MyUniBroDavis wrote:Theres two components to scoring value:
Effeciency of shots you take vs an average guy in that role
The amount of high quality oppertunities your skillset creates
If youre creating transition oppertunities at a higher value vs the average guy that huves value, if your not doing that and your taking up transition oppertunities for a more effecient guy, and not being that effecient youre losing value. Make sense?
Currys skillset obviously does create high quality oppertunities that arent gonna be there for other players and hes better than the average guy in his position, but comparing their raw TS ignores the intricacies of how they score. Lemme put it this way, if currys TS was the same as a guy like kobe or wades, thatd be pretty bad considering a large part of how he gets his points should be higher quality oppertunities. Kobes shot profile was partially inneffective because of the fact he operated less in transition than other wing stars of his era. Iirc his actual effeciency in the halfcourt from 08-10 was a good deal higher than both wade and brons in that span. The fact that la were simultaneously a top transition team implies that kobe was deferring transition oppertunites rather thab missing out on then
shot profiles isnt the same as on ball role, im regetting my synergy subscription so i dont have access to it atm, but from what i remember small guards like curry/nash/paul are assisted less than wings are because of the nature of how they get their offense inside the arc off more pick and roll play compared to the other three, in the sense that isolation/post play is gonna more offen be cateogrized as assisted because if you catch, hold for a sexond and turn and rise over its an "assisted shot" That doesnt necessarily mean theyre more or less effecient, their style of play gravitates more towards a certain play type.
If we went by how many of their points were "functionally" assistedid be prettu suprised if a higher percentage of kobe/wade's points were assisted over the other currys.
I would agree that curry had the same or more of an on ball role than both but i dont neccessarily think he created more shots for himself if that makes sense
While i get this sounds cop out ish, this looks doubly true when looking at the assist rates of guys like nash and paul being extremely low as well, both being assisted 10% of their inaide the arc possessions.
Ex, im fairly sure wings like kobe bron and wade would be used more as iso bailout options, which would count as an assist but functionally not really be one.
But when comparing curry and other guys effeciencies, you have to keep in mind hes gonna have a good amount of possessions as that coming off of screens or spot up three type. Theres a to of value in having the ability for the offense to get these oppwrtunities but its not fair to compare this to guys that arent playing like that. Its like the idea of transition vs halfcourt but more granular, granted there are other things coming into play like wings being able to have more cutting players and curry not being able to do that, i dont quite think that evens it out.
Its not really as much so as currys TS is a lie or anything, its more so that alot of others are probably more effecient then their TS would indicate given their role in the offense as more bailout or mid shotclock iso when action is done type.
There’s a bit of an idea that Kobes was an ineffecient chucker at times (exaggeration, kind of?). While I agree the fact that kobes like the goat difficult shot maker means he hurt his effeciency by taking shots too hard often, from what I remember relative to his peers his iso scoring and post scoring efficiencies are about how Durant compares to guys today and clearly better than Kawhi’s, although I’d have to check again. Of course, on triple the volume as well, so I think it’s overstated that Kobe wasn’t extremely effecient. He made it harder on himself at times and at times he made shots he shouldn’t have in situations that weren’t his fault, that’s not all negative.
my main point is more so that wings that were similar in effeciency to Kobe didn’t really have nearly the same shot profile, which kind of goes both ways.
