Kobe Bryant: the most overrated defender imaginable

[MF Doom]

#32

[Elden Payton]

#32

SMH...

[primecougar]

i don't post/read here much but every time i do doctor-mj says something really stupid!
last time you said bosh was a better player then Carmelo or something and now your claiming that Kobe Bryant is an average defender?

i hate how everyone claims kobe only gets recognition based on his rep! well where the hell did that rep come from?

i agree with you last year age caught up with him and he was an average def but in years prior he definitively deserved it.

do you remember in 09 playoffs where he completely shut down Chauncey? or against okc when westbrook was killing them and he switched on to him and he was struggling.

watch the game instead of basing your arguments on a couple of stats that don't mean ****.

doctor mj you know nothing about basketball, your always saying some of the stupidest things.
Kobe a bad defender get out of here.

realgm where random stats> watching the game

[primecougar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBu28UwDzps listen to what svg says and watch the video

[Doctor MJ]

i hate how everyone claims kobe only gets recognition based on his rep! well where the hell did that rep come from?

Well primarily it came from him playing good defense. Typically a statement of someone getting praise only based on reputation is a statement that people are essentially assuming previous good things have continued without really doing a thorough analysis. Happens all the time in areas without well known stats, which was why Gary Payton was considered the best man defender in the league by many until he went to LA and it became clear that he was far from the player he used to be and was actually hurting the team. That change didn't happen over night, and everyone knew he wasn't as good as his peak self, but no one I've heard or read had been able to tell how bad the falloff was until his issues were showcased.

There is more to the story though. One of the big issues with judging a player's defense is that it's very hard to judge on an 82 game basis, and again this has to do with lack of stats. People tend to judge players' defense based on them standing out as good or bad, which means that if you watch a player defend at a time when they are really dialed in, you can make the mistake of extrapolating that out for 82 games. Essentially judging what a player is theoretically capable of instead of the impact they are actually having day in and day out. This is especially relevant to an aging star perimeter player like Kobe who it would simply be foolish not to consider resting him on defense during the long season, which is exactly what gets done, and why Kobe shouldn't be getting accolades for it.

doctor mj you know nothing about basketball

Well, you know nothing about rationally analyzing situations, observing your own bias, recognizing the weaknesses of human observers including yourself, determining what tools you need to complete a real analysis, and evaluating said tools when they come out. So, I'll just say that I take your critique with a grain of salt. Cheers.

[Rapcity_11]

i don't post/read here much but every time i do doctor-mj says something really stupid!
last time you said bosh was a better player then Carmelo or something and now your claiming that Kobe Bryant is an average defender?

i hate how everyone claims kobe only gets recognition based on his rep! well where the hell did that rep come from?

i agree with you last year age caught up with him and he was an average def but in years prior he definitively deserved it.

do you remember in 09 playoffs where he completely shut down Chauncey? or against okc when westbrook was killing them and he switched on to him and he was struggling.

watch the game instead of basing your arguments on a couple of stats that don't mean ****.

doctor mj you know nothing about basketball, your always saying some of the stupidest things.
Kobe a bad defender get out of here.

realgm where random stats> watching the game

primecougar - Candidate for worst poster on real gm.

[Elden Payton]

i don't post/read here much but every time i do doctor-mj says something really stupid!
last time you said bosh was a better player then Carmelo or something and now your claiming that Kobe Bryant is an average defender?

i hate how everyone claims kobe only gets recognition based on his rep! well where the hell did that rep come from?

i agree with you last year age caught up with him and he was an average def but in years prior he definitively deserved it.

do you remember in 09 playoffs where he completely shut down Chauncey? or against okc when westbrook was killing them and he switched on to him and he was struggling.

watch the game instead of basing your arguments on a couple of stats that don't mean ****.

doctor mj you know nothing about basketball, your always saying some of the stupidest things.
Kobe a bad defender get out of here.

realgm where random stats> watching the game

Well Doc MJ is actually one of our best stats gurus/posters on Realgm.

Kobe is very average on defense & obviously you can't see past your own bias.

