RealGM Top 100 List #11

[therealbig3]

Oscar and West strike me as pretty much exactly like Magic and Bird. Oscar, like Magic, was the on-ball guy without the great range with his jumper, but was big and strong and wicked smart. Pushed the pace, and was the driving force behind the best offenses of his era. Not necessarily known as a great defender either, but wasn't necessarily bad on that end, and as others have pointed out, he did get some praise for it at times.

West, like Bird, was a fantastic shooter who was excellent off the ball (even though I know he did play on-ball a lot as a PG). Strong defender, great passer.

Two different styles of play, both pretty equally effective. But from the numbers I've seen about Oscar with regards to his team lift, even when he was out of his prime in Milwaukee, he looks pretty awesome.

I feel like I might be underrating him, tbh.

[Doctor MJ]

Could you briefly explain what scaled RAPM is (it's particularly the "scaled" part that I need defined/explained)?

Also, could you provide a link to your source of this info? Because these "scaled" RAPM stats you cite are pretty drastically different from the data I have. In the data I have, Garnett's best is +8.8 ('04), and NO ONE ever had anything near +11 (Lebron's got the best ever with +9.6).

First here's my spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... _web#gid=3

Now starting from the beginning:
In pure APM, 1 point literally means 1 point on the scoreboard.
In calculating RAPM, that direct correlation is lost as the machine learning optimizes the results in every data set, and hence you cannot assume that all RAPM studies are apples to apples in what the numbers mean.

A given statistician incidentally can force his own studies to be apples to apples with each other, and clearly some are, but this wasn't what was done originally by RAPM people and understandably because doing so means not optimizing for each individual study.

So with this in mind me as a stat consumer, I wanted a quick way to get as apples to apples as possible. I did to things:

1) I normalized for the standard deviation of each individual study I had from Engelmann and acrossthecourt, which gave me an approximation of apples to apples as long as we can assume that the talent distribution across the NBA was basically stable from year to year.

You can see those studies in the tabs that start with "SD". When I first made the spreadsheet that's all there was, and so sometimes you'll see people quote those numbers.

2) But the numbers from (1) while consistent with each other aren't at all 1-to-1 with actual basketball points, so I figured, why not make might best attempt to scale them to be so.

Ilardi did a 6 year APM study. Basically all the data over 6 years. Now, as mystic was wont to point out, the problem with such studies is that players change over that time period, and these methods assume they hold constant. That's why you don't see these studies so much any more, and instead the standard shifted to a variant of APM that didn't need as much sample size (RAPM).

I figured though that was as good a place as any to see what the "true" talent distribution of the modern NBA is. So I took the standard deviation of it, and multiplied that against my SD numbers to get the Scaled numbers. And now I used the Scaled numbers as my default means of communicating the results.

Let me emphasize that none of this is perfect, and it won't surprise me at all if one of these statisticians comes in tomorrow and says, "Oh since you wanted that, I just made it myself, and since I know what lambdas I used I didn't have to guess with standard deviation, etc." My spreadsheet is the best thing going for easy chronological RAPM analysis right now, as far as I know, but I probably (hopefully) will get usurped in the future.

[therealbig3]

For the people looking at Oscar right now, what do you guys think of 1970...what exactly happened that year in Cincinnati? Before that, Oscar was putting up huge numbers on mediocre teams, which might suggest that they were somewhat empty...but now that BBR has ORatings and DRatings for that era, we see that Cincinnati WAS an elite offense pretty much every year under Oscar...except for 1970. Oscar was still doing his thing at 25/8/6, but the team really declined.

I see that Lucas was traded that year after just 4 games, but previous posts by I think bastillon painted him out to be a pretty ineffective player despite his big stats. However, that seems to be the major difference for this year, and the offense really declines big time.

[Moonbeam]

Lots of good discussion here. As I alluded to in previous posts, I developed a ranking system based on win shares that I'll call Weighted Prime Win Shares Per Game. It's pretty complicated, but in essence, it ranks players based on their 8 highest seasons of win shares per game, with the highest season WSPG getting the highest weight, the second highest WSPG getting the second highest weight, etc. There are some other factors in there to control for missed games, varying quality of the BAA/early NBA and the ABA, etc. I then do the same for playoffs, with a weight based on the proportion of necessary games won to win a title added, with similar controls for missed games and league quality. Of course, win shares aren't perfect, but it gives a pretty good rough guide.