Of course, Kobe did make it more difficult on himself, but at the same time he took a higher portion of his teams difficult shots when stuff stagnated, which is mainly where I’m coming from. Guys that had similar effeciency to Kobe like melo and pierce and Ray when I looked into it almost always got a much larger portion of their offense from non 1v1 basketball. I think it’s more in the role he was in it was insane, even if the role itself wasn’t the most effective not just because of era but his shot selection as well. It’s a give and take when evaluating him for me in that regard
Kobe wasn’t like Curry or anything effeciency wise of course but he was better than some seem to believe. I don’t think Kobe couldn’t operate in a similar way in the context of an offense today, his off ball game was tremendous. Kobe was actually pretty decent spotting up throughout his offensive prime from three:
2006) 36.3%
2007) 28.3%
2008) 43.1%
2009) 41.1%
2010) 38.8%
here’s Kobe synergy profile in 08 and 09, and his percentile rank per synergy (I don’t think it was realistic for him to be highly effecient in 06 or 07):
2008
Isolation 91st percentile
Pick and roll BH 92nd percentile
Transition 82nd percentile
Spot up 84th percentile
Post up 96th percentile
Off screen 91st percentile
Cuts 94th percentile
Handoffs 85th percentile
Putbacks 82nd percentile
2009
Isolation 89th percentile
Post up 95th percentile
P and R BH 88th percentile
Transition 76th percentile
Spot up 86th percentile
Misc 96th percentile
Cut 91st percentile
Handoffs 85th percentile
Putbacks 86th percentile
For players with 1000+ plays (synergy on a bad phone is annoying), in terms of halfcourt ppp
In 2008 he was 14th out of 58 guys
In 2009 he was 7th out of 63 guys
Worth noting some guys above him are play finishers like guys like amare and stuff. His 08 mark is great, but his 09 mark is excellent. For reference, Dirk is 7th in 2008 and 9th in 2009. Above cp3/Wade/lebron as well both years (might be wrong about Wade in 08 but I’m not gonna relook it up lol)
His synergy profile makes him look like a transcendent level 1v1 scorer (seriously, those marks are insane)
Durant in 2022 for reference (his 2023 one is weird cuz his misc effeciency is super high, but his iso and post scoring is kinda tame)
Isolation 89th percentile
Pick and roll BH 89th percentile
Transition 69th percentile
Spot up 78th percentile
Off screen 79th percentile
Post up 85th percentile
Handoffs 78th percentile
Misc 93rd percentile
Cuts 45th percentile
Durants probably a better pure 1v1 scorer than Kobe (to be clear I put Durant above anyone) and in terms of versatility to score he’s second to none. I do think kobes off ball stuff wouldn’t look quite as amazing although he was great on good looks of course
But Kobe was a transcendent one on one scorer and extremely versatile scorer, it was an era where one on one scoring wasn’t as effecient, but it’s hard to blame Kobe when he was incredible effecient as a pick and roll ball handler on high volume as well (it’s sorted by volume). He was effecient enough to make it very effective this years in any case.
I think if literally your only criteria is in era impact I can see being lower on Kobe than some might expect.
Situationally, I think there are two factors in general when ranking guys
1. How a situation affects their impact
2. How a situation affects their chances of winning
I think kobes situations weren’t great for his impact, whether it be the era he was in, the fact that naturally playing with arguably the best (prime) offensive scoring center ever in Shaq, or the way he was deployed.
I do think his situations were good for winning, and that he would be more impactful in other situations, whether it be if he never played with Shaq, if he was deployed differently, or in a different era where the fact that he was an absolute outlier in his combination of 1v1 scoring effeciency + volume in his absolute prime.
For me it evens out.
Kobes in era impact wasn’t as high as some other guys in the range where I have him, which I do think has to with factors outside of his control. I also don’t think he would be unable to alter his game to become moderately more pick and roll based (not neccessarily pick and roll slashing) while still being a mainly iso and post up scorer, given his ability to do so in 2013 with decent offensive results despite the issues surrounding the team at the time, and he himself having declined a good amount. The main thing for me is I also think that his abilities translate fantastically to every other era so far in an absolute sense, whether it’s a skill gap thing or a rule thing.
