluses and minuses basically even each other out). Where's the season I can find that saw Hakeem impact the game 32 wins? Never mind that Bird was a rookie, and he got better after his rookie season.

Ronnymac does a good job at least trying to respond to my point about Hakeem's later years (assuming he was replying to me), something nobody has even attempted to do in this project (which is why I reposted 2 of my unanswered Hakeem arguments earlier in this thread, to which there has of course been no direct reply), but he doesn't really reply because he completely leaves out 92 and 91. He leaves out 93 and 96, and how the Sonics zone D continually destroyed Hakeem (a zone D that is completely legal to employ against modern day players I hasten to add). So all Ronny is really defending is 87-90. I won't get into the detail of what Ronny says, a lot of it is advanced stats I tend not to use (or volume stats, that really aren't a response to why the team lost, by that logic Pistol Pete was the GOAT college player of all time). The main reason I won't get into it is that I think Hakeem deserves to be discussed here, and should be one of the next 3 players voted in.

What I'd refer people back to is my earlier posts, and note that while Hakeem posted big stats at times, his big stats didn't lead to wins, even when he had team mates who really ought to have been ample without him. In the best sample we have of Hakeem's team mates without him playing, over 91 and 92, the team was 28-20 without Hakeem. It hardly seemed like a bad team. The last thing I'd remind people of is this: Hakeem does not get a pass for having tough playoff opponents if the reason he has tough opponents is that he didn't lead the team to enough wins in the regular season. Don't want to play the Showtime Lakers in round 1? Win more than 41 games with your perfectly good support cast.