Here is the regular season and postseason data for each of the main candidates for this spot (plus a few other noteworthy players), with the caveat that I have yet to update these for the 2013-14 season:

Regular Season WPWSPG:

Oscar Robertson: 0.221 (#5 all-time)
David Robinson: 0.214 (#6)
Jerry West: 0.201 (#8)
George Mikan: 0.198 (#9)
Charles Barkley: 0.197 (#10)
Karl Malone: 0.195 (#13)
Dirk Nowitzki: 0.194 (#14)
Kevin Garnett: 0.188 (#17)
Bob Pettit: 0.185 (#20)
Julius Erving: 0.180 (#21)
Kobe Bryant: 0.173 (#26)
Moses Malone: 0.168 (#30)

Postseason WPWSPG:

Jerry West: 0.182 (#6)
Julius Erving: 0.172 (#8)
George Mikan: 0.168 (#9)
Kobe Bryant: 0.160 (#12)
Dirk Nowitzki: 0.134 (#18)
Moses Malone: 0.118 (#27)
Bob Pettit: 0.117 (#30)
Oscar Robertson: 0.115 (#31)
Karl Malone: 0.115 (#32)
David Robinson: 0.113 (#34)
Charles Barkley: 0.111 (#35)
Kevin Garnett: 0.098 (#51)

Obviously win shares aren't a perfect measure by any means, and the results depend a bit upon the weights, but based on this metric, at least, it's hard to look past Jerry West here. Obviously win shares don't value defense nearly as highly as offense, so premier defenders such as Kevin Garnett and David Robinson are getting the short end of the stick somewhat. By all accounts, however, West was a good defender in his own right, so I'm not sure I'd elevate anyone above him. George Mikan is another interesting candidate. His win shares were downweighted due to league quality, and he still comes up huge. I'm not sure how to consider him, and I'm eager for posters who know better than I do to weigh in on how to consider his lofty achievements in comparison to those of players who played in more difficult eras.

As of now, I'll cast my vote for Jerry West. It's not set in stone, though.

[ardee]

Vote: Kobe Bryant

A look at Kobe's relevant career: 2000-2013:

Early years and emergence as a superstar: 2000-2003

Spoiler:

But in any case, let's take a look at an overview of Kobe's relevant career, which starts in 2000. Warning, this'll be a long post.

2000: Played the sidekick role perfectly to one of the GOAT peaks. Averaged 23-6-5 on +2.4% TS in a very slow and inefficient era. Doubled up as one of the top perimeter defenders in the league: it's hard to call anyone but Payton definitely better. He torched the Kings in the first round to 28 ppg on 50% from the floor. This was the only series that went the distance so they definitely needed it. In the next round he locked up Jason Kidd: badly. The guy had one good game where he shot 8-13, other than that he went 1-6, 5-9, 1-9, and 3-13. Along with a 25% TOV. Kobe was a beast on defense that year. We all know his heroic games 6 and 7 performances against the Blazers. The Finals were poor, admittedly, but the ankle injury is obvious, and he still won the Lakers a game by himself in game 4 OT.

Overall, I'd say this is on par with any Pippen year outside of '92, '94, and '95. The only players I'd definitely take ahead of him that year were Shaq, Duncan, Malone, KG and Mourning.

2001: The birth of superstar Kobe. I feel everyone knows how good his Playoffs were that year, but his regular season is underrated. Especially in the start of the season, he was outplaying Shaq. Shaq was having trouble with fouls and free-throw shooting (REALLY bad, was going through a sub 40% stretch), so Kobe took over early and averaged 32-5-5 on a 117 ORtg for about 30 games, while Shaq was at about 24-13-4 on 106 ORtg. For the first half of the season before the AS Break, it's arguable Kobe was the best player in the league, considering if you remember Kobe was still ELITE on defense that year.

