Why is Kobe, on average, above west and oscar in all time rankings?

[Gibson22]

Do you think he has a good case over them, do you have him over them?
do you think that kobe has a legit case over oscar or west? I'm not saying he doesn't have any argument, he has some longevity (which is kind era relative), probably has defensive advantage over robertson, rings, and if you consider them really close you could give the advantage to kobe because he played in the 00s and not in the 60s, but I struggle to think he has a solid case over one of them. Oscar had tremendous offensive impact, consistently leading n.1 offenses which would fall apart without him, he was posting +10rts scoring seasons on high volume and he was the best playmaker. He was easily the best playmaker of the pre 3 point era and a top 4 scorer, making him in my opinion the best offensive player (would probably go oscar kaj west). The offensive advantage that oscar has is clearly, imho, smaller than the little defensive advantage that we have reason to suppose kobe has over him.
And west has such a big defensive advantage while also being a better offensive player (more efficient scorer, better playmaker, just as much combination of spacing/gravity), and all these legendary playoff performances.
I just think that, compared to their peers, those 2 just had more stand up skills compared to kobe. Better athletes, playmakers, shooters. And they fare better in most basketball macro areas and are more impactful on paper.
Like, what does kobe do better than jerry west, relative to era? To me west looks like a better shooter, better playmaker, just as good of a athlete/scorer at the rim, vastly better defender, if you wanna reference the pressure that kobe's style of play put on defenses I think that relative to era west is close to that, while also providing more spacing, and also having that 2 dribbles pull up shooting guard game.
What do you think?

[70sFan]

I am afraid it's mostly because of popularity.

[70sFan]

I am afraid it's mostly because of popularity.

[iggymcfrack]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

[lessthanjake]

When measuring a player’s “greatness,” there is a big difference between winning 5 titles and winning 1 title. And that difference is even larger when the 1 title happened in an era where there were far fewer teams.

[KembaWalker]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

does that argument not also apply to Jerry West, as if he didn't also play his entire career with LA with absolutely stacked rosters every single year?

Jerry West has a 35 win season playing with another all NBA 1st teamer in 66-67
1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch

[iggymcfrack]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

does that argument not also apply to Jerry West, as if he didn't also play his entire career with LA with absolutely stacked rosters every single year?

Jerry West has a 35 win season playing with another all NBA 1st teamer in 66-67
1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch

The team went 32-34 with him and 4-11 without him. I don’t think that’s exactly evidence that he was playing on a stacked team. Looks better than the ‘05 Lakers who went 28-38 with Kobe and 6-10 without him.

[rk2023]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

does that argument not also apply to Jerry West, as if he didn't also play his entire career with LA with absolutely stacked rosters every single year?

Jerry West has a 35 win season playing with another all NBA 1st teamer in 66-67
1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch

This is just ridiculously tone deaf and devoid of context.

[KembaWalker]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

does that argument not also apply to Jerry West, as if he didn't also play his entire career with LA with absolutely stacked rosters every single year?

Jerry West has a 35 win season playing with another all NBA 1st teamer in 66-67
1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch

This is just ridiculously tone deaf and devoid of context.

so only Kobe would look worse in this hypothetical world where he played for a worse franchise, but not Jerry West.
sure thing

[rk2023]

does that argument not also apply to Jerry West, as if he didn't also play his entire career with LA with absolutely stacked rosters every single year?

Jerry West has a 35 win season playing with another all NBA 1st teamer in 66-67
1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch

This is just ridiculously tone deaf and devoid of context.

so only Kobe would look worse in this hypothetical world where he played for a worse franchise, but not Jerry West.
sure thing

Where was I referring to the OP here?

[CS707]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

Exact same results and accolades but in Charlotte instead of LA?

[KembaWalker]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

Exact same results and accolades but in Charlotte instead of LA?

if Kobe could hang 5 banners in Charlotte he'd be the undisputed GOAT athlete, forget just basketball

[CS707]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

Exact same results and accolades but in Charlotte instead of LA?

if Kobe could hang 5 banners in Charlotte he'd be the undisputed GOAT athlete, forget just basketball

That was where I was going with that.

[Johnny Tomala]

I have Oscar 12th, Kobe 13th, West not in top 15.

[MyUniBroDavis]

On average or on this board

On average is because most people don’t think in era production is the only thing that matters outside of here, thinking there’s a pretty big gap in how good they were in an absolute sense (which I personally agree with)

[penbeast0]

I would say there are 3 major factors in Kobe's case other than just popularity.

(1) Era differential -- Kobe played in a stronger era than the 1960s/early 70s. Many people, particularly those not drawn to a history oriented board like this dismiss anything before the 70s (though not Kareem for some reason). You see it here too, just less often.

(2) Longevity -- though this is a bit unfair to earlier generations who were forced to start their careers 4 years after high school rather than straight out of high school and with lesser medical and training aid.

(3) Titles -- no so much the Shaq titles since the thinking is that Shaq+Kobe should win titles. But few rate Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, etc. that high and Kobe won with them as well. Those titles caused me, at least, to drastically revise my opinion of Kobe upwards.

[Cavsfansince84]

It's very, very easy to see why Kobe would be seen as above West and Oscar by the regular bb community(including ex players going back to the 90's). Because even if you look beyond accolades and rings(which puts Kobe ahead of both for the most part) there is also era bias working against Oscar/West on top of recency bias and Kobe probably being the biggest icon between MJ and LeBron. The only way anyone would have Oscar or West ahead is if they grew up watching them or is really dedicated to doing research and has no bias against that era of bb.

[Owly]

RANGZency bias. If Kobe had just played out his career in Charlotte instead of forcing his way to the Lakers, I doubt very many people have him in their top 15.

does that argument not also apply to Jerry West, as if he didn't also play his entire career with LA with absolutely stacked rosters every single year?

Jerry West has a 35 win season playing with another all NBA 1st teamer in 66-67
1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch

Not to comment on the prior post but

"entire career ... absolutely stacked rosters"
1) "entire career ... absolutely stacked rosters" in the year prior to his arrival LA went 25-50, -4.14 SRS, both 7th of 8 teams (that was with only 43 games of Selvy, otherwise there weren't any new top end minutes gains the next year apart from West).
2) Even if you were just doing it on having the stars, name value of Baylor (latterly Chamberlain) ... in '66 you get .. 65 games, 30mpg, less than 2000 minutes of a Baylor with 16.9 PER, .062 WS/48, 0.5 OWS.
3) Regarding his quality in general and that cast, through crude WoWY as others have highlighted for the season in question and more complex studies ... West (and Robertson) gives indications of very strong impact (and teams not being very good without them).

"1-8 in the finals
Mr Clutch "
Raw (crude - binary) team performance is not a good player assessment tool. The use as above implies you think West was better in the final won more than those lost and whilst information beyond the boxscore is limited, it seems like he wasn't great in finals the Lakers won, but was on average very good in other finals.


Bigger question response ... comparing across is complex, different people mean different things by such lists and have different criteria, there's generally a good amount of room for reasonable disagreement.

[Samurai]

I am afraid it's mostly because of popularity.

And recency drives much of that popularity. Far more fans saw Kobe play than Oscar or West. And none of us who actually got to see Oscar or West followed their exploits on social media, cable TV or the internet, which many of Kobe's fans were able to do.

[Matt15]

Primarily era bias and popularity, also he won more. For on court impact they’re pretty much all on the same tier for me.