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Same premise as the Steph thread.

How many years of atleast being the 2nd best player does Kobe have to you?

One, maybe two.

Just looked it up, and currently I have it as 3.

'00-01
'08-09
'09-10

Doctor MJ wrote:Just looked it up, and currently I have it as 3.

'00-01
'08-09
'09-10

Not a fan of his defense in 05-06 I'm guessing?

TheGOATRises007 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:Just looked it up, and currently I have it as 3.

'00-01
'08-09
'09-10

Not a fan of his defense in 05-06 I'm guessing?

That's a reasonable conclusion on your part, but honestly I don't really want to get into a knife fight with Kobe fans because of all the scars I already have.

Let me just say I have him on my ballot in that year and other years.
I think he was an incredible player.
This is just where he ended up for me.

Though as I think about, I will mention a particular thing about Kobe's performance trends that makes him tough to place:

In general he underperforms relative to superstar expectations in +/- stats, but to some degree that might be a reflection of something that could be seen as a flaw in +/- stats.

I like +/- stats because of the fact that they are directly tied to the scoreboard, which is the thing that's really real.

BUT

In the end, it doesn't matter how much you win by, it just matters that you outscore the other team by 1.

I think players tend to have their optimization of play degrade to some degree when it doesn't matter as much.

Some of this is active energy conservation, sometimes it's a form of demoralization, sometimes it's experimentation, and who knows what else.

But for whatever reason, Kobe seems likely to be a guy with more extreme such degradation in his game, and that can cause us analytically to underrate what he can do when he's got it all put together.

Now, I wouldn't go too far with this. Back in the day Kobe's supporters used to think he could swing any 5 point game to a win for the Lakers in the clutch, and when we got the data for that, nope, he really couldn't.

But his defense is a great thing to look at here.

His regular season +/- data really tells the story of a guy who on average was not a great defender...and yet he obviously had all the tools for great man defense, and we saw him successfully able to put them to use in a variety of critical situations.

So then, what do we use to judge his accomplishment for a given season? An aggregation of what he actually did? or, What he think he could do in a particular game when he's laser focused?

For me, as things currently stand, this is a place where you can see something that you might call "winning bias" in my rankings. When you go all the way, it's easier for me to dismiss the not-so-great times in the year as not really mattering all that much.

For others, they'll see it differently, and rank him differently as a result.

I’d say 2001 and 2008 for sure with 2006 and 2007 being “maybe”.

Doctor MJ wrote:Just looked it up, and currently I have it as 3.

'00-01
'08-09
'09-10

What would you say made you decide Kobe over Wade for 09 and 10?

1993Playoffs wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:Just looked it up, and currently I have it as 3.

'00-01
'08-09
'09-10

What would you say made you decide Kobe over Wade for 09 and 10?

With the preface that I don't have it all in my head right now, and that it's a tough debate where reasonable people can disagree -

For me there's a question of the confidence I have in Wade's ability to scale up to elite team offense as easily given his more limited quiver of tools.

Those who side with Wade in those years tend to point to Wade's big individual numbers in those losing series, but the team offense wasn't actually that successful with this approach. Doesn't mean it was Wade's fault, but it does mean I believe we need to be careful about acting as if he was more successful than stars on more offensively successful teams.

Where I tend to question myself though is with the defense. While I definitely give the nod to Wade on defense here, he goes through these "mutant 3-year-old" runs at times where he really feels like young Jordan. If here were like that all the time I'd probably give him the overall nod above Kobe, but it's really not something that he seemed to be able to turn on at will.

I like 2001, 2009 and 2010 [though I don't have a historical Top 5 list like Doctor MJ does to reference].

I am low[er] on 2006 Kobe Bryant.

I cant buy 2007 with Nash, Dirk, Duncan and LeBron.

It is hard for me to grasp onto 2008 with LeBron/Garnett.

Zero. Has a few top ten years though.

Zero. I'm not sure where he actually ranks in his top years, but there are at least 2 players I'm confident were better every season of his career.

I think 08.

06-07 I'm iffy but I think Nash might bump him out the top 2. Hard for me to see how Kobe is a better offensive player than Nash and that is where their value is those seasons.

Doctor MJ wrote:

1993Playoffs wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:Just looked it up, and currently I have it as 3.

'00-01
'08-09
'09-10

What would you say made you decide Kobe over Wade for 09 and 10?

With the preface that I don't have it all in my head right now, and that it's a tough debate where reasonable people can disagree -

For me there's a question of the confidence I have in Wade's ability to scale up to elite team offense as easily given his more limited quiver of tools.

