Advanced Stats Comparison: Why is Kobe so "mediocre"?

[Amare_1_Knicks]

Maybe because he didn't have near the actual value some his die hard fans think he had?
His career is insanely overrated as was he himself as a player.

Most overrated player of All-Time... easily.

He was a sidekick for his first 3 titles and he was only an inefficient low to mid level All-Star in 00 and 02.
In 03 and 04 he was either injured (03) or overweight and playing poorly/selfishly (04) and injured again (05).

His 06-09 Prime was great but far from transcendent in an All-Time sense and his impact in 2011 and onwards has been far from that of a Super-Star.

Box score stats can be empty often don't accurately display impact.
This last season he was barely a positive/plus for his team.
He put up nice ppg but with terrible ball dominance that frequently led to him alienating his teammates on offense and keeping them from staying productive on that end.
Plus his own inefficiency/consistency.

His "special fans" will ignore this and just say "look at the pretty ppg" and he is still MVP etc... and even the media seems to buy into that way of thinking nowadays... its pretty sad.

Advanced stats and actual performances are why Kobe will never be anything more then a borderline Top 10 player.
This stuff below... is what they don't want you to see.

**************************************************

Playoff PER

A's (Main Star) :
Shaq (00-02) : 29
Jordan (91-93 + 96-98) : 28.53

B's (Side-Kicks) :
Kobe (00-02) : 21
Pippen (91-93 + 96-98) : 19.5

The difference is clear and obvious.
_______________________________________________________

Comparison Between Kobe/Gasol in 2010.

Regular Season PER / WShares
Gasol : 22.9 ||| 11
Kobe : 21.9 ||| 9.4

Playoff PER / WShares
Gasol : 24 ||| 4.7
Kobe : 24.7 ||| 3.6

**************************************************

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#1.
Jordan : Post Season - PER
Peak : 32
Top 5 : 30.16
Top 7 : 29.61
Top 10 : 28.89
Top 13 : 28.6

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#2.
Shaq : Post Season - PER
Peak : 31
Top 5 : 30
Top 7 : 29.56
Top 10 : 28.52
Top 13 : 26.55
14th to 16th Season (Final 3 Seasons) - 18.33

------------------------------------------------------------

#4.
Duncan : Post Season - PER
Peak : 28.4
Top 5 : 26.96
Top 7 : 27.49
Top 10 : 26.67
Top 13 : 25.4

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#???.
Hakeem : Post Season - PER
Peak : 27.7
Top 5 : 26.5
Top 7 : 27.4

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#14.
KG : Post Season - PER
Peak : 25.5
Top 5 : 24.2
Top 7 : 24

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#15.
Kobe : Post Season - PER
Peak : 26.8
Top 5 : 24
Top 7 : 23
Top 10 : 22.98
Top 13 : 21.62
_____________________________________________

@Joseph : Prime Odom... amazing ball handler and frequently averaged 4-5+ APG.
Smush was also a decent ball handler.

You're so biased towards Kobe your responses are pretty much invalid at this point. Most overrated of all time is so flat out outrageous. Most overrated top 10 player is even stretching it. But we're not getting into that.

Honestly, PER just favors players more than others, yet it's definitely not the end all, and be all of statistics anyway. If you take out the two years Kobe came off the bench, his career PER is 24. Hakeem's career PER is 23.6, and Magic Johnson's is 24.1.

You're quite ignorant to a lot of Kobe's career it'd seem as well. He was far from an inefficient side-kick when Shaq was in L.A, but I'll just leave it that.

[SilkStream]

You're so biased towards Kobe your responses are pretty much invalid at this point. Most overrated of all time is so flat out outrageous. Most overrated top 10 player is even stretching it. But we're not getting into that.

Honestly, PER just favors players more than others, yet it's definitely not the end all, and be all of statistics anyway. If you take out the two years Kobe came off the bench, his career PER is 24. Hakeem's career PER is 23.6, and Magic Johnson's is 24.1.

You're quite ignorant to a lot of Kobe's career it'd seem as well. He was far from an inefficient side-kick when Shaq was in L.A, but I'll just leave it that.

00 Kobe = 20 / 4.5 / 4.5 on 51%TS
02 Kobe = 26 / 6 / 4.5 on 51%TS (48%TS prior to Finals)

So yeah... inefficient low - mid level All-Star.

But wait... his name is Kobe so his numbers don't matter right?

