Kobe Bryant: the most overrated defender imaginable

[Doctor MJ]

lol, okay Melo's another candidate. If you paid as much attention to writing on Melo as you do about Kobe then you'd undoubtedly call me a Melo hater as well.

No. U attack Kobe a lot more than Melo.

Kobe's a higher profile player than Melo, hence pretty much everyone talks about him more often, myself included.

With that said, if you've seen me "attack" Kobe a ton and you don't recall me attacking Melo, that's your own myopia there. You probably just aren't nearly likely to read Melo threads as Kobe threads. Rest assured that I've been called a Melo hater many, many times, and this has taken place for years. Hell I remember going berserk when he made an All-NBA team 5 years ago over Kevin Garnett, and I've continued to consistently argue against the guy ever since.

By contrast, I actually gave Kobe my hypothetical MVP vote in '07-08. If you think a guy who historically would have given Kobe as many MVPs as he actually got is the biggest homer on RealGM, what does that say about how biased your perspective is?

"Kobe has always done well...", where did I ever say Kobe wasn't a great player? These questions aren't about whether someone is great...or not. More nuance is required to have meaningful conversation. According to advanced statistics, Kobe's never been the best player in the game. According to even basic statistics, Kobe's never been an order of magnitude more clutch than everyone else. Yet people believe these things strongly. It is that disagreement that causes me to argue against those trumpeting him. Want me to stop? Make the world have a more balanced opinion.

Except most people don't consider him to be an order of magnitude more clutch than anyone else. You're just making stuff up. And again, when he was getting strong arguments as the best (06-08) it was because of a variety of factors. Most fans aren't stupid enough to just blindly follow what the advanced stats say...

Are you taking issue with my hyperbole here or what?

If you don't think that Kobe would win a poll of "most clutch" in a landslide, you don't have enough faith in other people's faith in your guy. People see him as the clear "most clutch" guy around, and there is no rational basis for any such clarity.

Are fans stupid enough to blindly follow what advanced stats say? I guess we'll find out when they become smart enough to understand advanced stats, eh?

(I kid, I kid. The reality is that the so-called advanced stats rarely use anything requiring mathematical knowledge beyond what a good student learns in middle school. While it's arguable what fraction of basketball fans were good students, I think it's safe to say most of them passed Algebra I. That fans don't make much use of that knowledge even when it's directly beneficial to their hobbies says something about something, but nothing definitive about their raw intelligence.)

[nonemus]

Basketball is a game of statistics. 95% of a players impact in a win is statistical. The other 5% is leadership/motivation, etc (which, in theory, is also taken into account by APM )

[ElGee]

Basketball is a game of statistics. 95% of a players impact in a win is statistical. The other 5% is leadership/motivation, etc (which, in theory, is also taken into account by APM )

Statistical as in could be measured? I agree the number is the in the 90s.

Statistical as in what has been measured for 35 years by the classic box? No way it's in the 90s. Closer to 60% or so IMO. Doesn't even measure defense really...which is how a thread like this exists.

[nonemus]

Basketball is a game of statistics. 95% of a players impact in a win is statistical. The other 5% is leadership/motivation, etc (which, in theory, is also taken into account by APM )

Statistical as in could be measured? I agree the number is the in the 90s.

Statistical as in what has been measured for 35 years by the classic box? No way it's in the 90s. Closer to 60% or so IMO. Doesn't even measure defense really...which is how a thread like this exists.

Yeah, as in could be measured. A player's performance is reflected in his performance. Stats don't love or hate, they just reflect.

[monkfish]

Defensive stats are NOT perfect. They should not be used exclusively to determine All-D and DPOY awards. Clearly, the "eye test" needs to be used in addition.

Kobe is not elite in any defensive statistic. He doesn't pass the eye test either. Honestly the amount of **** he gets away with on D (the refs are more lenient with Kobe...fact) is just more fuel in the fire. Why the hell is Kobe on all-defensive teams? Reputation. Honestly, I think Kobe is the most overrated player imaginable. I think he piggy-backed on Shaq and Pau, two of the best bigs around for the last twenty years. I am going to get alot of flack for this, but kobe is in the second or third tier of NBA players along with Melo.

