AEnigma wrote:AEnigma wrote:1. Kobe Bryant a.) 2008 b.) 2009My personal #15 peak. Although I find it fun to annoy his superfans, they are probably right in that the RealGM trend to downgrade him out of the top twenty peaks is pretty reactionary and often based in a misapplication of “analytics.” He is an all-time scorer with flexible range and exceptional diversity, a pretty good defender for his position and offensive load (overrated by fans, casuals, and accolades, yes, but we need not flip the complete opposite direction in response), an elite positional passer who absolutely had his personal creation rates schematically and stylistically undersold throughout his prime, and one of the great playoff resilience cases at his peak.
MyUniBroDavis wrote:So with Kobe for me it’s more so I think he translates better to other eras than his own, or a player of his strengths translates better to other eras than his own.
I think the 2000s were the worst time as a high volume elite iso 1v1 perimeter player.
Defining it as 250+ isolations
05-10
2005
Of 22 players, he ranked 2nd
2006
Of 36 players, he ranked 12th
2007
Of 27 players, he ranked 1st
2008
Of 23 players, he ranked 2nd
2009
Of 33 players, he ranked 11th
2010
Of 29 players, he ranked 9th
Kobes volume was usually somewhere from 700-1000, so defining high volume as 250+ would be a bit unfair in terms of respecting his volume although that’s obvious
Overall, in regards to limiting it to high volume scorers, while he’s not first every year or anything this does end up as quite elite. Randoms or people you maybe wouldn’t expect end up being far higher than expected even with these restrictions on.
Under similar restrictions, in only pure effeciency, he grades out better than Kawhi through his 17-21 run, not quite as good as Durant the past few years, although comparable all things considered (Kobe peaked higher but was more inconsistent, Durant was more consistently 3-7 outside of a first place 2014 finish, Kawhi was similar to Kobe in terms of being great one year and not as great the next but his best years weren’t as high and his worst years were worse)
Overall his percentiles in these are quite good as well
In terms of pure effeciency, His 1v1 scoring as a whole could be seen somewhere inbetween kawhi and Durant, definately closer to Durant.
(1v1 scoring doesn’t imply when teams didn’t help or anything, so this would include when Kobe would take dumb shots into help and stuff)
I don’t think Kobe is inherently unable to be hyper effecient as an offense player because of him taking dumb shots. While I do agree he took a lot of stupid shots, for sure, I also think some of that is a function of isolation play in the 2000s in general.
Kobe was generally a very effecient player, but didn’t get as much of his in transition as guys like Lebron and Wade did. According to synergy, of players with 1250+ more scoring possessions (I did this to generally get the top 20-30 highest players by scoring possessions each year)
Kobe ranked
12 out of 17 in 2005
8 out of 27 in 2006
3 out of 19 in 2007
7 out of 33 in 2008
3 out of 27 in 2009
21 out of 29 in 2010
Which matches most data in him going up a tier 06-09 and dropping off a bit in 2005. 07 him having an issue of just refusing to pass, which shows up on the a post somewhere about him basically not passing out of iso that year
More interestingly though, looking at the data more carefully
In 06, 4th, 6th, and 7th place are guards (Ray has some seperation but he’s basically pretty close with arenas and redd)
In 07, he is only beaten by Dirk and amare
In 08, pierce beats him (although he has 2/3s the volume) and everyone else is a big
In 09, gasol and Dirk beat him out (although he and Dirk are in a virtual tie)
There are very obvious caveats to this for sure, but as a whole Kobe was a very effecient scorer, while he did most of his work in the halfcourt, he did also grade out well in transition, and the Lakers were a good transition team in general which fits with his offensive impact being as high as it was during his prime
I’m rambling a bit but my main point is that I think kobes offense is seen as, high volume but not too elite effeciency wise, whereas I think he did combine the best of both worlds as much as a perimeter player in the 2000s could.
The reason I’m harping on halfcourt vs transition is, I think that the two things you have to look at are
Does a players presence mean easier shots are being taken (for example, lebrons presence means more transition opportunities so that’s a plus)
Kobes presence didn’t seem to detract from his team’s transition opportunities (given his teams ranking in that regard were decent in 08 and 09) and he only didn’t have much of them in comparison to Wade and lebron, he had a good amount of them and was very good at that as well
I guess a similar comparison would be hitting threes at a 42% rate on tough shots vs them at a 45% rate on wide open ones?
This isn’t to say he was just as effecient as lebron in 09 or anything, of course not, but I think it’s a situation where he’s shooting well on contested threes, and in terms of the halfcourt vs transition situation.
