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DWhiteMamba wrote:Durant has the best ones, and probably most of the top 10 list is KD's seasons. He is just a better player than Kobe on both ends. Just not much to discuss here, except which Durant seasons are the best ones, and just how many KD seasons we have to go through on the list before Kobe gets a season in.

DWhiteMamba wrote:Durant has the best ones, and probably most of the top 10 list is KD's seasons. He is just a better player than Kobe on both ends. Just not much to discuss here, except which Durant seasons are the best ones, and just how many KD seasons we have to go through on the list before Kobe gets a season in.

DWhiteMamba wrote:Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another. It's a ridiculous way of analysing players. Earl Boykins has more offensive skills than Shaq; he is a better dribbler, shooter, passer, FT shooter, etc. He's a worse offensive player by far though. Who cares how many skills he is better than Shaq in? It's irrelevant to their impact. I don't really care that Kobe was better at dribbling, etc, than Durant. He's still a worse offensive player than him. The stats all bear that out. On D he obviously is far superior.

I also find these injury comparisons a bit silly to be honest. In 2019 KD played 78 regular season games healthy, then another 11 playoff game before he got hurt, for a total of 89 healthy games that season. Am I supposed to rank Kobe's 2006 season as more durable, as someone above suggested, when he only played 87 healthy games that season? Kobe could have had a random injury in game 89 too. When you are playing more games that's enough for me to say it's basically irrelevant and is a random variable. You want to penalise KD for the season he played 27 games, or missed the season, that's obviously fine. You want to scratch off a season where he played more games than the guy you're comparing him to? Not fine.

The top entries on this list are all KD, and the majority of entries are too. KD last season, and from 2016-19, was at a level Kobe never was, and frankly 2010-2014 KD it's much the same. I dunno how much I'm going to penalise KD for his lack of games last season, given what a weird year it was, and how much of it was by design, I guess it hurts him a fair bit. For the most part though KD has been a superior player to what Kobe was for a long time now. Once he retires there's unlikely to be much of a pro-Kobe argument left.

DWhiteMamba wrote:Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another. It's a ridiculous way of analysing players. Earl Boykins has more offensive skills than Shaq; he is a better dribbler, shooter, passer, FT shooter, etc. He's a worse offensive player by far though. Who cares how many skills he is better than Shaq in? It's irrelevant to their impact. I don't really care that Kobe was better at dribbling, etc, than Durant. He's still a worse offensive player than him. The stats all bear that out. On D he obviously is far superior.

I also find these injury comparisons a bit silly to be honest. In 2019 KD played 78 regular season games healthy, then another 11 playoff game before he got hurt, for a total of 89 healthy games that season. Am I supposed to rank Kobe's 2006 season as more durable, as someone above suggested, when he only played 87 healthy games that season? Kobe could have had a random injury in game 89 too. When you are playing more games that's enough for me to say it's basically irrelevant and is a random variable. You want to penalise KD for the season he played 27 games, or missed the season, that's obviously fine. You want to scratch off a season where he played more games than the guy you're comparing him to? Not fine.

The top entries on this list are all KD, and the majority of entries are too. KD last season, and from 2016-19, was at a level Kobe never was, and frankly 2010-2014 KD it's much the same. I dunno how much I'm going to penalise KD for his lack of games last season, given what a weird year it was, and how much of it was by design, I guess it hurts him a fair bit. For the most part though KD has been a superior player to what Kobe was for a long time now. Once he retires there's unlikely to be much of a pro-Kobe argument left.

DWhiteMamba wrote:There are things a "6-10" superfreak with ridiculously long arms like KD can do on D that Kobe never could.

DWhiteMamba wrote:Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another.

Jaivl wrote:

DWhiteMamba wrote:There are things a "6-10" superfreak with ridiculously long arms like KD can do on D that Kobe never could.

DWhiteMamba wrote:Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another.

70sFan wrote:If Durant is so much better, prove it statistically.

DWhiteMamba wrote:

70sFan wrote:If Durant is so much better, prove it statistically.

