Kobe Bryant: the most overrated defender imaginable

[Incubus13]

That is his 10th account.

Loki24
Jay24
John25
John28
Renji24
Jordan24
Gordan24
Eagle24
Eagle25
Loki25

Unbelievable. His account, BTW, in InsideHoops is Jacks3. One of the worst Kobe trolls in that forum.

[MF Doom]

He got waived in 2 posts?? WTF....the system is onto him....

It was 3 but one of them got deleted.

[Elden Payton]

He needs to be a little bit more creative on the name next time.

Is that the quickest waiving in realgm history?

[MF Doom]

Unbelievable. His account, BTW, in InsideHoops is Jacks3. One of the worst Kobe trolls in that forum.

He's banned on there now after I reported him.

[230MVP]

I didnt read all the posts but i'll give my opinion on this.

From 97-03 Kobe was an All-D defender, not only because he was physically capable of being one but because he put in the effort.

From 04-07 he was still capable of playing All-D defense but his teams were terrible and he put forth most of his effort on the offense end those years and really didnt play good defense.
Not terrible either... probably mediocre to average (good when he actually put forth the effort) but overall definitely not worthy of being on any All-D team.

From 08-10 he had physically declined alittle but still played decent defense, definitely not All-D defense though. In 11 he had just declined too much physically and played mostly mediocre defense that whole year.

So all in all I'd say he belonged on 3-5 All-D teams at the most for his entire Career.

[Incubus13]

I didnt read all the posts but i'll give my opinion on this.

From 97-03 Kobe was an All-D defender, not only because he was physically capable of being one but because he put in the effort.

From 04-07 he was still capable of playing All-D defense but his teams were terrible and he put forth most of his effort on the offense end those years and really didnt play good defense.
Not terrible either... probably mediocre to average (good when he actually put forth the effort) but overall definitely not worthy of being on any All-D team.

From 08-10 he had physically declined alittle but still played decent defense, definitely not All-D defense though. In 11 he had just declined too much physically and played mostly mediocre defense that whole year.

So all in all I'd say he belonged on 3-5 All-D teams at the most for his entire Career.

If you also look at his DWS, it becomes even more underwhelming. He broke the 4DWS mark only 5 times. His highest was in 1999-2000. In the postseason, he cracked the 1DWS mark only tiwc in his career. His highest was in 2008-2009. All of that while playing a lot of games. That means his defense regressed in the playoffs. Overrated? Definitely.

I think he he should have only won 2-3 All-D teams.

[jobbee]

Top 5 in DPOY 6X times.11X All-Defense. Consistently #1 in Player Polls for best defender. Damn. What a beast.

Must kill ya'll. One of the best perimeter defenders ever AND a top 5 offensive player ever AND one of the GOAT winners? Damn. No wonder ya'll so mad.

Deal with it.

[Elden Payton]

Top 5 in DPOY 6X times.11X All-Defense. Consistently #1 in Player Polls for best defender. Damn. What a beast.

Must kill ya'll. One of the best perimeter defenders ever AND a top 5 offensive player ever AND one of the GOAT winners? Damn. No wonder ya'll so mad.

Deal with it.

Account number 5000.

[cheolee]

True First team defense should be:

Howard
Hayes
Iggy
Allen
Rondo

[hayguise]

True First team defense should be:

Howard
Hayes
Iggy
Allen
Rondo

Paul > Rondo, LeBron > Iggy, Garnett definitely > Hayes

[EvanZ]

Hayes is a center (Scola is the PF), so I'm not sure why he's on that list in the first place.

[cheolee]

Look up Hayes vs Amare, KG, Griffin, Dirk, Bosh on youtube.
His best defensive position is against PFs.
Hayes is listed as C because he is the best low post defender that the Rockets have
and they don't have any better options on their roster.

Paul often gets outmatched physically by bigger PGs. He is only great at steals. NOT a great defender by any means. Don't know what to say to someone who thinks he is because of stats.

