Original Baller wrote:I don't know how many people here actually played basketball before but in high school its was pretty easy to tell who was the best player on the court was and who had the best game WITHOUT finding the stat sheet afterwards or looking at season averages.
and typically when you did look at the stats, they confirmed what you saw. In the case of Kobe vs LeBron, there's a lot of style vs substance. Kobe has all of the footwork, all of the moves, etc, so it looks like he's better, but there's nothing to support that other than "he looks like the better player".
Somehow it's unique to Kobe that the stats don't confirm his greatness. He's the better shooter who doesn't put the ball in the basket as much. He has the better handles, but has the 2x as many ball handling turnovers. Somehow it's unique to Kobe that he looses all of his assists because "hockey assists" aren't counted (never mind that the cavs have focused on and tracked "hockey assists" for years). He doesn't get as many rebounds, but he's really the better rebounder because he's smaller. etc. etc.
The Kobe/LeBron debates aren't new, they've been on here since LeBron's rookie year. It used to be the Kobe fans rattled off the stats. I never heard of opponent's PER until it was used to prove how superior Kobe's defense is. FG% used to be used to prove he was the far better shooter. etc. etc. Each year LeBron comes back better than the year before. Each year another group of stats are mysteriously transformed from proof of superiority to meaningless things that are to be ignored.
The thing is, when various FG% stats were used to prove Kobe was a better shooter, a better 3 point shooter, etc., I accepted it and listed those things as things LeBron had to work on. He put in the work, got better, and some just want to toss aside the statistical measurements that show the improvement.