MavsDirk41 wrote:One_and_Done wrote:MavsDirk41 wrote:
Stats/metrics is basically all you ever post on here when trying to debate players on here. Player accolades. Player accomplishments. And watching a players career are factors as well even if you dont agree. Kevin Durant offensively is goat worthy. The dude has no weaknesses offensively, he can do it all. But i take Kobe over him defensively. And Durant won 2 championships playing with Curry, Thompson, and Green. Probably the most stacked team ever in those finals wins in 17 and 18. Even if Shaq was the best Laker during the 3 peat i respect Kobes championships over Durants. Regardless they are both top 15 players of all time.
If you ever bothered to read my posts you'd know I basically never cite all in one metrics, etc.
More comically, you then tell me I should pay more attention to "Player accolades. Player accomplishments. And watching a players". This is amusing as I often cite these things; not as a be all and end all, but as an initial indicator of how a player was rated during their career. Kobe's accolades are more in line with a top 20 player than a top 15 one. He has exactly 1 MVP, and was never particularly close to winning a 2nd... and that MVP was widely mocked at the time as a lifetime achievement award, because people felt bad Kobe didn't have one yet.
If you "watched the players" you'd know that "player accomplishments" tend to be affected somewhat by context. Kobe's ringz are a good example. He had better context than others, so he has more rings. That's a team accomplishment. In terms of individual achievements, his ability to carry a team would be an example of that, and Kobe was very mediocre in that regard. From 99-07 he led the Lakers to a 135-137 record in games Shaq missed, and I know that because I watched the games, just like I watched Kobe choke in the playoffs many times (e.g. 04, 00, 08, 10, 11, game 7 of 06, etc).
Whats comical is your ranking of certain players you just dont like. Durant has had some playoff dissapointments like every other superstar player has. Kobe won two championships as the best player on his team. Durant won 2 championships on maybe the most stacked team of all time, or at least since the 80s probably. Durant teamed up with Curry and his squad to win 2 rings. Secondly, looking at their playoff matchups, they are very simliar. Neither one dominated the other. But lets look at the talent they played with shall we?
Durant:
Curry
Harden
Westbrook
Irving
Thompson
Green
Kobe:
Shaq
Gasol
Artest
Howard
Nash (old)
Odom
And Durant is currently playing with Booker and Beal. Durant has played with far more talent but won less….and yes, the level of talent a player plays with throughout their career matters.
My ranking is based on objective judgment of their impact. I don’t much care for Karl Malone as a human being, but as a basketball player I think he had a good case to be around top 15 all-time, and not much lower than that at worst. The one thing has nothing to do with the other in his case (in other cases, some players bad attitudes actually spill over onto the court and affect the team performance).
The sort of analysis you are doing is lazy and contextless, because it doesn’t look at the circumstances in which guys had their team-mates.
In the case of KD, it’s definitely true he had a stacked deck for his 2 titles. That was the GOAT team. But I don’t judge guys on rings, so why should that bother me? The only real value is how well you played to get the ring, not the ring itself. A title is more useful as a proof of concept, showing that your play style could actually succeed at the highest levels.
A more sensible analysis would be: KD had a poor fitting team around him in OKC, but once he got the necessary talent to win a title he went back to back, and was only stopped from a threepeat by injuries to his team (including and especially his own). On OKC the 2nd best 3pt shooter in the starting line-up after KD himself was usually Serge Ibaka. That’s horrific. The team also had various injuries that sunk different seasons. In 2012 their coach stupidly plays Perkins in the finals, Harden then leaves, 2013 injures, 2014 lose to a legendary Spurs team (with Ibaka missing the first 2 games of the series), 2015 injuries, 2016 lose in an epic 7 game series v.s a team that outmatched them. I could go on with post 2019 injuries too. KD has certainly had a lot of extenuating circumstances. What I’d focus on more though is how he has shown he is able to lift a team even absent a lot of support. When Westbrook was out for instance in 2014, KD had them at 25-11. In 21 when he played they were 23-12. In 2022 they were 36-19 in games KD played. In 2023 his teams were 34-13 in games he played. Even in 2024, with KD clearly past his prime and the team constantly injured, they were 44-31 when he played, well above 500.
Then you have Kobe, whose record without Shaq from 99-07 is 135-137. Kobe was not a floor raiser. He showed that repeatedly. Nor was he that great as a ceiling lifter compared to the cream of the crop like KD, certainly he fits next to other players less well than KD who is one of the GOATs of portability.
Your contextless attempt to compare them also ignores completely the quality of the leagues they were playing in. KD generally played in stronger leagues than Kobe did, as the modern game is stronger than it was 20 years ago. I could care less about KD losing in 2016 for instance, because he was supposed to lose to the 73 win Warriors. It was impressive he pushed it to 7 and that the Warriors needed a miracle to make it as close as it was. On the other end of the coin Kobe was on the team favoured to win the title at least 10 times, and he only came through 5 of those times. That’s a horrific record.