Looking at the stats(which are relevant) it is quite obvious that Kobe got his all-D off of reputation.

You obviously know nothing about basketball & follow the hype.

[primecougar]

i hate how everyone claims kobe only gets recognition based on his rep! well where the hell did that rep come from?

Well primarily it came from him playing good defense. Typically a statement of someone getting praise only based on reputation is a statement that people are essentially assuming previous good things have continued without really doing a thorough analysis. Happens all the time in areas without well known stats, which was why Gary Payton was considered the best man defender in the league by many until he went to LA and it became clear that he was far from the player he used to be and was actually hurting the team. That change didn't happen over night, and everyone knew he wasn't as good as his peak self, but no one I've heard or read had been able to tell how bad the falloff was until his issues were showcased.

There is more to the story though. One of the big issues with judging a player's defense is that it's very hard to judge on an 82 game basis, and again this has to do with lack of stats. People tend to judge players' defense based on them standing out as good or bad, which means that if you watch a player defend at a time when they are really dialed in, you can make the mistake of extrapolating that out for 82 games. Essentially judging what a player is theoretically capable of instead of the impact they are actually having day in and day out. This is especially relevant to an aging star perimeter player like Kobe who it would simply be foolish not to consider resting him on defense during the long season, which is exactly what gets done, and why Kobe shouldn't be getting accolades for it.

doctor mj you know nothing about basketball

Well, you know nothing about rationally analyzing situations, observing your own bias, recognizing the weaknesses of human observers including yourself, determining what tools you need to complete a real analysis, and evaluating said tools when they come out. So, I'll just say that I take your critique with a grain of salt. Cheers.

why even bother arguing with you guys. you are a mod and everyone is on your sac and we are talking about Kobe. anytime someone defends Kobe they are always wrong.

i have heared you say melo> bosh and now that kobe is an average defender. go say that to people outside of this site and listen to what they say.

i guess you know more all the coaches/players/gms/analyst and people that watch the game and call kobe a great defender.

just tell me how did Kobe defend westbrook so well in 2010 after he was raping them when fisher was on him?

[primecougar]

i don't post/read here much but every time i do doctor-mj says something really stupid!
last time you said bosh was a better player then Carmelo or something and now your claiming that Kobe Bryant is an average defender?

i hate how everyone claims kobe only gets recognition based on his rep! well where the hell did that rep come from?

i agree with you last year age caught up with him and he was an average def but in years prior he definitively deserved it.

do you remember in 09 playoffs where he completely shut down Chauncey? or against okc when westbrook was killing them and he switched on to him and he was struggling.

watch the game instead of basing your arguments on a couple of stats that don't mean ****.

doctor mj you know nothing about basketball, your always saying some of the stupidest things.
Kobe a bad defender get out of here.

realgm where random stats> watching the game

primecougar - Candidate for worst poster on real gm.

dont choke on dr.mj thing now

[Doctor MJ]

why even bother arguing with you guys.

Then don't dude. It's a free internet, go somewhere where you can enjoy yourself.

To respond to you thought:

you are a mod and everyone is on your sac and we are talking about Kobe. anytime someone defends Kobe they are always wrong.

i have heared you say melo> bosh and now that kobe is an average defender. go say that to people outside of this site and listen to what they say.

i guess you know more all the coaches/players/gms/analyst and people that watch the game and call kobe a great defender.

just tell me how did Kobe defend westbrook so well in 2010 after he was raping them when fisher was on him?

-cougar, I'm a mod because I impressed people, and then was willing to spend my time helping the site (which btw when it comes to discipline, is not something I enjoy in the slightest), not the other way around. That doesn't mean you have to agree with me - far from it - but to the extent that you feel like your own an opponent's home court, I'm just a guy who made some good points and now people are interested in what I have to say here.

-"Kobe defenders always wrong". Well thing is, when I have an opinion that deviates from the norm in a certain direction, chances are I'm going to end up taking a similar stand each time things come up.