He then began suffering some niggling injuries, and the team suffered. Then Shaq got his groove back, and once Kobe was healthy as well the team was clicking on all cylinders. They were both more or less on cruise control against the Blazers, and then took turns dropping 40/15 games on the poor Kings. Kobe had his best ever series against the Spurs, and was 32-7-6 on 121 ORtg against the entire Western conference. He really was playing better than Shaq at that point. If someone wants to use the Finals gap (Kobe still did play well after game 1, 27-9-6 on 55% TS) to rank Shaq ahead for the whole Playoffs, I guess its fair, but Kobe WAS the driving force for the offense for the majority of the Playoffs for the best Playoff team ever.

He was undoubtedly second to only Shaq that year. I can't see any reason to rank Duncan over him that year, not when Duncan had a real solid team around him with a D-Rob who led the league in WS/48, and got so badly trounced and destroyed by the Lakers.

2002: A bit of a down-year for him. He still had a good regular season, 25/6/6 on a 112 ORtg, but didn't hit the heights of 2001. Worth noting he had to carry the team more with Shaq missing 15 games. The supporting cast was pretty poor by that point. Fisher played the whole season for a change, but Grant was gone, Horry was aging, and the Lakers were dependent on guys like Samaki Walker and Devean George for reliable contributions. It was impressive the way Shaq and Kobe got the team to a title that year. Kobe was the best player in a beatdown of the Spurs and MVP Duncan, and against the Kings he put up 31/11/6 in games 6 and 7, him and Shaq dragging the Lakers back from the abyss. He also had his best Finals of the Shaq era, 27/6/6 on 62% TS against the best defensive team in the league.

I'd rank Shaq/Duncan over him (hard choice between those two that year), and I can see some kind of argument for Garnett but don't buy it. This was the best supporting cast KG ever had before 2004, and they still finished with a below average defense and got roasted by the Mavs. I'm not seeing the impact that year. In 2003 I'll rank KG ahead because of his improved offensive game and he really did do less with more. This year I think Kobe's value as an offensive constant able to put consistent pressure on the defense. beats out whatever KG was doing.... especially since I really don't like his defense that year. I have no clue what 2002 KG was doing against the Mavs, it looked like he was playing some kind of crazy one man zone. Furthers my point I made earlier that Minny KG is overrated on defense. So, Kobe is third.

2003: One of the best years of his career. Perfect storm, his all-around game really came together. His 3-point shot was like a pull-up 5 footer at that point, had it almost on automatic. He averaged 28-8-7 for the first 40 games, almost LeBron-like. He really had to carry a pretty awful team for some time with Shaq out. Still, the team was dysfunctional and plodding by the half-way point, 19-23 through 42 games. Phil asked Kobe to take a bigger role in the offense, and he did. 41-5-3 on 59% TS over the next 14 games, leading the Lakers to a 12-2 record over that stretch, putting them over .500 for good and into the thick of the Playoff seedings. He closed the year out with several more monster games, including the 55 point one against Jordan with 9 threes, 42 in the first half.

At the close of the regular season, I'd say Kobe was right there with Duncan and KG for the best player in the league. He was very effective against the Wolves, but I will admit that the injury + shot selection a little out of control in the Spurs series harmed the Lakers. Still, if Horry's shot had gone in in game 5, Kobe would have successfully made up for it all by leading the Lakers back from 25 down, and was anyone stopping a 4th straight title then?

I have him 3rd this year, behind Duncan and KG. Shaq and McGrady battling it out for 4th/5th. I can't see Shaq over him this year, not when the Lakers season turned around after it was KOBE who took a bigger role and put the team on his back.

So far, we're looking at a very good sidekick year where he was in the 6-7 range in the league, and 3 top 3 years, one of which he was the second best player in the league.