I kinda went over some of the other stuff earlier, the halfcourt effeciency stuff etc etc, but just to clarify my original point:
There are eras where kobes archetype of a player would have been more impactful, or teams where he would have had more impact whether it be by being deployed more like the more successful guards of that era with him leaning to his pick and roll game a bit more while maintaining and using his ability as a transcendent 1 on 1 scorer. We saw him revatilize himself in 2013 doing this a bit more despite being a shell of his former stuff. Illegal D, long twos seemingly being more effecient pre 2000, etc etc etc, or the spacing and mismatch iso style some play today. Or maybe have a team that builds their offense through him rather than with him, and then his impact skyrockets, etc etc etc. also would assume his raw impact would be higher if he wasnt playing with the most dominant post wilt center ever, since he’s actively taking away possessions from him, etc etc. the era Kobe was in was probably the worst possible one for primarily 1v1 wing basketball, at least in an absolute sense.
His post scoring iirc from 08-10 was the best 3 year stretch for a perimeter player we have on record when it comes to a combination of effeciency and volume.
Otoh he was on some good situations that led to him getting rings and building a huge legacy which is why he’s pretty much a top ten lock for most people. I feel alotnof people tend to believe that realgm opinion is anywhere near public opinion. It doesn’t matter either way of course, you should form opinions based on your own beliefs etc etc,but in a realistic sense more people put kobe top 3-5 than out of the top 15. I don’t have him there but I do think people forget that a lot of realgm tends to rate people by cumulative in era impact sometimes and that’s not how most people rate guys. It’s valid but it’s not like an objectively right way, it’s subjective.
ad he played in an offense like that in the sense the offense would be more dependent on him. I do think he’s shown an ability to deliver in that type of offense, and even 2013 Kobe who was far declined had one of his best offensive years in a more ball screen heavy role despite him not doing nearly as good at it as you’d expect prime Kobe to do.
I think there were more factors than just that, for example that 01-05 was probably the worst era in an absolute sense for iso scoring wings specifically, and that he played with one of the most dominant half court scoring forces of all time in Shaq meant his impact was always going to be muted since he’s taking away from the best option. Of course, the beef that they both were at fault for, etc etc.
In any case I do think his impact could have been higher even in era given those situations, even if it was of course was great. On the other hand, I do think his situations were generally good and three chips with Shaq and two with a good Lakers cast in 08-10 meant he could still get 5 chips, so as I’ve said before I think it evens out
Now the main thing that hurts his effeciency specifically is the fact that isolation basketball was kind of the least effecient play style during 1998-2016, and we’ve kind of seen how that’s not so much the case for offenses that are designed around maximizing that skillset post three point revolution, while it would seem like a similar thing was the case pre illegal D as well. Kobe was good enough at this that it still led to an extremely effective halfcourt offense, but it would still hurt him. But for me, the argument essentially goes -
- Kobe in an absolute sense would have been more impactful in other eras vs his peers
- kobes in era impact was still fantastic, and of course he was 5 titles, and was a key contributor in all of them, esp 01/09/10.
Evaluating Kobe on offense
- he’s a great if at times unwilling passer, but he became better at this over his 24 prime (08-10). He’s shown great ability to pass out of pick and roll, and overall he’s probably a very good passer with great but not incredible vision at his peak if you think it’s 2008 or 2009. If you think it’s 06 or 07 it’s more him being a stupid scorer
- while his synergy profile paints a picture of a incredibly versatile halfcourt scorer without any weakness (while still being great in transition of course), diving deeper, while he was extremely effective in the pick and roll or off ball etc etc, it’s clear that his 1 on 1 game stands out
- there’s a tendency to believe that Kobe wasn’t that effecient of an 1 on 1 player, and he’s more decent effeciency wise but high volume. That’s not really the case during his best years though.
- his isolation play stats are less impressive than his post up stats, but are still quite great. Among high iso players, here are his rankings from 06-09, >200 isolations
05) 2nd/31
06) 12th/45
07) 1st/37
08) 4th/36
09) 12th/45
10) 12th/41
11) 5th/39
12) 18th/41 (>130, lockout)
13) 8th/27
For reference, here is KDs ranking over a similar criteria (isos are down a bit so made it >100)
16) 6th/51
17) 7th/46
18) 6th/36
19) 3rd/38
21) 2nd/42 (did >100 since he didn’t qualify)
22) 4th/45
Kawhis also for reference
16) 7/51
17) 21/46
19) 5/38
20) 6/51
21) 27/42
Of course, when it comes to synergy stuff you’re generally gonna have guys above you.