Lebron is an incredibly versatile defender but at the SF position, I would say that Iggy has better lateral quickness and less mental lapses.

[EvanZ]

Look up Hayes vs Amare, KG, Griffin, Dirk, Bosh on youtube.
His best defensive position is against PFs.
Hayes is listed as C because he is the best low post defender that the Rockets have
and they don't have any better options on their roster.

Paul often gets outmatched physically by bigger PGs. He is only great at steals. NOT a great defender by any means. Don't know what to say to someone who thinks he is because of stats.

Lebron is an incredibly versatile defender but at the SF position, I would say that Iggy has better lateral quickness and less mental lapses.

I don't argue that Hayes is their best low post defender. Most centers are their teams best low post defenders. How does it make sense not to list Garnett as the best defensive PF though? It's not even really close.

[pcortes64]

Why do we continue to make this distinction in modern basketball lexicon? Positionally speaking, there are no centers except in zone alignments. You have your point guard, two wings, and two posts. The so-called "power forward" has more in common with the "center" than he does the "small forward". Ditto for your perimeter players. We need to get rid of these labels altogether as all but one of them just don't do a good job of representing player responsibilities on the court.

[jambalaya]

My feelings have been for a long time that if the stats aren't good, it's amazing how quickly the "guys who really know the game" get exposed as working primarily off of reputation, with the creation of the reputation having a ton to do with luck.

...Gary Payton was still considered the best perimeter defender in the game until it became clear that he was actually below average - the experts completely missed the fall that didn't happen over night.

Based on Defensive Rating Payton stopped being consistently strong after 2000. Based on the first available RAPM Payton was estimated as nothing special / even below average in 2002. The All-Defense Voters had him on their first team thru 2001-2 but they did knock off after that. That wasn't too bad.


Bryant got many Defensive Honors that were not well-deserved or as well-deserved by others. He may well have deserved a few early in his career (before APM data was available as one method of review) and maybe you can allow a few more given the quality of their team defense in recent years and his role as leader. But he probably got more than he deserved from folks who went overboard with the comparison of him to Jordan (apparently including with defense).

Maybe he might rank high for guys you'd want defending in the last few minutes of a big game. but that is a guess. I haven't seen the clutch counterpart data. The clutch team data looks good to great (especially in the 2009 playoffs) but not clear how strong he was in particular compared to his teammates.

[jambalaya]

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.

Wayne Winston produced some playoff only Adjusted +/- here
http://waynewinston.com/wordpress/?paged=3 but not a lot of folks go there and the estimated standard errors wlll be high for most teams.

If you have a sample size of several hundred minutes (something only the last 2-4 teams standing will generate) and a score of plus or minus 10 or more you can be pretty sure of the true sign of that player's performance, especially with RAPM.

[jambalaya]

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.

That is for 1 year traditional APM. For 2 year APM the average standard error for bigger minute players is about or under 3 pts. For longer timeperiod traditional APM and RAPM the errors get down towards 2 or maybe even a little lower especially for big minute players. A 2SD confidence interval goes from 20 to 12 or around 8 points respectively.

A 1SD confidence interval goes from 10 to 6 or 4 points. A 66% chance the true value of longer timeperiod traditional APM and RAPM is within those smaller ranges.

And if you consider the tails of the distributon, you can say things like:

For 2 year APM with an average standard error of 3, if a player rates +3 or above on APM there is about a 83% chance his true value is positive. Same with a player rating worse than -3.

For multi-season year APM or even single season RAPM with an average standard error of about 2, if a player rates +2 or above on APM there is about a 83% chance his true value is positive. Same with a player rating worse than -2.

It doesn't seem too risky to use any APM or RAPM other than 1 year traditional APM to get a basic sense of the estimate value of a lot of players with upper and lower end estimates of these levels.

Even for the player in the middle (+2 or +3 to -2 or -3) you get a reading of which sign is more likely to be right than the other and you can also get a sense or (a specific estimate if you take the time to calculate it) of how unlikely it is they are much better or worse than that. And you know they are most likely players with value in the middle part of the range.