The in-between years: 2004-2005

Spoiler:

Going onto the rest of his career:

2004/2005: The two worst years of his prime, I'm clubbing them together. 2004 in particular really smarts. He's coming off an epic season that propelled him into the MJ discussion, and now his raw numbers and efficiency drop across the board, plus he misses 17 games. The raw numbers are explainable, he was now splitting possessions with three other HOFs, and it's possible that all of them were affected by a system that just did not fit the roster very well. Still, it was a notch below '01 and '03, and even '02. He still kept it up defensively though. He had a terrible Rockets series efficiency-wise, but then killed the Spurs (30/6/6 over the four comeback games). Average against the Wolves and had the worst series of his career in the Finals. He played well defensively though, locking down Rip, converse to Shaq who killed it offensively and was a sieve on defense. I place equal responsibility on those two for the Finals loss. In any normal year, it'd be enough for me to rank both out of the top 5, but this was such a weak year that after KG/Duncan I have to rank Shaq and Kobe at nos. 3 and 4. I'll say this, Kobe is probably the weakest number 4 as far as I can remember, in 2004.

2005 is an underestimated year. 28-6-6 on 56% TS, 109 On-Court ORtg with a truly terrible supporting casts. I've seen several nonsensical posts about how good guys like Brian Grant and Chucky Atkins were and it makes me shake my head. If Kobe and Odom had been healthy they'd have still made the Playoffs (32-29 through 61 games), but Rudy's retirement and the injuries just really took their toll. Kobe still performed well individually, started the season averaging 29-7-7 with a bunch of triple doubles in the first 30 games, with the Lakers at 16-12. I still have no problem ranking him possibly near the end of the top 10, this was a very strong year for the league. Nash, Duncan, KG, Dirk, Wade, Shaq, McGrady, and Stoudemire would all be over him.

Now we enter Kobe's true prime. Right now we have a top 2 year, two top 3 years, a top 4 year (admittedly very weak), and two years where he's close to the bottom of the top 10. Not bad for a pre-prime guy.

The volume years: 2006/2007

Spoiler:

2006: What a season. What a player. I'm going to leave this to the best poster on the board, ShaqAttack, because he had a GOAT level post on '06 Kobe.

In hindsight, I think Nash was a good choice for 2005, though I was in the "Shaq was robbed" crowd at the time. However, I don't think Nash was the right choice in 2006. I'd go with Kobe in 2006.

First I will say that since the MVP is the closest things the NBA has to a best player award, I try to keep best player in mind to some degree, though of course, I don't always think it should go to the best player since games played and record are factors. But to me, 2006 was the most obvious year he was the best player in the league. I think he was the best in '07 as well, but you could at least make the case for Duncan in '07 and Paul in '08.

Anyway, not only were Kobe's individual feats exceptional in 2006, but they led to the Lakers overachieving and exceeding most expectations following a 34-48 season. Phil asked Kobe to carry the offense because many of the players didn't know the triangle and probably due to their lack of talent as well, and he did so in a remarkable way.

Warning, this will be a LONG post since I will look over their entire supporting casts.

Kobe only had one other player on the roster you could call a legit NBA starter, and that was Lamar Odom who was inconsistent throughout the first half. Odom averaged just 14/9/5 on 45% shooting and just 53 TS% in the first half, though Kobe still carried the Lakers to a .500 record at 26-26 while averaging 35/5/4 on 44/34/84 shooting and 55 TS%. Odom was obviously a good player, but he shouldn't be your second best player by a huge margin as he was on the 2006 Lakers when he was relied on to play 40.3 mpg. We saw how valuable Odom could be when he became the 3rd guy after Gasol was acquired and he was noticeably more comfortable playing his game. His versatile skill set can obviously be an asset with his strong rebounding, ball-handling skills at 6'10" and the ability to get the rebound and create or finish the fast break by himself. This was also the last year Lamar played a lot of the 3 which had been his position as a young player with the Clippers and when Phil tried Odom in the Scottie Pippen point forward role with mixed results, though passing has always been one of Lamar's strengths and he did lead the Lakers with 5.5 apg while averaging just 2.7 turnovers. Lamar did have talent as a scorer as evidenced by his transition game, he could be a threat to create off the dribble, had the length to finish, and while I wouldn't say he was ever a good shooter, he did shoot 37.2% on 3s in 2006 while making one per game. However, Odom couldn't go right which made him predictable, as mentioned, he wasn't a great shooter, and perhaps most importantly, he lacked the consistent focus and aggressiveness to be a really good scorer so scoring really wasn't his forte as evidenced by the fact that his season high was 27 points in 2006. However, Odom became more consistent late in the year and played like a borderline all-star averaging 16/9/6 on 53% shooting in the second half as well as 43% on 3s and 60 TS%. Kobe also raised his game during this time averaging 36/5/5 on 46/36/87 shooting and 57 TS% as the Lakers went 19-11, a 52 win pace. Pretty impressive to win at that pace with just one legitimately good, but not great teammate.