Camby has the defensive stats, but imo he is average. As a nuggets fan, I saw camby block a serious # of shots. Was he DPOY worthy? Hell no. he doesn't pass the eye test. The other four nuggets would let their man blow by and Camby would come in for the late block on guards and the like. This is what he was good at. He was a good defensive rebounder, but camby was a defensive rebound poacher. Stats were what camby cared about.

[NO-KG-AI]

Stats aren't everything, they can never tell you EVERYTHING. The thing is, when you start saying things like "hands down the best player" or "best defender of all time" or "easily the most clutch player in the league" when you talk about any of these things, and bring advanced metrics into it, almost every guy that was ever said about, is going to be at, or very near the top. Except Kobe.

I think the real problem for us "haters" is that stats have been fair to just about every player. Except Kobe.

Just look at PER. PER is an advanced metric that has flaws. Probably the biggest flaws it has is that it vastly overrates volume scoring and undervalues passing. It also can't really show defense, and slow pace tends to help star players in PER.

Kobe is supposed to be one of the best pure volume scorers ever, yet he's never finished higher than 3. Like I said, PER isn't perfect, but if anything, it would overvalue someone like Bryant.

Why is it that there isn't a single advanced metric (or even pure boxscore numbers) that would put Kobe into that GOAT level that his fans put him into? Not even one.

[Catch]

lol @ kobe's fans saying he's the goat. no kobe fan thinks that except a few idiots. lol @ the haters and their straw-man arguments. and he pretty much finished tied for #1 in PER in 2006.

and kobe has had his volume scoring depressed by playing on great teams his entire career, so per isn't a accurate reflection of his talents.

[Paydro70]

slow pace tends to help star players in PER.

I have never heard this before... why would it?

[mysticbb]

Defensive stats are NOT perfect. They should not be used exclusively to determine All-D and DPOY awards. Clearly, the "eye test" needs to be used in addition.
...
Camby has the defensive stats, but imo he is average. As a nuggets fan, I saw camby block a serious # of shots. Was he DPOY worthy? Hell no. he doesn't pass the eye test. The other four nuggets would let their man blow by and Camby would come in for the late block on guards and the like. This is what he was good at. He was a good defensive rebounder, but camby was a defensive rebound poacher. Stats were what camby cared about.

Interesting enough: In 2007 the Nuggets defense got worse with Camby on the court, Camby also had only a +0.7 defensive RAPM that season. He had worse defensive non-boxscore numbers than Nene Hilario for example. Thus you can't just say "the eye-test is needed" and dismiss the stats. You have to look at the proper stat to evaluate that. Defensive strength is about impacting the ball game on that end, not so much about some boxscore numbers, because the boxscore stats can only explain 50% of the defense anyway (which basically means that judging a player defensively only based on boxscore stats will be right half the time and wrong for the other half).

[laika]

Some of the points in this thread are laughably wrong, but I don't feel like correcting them all. Here are a couple things to consider.

Kobe played exceptional defense last year in the playoffs, guarding Westbrook, Williams, Nash and Rondo when Fisher could not. His defense easily could have been the difference between winning the title and not.

Meanwhile, this year Lebron had the worst defensive performance I can remember by a star. His net defensive rating of 19.1 is just shocking.

Will we see a "Lebron James:the most overrated defender imaginable" thread?
Don't hold your breath.

[Paydro70]

Lol at using an unadjusted d-rating on a guy who sat for 4 minutes a game. It's measuring 86 total minutes of play.

The eye test certainly didn't show a bad defender, at least until the last few games.

[laika]

Lol at using an unadjusted d-rating on a guy who sat for 4 minutes a game. It's measuring 86 total minutes of play.

The eye test certainly didn't show a bad defender, at least until the last few games.

There are no adjusted playoff +/- numbers since the people making them refuse to run them- a tacit admission that +/- is useless for the playoffs.