A way to see it would be, he’s taking a tougher role on offense (a more halfcourt dominant role) and doing so at a very effecient rate within that role throughout his prime.
Taking the harder role doesn’t mean the easier role that leads to more effecient shots is inherently limited, but it does mean his expected fg% will be lower, despite it not being a negative impact, does that make sense idk if I’m explaining my thoughts well here
Could he have been even more effecient if he didn’t take dumb shots at times? Sure, but I don’t think he wasn’t substantially more effecient than his peers.
Furthermore, I do think that illegal D>hand checking in terms of impact it had on iso perimeter players, at least in kobes case, and obviously their offense didn’t exactly evolve, so I don’t think it’s inherently impossible for Kobe to be an outlier effecient player under the right circumstances or era.
His shot selection could be better, but I do think part of that is a product of the teams offense as well, and he was very effecient in spite of it overall given the role he had.
In 2013 for example, the team ran a bit more of a pick and roll offense, although it wasn’t really one because of all the Dwight drama, and Kobe did flourish much more after having dropped off offensively for awhile. There’s more too it than that of course but still, that he got to the paint as much as he did in his prime and was as effecient as he was in his prime after the seasons leading up to it makes me think 06-09 Kobe in 2013 kobes position probably ends up as a super high raw effeciency volume type player.
The questions giving me the most pause for 2008 versus 2009:
— How does 2008 Kobe, or how do the 2008 Lakers, fare in a Finals matchup with the Pistons or Cavaliers?
— Is there some demonstrable improvement in Kobe’s game in 2009 that would help him see more success against any of those defensively tougher 2008 eastern conference teams?
2. Anthony Davis (2020)Proxy’s commentary on Kawhi + my recent exploration of Dirk was enough to swap Kawhi and Davis from my initial rankings. On that Dirk note: imagine 2020, or even 2018, Davis on a slightly adjusted (to make up for the spacing decline going from Dirk to Davis) version of that 2011 Mavericks team. As a playoff scorer, prime Davis in a limited sample showed his acumen, and we also know he can be the world’s best defender. I would take that profile over the more one-sided skillsets of Dirk and Durant.
Here Unibro’s take is yet again close to definitive:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2215651#p100682968
3. Kawhi Leonard (2017)Maybe the greatest postseason scorer shy of Jordan and Lebron. Even out of his prime defensive years is still usually a tough man defender. 2017 does lack consistent playmaking, but I am not sure if I feel strongly enough about 2019 or 2021 to go with those years this early instead. The 2019 series against Philadelphia is one of the greatest individual scoring series I have ever seen, but he declined as the postseason went along, and his regular season was pretty low value comparatively. So we settle on the year when Kawhi pre-Zaza injury looked like potentially the best player in the postseason while having a decent MVP regular season campaign. I do not care much about this specific postseason apart from the sense that it was the year where he first showcased his leap into true superstardom (to the chagrin of Memphis lol), but I do not think he improved much on any skills in 2019 apart from injury avoidance and marginal passing reads. I have concerns about his ability to handle a heavier regular season load on different teams that could need him to shoulder that load to compete, but not enough to put him any lower when considering how valuable he is when healthy. And in any case, 2017 was a pretty healthy regular season in which he had a fair shot at MVP anyway.
Well he outlined my points pretty nicely lol
On Kobe -
I think 60s and 70s rules don’t favor him more than late 2000s rules do, but at that point I think there’s just a skill gap.
I do think 80s and 90s rules help him though.
Kobe profiles as a very versatile offensive player, who is particularly elite at 1 on 1 play, where he’s in the discussion for best 1v1 player ever, whose an elite if not always willing passer
His offensive impact from 06-09 kind of does demonstrate this to an extent.
OFFENSE PI RAPM
2006
Nash 6.66
Allen 5.71
Kobe 5.65
Ginobli 4.86
2007
Nash 7.15
Wade 5.13
Ginoblii 5.11
Kobe 4.98
2008
Nash 7.26
Kobe 6.29
Lebron 5.07
2009
Nash 7.11
Bron 6.28
Paul 5.26
Kobe 5.05
Billups 4.97
Kobe is at least a little bit hard done by data like this though, because his 06-09 period was a bit unlucky in terms of his rapm if that makes sense
Essentially, 08 and 09 had collinearnity issues while 07 was a year he had less impact in general (he basically wasn’t passing it that year even compared to 06 and shooting into help way more, synergy data supports it, but he was absolutely insane at it).
PI RAPM fixes that a bit but I don’t think it’ll completely eliminate it. In 08, the main prior season with the most weight is gonna be 07, where he wasn’t as impactful offensively as the years in between.