I don't and have never used career PER. It is an idiotic way to use the stat.
The fact is Kobe's PER over any number of years is absolutely s*** on by most other Top 10 players.

It does not favor certain players... that is (Please Use More Appropriate Word).
Better production / performances = Better PER.

Jordan is a good example of this.

The only players who PER cannot really be used to judge are PG's (Magic) and defensive specialists (Russell).

[ahonui06]

This thread will not end well, but it will be pure comedy.

[Amare_1_Knicks]

You're so biased towards Kobe your responses are pretty much invalid at this point. Most overrated of all time is so flat out outrageous. Most overrated top 10 player is even stretching it. But we're not getting into that.

Honestly, PER just favors players more than others, yet it's definitely not the end all, and be all of statistics anyway. If you take out the two years Kobe came off the bench, his career PER is 24. Hakeem's career PER is 23.6, and Magic Johnson's is 24.1.

You're quite ignorant to a lot of Kobe's career it'd seem as well. He was far from an inefficient side-kick when Shaq was in L.A, but I'll just leave it that.

00 Kobe = 20 / 4.5 / 4.5 on 51%TS
02 Kobe = 26 / 6 / 4.5 on 51%TS (48%TS prior to Finals)

So yeah... inefficient low - mid level All-Star.

But wait... his name is Kobe so his numbers don't matter right?

I don't and have never used career PER. It is an idiotic way to use the stat.
The fact is Kobe's PER over any number of years is absolutely s*** on by most other Top 10 players.

It does not favor certain players... that is (Please Use More Appropriate Word).
Better production / performances = Better PER.

Jordan is a good example of this.

The only players who PER cannot really be used to judge are PG's (Magic) and defensive specialists (Russell).

I haven't the foggiest why you're only going by playoffs but int he RS Kobe was well above league average in both FG% and TS% -- same for '02.

At any rate, I don't see the logic in bashing Kobe if he did have 1 or 2 bad playoff runs( Bad is an overstatement ) when he's had so many other great ones. It's pointless honestly, hell even Jordan has had sub par playoff runs -- where he ended up winning the title.

[Gmen]

Kobe's peak PER is higher than any of Duncan/Hakeem.

Hakeem Peak Per : 39
Duncan Peak Per : 31.8

Kobe Peak PER : 26.8

Wut.

Kobe: 28.0
Duncan: 27.1
Hakeem: 27.3

Fail.

Wow, that's really surprising. I never would've known that without looking it up.

[Hook_Em]

Who cares about advanced stats when he's the GOAT. Seriously you guys overanalyze everything. Efficiency is overrated. Who cares how many shots it takes if you have the talent to drop 81 on professionals.

[G35]

Kobe fans will tell you advanced stats mean nothing, however, when they benefit Kobe, they suddenly do have merit.

Find Hakeem's name in advanced stats. Hakeem is seen as the best all around center in the game. Best combination of offense and defense ever seen. Way better than David Robinson (except when they were actually playing) but if you look at those advanced stats you don't see Hakeem hardly anywhere.

Hakeem is only in the career PER top 20, but nowhere in the top 20 PER all time (which is strange since his 93-95 seasons are hailed as some of the best ever years by anyone....must have been those rings he won), he's not in the top 3 PER season avg, nowhere to be seen in win shares but Robinson dominates only points behind MJ. Then in the off/def Hakeem isn't in the top 20 but Robinson leads comfortably.

So then why is Hakeem considered so great and a top 10 player when his advanced stats are worse than Kobe's.....

[bastillon]

Kobe fans will tell you advanced stats mean nothing, however, when they benefit Kobe, they suddenly do have merit.

Find Hakeem's name in advanced stats. Hakeem is seen as the best all around center in the game. Best combination of offense and defense ever seen. Way better than David Robinson (except when they were actually playing) but if you look at those advanced stats you don't see Hakeem hardly anywhere.

Hakeem is only in the career PER top 20, but nowhere in the top 20 PER all time (which is strange since his 93-95 seasons are hailed as some of the best ever years by anyone....must have been those rings he won), he's not in the top 3 PER season avg, nowhere to be seen in win shares but Robinson dominates only points behind MJ. Then in the off/def Hakeem isn't in the top 20 but Robinson leads comfortably.

So then why is Hakeem considered so great and a top 10 player when his advanced stats are worse than Kobe's.....

postseason.

[Darain]

This thread will not end well, but it will be pure comedy.

