ballzboyee wrote:NZB2323 wrote:ballzboyee wrote:
You know what I meant. Lakers 4-1'd prime Duncan's Spurs with Kobe dropping 30ppg on 59 ts%. No Shaq. In any case, here is a FUN FACT: Kobe had the better series scoring averages over both Shaq and Duncan in 2004. Was the leading scoring in the 2003 series and was the Lakers leading scorer 2002 when Lakers bounced the Spurs again. Kobe was also the leading scorer over Duncan and Shaq when the Lakers swept the Spurs in 2001. The whole Shaq carried Kobe is such a lazy argument. In 2001, Kobe dropped 33/7/7 on .571 ts%. He was easily the best player in the series.
Like I said, if Duncan has an argument for top five all-time, then so does Kobe.
Duncan won championships in 3 different decades, and Duncan’s supporting cast in 2003 was worse than any supporting cast Kobe ever had winning a championship.
Sure, Kobe averaged 4 more points in the 2003 series. Duncan had 7 more rebounds, 1 more assist, was more efficient, and had 5.4 higher GmSc, and Shaq had a 5.3 higher GmSc than Kobe.
But let’s compare finals stats:
Kobe: 25, 6, and 5, 50.7 TS%
Duncan: 21, 13, and 3, 53.8 TS%
Duncan has a bigger impact on the defense than Kobe, and the biggest weakness of box score stats is they do a poor job of capturing defensive impact.
Duncan also has more MVPs, finals MVPs, Win Shares, and playoff Win Shares than Kobe. The only metric Kobe is ahead is PPG.
Duncan is such an odd case of wishcasting hyperbolic greatness on a player so irrationally that it hurts my head. He was the third or fourth best player on his team in 2014. Didn't win Finals MVP. Got beat out for Finals MVP again in his prime in 2007. Both guys that beat him out are HOF players. It is actually very funny how he gets almost all the credit for his team's success when his career began and evolved in a very similar fashion to Kobe's, but during the backend of Duncan's career he enjoyed a much easier path due to juggernaut Spurs organization which kept churning out HOF player after player. Right out of the gate he was drafted to a team with a HOF coach and a HOF center, and much like Kobe he immediately won a championship early in his career. Yet Duncan somehow receives practically all the credit for the 1999 'ship even though Robinson finished ahead of him in DPOY voting and arguably outplayed him in the WCF. It's like David Robinson a former MVP, DPOY, and Scoring Champ was just some nobody out there and Gregg Popovich deserves no credit at all. If a post-Shaq Kobe had been beaten out for Finals MVP in his prime or been the third or fourth best player on the Lakers in a championship run, you would never hear the end of it. However, Duncan fans just wishcast all of this away and out of nowhere stealth insert their guy into the top five all-time. It's pure gaslighting. He's not a top five player, but if he is then so is Kobe.
Then Duncan fans have the gall to act like there is some huge gap between Duncan and Kobe because the Shaq-carried-Kobe narrative when they were all on the court at the same time for multiple seasons in their primes in playoff series, and Kobe demonstratively outplayed both of them repeatedly. It's right there in black and white on the box score and in the win column.
1999 playoff stats:
Duncan: 23, 12, and 3, 57.3 TS%, 25.1 PER
Robinson: 16, 10, and 3, 56.3 TS%, 23.3 PER
2007 playoff stats:
Parker: 22, 3, and 6, 52.3 TS%, 18.7 PER
Duncan: 22, 12, and 3, 55.6 TS%, 27.4 PER
Head to head playoffs:
Kobe: 28, 6, and 5, 54 TS%, 18.3 GmSc
Duncan: 25, 14, and 4, 54 TS%, 20.25 GmSc
The biggest weakness of box score stats is they do a poor job accounting for defense, where Duncan had a bigger impact. Another argument for Duncan is longevity. In 98 he was better than Kobe, and from 2013-2016 Duncan was better.
I’m not even a Duncan fan. He was a boring player and I’m a Bulls fan who liked Dirk and KG more. Kobe was certainly a more entertaining player to watch and he played for LA, which explains why he has so many fans, in addition to what he did for girls basketball and his tragic death. I’d much rather watch a movie about Kobe’s life than Duncan’s life.