Offense Only: Durant vs Dirk vs Kobe vs Wade

[Matt15]

Offense only, how would you rank them from 1-4?

[SHAQ32]

Dirk, KD, Kobe... Wade

[ceoofkobefans]

1. Kobe
2. KD
3. Wade
4. Dirk

[Sign5]

Wade
Durant
Kobe
Dirk

[dygaction]

Dirk/Durant/Kobe/Wade

[rk2023]

Kobe
Dirk
Wade
Durant

2-4 are close, but Kobe is a comfortable 1 imo. Analysis from an earlier thread below:

When placing an emphasis on PS translation and longevity, here is how I see it:

1. Kobe Bryant: I think he has the best peak (personally) and the best longevity on offense (quite comfortably) of the group. Scoring is his calling card here, as he consistently maintains the highest volume of the four. I think his efficiency and scoring-blindness / tunnel vision at times is what sets him back more-so compared to the fringe-"GOAT" offensive players (think Jokic, Oscar, West, Nash) than they do compared to this group of players, but at his best Kobe was a pretty cerebral off-the-ball mover and an underrated playmaker with low turnover economy (though his passes often weren't high-leverage). 2001 is when he broke out offensively. Although his game was far more refined later, Kobe was ridiculously poised for his age and had more bounce to blow-by and dance-around defenders. Probably his first "strong MVP year" with offensive value. Aside from a few dips (like 2002/05/10 in the RS and before getting his knee drained), he maintains this level for most of the decade with some tailing off in 2011 and 2012 due to injuries & a renaissance on his eventual last legs in 2013 - playing more heliocentric in Dantoni's system.

2. Dirk Nowitzki: Dirk is another interesting case here, as I think adjusting for the 2000s and very early 10s compared to the 10s and now 20s gives him somewhat a longevity edge over Paul for me. While I might like Paul year-over-year more in a vacuum (lets' say 08-17 vs. 02-11), the durability factor definitely is something that gives Dirk the edge for me. 2001 is around when I think Dirk started to provide >= all-star level value on offense - coming into his own in 2005 and having the tail end of his true heyday be his best (2011). I am unsure if a high-end of Nowitzki's offense would be over a low-end of Kobe's myself, but that's no knack at him. At their very best, I might even favor Dirk > Kobe as a scorer in a post-season setting. One of the lazier pieces of analysis I sometimes see is that Dirk was a "1-dimensional scorer and player" - considering Dirk's effective passing with a decently low TOV economy, great spacing, C&S, PnP value, and low-touch/quick-touch style baked into his scoring.

4. Dwyane Wade I view Wade's offensive apex as the second best out of this group, and I think he is the best offensive floor-raiser out of the four. It is worth noting that this is due to Wade being maximized as a heliocentric player with the bandwidth to control a lot of scoring and playmaking (reflective especially in impact metrics with the 2006, 2009, 2010 Heat showing his O-Load and how Wade was integral at bringing a pedestrian offense to above league average with him on). His scoring also was very resilient - having fared well in his true prime span of 2006-11 against several elite defenses (iirc marginally over 2006-10 James and Kobe in this span). I probably don't like his ceiling raising as much as I do the other three here, however. What sets Wade back for me is the injury troubles and durability. 2012 and the 12-13 RS were the tail-end of Wade's offensive hey-day from my view before Wade had injury problems leading to a very inconsistent 2013 PS / him being a marginal value player next to James. Even within the span from 2006-2011, where he places himself in similar offensive comparison to the likes oof Kobe, Paul, Dirk - one of his better seasons in 2007 is cut short due to injury and same trouble in 2008. I would say 2006, 09,10,11 are >= the MVP threshold on O.

[Texas Chuck]

I'm sorry but did you really write that a high end of Dirk's offense might not be as good as the low end of Kobe's? Now that is a scorching hot take lol.

[rk2023]

I'm sorry but did you really write that a high end of Dirk's offense might not be as good as the low end of Kobe's? Now that is a scorching hot take lol.

The prior post I quoted was from Feb this year, I see it more or less the same right now - where I prefer Kobe due to the volume playmaking and on-ball creation gap. When it comes to scalable basketball acumen and scoring efficacy however, I prefer Dirk nowadays in both those departments. Do you have an argument for why Dirk maybe closer to Kobe (if not outright superior) when it comes to offensive impact and production [am asking out of genuine curiosity]? It has been a while since I've granularly looked back at Dirk's entire prime - and I plan to do so soon as he is coming up as a formidable nomination choice for me for this board's T-100 project.

[Texas Chuck]

I'm sorry but did you really write that a high end of Dirk's offense might not be as good as the low end of Kobe's? Now that is a scorching hot take lol.