For big minute players using multi-season APM or RAPM you can often pretty reliably estimate for a lot of players that they are very likely in one of two quartiles (well above average, above average, below average or well below average) and you will usually have an estimate of which quartile is the more likely of the two. (Of course some players may evenly straddle quartiles.)

The value of RAPM is not just what it suggests but that it uses a different approach to give another estimate to boxscore based estimates. Where they disagree is a good case for more research and thought. (Where they agree the estimates might both be off but it is probably less likely.)

But use APM or not as you wish. I prefer to consider it (along with other approaches) over not considering it. It is not really precise but the estimates when used with restraint are more useful than its greatest opponents try to portray.

[Torio24]

00-deserved
01-deserved
02-deserved
03-deserved
04-deserevd
06-deserved
08-deserved

+ amazing offensive player+monster clutch stats=

TOP 10 EVER. BEST OF HIS GENERATION. DEAL WITH YA"LL

[Torio24]

The Greatness of Kobe Bean Bryant!!!
9X All-NBA 1st Team
2X All-NBA 2nd Team
2X All-NBA 3rd Team
9X All-NBA 1st Team Defense
2X All-NBA 2nd Team Defense
5X Top 5 DPOY/9X Top 10 DPOY
13X Time All-Star
4X Time All-Star MVP
2X NBA Finals MVP
1X NBA MVP
10th All-Time in MVP Shares
2X Scoring Champion
5 Time NBA Champion
7 Time NBA Finalist
10 55+ Win Seasons
15X Player of the Month Winner
Slam Dunk Champion (1997)
#1 Offensive APM (10 Year Study)
#10 All-Time in WAR
24 Career Average PER (15 Seasons)
2X Gold Medalist
Sporting News Player of the Decade
TNT Player of the Decade
ESPN Player of the Decade
Sports Illustrated Top 20 Male Athlete of the Decade (2000s) #7 (the only NBA player in the top 10)


Has more 50+ point games than any player in history not named Wilt or Jordan (25)
Has more 40+ point games than any player in history not named Wilt or Jordan (110)
Has more 60+ point games than any player in history not named Wilt (5)
Record Holder: Highest percentage of team points (2005-2006)
Record Holder: Most threes in one game (12)
Only player in history to score at least 600 points in three consecutive post-seasons
2001-2010 RS: 28.6 PPG/5.7 RPG/5.4 APG/1.7 SPG/0.6 BPG/56% TS
2001-2010 PS: 28.8 PPG/5.8 RPG/5.2 APG/1.8 SPG/0.6 BPG/56% TS
Some of his best seasons:
35 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/0.5 BPG/56% TS
32 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.5 BPG/58% TS
30 PPG/7 RPG/6 APG/2 SPG/1 BPG/55% TS
29 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/0.6 BPG/55% TS
28 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG/2 SPG/0.5 BPG/58% TS
27 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.5 BPG/56% TS
27 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.4 BPG/55% TS
28 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG/1.4 SPG/0.5 BPG/56% TS
26 PPG/6 APG/6 RPG/2 SPG/0.6 BPG/55% TS
Some of his best post-seasons:
29 PPG/7 RPG/6 APG/2 SPG/1 BPG/56% TS (16 games)
27 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/0.5 BPG/52% TS (22 games)
30 PPG/6 APG/6 APG/1.4 SPG/0.5 BPG/58% TS (22 games)
30 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.4 BPG/57% TS (23 games)
29 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG/1.4 SPG/0.4 BPG/57% TS (23 games)
29 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/1.3 SPG/0.3 BPG/58% TS (7 games)
33 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/1.4 SPG/0.4 BPG/56% TS (5 games)
4 straight 45+ point games (2006)
4 straight 50+ point games (2007)
9 straight 40+ point games (2003)
13 straight 35+ point games (2003)
81 pts
62 points in three quarters. Outscored opposing team by himself.
27 40+ point games in one season (Only Wilt/Jordan have done that)
10 50+ point games in one season (Only player beside Wilt to do so)
Has three different games where he scored 30+ in one quarter.
Has six different games where he scored 50+ pts though three quarters.
Has five different months where he averaged 40+ PPG.
One of seven players ever with 25,000 pts/5,000 rbs/5,000 asts
6th on All-Time Scoring List
4th on All-Time Playoff Scoring List