But look, I think Kobe's game-peak ability is the best in history, I rank Kobe in my all-time Top 10 careers, I've always sided with Kobe over Shaq, and I absolutely admire Kobe's dedication. I have positive things to say about Kobe...it's just that it's pretty rare that it would make any sense to elaborate on them since most already agree on those things.

-I rank Bosh over Melo, did you typo that one? Certainly not a popular opinion of mine. Just know that I have no general bias to hate Melo. I cheered for Syracuse when they won the title, and when Melo came to Denver the team was run by Kiki who proceeded to change the uniforms to look like his (and my) alma mater UCLA so I was cheering for them. I simply don't those things get in the way of my analysis.

-"talk to people outside the site". Well, of course I basically try absorb basketball knowledge from everywhere. I have my opinions shaped all the time. I do find though that when I talk to a random basketball fan, their lack of knowledge is just shocking. This has nothing to do with their intelligence, and everything to do with their type of interest. For most people sports analysis is a very casual thing. For people like me, it's a compulsion. People like me get together on the internet for a few years, and we make a lot of progress in our thinking. Simple as that.

-"coaches/players/etc love Kobe's defense". There are different skillsets here. I certainly can't coach like those coaches, or improvise on the court like adept pros, but on the other hand having been a scientist and a researcher, I know how to analyze situations, and I know how to ferret out the areas that make it difficult for human beings to have accurate assessments of situations.

To put it another way: I don't need to know the single best way to improvise and adapt to every offensive and defensive strategy in order to know that the human brain is incapable of scaling to large numbers, fine percentages, or probabilities in general. When I see coaches make statements that are the same types of flawed statements you'll see in any walk of life, then I have a kernel of wisdom that they frankly need from someone like me.

Re: "how did Kobe stop Westbrook then?". Well first off, as I've stated many, many times in this thread, I'm not saying Kobe's incapable of doing good things on defense, I'm saying that over an 82 game season, it just doesn't add up to stellar defensive years, and that a significant reason for this is that Kobe (rightfully) conserves his energy.

Beyond that what happened? Well, do you remember how many times Westbrook scored 20 points in that 6 game series? 3 times, with one of those times coming simply from him shooting a lot. This notion that Westbrook was killing the Lakers then is extremely overblown. Now remember that Westbrook was doing this with about 99% of the Lakers' D energy focused elsewhere because he has a far more dangerous teammate in Durant.

And now remember that Kobe is younger, longer, and more athletic than Fisher (like really, everyone else in the NBA), and that the one thing Westbrook really had at that point was athleticism. Remember he was nothing close to an all-star level player generally, but then he got to face Fish with Fish having not much support (because of Durant), and managed to score 20+ points a couple times. So basically, people overreacted to what happened.

Do I praise Kobe for what he did there though? Sure. It was impressive...and just the type of thing Kobe only does when he deems it important enough for him to spend energy on it.

[primecougar]

now your basically saying kobes a great defender when he wants but doesnt do it over the course of an entire season!

Well when kobe plays def hes was still one of the best guard def in the league (not last year, im talking bout till 2010). He doesnt alwasy put 100 on def but does when his team needed a stop or when a superstar came to town, just like you said but tell me which supersar does that? Wade?lebron? None of these guys do it, every guy takes possessions off to conserve energy just not kobe. The only guy that was a better sg defender was tony allen but he plays 20 mins a game. there wasnt a sg that played most of the game and played amazing def every night.

Sure there were guys like iggy but his team was so bad no one even knew just like kobe didnt get mvp cause his team sucked.

One could make the case for lebron not making it last year because deng was much more impressive.
I just hate how everyone belittles kobes accomplishments when all these things could be said about other superstars.

Kobe won with shaq, well who won without good teamates and the list goes on.

I agree that kobe takes possessions off on def but this could be said about every star defender in the league but if i needed a stop i would still take him(2010 and prior).

[Doctor MJ]

now your basically saying kobes a great defender when he wants but doesnt do it over the course of an entire season!

Now? I've basically been saying that the whole time. I mean, I don't know if I'd use the word "great" because a big part of my point is that perimeter players typically don't have big impact, but I'm certainly not focused on knocking Kobe's peak capabilities here.

