milesfides wrote:I hope I don't ruffle any feathers here, but I think it's clear that Hollinger was implying that Manu is as good as Kobe, in fact, I think Hollinger was implying that Manu was AT LEAST as good as Kobe. The reason is that
1) Hollinger generally believes in his own stat formula that much, based on all his articles, he presents his stats as revealing the REAL truth
2) in this specific article, Hollinger's diction and language make it absolutely clear.
"You think he can't hang? Guess again"
"Wait, it gets better."
"making the comparison a dead heat."
"trumps Kobe's 57.7"
"'If every time Ginobili comes off the bench you think to yourself "Kobe Bryant is checking in for the Spurs"
Seems pretty clear he isn't just saying Ginobili is underrated. He's saying Ginobili is as good as Kobe, and his primary evidence is his own PER calculations.
OK, while I don't agree with your interpretation Miles, at least you state your case rationally and thoughtfully. As usual. Wishful thinking, but maybe this approach will start to rub off on people.
As somebody who took this piece with a rather large grain of salt -- I don't think anybody but a Spurs fan honestly thinks Manu is as good Kobe "Arguably the Best Player in the World" Bryant -- I digested it in the spirit in which I think it was intended. Which, again, was to illustrate just how good a season Ginobili is having, and how underrated he is, not to insult or denigrate Kobe.
I would even point out two big factors in Kobe's favor that serve to undermine any comparison:
1. Ginobili, even though he
can carry the Spurs, doesn't have to because he's playing next to one of the best big men in league history. He can have an off night and the Spurs can still win. Maybe the Lakers can too now that the team has improved so drastically, but that's a luxury Kobe hasn't had over the past three or four years.
2. Ginobili's numbers received a HUGE boost from this historic hot streak he was on over the past two weeks. He's a notably streaky player, and he'll probably come back down to earth in a bit here. Considering how poorly he shot last night, maybe he already has.
But again, I don't think this article had nearly as much to do with Kobe as it did Ginobili. Being the gold standard for off guard play, Kobe is merely the measure against which Ginobili's performance must be judged.
You made a comment earlier along the lines of, "You don't need stats to know how good he is, just watch and you'll see for yourself." If only it were that easy. Even after reading the piece, many of the posters in this thread are
still clinging to falsehoods, i.e. that because he's a sixth man he does most of his damage against backups.
Not only does no team play their backups for 30 minutes a game, his numbers actually improve when he starts. This is clearly stated, yet you've got posters still arguing that he's just beating up on scrubs, which leads us back to the whole reading comprehension thing.
I agree with one of the previous posters that you can twist statistics to say just about anything you want. But that doesn't mean the baby needs to be thrown out with the bathwater. I thought several of the nuggets he presented were pretty eye-opening, such as the similarity between the per-40 stats and the fact that Ginobili actually has a better true shooting percentage.
As long as you don't take material like this as iron-clad truth -- I didn't -- it can help you look at the game from new and interesting angles. At least, it does for me, and I like being exposed to it.