Kawhis percentiles are quite good to be clear, so this isn’t a knock on him at all he’s generally 70th percentile ish on those “bad” years.
Of course, there’s a huge gap in volume: Kobe averaged more isolations over those 4 years than double durant and Kawhi combined. Of course, this wasn’t through an offense that emphasizes high leverage isos like the harden rockets for example either, a lot of them we’re triangle actions not creating much at times. Of course, I think his 06 mark considering his absurd volume and how much he hated his teammates (lol) is insane as well
. His 09 mark a tad low but still very elite.
In any case, the raw rankings in stuff like this undersell guys a bit, but Kobe was a transcendent isolation player with a combination of elite effeciency and ridiculous volume. This isn’t taking to account how hard teams tried to stop him either.
To be clear, yes isolation wasn’t a very effecient play from 2000-2016 for various reasons, but it was effecient in regards to when Kobe used it: his halfcourt scoring effeciency in terms of ppp was elite iirc, I had it earlier this thread
So as an isolation player - fantastic.
To be clear, even with the huge volume edge I still take Durant in this regard, although kobes playoff resiliency in that regard is quite good too so maybe then I take him there. Durants my #1 scorer ever in the RS in terms of his ability to do so I think though, so that doesn’t say much. I’m a lot higher on Durant than most. Though
But Kobe does look like a pretty damn good isolation player.
To be very clear these rankings heavily undersell his ability, because to conclude he was a 70-80th percentile guy in that regard isn’t really the right conclusion.
Booker and Tatum ranked 36th and 38th out of 42 in 2021 and 27th and 28th out of 46 in 2022 (>120). They were above 50th percentile in 2022 and just under in 2021. When you do stuff like this you always get guys that are randomly high or a few suprise names over who you’d expect at times
While one could make an argument that Kobe not being elite from three might hurt him if he played a similar today, it should be noted that for all his other flaws as a player derozans actually been the best at this for awhile lol, so I think it’s a non issue.
So in terms of isolation scoring, he was incredibly effective. His effeciency was genuinely fantastic in the context of synergy data, as you can see by him comparing very favorably to a guy like Kawhi and somewhat holding his own against a guy like KD in raw effeciency.
So the isolation data is impressive. Of course, keep in mind that a typical Kobe isolation was far more like a Kawhi isolation than a harden one or even most Kd ones. Most these isolation opportunities were made by necessity rather than by design like today.
How that gauges today or back then I’m not sure, but we have players complaining about how 1v1 basketball died out a bit in the 2000s as illegal d rules got taken away. Beyond the rule changes being lightened in 06 we do see a trend towards, as you said it, more effecient pick and roll basketball, less long twos, etc etc.
I was curious to see vs the other high scoring wings that were effecient inside the arc, and it seems like Kobe just ended up having a much larger majority of his possessions come from on ball halfcourt scoring than his contemporaries.
Just off a look through in 08 it seems like it comes from either them having more off ball possessions or running more pick and roll.
There’s a middle ground between Kobe had okay effeciency because he took stupid shots and Kobe had great effeciency taking all the teams hard shots.
The idea of value add comes from opportunity cost. On one hand, it is valid that at times esp 06 and 07 Kobe was a ball hog and took some dumb shots
At the same time, he was still effecient overall, his half court offense overall in ppp was better than Wade and brons every year from 06-09 for example, and 09 specifically he’s even above Dirk.
Beyond that, I don’t think kobes limitations are why he played the way he did, he was incredibly effecient and intelligent off ball and his pick and roll offense was genuinely great as well, even if not quite as good as the Wade/bron/nash of that time in that regard
There’s I think a middle ground there, the idea of opportunity cost and all of that. Kobe took harder shots both because he needed to and because his role in the offense in general meant he had to.
