Peaks Project Secondary Thread: to determine Years

[Quotatious]

I mean, Frazier clearly outplayed West (I can even say that he SHUT DOWN him). My English isn't the best, sorry...

Ah, got it.

[picc]

The finals argument for 09 Kobe doesn't fly because Celtics were on another level defensively compared to Magic.

My peak for Kobe would be 08. The Lakers after Gasol's trade until the finals was probably the best team Kobe has ever anchored. He had an insane run through the western conference. Faced tough teams and destroyed them. 09 Kobe lost a step in athleticism and in terms of stamina. 07 would be a great pick as well though I feel like his playoff performance was sub-par for the standards that he set during the RS. 08 Kobe had a much better performance in the postseason.

-6.9 vs -8.6 RelDRTG's isn't a huge gap. Both teams were clearly the leagues best defense and the gap in Kobe's play was larger than the difference between defenses in my opinon

That difference does not reflect the difference in their actual performance. During the RS KG was playing like 33 mpg. He was playing almost 40 mpg vs Lakers. That alone completely screws those stats. Not to mention Celtics were coasting at the end of the season because they were locked in as #1 seed in the league. If you look at Celtics performance with KG on the floor vs Magic's performance with Dwight, this is a different league really. Magic barely even beat Celtics without KG (4-3 series in 09), and they lost to Celtics 10 despite KG having the worst season of his career after the surgery. 09 Magic would get wrecked against Celtics 08. It would likely be a sweep or 4-1. That's point number one.

Point number two, you should also take into account team structure. Due to Dwight's presence Magic were dominating in the paint. But they were a poor perimeter defense. They didn't guard pnr exceptionally well, had a long track record of having huge issues against star wings (Wade, LeBron were destroying Magic that year in the RS and PS). Magic's defense wasn't well suited to stopping Lakers offense from a matchup standpoint.

Celtics on the other hand were excellent at stopping perimeter stars. They made LeBron look like a fool in ECSF (35% FG, 5 tov per game, probably the worst series in LeBron's career). That was specifically because of Garnett's presence. KG is an amazing help defender and it seemed like they were 6 people on the court because he would always cover the weak spots in C's defense. KG is obviously a master of pnr defense and Celtics were incredibly dominant in that regard. Moreso than any other team I can think of. So there is a big difference in terms of team strengths - Magic are super dominant inside, mediocre outside; Celtics were dominant overall.

Point number 3, you should take into account the difference in Lakers team structure in 08 vs 09. Lakers 09 were far worse offensively because they implemented Bynum and changed their offensive strategy. In 08 PS Lakers were playing mostly pnr offense with Kobe and Gasol. That was their #1 play when sh*t got tough. 08 Lakers were one of the best offenses of all-time after Gasol joined them. On the other hand, Lakers 09 were defensive-minded and didn't dominate offensively anymore. They were more balanced and their offense didn't revolve around Kobe-Gasol pnr anymore.

Nothing left to add to this post. Its exactly right. The perimeter defense between the two teams was night and day, and in addition to the points you made it was simply obvious watching the two series that one team was stifling our offensive sets and the other was susceptible. The 09 Magic felt like swiss cheese in comparison to the Celtics series. We're talking about a team guarding Kobe with JJ Redick and Courtney Lee, with a dosage of Mikael Petrius in crunchtime. Kobe has wet dreams about those matchups.

2008 Kobe was a more dynamic player than 2009, agreed, but my vote would be for 2003. Never in his career was Bryant more capable as a two-way player.