The prior post I quoted was from Feb this year, I see it more or less the same right now - where I prefer Kobe due to the volume playmaking and on-ball creation gap. When it comes to scalable basketball acumen and scoring efficacy however, I prefer Dirk nowadays in both those departments. Do you have an argument for why Dirk maybe closer to Kobe (if not outright superior) when it comes to offensive impact and production [am asking out of genuine curiosity]? It has been a while since I've granularly looked back at Dirk's entire prime - and I plan to do so soon as he is coming up as a formidable nomination choice for me for this board's T-100 project.

I'm not prepared to make a detailed argument either direction, but I feel pretty confident the best of Dirk's offense isn't worse than mediocre Kobe offense. I think there might be a handful of players at best where you could say the low end of their prime is better offense than Dirk's peak and Kobe certainly wouldn't be one of those players for me.

Curious what it is about Kobe that has you elevating him up among the best offensive players of all-time? Which he would absolutely have to be for the worst of his prime to be better than the best we ever saw from an offensive player as great as Dirk.

Obviously Kobe was a great offensive player, but that seems impossible to me. And sure Kobe creates more on-ball, but why is that automatically more valuable than Dirk setting a basic screen and Nash now playing 4 on 3 or JET taking a wide open 18 footer, or Kidd getting to make the extra pass to the wide open corner 3? OR even forget players of that caliber. Go look at the end of Dirk's career when lineups that featured JJ Barea, Dwight Powell, Dirk, Devin Harris, and assorted 5th guys were +20 per 100 possessions for 2 straight years. Because even in his upper 30's bigs wouldn't leave Dirk so Barea has a live downhill dribble with a good roll man, a good cutter, and the 5th guy generally a shooter.

Dirk's ability to create great shots for teammates lasted nearly 20 years. Just like in the KG thread where I believe strongly Dirk was a better shot creator than KG despite the big gap in assists. There is no inherent advantage in being the player who throws the final pass, if the attention Dirk commands is what is ultimately creating shots at the rim, or wide open corner 3's.

[rk2023]

.

I'm not prepared to make a detailed argument either direction, but I feel pretty confident the best of Dirk's offense isn't worse than mediocre Kobe offense. I think there might be a handful of players at best where you could say the low end of their prime is better offense than Dirk's peak and Kobe certainly wouldn't be one of those players for me.

Curious what it is about Kobe that has you elevating him up among the best offensive players of all-time? Which he would absolutely have to be for the worst of his prime to be better than the best we ever saw from an offensive player as great as Dirk.

My apologies for the poor wording in the initial post. I was not referring to levels of production and game-by-game variance to clarify. When I said "high end this, low end that" I was referring to my evaluation of how valuable each's offense is/was and the confidence intervals I could be thinking of [very similar to CORP, Estimated +/-, APM, so on]. I agree with the point you're making here. Hope this all makes sense.

Obviously Kobe was a great offensive player, but that seems impossible to me. And sure Kobe creates more on-ball, but why is that automatically more valuable than Dirk setting a basic screen and Nash now playing 4 on 3 or JET taking a wide open 18 footer, or Kidd getting to make the extra pass to the wide open corner 3? OR even forget players of that caliber. Go look at the end of Dirk's career when lineups that featured JJ Barea, Dwight Powell, Dirk, Devin Harris, and assorted 5th guys were +20 per 100 possessions for 2 straight years. Because even in his upper 30's bigs wouldn't leave Dirk so Barea has a live downhill dribble with a good roll man, a good cutter, and the 5th guy generally a shooter.

Dirk's ability to create great shots for teammates lasted nearly 20 years. Just like in the KG thread where I believe strongly Dirk was a better shot creator than KG despite the big gap in assists. There is no inherent advantage in being the player who throws the final pass, if the attention Dirk commands is what is ultimately creating shots at the rim, or wide open corner 3's.

To answer your question here, while I take Dirk as a scorer.. I believe Kobe's RS -> PS translation in this department is pretty damn impressive (not to say Dirk is the slightest bit of a slouch either). Like you do with Dirk, I also think Kobe was pretty good at enabling scrubs while having some scalable offensive attributes that the box score fails to account for (eg. stellar off-ball movement, ability to operate from various spots on the floor, pretty stellar Mid-Range and Perimeter Gravity [albeit with some scoring blindness] that opened up opportunities for teammates). Essentially, I view both as very good ceiling raising candidates with the pragmatically proven impact akin to a great floor raiser. Once again, not to say Dirk doesn't have some of these in spades - and imo he has a very strong case as the GOAT floor spacer. I would have to definitely look into how frequent and how valuable his off-ball creation ability is, that said. What you mentioned certainly makes sense, so I am curious to see how often such happens over a game.