In 09, you have the issue of, the main prior season being a year with collinearnity as an issue as well, which would be fine if there wasn’t one or if it was a different guy in 09. But in that regard you have an outlier level of a collinearnity issue in 09 with Odom
In 2005 he wasn’t all too impactful either, so his 2006 I RAPM is gonna be hurt by that.
Because of this, using RAPM as a gauge of his offensive impact does hurt him a bit.
NPI RAPM for 06 is pretty much the only year we have a peak Kobe offensive season without any big collinearnity issue or the issue of a bad prior (because it isn’t prior informed)
2006
Wade 4.41
Kobe 4.09
Nash 3.74
Collinearnity being an issue in 08 and 09 I don’t think can be handwaved away.
First of all, does it have a big impact?
Yes it does.
In 2008, radmanovic’s npi offensive rapm was 3.54, 4th in the nba behind Nash at 4.87 and cp3 at 3.85 and Dirk at 3.57
In 2009, Odom is 1st in the nba. His overall RAPM is also first in the nba, and by standard deviations I think it’s the best in history by a lot.
Showing this is an outlier result (probably caused by them happening to be in the floor when good things happen driven by Kobe offensively and off it when he messes up I guess) is easy.
Odom is a slight negative from every year 06-08 and a slight positive in 2010, and radmonovic was a large negative the year prior and a slight negative the year after
Kobes offensive data on its own is quite impressive, under that context I think it looks a lot better and you can pretty fairly make the argument he’s a tier one offensive type guy impact wise
In 2006, we have a year with a weak prior
In 2007, we have a year where he genuinely wasn’t super impactful for reasons that don’t as clearly apply in 06, 08, and 09.
In 2008 we have some collinearnity issues, and a weak prior
In 2009, we have a really big collinearnity issues, and a previous year that had collinearnity issues
Kobes actual offensive RAPM results are absolutely upper echelon, and he clearly had more issues in regards to “luck” in this regard than his peers did, and probably the second best from 06-09 in spite of that.
I don’t think this shoots him up past nash in offensive RAPM all three years or anything, PI did obviously account for the collinearnity issues somewhat.
I do think his actual performance driven lineup adjusted offensive impact (impact is a measure of performance really, which is what we’re trying to find, so that’s what I’m trying to say here) is arguable with Nash in 06 and 08, and I think most prefer his defense and how his offense works over Nash, portability and all of that. 09 looks a bit worse in impact and synergy but I think all things considered is still up there
As for him performing well in other eras, his best strengths, 1v1 with a higher emphasis than most perimeter guys in post play, translates better in eras where that’s more emphasized and used right?
If he had upper echelon offensive impact in an era where that isn’t used wouldn’t he have that in an era where that is used even more? 60-70s isn’t neccessarily a better environment league wide but at that point I do think it’s just a gap in an absolute sense, I know many don’t like the time travel argument and it’s not factoring all too much for me putting him here but I do think you time travel Kobe to the 60s and he’s the best player in the world, but those are hypotheticals
I have Kobe a bit higher than this tbh but I do get the concerns.
2008 Kobe (09)
2020 Davis
RS brings him down, but the main thing bringing him down seems to be playing with lebron which seems kind of silly to me.
He arguably outplayed bron in the playoffs up untill his injury in the finals, and 2020 bron was pretty easily a top 10 peak by itself. The playoff run alone is top 5 material I think.
The only thing that brings AD down here in terms of his postseason is he played with another ATG, and it was an easy run. But it just seems like diminishing 01 Shaq or Kobes runs because they had each other as well.
It’s one thing if they both played well but they barely scrapped by, but 2020 bubble AD and Bron are like blatantly the best postseason duo in nba history outside of 01 Kobe and Shaq and 17 Curry and Durant, and there’s a pretty strong argument for them as first.
In terms of his pure level of play, this is pretty easily a top ten level run.
At the end of the day, being ATG on both ends usually gives you a pretty high floor.
2020 bubble AD is a DPOY level defender that had one of the highest effeciency scoring championship runs in nba history.
Sure his regular season brings him down
But if AD was in Bubble mode for a whole year + a postseason, you’re talking about an extremely easy top 10 peak
If you put 2020 RS giannis with 2021 PS giannis I think that’s easily arguable as a top 10 peak, even his current peak was arguably there, and I don’t think either of those runs in a vacuum are better than bubble AD
A hyper effecient, hyper portable 28-10 guy with DPOY level defense, that isn’t a ball stopper whatsoever is kind of a stands alone kinda thing.
2017 Durant (14)
His postseason was kind of godly, him or 2017 Kawhi here for me