[Dr Pepper]

To put it kindly: Inconsistent decision making. Often Kobe makes fundamentally questionable plays or is forced into them whether its his bad shots, neglecting an open man, last second heave, etc. Defensively, Kobe is a gambler that's swiping for steals, and he's also a player that's not going to sacrifice his body, and will play Ole! defense rather than take a charge which he credits to helping his durability like it has done for other greats. If IQ's mostly about decision making, Kobe would rank near the bottom of the greats, but then again he's had the situation, skills, and physical tools to get things done.

And "advanced" stats need to be taken with a grain of salt, even if a lot of them are pointing towards the same direction

[tsherkin]

Kobe does pretty well for himself if you look at his advanced numbers. There are some guys who've done better, some who haven't...

PER is not a useful tool for evaluating players specifically; it's more of a stratification tool, and it does a decent job of that with the right minutes cut-offs and everything. But like any stat, it tells you something specific and if you don't fully grasp what it's telling you, then you're trying to extrapolate based on information that isn't there.

This conversation shouldn't have gone on this long with PER as the focus. Kobe isn't as efficient a scorer as someone like Jordan, so naturally his PER trails. In his athletic prime, he didn't get quite the same opportunities to dominate while he had his speed, so his peak PER isn't the same. He isn't as good as MJ (to continue with just a single example), so that's no surprise.

David Robinson has monster PERs, but tails off a lot in the RS because he couldn't maintain his scoring volume or field goal efficiency... but because he blocked a lot of shots, stole the ball a bunch for a big, hit the glass well and drew a ton of FTAs, he does reasonably well even still.

Kobe's got a couple of RS PERs over 26 (26.1 in 06-07, 28.0 in 05-06) and has generally hovered between 22-24 otherwise. That's the sign of a very productive player. It tells you literally almost nothing more than that he's putting numbers into the box score, though, and that he wasn't doing it on abysmal efficiency. His ORTGs are seasonally right where you would expect a really good first-option scorer to settle... and at his peak, his RAPM numbers are all in-line with a pretty dominate offensive player, hovering around +6.0 from 06 through 09.

Something else you can add in his favor is his USG against his TOV, which is very much a positive reflection of Kobe's ability. His career 11.4% TOV is pretty good in isolation, but when you consider that against a career 31.8% USG, it grows in significance. If you consider that he has both the 9th, 14th and 1st single-season USG% in NBA history, you realize that he's a guy who has been on the ball a LOT.

In 05-06, he posted 38.7% USG and 9.0% TOV, which is remarkable. In 2010-2011, he posted 35.1% against 11.4%, which is still pretty good and, messed-up hand and all, he managed 35.7% / 11.7% this past season.

Food for thought when talking about Kobe's advanced stats. He doesn't give you those hyper-efficient 118-120+ ORTGs that you get from guys like Nash, Lebron, Dirk, Paul, etc, but that's OK.

What was Wade's ORTG when he won the title in 06? 115, same as peak Kobe. He was at 10.2 OWS. Kobe's been at 10+ OWS in 03 (11.0), 06 (11.6) and 07 (10.8). He's been at 9+ twice beyond that. Wade has two seasons at 10+, 06 and 09, at 10.2 and 10.3 OWS respectively. He's made up the difference by being a better defender than Kobe because of his length and power, plus Miami's coaching, but offensively, they've been relatively similar.

Another thing that does a favor to Kobe's reputation is to compare efficiency (TS%, in this case) relative to league average.

A marginal star offensive weapon like, say, Carmelo Anthony, hovers around 110 ORTG and +1 to +2 percent over league average. "Marginal" being a relative term, since he's still a very good offensive player, but we're talking about all-time greats here, so someone has to take the butt-end of the stick. So again, still a really good player, but only playing a little over league average by comparison.

Kobe, on the other hand, has looked a lot better. Shave off his first two "I'm just out of HS" seasons, and he's been averaging +2.4. Now, shave off the last three years of his career so that we can look at him more at his peak and he's at +3.0. He's been pretty consistent about playing at that level above league average, and that's pretty damned good. Little differences like that come out when you really look at what is happening with a player instead of just at linear box score production metrics like PER or Tendex or the NBA's Efficiency stat and all that junk.