[Elden Payton]

The Greatness of Kobe Bean Bryant!!!
9X All-NBA 1st Team
2X All-NBA 2nd Team
2X All-NBA 3rd Team
9X All-NBA 1st Team Defense
2X All-NBA 2nd Team Defense
5X Top 5 DPOY/9X Top 10 DPOY
13X Time All-Star
4X Time All-Star MVP
2X NBA Finals MVP
1X NBA MVP
10th All-Time in MVP Shares
2X Scoring Champion
5 Time NBA Champion
7 Time NBA Finalist
10 55+ Win Seasons
15X Player of the Month Winner
Slam Dunk Champion (1997)
#1 Offensive APM (10 Year Study)
#10 All-Time in WAR
24 Career Average PER (15 Seasons)
2X Gold Medalist
Sporting News Player of the Decade
TNT Player of the Decade
ESPN Player of the Decade
Sports Illustrated Top 20 Male Athlete of the Decade (2000s) #7 (the only NBA player in the top 10)


Has more 50+ point games than any player in history not named Wilt or Jordan (25)
Has more 40+ point games than any player in history not named Wilt or Jordan (110)
Has more 60+ point games than any player in history not named Wilt (5)
Record Holder: Highest percentage of team points (2005-2006)
Record Holder: Most threes in one game (12)
Only player in history to score at least 600 points in three consecutive post-seasons
2001-2010 RS: 28.6 PPG/5.7 RPG/5.4 APG/1.7 SPG/0.6 BPG/56% TS
2001-2010 PS: 28.8 PPG/5.8 RPG/5.2 APG/1.8 SPG/0.6 BPG/56% TS
Some of his best seasons:
35 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/0.5 BPG/56% TS
32 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.5 BPG/58% TS
30 PPG/7 RPG/6 APG/2 SPG/1 BPG/55% TS
29 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/0.6 BPG/55% TS
28 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG/2 SPG/0.5 BPG/58% TS
27 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.5 BPG/56% TS
27 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.4 BPG/55% TS
28 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG/1.4 SPG/0.5 BPG/56% TS
26 PPG/6 APG/6 RPG/2 SPG/0.6 BPG/55% TS
Some of his best post-seasons:
29 PPG/7 RPG/6 APG/2 SPG/1 BPG/56% TS (16 games)
27 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/0.5 BPG/52% TS (22 games)
30 PPG/6 APG/6 APG/1.4 SPG/0.5 BPG/58% TS (22 games)
30 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/1.5 SPG/0.4 BPG/57% TS (23 games)
29 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG/1.4 SPG/0.4 BPG/57% TS (23 games)
29 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/1.3 SPG/0.3 BPG/58% TS (7 games)
33 PPG/5 RPG/5 APG/1.4 SPG/0.4 BPG/56% TS (5 games)
4 straight 45+ point games (2006)
4 straight 50+ point games (2007)
9 straight 40+ point games (2003)
13 straight 35+ point games (2003)
81 pts
62 points in three quarters. Outscored opposing team by himself.
27 40+ point games in one season (Only Wilt/Jordan have done that)
10 50+ point games in one season (Only player beside Wilt to do so)
Has three different games where he scored 30+ in one quarter.
Has six different games where he scored 50+ pts though three quarters.
Has five different months where he averaged 40+ PPG.
One of seven players ever with 25,000 pts/5,000 rbs/5,000 asts
6th on All-Time Scoring List
4th on All-Time Playoff Scoring List

No.....just no....