Otherwise, his offensive impact during his offensive apex doesn’t make sense, it was obviously incredibly high and probably could be argued higher than some signals based off of pretty strong evidence of noise.
when judging kobes effeciency against his peers, high scoring wings, it’s important to note that the vast majority of the guys that were decently effecient happened to have similar levels of inside the arc effeciency as Kobe had a much higher percentage of their scoring come from opportunities the offense created for them.
Of course it could be argued (correctly) that Kobe probably called isos a bit more than he should have. But this was more trying to show that a lot of the high scoring wings that were effecient had a large portion of their offense created for them. Wade/bron/09Roy are the only real exceptions, although their halfcourt offense was less effecient and they did play more pick and roll.
Also, effeciency for scoring wings is clearly higher all around in the 90s. The reason I think he would be better in older eras is because isolation play and post play were two areas that he was clearly best at, and those skills were more important and effective in the era he didn’t play in, whereas 60s is just skill diff.
I agree that it’s not a one to one thing with his lack of absurd slashing ability, at the same time I do think his ability as a post scoring wing translates perfectly, and his iso ability I think would still mean he would be very effecient if those skills were the best things to do rather than being a pretty ineffecient style of play, even with his shot selection. I don’t think he would be in position to take some of the shots he shouldn’t have taken as much either although he would still take plenty of them
Summarized, I think Kobe was fairly effecient in a vacuum, but as a extreme high iso/post player he was extremely effecient regardless of his questionable shot selection at times within that role.
I think that that play style wasn’t super great relative to other halfcourt roles (namely p and r ball handlers). Whereas if you go back it is a much more effecient and viable one. Esp the emphasis on wing post play would be huge with his absurd ability in that regard.
Of course, Kobe was incredibly impactful in his own time so a decent boost does a lot.
Now at the same time, kobes iso game wasn’t primarily based on slashing, while he was a fantastic slasher especially when the paint wasn’t packed or defenses didnt stunt on drives, a lot it was difficult shotmaking (off these stunts often of course). I do think it is underestimated how good he was at it though at times.
I do think Kobe is more about getting to his spots, but I also think we’d see much more of a slashing Kobe and him being more effective at getting to his spots and being effecient in those spots in other eras where defense doesn’t load up as much.
In spite of that too, his actual inside the arc field goal percentage off of isolations was similar to KD and Wade in similar situations in terms of era, with much more volume and almost surely far more defensive resistance on average. It compares favorable to pre 2013 bron as well. I feel this is probably suprising for some, who’d expect Kobe makes up he ppp gap with his isolation three point shooting or free throw effeciency more than anything else, but even his raw inside the arc scoring effeciency is on their level as well
Got a bit off track there. Overall, I would say in terms of since we’ve had synergy, outside of situations where these situations were specifically leveraged, prime Kobe is probably the best isolation player in terms of the combination of elite isolation effeciency and ridiculous volume and defensive attention. This of course would be in line to how he’s viewed by other players as well, and intuitively makes sense
It’s hard to evaluate him versus guys in generations because the quality of data we have simply isnt as high since we don’t have synergy data.
I would argue Durant even with a fourth of his volume is a better isolation scorer, but Durants kind of #1 for me in the RS in that regard anyway.
It’s hard to gauge because nowadays it’s much more the top end of isolation scoring is higher rather than it being higher universally, and I’d assume it was a similar trend during illegal D times even if maybe it wasn’t nearly as absurd as now. We see that players were complaining about this as well.
So generational isolation scorer and quite great in the halfcourt effeciency on its own.
Of course, post scoring was a bit more emphasized for wings the more you go back. This one is a lot more straight forward, Kobe averaged around 200 possessions from 06-09 (300 in 09 and 450 in 10)
Kobe as a post scorer averaged more ppp than Dirk, duncan, Yao (hehe) from 07-09. KG beat him out in 07, but not the other two years.
