Playoffs: Bird vs Curry vs Dirk vs Kobe

Matt15 · Post #1 » by **Matt15** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:07 pm

Playoffs only, how would you rank these players from 1-4?

Cavsfansince84 · Post #2 » by **Cavsfansince84** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:49 pm

Dirk
Bird
Steph/Kobe

f4p · Post #3 » by **f4p** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:00 pm

Kobe
Dirk
Bird
Curry

Kobe 2001-2011
Dirk 2002-2011
Bird 1980-1988
Curry 2014-2022

parsnips33 · Post #4 » by **parsnips33** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:04 pm

Dirk
Steph
Kobe
Bird

Something like that?

Colbinii · Post #5 » by **Colbinii** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:16 pm

How are we ranking them? Peak? Expected prime outcome? Career value? Who we would prefer to have on a Top 10-ish team?

70sFan · Post #6 » by **70sFan** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:17 pm

Do you ask about resiliency or overall impact?

capfan33 · Post #7 » by **capfan33** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:32 am

Overall impact:
Steph
Kobe
Bird
Dirk

JordansBulls · Post #8 » by **JordansBulls** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:19 am

Bird vs Steph would be interesting.

SpreeS · Post #9 » by **SpreeS** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:31 am

f4p wrote:Kobe
Dirk
Bird
Curry

Kobe 2001-2011
Dirk 2002-2011
Bird 1980-1988
Curry 2014-2022

This is good one hahahahaha

LAL1947 · Post #10 » by **LAL1947** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:17 am

1) Kobe
2) Bird
3) Steph
4) Dirk

LAL1947 · Post #11 » by **LAL1947** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:21 am

I'm curious to know why you guys have Dirk at #1 and Kobe lower down.

parsnips33 wrote:Dirk
Steph
Kobe
Bird

Dirk is the only one of these four who was the #1 seed and lost to the #8 seed in the 1st round. He also won the least titles of this group.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Dirk
Bird
Steph/Kobe

Stats show that Kobe played the highest number of playoff games against better opposition and still performed better in the playoffs than in the regular season.

NBA Superstars Playoffs Production Based On Quality Of Opposition

Jaivl · Post #12 » by **Jaivl** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:20 am

Curry
Bird
Kobe
Dirk

Close

Colbinii · Post #13 » by **Colbinii** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 12:44 pm

f4p wrote:Kobe
Dirk
Bird
Curry

Kobe 2001-2011
Dirk 2002-2011
Bird 1980-1988
Curry 2014-2022

Why does it matter if players regular season statistics drop? A player going from a 30 PER to a 28 PER is still better than someone going from a 15 PER to 20 PER.

Onus · Post #14 » by **Onus** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:22 pm

Curry
Bird
Kobe
Dirk

The-Power · Post #15 » by **The-Power** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:32 pm

Colbinii wrote:Why does it matter if players regular season statistics drop? A player going from a 30 PER to a 28 PER is still better than someone going from a 15 PER to 20 PER.

This. RS versus PS comparisons are completely irrelevant if the baseline is not taken into account. That's essentially rewarding players for being worse in the RS, and punishing players for reaching higher levels in the RS. Doesn't make sense at all.

eminence · Post #16 » by **eminence** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:11 pm

Curry
Kobe
Bird
Dirk

Kobe vs Bird was the toughest decision for me.

parsnips33 · Post #17 » by **parsnips33** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:09 pm

LAL1947 wrote:I'm curious to know why you guys have Dirk at #1 and Kobe lower down.

parsnips33 wrote:Dirk
Steph
Kobe
Bird

Dirk is the only one of these four who was the #1 seed and lost to the #8 seed in the 1st round. He also won the least titles of this group.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Dirk
Bird
Steph/Kobe

Stats show that Kobe played the highest number of playoff games against better opposition and still performed better in the playoffs than in the regular season.

NBA Superstars Playoffs Production Based On Quality Of Opposition

Honestly I didn't think too hard before posting :lol:

And the differences between these guys are not huge IMO. Dirk lost as the 1 seed, but Kobe and Steph both let 3-1 leads get away etc. etc.

I'd probably move Steph over Dirk tbh

capfan33 · Post #18 » by **capfan33** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:19 pm

In terms of pure impact as much as I love Dirk I think he's pretty clearly last in this comparison. I think the tough one is Bird vs Kobe, and once again going by impact metrics Curry is pretty clearly 1st, at least in terms of prime/peak.

f4p · Post #19 » by **f4p** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 5:38 pm

Colbinii wrote:
f4p wrote:Kobe
Dirk
Bird
Curry

Kobe 2001-2011
Dirk 2002-2011
Bird 1980-1988
Curry 2014-2022

Why does it matter if players regular season statistics drop? A player going from a 30 PER to a 28 PER is still better than someone going from a 15 PER to 20 PER.

i agree, but these aren't exactly vastly different players. we could probably find lots of different opinions on who was better between the 4. and reference lots of things that might be more favorable to one vs the other (they say if you listen closely on a quiet night, the wind out of the west sounds like it's saying "gravity"). but we can see from a fairly similar baseline, which ones faired better and worse in the playoffs. dirk had a pretty long stretch of putting up better numbers in the playoffs than the regular season. he has arguably the most impressive title of the 4, but also the worst result on the 4 so that factored in to me putting kobe above him, and i'm not a huge kobe fan. the other 2 drop off quite a bit and fairly consistently so.

by the absolute stats, it would be:

PER
Dirk
Kobe
Curry
Bird

WS48
Dirk
Curry
Bird
Kobe

BPM
Bird
Curry
Dirk
Kobe

Colbinii · Post #20 » by **Colbinii** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:26 pm

Colbinii wrote:
f4p wrote:Kobe
Dirk
Bird
Curry

Kobe 2001-2011
Dirk 2002-2011
Bird 1980-1988
Curry 2014-2022

Why does it matter if players regular season statistics drop? A player going from a 30 PER to a 28 PER is still better than someone going from a 15 PER to 20 PER.

by the absolute stats, it would be:

PER
Dirk
Kobe
Curry
Bird

Dirk: 25.0
Curry: 23.5
Kobe: 23.3
Bird: 21.9

WS48
Dirk
Curry
Bird
Kobe

Dirk: .207
Curry: .199
Bird: .183
Kobe: .174

The gap between Dirk and Curry is smaller than the gap between Curry and Bird.

BPM
Bird
Curry
Dirk
Kobe

Bird: 7.4
Curry: 7.3
Dirk: 6.7
Kobe: 6.0

This is essentially a 1A/1B as the gap between Curry and Bird is .1 while the gap between Curry and Kobe is 1.3.

Are you a fan of DBPM compared to OBPM?

So Curry ranks ahead of Kobe in all 3, absolutely crushes Kobe in BPM and WS/48, yet Kobe is ahead of Curry?

(they say if you listen closely on a quiet night, the wind out of the west sounds like it's saying "gravity")

Something something wind whispering "biases! biases my friend, biases!"

Windy day up in Minnesota!