I didn't think something so obvious was contentious. In the last 7 seasons Durant has averaged at least 27 points per 36. Kobe has done that exactly twice in his career (we'll get to that in a sec). During those 7 seasons Durant's TS% ranged from 634. to 666. Kobe's highest ever TS% is 580. That's a huge difference. So how about the 2 stand out years? In one Kobe was at 27.9 per 36 in 2007, and 31.1 in 2006. How did he post these higher than usual KD numbers? By having a ridiculously high usage, and scoring far less efficiently than KD. His usage in these years was 33.6% in 2007 and a preposterous 38.7 in 2006. KD has never had a usage rate that high. Kobe's offence is also worse those years. His TS%, while high for Kobe, is low for KD and clocks in at 559. and 580.

So right off the bat it's obvious KD is the better offensive player. He scores as much or more per 36, doing it much more efficiently, and does it without needing the ball as much as Kobe, which helps everyone else in the offense. KD is better at 3s, also important, and is harder to stop because of his size and higher release point. Kobe has had tonnes of bad series, but KD can't be stopped or slowed down in the same way Kobe was so many in bad playoff series.

Then on D it's no contest at all.

70sFan wrote:So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

DWhiteMamba wrote:

70sFan wrote:So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

DWhiteMamba wrote:

70sFan wrote:So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

70sFan wrote:

DWhiteMamba wrote:

70sFan wrote:So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

I'm not the one who brings up very strong opinion in authoritative manner, states it as a fact and shows extremely weak arguments when asked. Extraorodinary claims need at lest very solid evidences, it's not on me.

I didn't say even once that I have Kobe over Durant offensively. I honestly don't know who was better. There are very close when you look at them from various perspective, that's why I wanted you to show the reasons to believe that KD is significantly better and it's not close. You showed a bunch of scoring stats taken from basketball reference. Anyone can do that. It's not an analysis.

By the same criteria, you'd put Durant significantly ahead of Larry Bird, which would be at least controversial (and just wrong in my opinion). By the same criteria, you should have Adrian Dantley higher than Kobe as well. I'd be very glad if you do - I love Dantley - but it would be wrong.

Do you have Adrian Dantley inside top 15 as well? He was arguably a better scorer than Durant.

DWhiteMamba wrote:You have not showed us any reasons KD is not significantly better, not one. None appear apparent.

The stats prima facie confirm what the objective eye tells us; KD was far more impactful offensively. Nor do I see some logical reason Kobe was better. Ok, he can dribble better I guess, but KD can dribble fine and it doesn't hurt his game because his unblockable release point means he can almost always get the separation he needs to get his shot.

It would be like saying Al Jefferson is better than Shaq, because Al has more post moves. Ok, maybe he does, but so what? Shaq doesn't need them, his raw talent is simply too undeniable.

As a pure scorer KD is more effective than Bird. Where you can push back a little is that Bird was a savant who can impact your whole offense with his passing and bball IQ in a way Kobe and KD can not, and alot of the critiques that rank Bird highly (including from Ben Taylor) focus on this. Also I'm not sure why this is such a blow against my argument; I literally said in the other Kobe thread that I felt Bird was dropping out of the top 10 these days. Bird also has the advantage in this comparison of playing in a time when he skills were not optimally used. In today's league the rules and 3pt focus would help Bird alot.

Dantley was more a more efficient scorer than Kobe... at the type of shots he took, which were much more limited and did not include 3s, and were not conducive to a great offense.

On other hand Kobe's offensive skills were often not utilised in a way to optimise an offense. Watching Kobe gun it with his selfish shot jacking in the 2004 finals for instance does little to inspire confidence in the consistent benefit of his offensive skills. It wasn't always like that of course, but in terms of scoring 2 point shots Dantley and Kobe are closer than you might think in terms of ability.

However, Dantley doesn't pass as well as either, doesn't involve the whole team in the offense,

and his offensive efficiency is skill worse than KD

Dantley would also translate less well to today's game, and isn't a good defensive player (though I think he is unfairly maligned for the Pistons coming up short, they'd have won the title with health in his last year regardless, and won the next 2 years with him over Aguirre).

Kobe wasn't a consistently good defensive players after the early 00s. He basically stopped trying consistently, and by the 10s it was a joke that he kept making defensive teams while putting in horrid effort. KD in his early career could have worked on D too, he wasn't always consistent, but what he can and always could do is so much more impactful, especially if utilised correctly as it often was not. Kobe's D can only do so much no matter how you utilise it.