He doesnt alwasy put 100 on def but does when his team needed a stop or when a superstar came to town, just like you said but tell me which supersar does that? Wade?lebron? None of these guys do it, every guy takes possessions off to conserve energy just not kobe. The only guy that was a better sg defender was tony allen but he plays 20 mins a game. there wasnt a sg that played most of the game and played amazing def every night.

Sure there were guys like iggy but his team was so bad no one even knew just like kobe didnt get mvp cause his team sucked.

One could make the case for lebron not making it last year because deng was much more impressive.
I just hate how everyone belittles kobes accomplishments when all these things could be said about other superstars.

Kobe won with shaq, well who won without good teamates and the list goes on.

I agree that kobe takes possessions off on def but this could be said about every star defender in the league but if i needed a stop i would still take him(2010 and prior).

Well but then we go back to the +/- numbers, which was my point. Yes every offensive star sometimes catches a breather on defense, but if they were all doing it as much as Kobe, we wouldn't see mediocre defensive +/- from Kobe. LeBron for example scores far higher than Kobe by these metrics.

Wade on the other hand is in a similar boat to Kobe...except that Kobe has the lead for most All-Defensive 1st Team awards among guards in all of NBA history with 9, and Wade has how many? ZERO.

That's the point my friend.

You're wondering why Kobe's getting singled out by me when he's not all that different from anyone else?

It's because he's been singled out by everyone else as if he's had an all-time great defensive career, when in reality he's not all that different from anyone else.

[primecougar]

The problem with those stats is that a couple years ago durant had a -2 rating when he was on the court. Theres a lot of factors, like is it fair that he plays with fisher.

Numbers lie when you watch you could tell kobes a great def prior to 2010 but i agree that a bigs defense is better to any guard.

When i say great defender i mean as a guard defender!

Kobe was a better defender then wade except for shot blocking even.

when mia beat lakers in mia wade shot 8-23 and before he got lebron he needed picks at half court to get by him and theres youtube video of kobe stopping wade. Who is one of the best scorers in the league.

[primecougar]

^ sry for the mistakes im on my phone !!

[Doctor MJ]

The problem with those stats is that a couple years ago durant had a -2 rating when he was on the court. Theres a lot of factors, like is it fair that he plays with fisher.

Numbers lie when you watch you could tell kobes a great def prior to 2010 but i agree that a bigs defense is better to any guard.

When i say great defender i mean as a guard defender!

Kobe was a better defender then wade except for shot blocking even.

when mia beat lakers in mia wade shot 8-23 and before he got lebron he needed picks at half court to get by him and theres youtube video of kobe stopping wade. Who is one of the best scorers in the league.

I actually consider the fact that +/- stats said such poor things about Durant early in his career to be impressive. In fact we see a recurring them of young stars looking like crap in +/- as they score lots of points (which gets everyone excited) at terrible efficiency (which everyone ignores). The reality is that when a young player puts up big volume numbers, is often says just as much about the attitude of the franchise as it does about the young player's capabilities. That attitude being, "We believe in this kid. We expect that he will be our star, so we might as well get him used to playing as the star now, even he really doesn't understand the nuances of the game well enough to help us a win in that role."

And I agree with you that Kobe's got the tools defender other guards well, and in a world where he had infinite energy, he'd do some great things on defense.

[primecougar]

The problem with those stats is that a couple years ago durant had a -2 rating when he was on the court. Theres a lot of factors, like is it fair that he plays with fisher.

Numbers lie when you watch you could tell kobes a great def prior to 2010 but i agree that a bigs defense is better to any guard.

When i say great defender i mean as a guard defender!

Kobe was a better defender then wade except for shot blocking even.

when mia beat lakers in mia wade shot 8-23 and before he got lebron he needed picks at half court to get by him and theres youtube video of kobe stopping wade. Who is one of the best scorers in the league.