Using a same criteria to get 50 ish players, >150 pos
06. 20th/60
07. 5th/51
08. 3rd/44
09. 3rd/46
10. 7th/48
I mean especially with volume that’s as much as some centers today (not an exaggeration either, 450 is more than Jokic the last 2 years lmao). 200 is about 12th in the nba the past few years
Kobe is just kind of ridiculous as a post scoring wing with his combination of effeciency and volume at that size, especially taking into account how much teams defend him. In this regard he does come out with better effeciency than KD or Kawhi I think, who both are fantastic of course at this (KD does have a few insane years though).
All of his other scoring stuff are usually 90th percentile per synergy, so nba.com I think that’s 80-90 but I’m not sure.
Even if you look at a guy like demar, his effeciency in iso and post scoring specifically are pretty insane esp over the last few years, so I don’t see why Kobe can’t theoretically have great effeciency in that regard too.
I’ll drop kobes His raw percentage in terms of post ups Too
06) 43.2%
07) 50.7%
08) 49.7%
09) 48.7%
10) 49.2%
11) 48.6%
12) 41.4%
13) 55.3%
So quite effective of course.
As for free throw rate, kobes was higher than Jordan’s right? Ans it was higher on average in the 90s too. I don’t view it as a huge issue personally. Feel both guys probably had a situation where refs let people whack them a tad too much too.
Overall, when it comes to someone’s effeciency, we can basically divide it into 3 things
Their on ball effeciency
Their off ball effeciency
Their transition effeciency
And then beyond that how much they do of each.
I do think kobes on ball effeciency goes up if you transfer backwards
Like I said, in the 2001-2005 time period isolation basketball and kind of non big post basketball were the least effecient style of one man dominated offense, and even in 06-16 you had a similar issue in that stuff vs something like pick and roll offenses.
Considering Kobe already shot 49-50% inside the arc from 06-10, and we saw that Kobe running a bit more offense that aligns with what teams did as much in 2013 increases his effeciency when he ran more p and r with better spacing than the triangle led to him shooting 51.0% inside the arc with, mostly from getting closer to the rim despite his athletic decline by then
I don’t think there’s much of an issue with me saying his on ball abilities improve in a relative sense during a time where those two skills he excelled at in a historic sense (post scoring and isolation scoring) because the best reliable on ball option rather than a poor one relative to other styles of offense.
His off ball abilities translate well and I don’t really do it justice here, he was very effective off ball but just did most of his scoring on it. Ditto with transition scoring, although he did score in transition a bunch and did it very efficiently even with the occasional dumb long twos transition pullup here and there.
So I think the on ball aspect of his game improves tremendously, the off ball aspect and transition aspect stay about the same but since he was great at those things those help him as well. While his slashing ability not being his main iso thing means his isolation game won’t translate exactly relatively (although I think this is a bit overstated), his post game absolutely will imo.
Transition helps him get some more easier buckets especially since he was effective, off ball roughly the same if he’s in the same offense but he was great at that as well.
All things considered, the only scoring wings that were more effecient than Kobe concurrently in terms of inside the arc scoring effeciency (since threes weren’t that important back then anyway) during that 08-10 period where he had a respectable roster he didn’t try to shoot over himself every night, outside of bron/Wade/and one year of Brandon Roy, got more than half of their offense off ball as well. Furthermore, bron and Wade both are some of the best transition players of all time and operated in pick and roll. The only time we see Kobe play in a play style more similar to that, in terms of a on ball halfcourt style that was more similar to what was more effective during that time (p and r), he shot 51% inside the arc, behind only arguably peak bron, Wade playing off of peak bron, and Durant, in terms of the top 20 scoring wings that year, all while still getting more of his shots in halfcourt on ball offense than all three of them.