Those who side with Wade in those years tend to point to Wade's big individual numbers in those losing series, but the team offense wasn't actually that successful with this approach. Doesn't mean it was Wade's fault, but it does mean I believe we need to be careful about acting as if he was more successful than stars on more offensively successful teams.

Where I tend to question myself though is with the defense. While I definitely give the nod to Wade on defense here, he goes through these "mutant 3-year-old" runs at times where he really feels like young Jordan. If here were like that all the time I'd probably give him the overall nod above Kobe, but it's really not something that he seemed to be able to turn on at will.

According to Cleaning the Glass, the Heat had an ORtg of 112.0 with Wade in 2010 and 95.4 with him off. The Lakers had an ORtg of 111.6 with Kobe and 102.5 without him the same year. I don't think Kobe has much of a case over Wade that year.

01
03 (this debatable with KG)
06
07
08
09
10

Id say there are 7 years where he has a case for being a top 2 player. Personally I’d say he was top 2 five times in ’01 and ’06-’09.

1993Playoffs wrote:Same premise as the Steph thread.

How many years of atleast being the 2nd best player does Kobe have to you?

I'd say he was bitw in 08 and top 2 in 09. Undecided on 01 because of the regular season/shaq. Might take KG over for 01 tbh, This his performance vs the Spurs is underrated and he was clearly better than Kobe for the 82 games preceding that. Have Wade ranked higher in 2010 on the basis of him performing better vs the same great celtics defense

2001: 2nd behind Shaq
2002: 3rd behind Shaq and Duncan
2003: 3rd behind Duncan and KG
2004: 5th behind KG, Duncan, Shaq and Dirk
2005: In the 8-10 range
2006: Best player
2007: Best player or 2nd behind Duncan
2008: Best player
2009: 2nd behind LeBron
2010: 2nd behind LeBron

So 6 top 2 years. I think only Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Jordan, Duncan and LeBron have that many or more.

OhayoKD wrote:

1993Playoffs wrote:Same premise as the Steph thread.

How many years of atleast being the 2nd best player does Kobe have to you?

I'd say he was bitw in 08 and top 2 in 09. Undecided on 01 because of the regular season/shaq. Might take KG over for 01 tbh, This his performance vs the Spurs is underrated and he was clearly better than Kobe for the 82 games preceding that. Have Wade ranked higher in 2010 on the basis of him performing better vs the same great celtics defense

What about '06 and '07?

In '06 he led a team that had Smush Parker, Brian Cook and Kwame Brown as 3/5 states to the 7th best SRS and the 8th best offense. That is best in the league impact.

ardee wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:

1993Playoffs wrote:Same premise as the Steph thread.

How many years of atleast being the 2nd best player does Kobe have to you?

I'd say he was bitw in 08 and top 2 in 09. Undecided on 01 because of the regular season/shaq. Might take KG over for 01 tbh, This his performance vs the Spurs is underrated and he was clearly better than Kobe for the 82 games preceding that. Have Wade ranked higher in 2010 on the basis of him performing better vs the same great celtics defense

What about '06 and '07?

In '06 he led a team that had Smush Parker, Brian Cook and Kwame Brown as 3/5 states to the 7th best SRS and the 8th best offense. That is best in the league impact.

What about the players that lead great teams to great results? Just because Smush Parker was on the Lakers doesn't mean that Kobe is better than everyone.

I don't see you putting players who carried bad teams over Kobe in his contending years.

HeartBreakKid wrote:

ardee wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:I'd say he was bitw in 08 and top 2 in 09. Undecided on 01 because of the regular season/shaq. Might take KG over for 01 tbh, This his performance vs the Spurs is underrated and he was clearly better than Kobe for the 82 games preceding that. Have Wade ranked higher in 2010 on the basis of him performing better vs the same great celtics defense

What about '06 and '07?

In '06 he led a team that had Smush Parker, Brian Cook and Kwame Brown as 3/5 states to the 7th best SRS and the 8th best offense. That is best in the league impact.

What about the players that lead great teams to great results? Just because Smush Parker was on the Lakers doesn't mean that Kobe is better than everyone.

I don't see you putting players who carried bad teams over Kobe in his contending years.

What Kobe achieved that year WAS a great team result.

Do you know who the 7th best SRS in the league was last year? The Bucks. The year before that? The Harden/Kyrie/KD Nets.

Yeah, THAT is what Kobe was able to do with that TRASH on his team. Just show some damn respect for him for once.

If you're talking about '08-'10, there wasn't anyone in the league pulling that kind of carry job besides LeBron in '09 and '10, and he rightly gets ranked over Kobe. Wade's Heat teams were 13th and 14th in SRS and 20th and 19th on offense respectively, and that was with at least marginally better teammates than Kobe had in '06.