I actually consider the fact that +/- stats said such poor things about Durant early in his career to be impressive. In fact we see a recurring them of young stars looking like crap in +/- as they score lots of points (which gets everyone excited) at terrible efficiency (which everyone ignores). The reality is that when a young player puts up big volume numbers, is often says just as much about the attitude of the franchise as it does about the young player's capabilities. That attitude being, "We believe in this kid. We expect that he will be our star, so we might as well get him used to playing as the star now, even he really doesn't understand the nuances of the game well enough to help us a win in that role."

And I agree with you that Kobe's got the tools defender other guards well, and in a world where he had infinite energy, he'd do some great things on defense.

see we believe in differnt things. that team no matter what played better with durant on it. theres no way possible because even if durant stands in the corner it helped the team.

as for the argument, i dont see why you are singling Kobe out. like i said you could say this about everyone even Michael jordan who has 9 all team awards. i didnt watch he played in but i can guarantee it that he didnt play 100% def on the best player on the other team every night, especially when he had pippen.

the award basically says that this guy can lock down as good as anyone when the team needs it.
for ex when the playoffs started Kobe defended Chauncey, melo, pierce, Allen, rondo, westbrook and stopped taking position's off.

imo its unfair to give the award to tony allen whom i think was a better defender then kobe in 2010 when he only plays 20 mins and plays no offense, where kobe plays offense, more mins and when he wants or his team needs can play as good as def as anyone

[Doctor MJ]

see we believe in differnt things. that team no matter what played better with durant on it. theres no way possible because even if durant stands in the corner it helped the team.

as for the argument, i dont see why you are singling Kobe out. like i said you could say this about everyone even Michael jordan who has 9 all team awards. i didnt watch he played in but i can guarantee it that he didnt play 100% def on the best player on the other team every night, especially when he had pippen.

the award basically says that this guy can lock down as good as anyone when the team needs it.
for ex when the playoffs started Kobe defended Chauncey, melo, pierce, Allen, rondo, westbrook and stopped taking position's off.

imo its unfair to give the award to tony allen whom i think was a better defender then kobe in 2010 when he only plays 20 mins and plays no offense, where kobe plays offense, more mins and when he wants or his team needs can play as good as def as anyone

Well we do believe different things, but I can't chalk it up to philosophical differences.

Re: "that team no matter what played better with durant on it. theres no way possible because even if durant stands in the corner it helped the team."

The game is simply a lot more complicated than you want to believe. You need to understand that the gap between a great and terrible offense is roughly one made basket per 20 possessions. That means that it doesn't matter who you are, the vast majority of what you give to your team would still get done without you. So when a team chooses to focus their offense around a player who is still figuring out the NBA, this is a pretty big deal, and it really doesn't matter who you are, if you're not able to feel the flow of the game around you and make use of your teammates, it can nullify your gifts.

You see me as a Kobe-hater, but there are others who see me as a Wilt-hater because I have incredibly harsh things to say about his basketball. I'm saying quite literally: When he was scoring mega-huge volume numbers, his offensive impact was often microscopic. He was not able to make use of his teammates when he was so focused on scoring, and the offense became extremely predictable, and easy to smack down to pedestrian levels. Sure Wilt's numbers looked good, but his teammates stagnated, and even Wilt's numbers only look as good as they do because we don't have official data about turnovers let alone shot-clock-wasting from back then.

Wilt's impact can be minimal, you had better believe that it's possible for a n00b Durant to have meh impact.

Re: "as for the argument, i dont see why you are singling Kobe out. like i said you could say this about everyone even Michael jordan who has 9 all team awards. i didnt watch he played in but i can guarantee it that he didnt play 100% def on the best player on the other team every night, especially when he had pippen. "

Okay you need to watch Jordan play then. Particularly young Jordan. Dude had a ridiculous motor. Do you remember what Wade was like last finals? That was what young Jordan felt like. He just didn't seem to be the same species as everyone else, which was why he won that DPOY. I doubt he actually deserved the DPOY being a perimeter player & all, but that he was on people's minds made perfect sense.

Kobe just never felt the same, and that's not really meant as a knock on Kobe. Kobe's energy level for his age has always been fine, just not one of those "mutant 3-year-old" guys.