No matter what you want to say about Kobe, it's all got to be grounded in the notion that he was perennially one of the 3-5 best players in the league for basically a decade (after his ramp-up as a HS player and before his age and injury caused obvious decline), and that in that time, he's been an extremely successful, productive and well-decorated player. His career is unquestionably one of the 10 or 12 best in the history of the league. He's an MVP who has led his team to repeat titles (and three straight appearances in the Finals). Right away, you can put him in contention, career-wise, with basically anyone in the bottom half of the top 10. Almost all of them. I don't think he's quite decorated well enough to be 6th or 7th, but he's got a lot of mobility in the bottom third of that kind of ranking because he HAS achieved a great deal in his career and he HAS been a dominant player. The stats DO support this. He hasn't been as fantastic as some of the truly remarkable greats and he hasn't been as likeable as some of the others, but even they had their stinkers, right?

Kobe's brain is like Young Jordan, but perpetually. He's still been able to put things aside in order to win titles, and we mostly only complain and moan when he's played on teams that have lacked the talent requisite for making a title run. You didn't hear a ton of complaints about Kobe's shot selection and such during the 08-10 run because it wasn't as big a deal. Problematic, but manageable within the context of their success. It's only been since they fell off in 2011 and after that we're hearing this stuff again and a lot. Like any player, he has flaws and relative positioning compared to greats considers such things, but to rip Kobe for "mediocre" advanced stats and then use the worst of them and none of the ones that benefit him?

That's not the right way to approach this conversation at all.

[MisterWestside]

PER is not a useful tool for evaluating players specifically; it's more of a stratification tool, and it does a decent job of that with the right minutes cut-offs and everything. But like any stat, it tells you something specific and if you don't fully grasp what it's telling you, then you're trying to extrapolate based on information that isn't there

And that's what bizarre. But this doesn't just apply to PER; even posters who use the more useful RAPM sometimes fall into the trap of just focusing on that stat and give the impression to newer posters that "oh, it's the holy grail metric!" It's not the best way to do analysis.

But interesting info to back up your post: since 1997,and with at least 30K minutes played, the most informative box metrics rank Kobe well. Top 5 in each category http://bkref.com/tiny/w27tD That's impressive given his two decades of playing basketball.

[G35]

Kobe fans will tell you advanced stats mean nothing, however, when they benefit Kobe, they suddenly do have merit.

Find Hakeem's name in advanced stats. Hakeem is seen as the best all around center in the game. Best combination of offense and defense ever seen. Way better than David Robinson (except when they were actually playing) but if you look at those advanced stats you don't see Hakeem hardly anywhere.

Hakeem is only in the career PER top 20, but nowhere in the top 20 PER all time (which is strange since his 93-95 seasons are hailed as some of the best ever years by anyone....must have been those rings he won), he's not in the top 3 PER season avg, nowhere to be seen in win shares but Robinson dominates only points behind MJ. Then in the off/def Hakeem isn't in the top 20 but Robinson leads comfortably.

So then why is Hakeem considered so great and a top 10 player when his advanced stats are worse than Kobe's.....

postseason.

Why differentiate between regular and post especially since many players don't play as many games causing small sample sizes....

[ertrick]

Who cares about advanced stats when he's the GOAT. Seriously you guys overanalyze everything. Efficiency is overrated. Who cares how many shots it takes if you have the talent to drop 81 on professionals.

How did this gem go unnoticed?

[jr lucosa]

To answer the OP's question, that is what tends to happen with high usage players. Hero ball doesn't equate wins, but Kobe is so talented that it has worked for him in his career. If he would play better team basketball and kept his teammates involved more you would see some of those advanced numbers be higher.

[ushvinder88]

Kobe is mediocre in regards to advanced stats, but then again Hakeem isnt all that great in regards to advanced stats and everyone on realgm worships him.

[Doctor MJ]

What's that all about? According to advanced stats he's nowhere near a top10 player, neither in career, peak or prime. Some categories are just disappointing. So what does it mean? Magic for example isn't that great in PER (especially career high), I guess because assists are not rated that highly in PER, but his ORtg-DRtg is immense. But Kobe doesn't stand out in any category.
And you have to remember that the category "best individudal season" doesn't mean that those players didn't have similar seasons.
Kobe's highest PER ranks 50th all-time.
And Kobe's highest WS/48 ranks 195th all-time.
In terms of ORtg-DRtg his career high is +12. Jordan's or Robinson's career high is +24.

What's this about?