What are the sample sizes that would give adjusted +/- numbers statistical significance?
Obviously, the larger the unadjusted value the less minutes you need to form some sort of conclusion and 19.1 is a pretty huge number.

"Eye tests" should not exist on a statistics forum. Eye test=no rational argument or statistics are wrong.

[Paydro70]

It's useless for measuring playoff performance, I agree... there just aren't enough playoff games. We'd never take +/- numbers from only 20 regular season games seriously, and 20 playoff games is no different.

86 minutes is not sufficient to tell you anything, even at -19.1. It's especially ludicrous to break that down to defense. How many minutes you need depends on what you mean by "statistical significance." I'm no stats whiz, but two years is usually the standard, which is like 5000 minutes for a starter, and produces results that mostly pass the laugh test.

[Doctor MJ]

Will we see a "Lebron James:the most overrated defender imaginable" thread?
Don't hold your breath.

I'm sorry I really don't understand how concepts like sample size and reliability are so hard for you to understand. Just makes me think you aren't trying.

[laika]

Will we see a "Lebron James:the most overrated defender imaginable" thread?
Don't hold your breath.

I'm sorry I really don't understand how concepts like sample size and reliability are so hard for you to understand. Just makes me think you aren't trying.

From what I've seen, you could accuse the whole statistical community of not trying. Rather than trying to improve the obviously flawed stats they have, each person tends to pick a favorite and ignores all of its problems.

Lets look at the basketballvalue stats as an example. The standard error is 5 pts for a season. So to get a 2SD confidence interval we need a 20 point gap. Of course 95% of the league are within 20 points of each other. You can say nothing at all about average players, and the best you can say about the top players is that they are better than average.

In other words, adjusted +/- is completely useless by itself(this version anyways). But rather than admit this, people tend to use the gatekeeper approach of derisively dismissing all valid criticisms if they don't come from a statistical expert.

It doesn't help that there is a stereotype(correct) that the stat community is biased for/against certain players. This forum is a good example- making an extremely weak argument against Kobe(public enemy #1) while ignoring the terrible performance of the golden calf(Lebron). The last three years have generally been really bad for the stats community in terms of predictions, but you would hardly know about it from the way they talk.

It's possible that the private data is much better since the teams that use advanced stats have tended to do far better than those that don't(with the glaring exception of the Lakers). I think it is fair to say though that the public data has very little value.

[NO-KG-AI]

slow pace tends to help star players in PER.

I have never heard this before... why would it?

Possessions don't usually scale equally. If a team loses a bunch of possessions from one year to the next(new system maybe?) The star player, and more particularly, the star scorer will lose less of those than the rest of the guys.

[Paydro70]

Possessions don't usually scale equally. If a team loses a bunch of possessions from one year to the next(new system maybe?) The star player, and more particularly, the star scorer will lose less of those than the rest of the guys.

I find this rather hard to believe... is there a study on it? It doesn't make much sense to me logically, and it would have a lot of repercussions for the way that I consider players' performance. It would have to have game-by-game implications as well, no? If a particular game is fast-paced, do star players have lower usage, and vice versa?

[Nivek]

Will we see a "Lebron James:the most overrated defender imaginable" thread?
Don't hold your breath.

I'm sorry I really don't understand how concepts like sample size and reliability are so hard for you to understand. Just makes me think you aren't trying.

From what I've seen, you could accuse the whole statistical community of not trying. Rather than trying to improve the obviously flawed stats they have, each person tends to pick a favorite and ignores all of its problems.

Spoken like someone who pays extremely selective attention to what's actually happening in the "statistical community."

It doesn't help that there is a stereotype(correct) that the stat community is biased for/against certain players.

It's actually not correct. Most members of the "stat community" are using stats in an effort to remove bias from analysis. Do stats sometimes "miss" on a player? Sure. But, there are usually patterns to the misses that can be accounted for in adjustments to the formula, or accounted for in analysis. Players at the extremes (such as a defensive specialist like Bruce Bowen) often don't have their true value reflected in a stat like PER. Doesn't mean you need to throw out PER -- it's at least in the ballpark for most players. Just means you need different measures to get at the value of a defensive specialist.