Did Jordan coast to more All-D nods than he deserved based on reputation? Yeah, I'd say pretty much everyone like that does, but the scenario is seldom as extreme as we see it with Kobe. I mean, Kobe's current streak of All-D 1st team nods began in '05-06, a year where he was (by necessity) focused on offense to the point of absolute exhaustion. Things haven't gotten dramatically better for Kobe since that time, and that accounts for 6 of his 9 All-D 1st nods.

Re: unfair Tony Allen All-D. This is a valid point. My definite feeling is that you've got to go with actual defensive impact, not potential defensive impact. This applies both to all around superstars not focused on defense, and to All-D worthy defensive specialists who don't play enough minutes to have the requisite impact.

[primecougar]

come on man your telling young jordan averaged those ridiculous numbers in his earlier days and played 100% def on the best player every night for every poesseion 82 games a season!
Thats just not possible, if he did that he would have had a little more success. No knock him just saying its impossible and as for wade in the finals, i didnt see anything special, didnt really defend that well except some amazing blocks on chandler i mean terry shot 90% in game 6 till half time, and he missed ft in the crunch with a couple of big turnovers and a missed 3 in game 2!

As for jordan winning def player of year: that was a total joke, take a look what hakeem was doing. His numbers were amazing i believe hhe was avg 2 steals as a big and obviously had a much bigger impact defensively! Thats more of a joke then kobe making all nba d team last year.

I agree kobe was bad last year but who do you think deserved over him before that like 2010 and prior?
Wade? Well he did the exact same thing and when they both actually d up, kobes much better.

Tony allen? Plays 20 mins
Iggy? His team is irrelevant!
Sefolosha? Plays like 20 mins
Affalalo? Good def but not great by any means

They only challenge he had was wade but wade did the exact same thing and kobes a better def when he actually plays d!

[EvanZ]

You're forgetting about Ginobili.

[Doctor MJ]

come on man your telling young jordan averaged those ridiculous numbers in his earlier days and played 100% def on the best player every night for every poesseion 82 games a season!

Thats just not possible, if he did that he would have had a little more success.

That wasn't Jordan's role. Jordan had carte blanche to rove and had a tendency to feel like he was everywhere at once, which made his impact a bit less like a typical guard, and a bit more like a big. This isn't to say he didn't do lock down, but when he was not playing intense man defense, he was playing the energy rover role.

Your statement last sentence is just nonsensical. No modern player is going to create all-world team defense by himself, so it doesn't make sense to say "defense should have been better" without a great deal of analysis and context.

No knock him just saying its impossible and as for wade in the finals, i didnt see anything special, didnt really defend that well except some amazing blocks on chandler i mean terry shot 90% in game 6 till half time, and he missed ft in the crunch with a couple of big turnovers and a missed 3 in game 2!

Then you have a problem my friend. Wade defense "popped" out of the screen to even casual observers, and quantified tracking has shown that the amount of plays Wade was making was off the charts. If you can't see that with your eyes, and you're not really able to converse with advanced stats, it makes it really hard for you to get anywhere productive.

And let me be clear though I've said it before: Wade's defense is not normally anywhere near that good. It was a clear case of Wade being rested and knowing he could burn all of his energy in the next 4-7 games without it hurting him in future series. He could never pull that off over a full season.

As for jordan winning def player of year: that was a total joke, take a look what hakeem was doing. His numbers were amazing i believe hhe was avg 2 steals as a big and obviously had a much bigger impact defensively! Thats more of a joke then kobe making all nba d team last year.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree honestly. Jordan was fantastic for a little man, but I don't believe that ever put him in true competition with Hakeem.

I agree kobe was bad last year but who do you think deserved over him before that like 2010 and prior?
Wade? Well he did the exact same thing and when they both actually d up, kobes much better.

Tony allen? Plays 20 mins
Iggy? His team is irrelevant!
Sefolosha? Plays like 20 mins
Affalalo? Good def but not great by any means

They only challenge he had was wade but wade did the exact same thing and kobes a better def when he actually plays d!

This is a good question to ask, and in all honesty it's been a while since I thought about it. I don't have time at the moment, but I do want to get back to it.