Because of that, I do think that the fact that instead of the best/main/optimal on ball half court wing play style coinciding with the aspect of his offense that is elite and fantastic but not on the level of the other offensive juggernaut wings of the time (pick and roll based), but instead it would now correspond with the two areas where he has a unmatched historic combination of volume + effeciency outside of offenses designed to enhance that very ability. (wing post scoring, wing isolation). For me, this means that his relative offensive impact goes up a lot, given he was elite in other aspects as well that were important
What he would shoot exactly I’m not sure. Among high scoring wings without any context he was usually 4-5 in offensive inside the arc effeciency from 08-10 when he wasn’t trying to shoot out of a horrendous supporting cast. In 1991-93 Jordan was 4th, 3rd, 4th, and 3rd in inside the arc effeciency among scoring wings but the guys that ranked above him almost certainly did much of their damage off ball in comparison… although that’s somewhat similar to Kobe’s situation, where outside of Brandon Roy one year, only Wade and bron were higher for reasons mentioned above without getting >50% of their offense off ball + they are also absolutely historic transition players.
So what we have here is a mega versatile scorer that’s intelligent and effective off ball. His ability as a wing to score in isolation throughout his offensive apex is generational and arguably the best combination of volume + effeciency we have on record since isolations have been tracked, outside of offenses which are designed to create high leverage offensive situations. (I do think Durants raw effeciency wins out). Finally, despite being generational in his isolation/face up 1 on 1 offense, his post game was arguably even more phenomenal, with a level of consistent effeciency that was higher than a guy who was arguably one of the most effecient post players ever at the time in Dirk for 3 years straight, on volume comparable to bigs today let alone wings.
That translates back tremendously well I think. When you think of the impact he had as a primarily 1v1 player (with very good if not always willing passing) I think it makes sense to argue that in an absolute sense playing in eras where that skill goes from being the least effecient type of offense to a main type of offense would drastically boost his impact.
Kobe played an ineffecient style (isolation and 1v1 basketball) in an ineffecient way (kooobeeeee) so efficiently that it was effecient overall, essentially. Push him back and it’s no longer an ineffecient style and he probably gets saved from himself a bit as well
So when I throw him forward, I see guys who are somewhat similar in terms of being great 1v1 but having alotnof overall offensive versatility and more so utilizing the pick and roll to get into good situations 1v1 with switch mismatch basketball, or being part of an offense with off ball movement and cutting and still running pick and roll and making good reads or just getting situations with isolations and help beaters. Post help beaters esp are pretty simple nowadays. Of course you could reference certain high impact offensive guys who arguably don’t do a single thing on the court offensively better than Kobe did
A guy like Booker for example in 2022, wasn’t better relatively speaking than Kobe in any synergy play type, except miscallenous which doesn’t really count lol
Of course, one could argue Kobe would not want to run pick and roll that much, but he did so in 2013, I think he had more pick and roll possessions than Booker did including passes overall. (He did, 960 vs 876).
Per synergy, Kobe was in the 92nd percentile including passes (90th without). 11th/73 for pick and roll possessions including passes, >350 possessions, right above Curry lol (2013 of course).
Why I’m mentioning Booker is that he’s someone that someone I kind of know has mentioned is in a role that Kobe would be interesting in (obviously not exactly, Kobe would score more and do more on ball ofc)
I feel saying super saiyan Kawhi on offense makes me feel stupid because Kawhi a beast even though it might be valid, but no one is gonna say he’s not a super saiyan Booker in that regard.
Well Booker is third in offensive rapm for the past 3 years, his offensive net rtg is usually quite great, +8-12 ish as a range, and we have now seen a Suns team that was a top 3 offense when he was healthy (not on court rtg), and has been a bottom 10 one since he got hurt. A guy like Tatum is also high up there in offensive rapm, and hell kawhis first lmao.
Luck adjustments make their rankings a bit less generous
(Tatum 5, Kawhi 7, booker 10) although Idk if that is good for multi year samples
The archetype of great versatile wing scorer with great playmaking is absolutely great on offense, we see these guys having incredible impact.