[Texas Chuck]

My apologies for the poor wording in the initial post. I was not referring to levels of production and game-by-game variance to clarify. When I said "high end this, low end that" I was referring to my evaluation of how valuable each's offense is/was and the confidence intervals I could be thinking of [very similar to CORP, Estimated +/-, APM, so on].

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. I definitely misunderstood what you were saying. This helps.

[Roy T]

Y'all value Bryant way too high. He is ja slightly better Joe Johnson...

Durant
Nowitzki
Wade
Bryant

Dats wassup

[tsherkin]

Y'all value Bryant way too high. He is ja slightly better Joe Johnson...

That is a violently inaccurate comparison...

[Ben AN]

1. KD

2. DWade
3. Kobe

4. Dirk
I prefer on ball engines, those offenses tend to perform better than ball movement oriented ones: https://fansided.com/2021/02/26/nylon-calculus-passing-offense-winning/ that being said KD has solid enough on ball chops, that when you combine that with him being the GOAT shotmaker, I see him a tier above.

[ceoofkobefans]

Y'all value Bryant way too high. He is ja slightly better Joe Johnson...

Durant
Nowitzki
Wade
Bryant

Dats wassup

Unserious post

[Colbinii]

1) Dirk

Sustained offensive greatness for > Decade. Offensive engine whose teams scaled exceptionally well in the regular season through different casts while they performed good to great in the post-season. Resilient scorer, especially the latter half of his prime.

2) Bryant

Neck-and-Neck with Dirk, long prime of a zealous offensive burden. Not the same scorer as Dirk but has a clear playmaking advantage over Durant/Wade. Extremely high floor raiser and co-exists next to big men exceptionally well.

3) Durant

All-time great level shooter and scoring from every place on the court. Relentless as a shooter off the contest and has enough size to get his shot off over anyone and enough of a handle to create the sliver of space he needs to reliably score. Not the same offensive engine as Dirk or Bryant, but the best plug-and-play guy here [scalability with any cast, additive skill-set withs a lights out shooter on the catch and a great isolation scorer].

4) Wade

Play-off highs combined with a short prime and inability to create and/or lead good offenses [let alone great ones like Kobe/Dirk] puts him an easy last here.

[Roy T]

Y'all value Bryant way too high. He is ja slightly better Joe Johnson...

Durant
Nowitzki
Wade
Bryant

Dats wassup

Unserious post

Username checks out.

[ceoofkobefans]

Y'all value Bryant way too high. He is ja slightly better Joe Johnson...

Durant
Nowitzki
Wade
Bryant

Dats wassup

Unserious post

Username checks out.

My username has nothing to do with how wrong you are

[Im Your Father]

1) Dirk

Sustained offensive greatness for > Decade. Offensive engine whose teams scaled exceptionally well in the regular season through different casts while they performed good to great in the post-season. Resilient scorer, especially the latter half of his prime.

2) Bryant

Neck-and-Neck with Dirk, long prime of a zealous offensive burden. Not the same scorer as Dirk but has a clear playmaking advantage over Durant/Wade. Extremely high floor raiser and co-exists next to big men exceptionally well.

3) Durant

All-time great level shooter and scoring from every place on the court. Relentless as a shooter off the contest and has enough size to get his shot off over anyone and enough of a handle to create the sliver of space he needs to reliably score. Not the same offensive engine as Dirk or Bryant, but the best plug-and-play guy here [scalability with any cast, additive skill-set withs a lights out shooter on the catch and a great isolation scorer].

4) Wade

Play-off highs combined with a short prime and inability to create and/or lead good offenses [let alone great ones like Kobe/Dirk] puts him an easy last here.

"Inability" seems like a pretty uncharitable choice of words here.

[Colbinii]

1) Dirk

Sustained offensive greatness for > Decade. Offensive engine whose teams scaled exceptionally well in the regular season through different casts while they performed good to great in the post-season. Resilient scorer, especially the latter half of his prime.

2) Bryant

Neck-and-Neck with Dirk, long prime of a zealous offensive burden. Not the same scorer as Dirk but has a clear playmaking advantage over Durant/Wade. Extremely high floor raiser and co-exists next to big men exceptionally well.

3) Durant

All-time great level shooter and scoring from every place on the court. Relentless as a shooter off the contest and has enough size to get his shot off over anyone and enough of a handle to create the sliver of space he needs to reliably score. Not the same offensive engine as Dirk or Bryant, but the best plug-and-play guy here [scalability with any cast, additive skill-set withs a lights out shooter on the catch and a great isolation scorer].

4) Wade

Play-off highs combined with a short prime and inability to create and/or lead good offenses [let alone great ones like Kobe/Dirk] puts him an easy last here.

"Inability" seems like a pretty uncharitable choice of words here.

Sure--maybe use the terms "failed to produce" or "Doesn't possess the ideal skill-set in order to produce"