Also, what exactly do you consider "stat community"? I've been part of the "stat community" for a looooong time and I haven't found any systematic biases or any kind of monolithic groupthink -- except for the nutty idea that statistical analysis can tell us a lot about the game. There have been heated debates about all manner of stat-related subjects within the stat community. My guess is you're talking about a few people and lumping those in with everyone else with the "stat community" catch phrase.

This forum is a good example- making an extremely weak argument against Kobe(public enemy #1) while ignoring the terrible performance of the golden calf(Lebron). The last three years have generally been really bad for the stats community in terms of predictions, but you would hardly know about it from the way they talk.

Which predictions? Some that I've seen from the "stat community" have been accurate; others not so good. One of the interesting things about stat guys is that they typically use a bad prediction to go back and refine their methods.

It's possible that the private data is much better since the teams that use advanced stats have tended to do far better than those that don't(with the glaring exception of the Lakers). I think it is fair to say though that the public data has very little value.

Some of the private data is excellent -- in part because teams have poached some of the top people in the "stat community." Some of the data (both private and public) gets so esoteric that it's probably not worth the trouble.

And by the way, the Finals were something of a triumph for statistical analysis. No team has a more comprehensive statistical analysis group; and no team does more to integrate their data into their decision-making than the Dallas Mavericks. Miami has long had a high-quality statistical department that's built on a mix of box score stats, computer simulations, and some in-house stats that are tracked by their coaches. I've seen the list of stuff they track, and some of it's pretty crazy. Riley had someone create an index based on these hand-tracked categories, and the Heat can generally predict wins and losses based on whether the team reaches a specific benchmark in those categories.

Look at some of the other teams that did well in the playoffs this year. Boston has a great stats program. So does Orlando and Chicago. In the West, Portland, OKC, Memphis and San Antonio (even though Pop plays dumb every time the subject is raised) have good stat programs. It could just be coincidence, but it could be that statistical analysis matters.

I'd agree that the best practitioners are getting snapped up by NBA teams. But, there's still lots of good work being done by the amateurs.

[Doctor MJ]

while ignoring the terrible performance of the golden calf(Lebron).

Thought I should mention on this: I'm not defending LeBron's finals performance. He played bad. Why am I not writing about it? I am. I'm writing about it on RealGM, and I'm writing about it on my blog.

However what I write is not really statistical in nature. I use stats in my writing when it helps add insight. No one needs stats to convince them that LeBron is playing bad.

Because my writing on LeBron is less statistical in nature right now, I'm not creating threads on the Stat board about it (which I'm always careful about doing anyway because the last thing I want is people feeling like I'm spamming them). And because of this, it's all adding into your pre-conceived notion that people like me are out to get Kobe.

[NO-KG-AI]

Possessions don't usually scale equally. If a team loses a bunch of possessions from one year to the next(new system maybe?) The star player, and more particularly, the star scorer will lose less of those than the rest of the guys.

I find this rather hard to believe... is there a study on it? It doesn't make much sense to me logically, and it would have a lot of repercussions for the way that I consider players' performance. It would have to have game-by-game implications as well, no? If a particular game is fast-paced, do star players have lower usage, and vice versa?

I don't have any ready numbers to back it up, just observations over the years. Though a lot of the high PER players are guys that are pretty ball dominant and on slower paced teams. Faster teams tend to fire up shots before setting an offense and things like that, and while all of their halfcourt sets will probably still run mainly for the star, it will skew PER some.

Someone like Chris Paul isn't going to touch the ball a whole lot more than someone like Steve Nash, but Nash's team is going to put up a whole lot more shots in transition where Nash may not even be involved in the play.

It's not the same in every case, but considering that PER is pretty easy to up with more usage, it's a safe bet. The higher your volume(compared to pace), the more your PER will rise, even if it's on diminishing efficiency.