In short: It is what it is. When a player consistently looks fantastic but not quite as fantastic some expect by every measurement, and that player plays for the most glamorous and well run team in the league which has enabled him to win many rings, it's pretty much a given that you're talking about winning bias. Kobe's outstanding, but people to tend to promote him up a level beyond what he is.

With that said, it's not like all stats really say the same thing. PER puts LeBron easily ahead of Kobe for example, but PER is largely an offensive stat which allows a player to rack up bonus points the more he's on ball. Kobe in the triangle was a more fluid player than LeBron in Cleveland, and that was good, but PER isn't rewarding that.

On the other hand, Kobe tends to look particularly "mediocre" by stats that factor in volume scoring & efficiency in the proportion that modern analysis tends to show us it's worth. He's not inefficient, but he's not super-efficient either, and so he's not getting the big bonus points people tend to think he should get when he goes into hyper scoring mode. If you want to put a narrative on this statistical trend, it's one where Kobe's mindset is a but off from optimal...which it is. Kobe, like most volume scorers, tends to overrate themselves individually.

[ElGee]

Something else you can add in his favor is his USG against his TOV, which is very much a positive reflection of Kobe's ability.

This is weird. I could understand if you are using raw turnovers, but TOV% is already a PERCENTAGE of the usage. It's telling you often the player turns the ball over based on how often they "use" it. (End a possession with a TS attempt or a TOV.)

If you want to argue that is inherently harder to limit turnovers the higher one's usage becomes, you can try and do that, but I think it would be extremely difficult. Extremely. Because high usage players tend to be crazy volume scorers and thus generate high usage by shooting the ball at the hoop, rather than trying to set up a teammates. This is inherently a much, much lower turnover risk decision on the basketball court. Which is why we see one player of the 46 player-seasons over 33% USAG above 13% TOV%. http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... by=usg_pct That player is Allen Iverson, who in those two years (04 and 05) was asked to play more on-ball as a distributor (thus the turnovers).

You'll aslo notice most of those players are wings. If we look at wings only, of the top 100 USG% player-seasons, the correlation between AST% and TOV% is ~0.4, which suggests the more guys are passing the ball, the more likely they are turn it over. Just dribbling and shooting (what many of the high-usage players do) is less likely to lead to turnovers. My stat of "offensive load" covers this concept much more comprehensively, because creation isn't a part of the usage formula.

As an arbitrary but fairly accurate divider, look at the sub-20% ast players (guys who didn't create/pass as much by role) of the top-100 USG seasons from wings (basically 30%+ usage). They have turnover rates from 7.7% (Michael Jordan) to 12.9% (John Drew), with an average of 11.1%. Of the 21-27 ast% guys -- a group that straddles Bryant's 2006 season you referred to -- the average TOV% is 10.9%.

So to say his 11% career rate is something that stands out, or even his 9% 2006 season based on USG%, just seems bizarre. Especially since the only other high-usage seasons in that ballpark we see are:

Jordan 87 9.1% TOV%
Iverson 02 11.0% (more of a creator)
Wade 09 11.6% (now this is remarkable given that he was basically the "PG" with a 40% ast%)
Jordan 02 9.9%
Iverson 01 10.0%
Iverson 06 10.2% (also remarkable given his "PG' duties)
...
McGrady 03 8.4% (30% ast%)
Stackhouse 01 12.5%
Wilkins 88 8.9%
...
Gervin 82 8.5%

The average TOV% for the "35 Usage Club" is 10.7%. This of course includes 7 players with an ast% of 30%...a role Kobe wasn't playing in 06 because he started passing the ball to the hoop more.

[thizznation]

ElGee,

No matter what you want to say about Kobe, it's all got to be grounded in the notion that he was perennially one of the 3-5 best players in the league for basically a decade.

Posting seasons from Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, and Dwane Wade to show examples that are similar to Kobe in the USG%, TOV%, AST% area... That is more of a complement, rather than a knock on Bryant. I never saw anywhere where Tsherkin boasted Kobe's USG% to TOV% being the best ever, he was just saying it was a solid plus when looking at all of Bryant's advanced stats.

The average TOV% for the "35 Usage Club" is 10.7%. This of course includes 7 players with an ast% of 30%...a role Kobe wasn't playing in 06 because he started passing the ball to the hoop more.

Care to divulge the total players in your "35 Usage Club" study?

[Mr Grant Hill]

since I started this thread, I gotta thank for all the input. thank you. really learned a lot.

and as always: the "most informative post" award goes to tsherkin.