When we look at how they play, see their synergy profiles, etc etc etc, I don’t think it calls for a re evaluation of how good they are, I think it calls for the fact that this archetype is better now relative to how it was in the 2000s.
Especially since he’s going to be a solid situational wing stopper, I would certainly pick him above some guys that had higher in era impact in an absolute sense.
Moving backwards, similar situation where Kobe’s transcendent strengths translate far better, whereas his other strengths such as scoring versatility remain as effective if not even more effective. I’ll admit ignorance to the 70s, but then bye 60s I think it’s just a huge gap between him and 1960s guards that’s not really fair at all. I do think in an absolute sense he translates fantastically going back or forward, for the reasons I said above. 1 on 1 play was more effective back then, especially if you were a good passer, Kobe’s 1 on 1 play I do think is as good as his peers say it was and I do think the data supports him being historic in that regard even with him admittedly biting off more than he could chew at times with some of them shots in 06 and 07 especially (although if someone told me he didn’t want the ball cuz he’d drop it I’d take that shot too lol), he still looks incredible with his isolation effeciency let alone his volume, and forget about his post offense. Beyond that, the sheer versatility of his scoring repertoire and everything makes me view him as a guy that had tier 1.5 offensive impact during his time while being a tier 1 offensive player that could have that level of impact in other eras. I do agree that you usually need a transcendent talent to be a tier 1 guy but his talent happened to coincide with it not being a good time for that to be his talent. Beyond that, the rest of his offensive game was incredible too.
I’d be curious to see if someone ever breaks down his playoff defense from 08-10, I feel it would be good during important moments, but that’s mainly what drops his peak lower for me, I view him as a pretty good but not incredible wing defender, although he had the ability to lock up and take a matchup or be part of a great defense if that’s what a particular series or matchup demanded more focus towards IG. Beyond that it’s hard to criticize him for not doing well in the role he was in against the top 1 defense. In any case though, 08 he sucked against the Celtics, 09 was good vs the magic, and in 2010 he was solid against the Celtics, 4 very good games 3 very bad ones imo, against a defense that clamped up 2010 bron I don’t think that’s bad esp given how he plays. Not having a “that” finals series drops him a tad for me altho it makes sense and the magic one was good ofc.
I do think contextually that his prime happened to go against #1 defenses each time kind of sucks, but yeah it is something that drops those runs for me. While I think I his lack of effeciency is understandable given the teams he played, it does drop his peak a bit for me.
I was watching through them a bit, and I’d say they really didn’t give Kobe much at all though, so I understand why his effeciency was it was to an extent. Against the magic I went through g2-4 since those were the games he struggled, I think he got like, one transition layup in all three games which is kind of wild, and damn the paint was even more packed than in brons series against them I think. Of course I only saw his makes but for the most part his shot selection didn’t stand out outside of some questionable transition shots.
In all honesty though, it was a 5 game series so i
The Celtics 2010 series I think he was fine. He was poor in g2,3 and ofc 7, was pretty solid outside of that. Evaluating each game individually
G1 was great I think. He went 1/6 in the fourth when they were already up 18 going into it, so it hurts his overall game effeciency but doing bad when up that much doesn’t matter much to me personally
G4 was okay, he was effecient with his threes but the turnovers were bad
G5 was great
G6 was solid
G2,3 and 7 were poor
Of course in a vacuum neither of these series are super great and even in context, but I do feel that they (at least 2010) were better than their averages. In any case, I do think how much he had to work for his shots and how little space he had looking at these games back does stand out to me. Paints seemed way more packed than even other guys at the time. If we’re talking a guys most difficult series in the context of a half court scorer I do think it’s fine that he struggled a bit against teams that were generational in that regard, especially since how he performed in the run in general
Will leave it to someone else to dig up and compile Ardee’s old Kobe posts.