As for the rest of the team, they had Smush Parker starting at PG and playing 33.8 mpg. Smush was a bit of a surprise for LA this year, but to put things in perspective, despite being just 24 at the time, Smush didn't even last 2 more years in the NBA. Then there was Kwame Brown whose only legitimate asset was his post defense, and he can only be described as a liability at the offensive end. Of course there's the infamous small hands which prevented him from being a reliable catch and finish player around the rim, one of the more basic skills asked of a big man offensively, his footwork and shooting touch were horrible leaving him without a single decent post move, he was a terrible free throw shooter at 54.5% and he could get rattled very easily. Chris Mihm was another starter for most of the year, and while he had a decent offensive skill set, he wasn't much of a defender or rebounder, and the Lakers played their best ball by far after Mihm's injury so he wasn't an impact player. Devean George was one of the few holdovers from the champion Lakers, and while he was a decent defender, he was a poor offensive player who didn't shoot particularly well at just 40 FG% and 31.2 3P% and couldn't create. Then there was Luke Walton whose only real skill was passing. Brian Cook's only value could be as a stretch 4, but he wasn't a good defender, rebounder or post player. Finally, Sasha Vujacic was in the rotation getting 19 mpg despite the fact that he shot a horrendous 34.6% from the floor for the season and even his 3 point shooting was underwhelming at 34.3%.

That's the team Kobe made 7th in scoring and 8th in offensive rating, and I'd bet they were near the top in the second half when Odom finally played more consistently.

Nash's Suns were obviously a more potent offense, and they were 1st in scoring and 2nd in offensive rating, but they had a lot more talent to work with, and had a team who not only fit well in D'Antoni's system, but played off of Nash well as almost all of them were dangerous 3 point shooters, slashers or good open court players. Shawn Marion had a much better year than Odom and made the all-nba 3rd team. Marion averaged 22/11 on 53% shooting with 2 spg, 1.7 bpg and just 1.5 turnovers per game. Obviously, Marion benefited from playing with Nash since his strengths offensively were his finishing in the open court, his slashing and he liked the corner 3, but Marion was already a 20 ppg scorer before he played with Nash so Nash just made him more efficient. Of course, Marion's versatility, particularly defensively was very valuable as well. Boris Diaw was also voted the Most Improved Player as he averaged 13/7/6 on 53% shooting. Diaw has always been a great passer, he had a nice post game, made his mid-range shots, and despite playing a different style, he gave the Suns something similar to what Odom gave the Lakers with his versatility. Diaw was a forward who had entered the league as a guard with the Hawks and was often the Suns' biggest player on the court as the de facto center while being an excellent secondary facilitator. Diaw also didn't start the year as a starter, but played his way into that role and like Odom, got better as the year went on averaging 16/7/7 on 57% shooting in the second half. Nash also got a great year out of Raja Bell who in addition to his defense, shot lights out from 3. No question he capitalized on Nash's passing, but you still have to make the shots, and Bell did just that averaging 14.7 ppg while making 2.5 threes per game while shooting 44.2%, which was 5th best in the NBA, and he was 3rd in made 3s with 197, just behind Gilbert Arenas who only made 2 more, but took one more game to do it. Bell was also 3rd in eFG% at 56.3%. Leandro Barbosa was one of the fastest players in the league and averaged 13 ppg while coming off the bench most of the year. He complemented his speed with a very dangerous 3 point shot as evidenced by his 44.4 3P%, which was 3rd best in the league and his 55.8 eFG%. They also had Tim Thomas late in the year, and he was always a talented offensive player at 6'10" who averaged 11 ppg in just 24 mpg for them while shooting 43% on 3s and had even more shooters in Eddie House and James Jones who averaged between 9-10 ppg, shot about 39% on 3s, made 1.5 of them per game and did it in just 17.5 and 23.6 mpg, respectively. To round out the cast was Kurt Thomas who was one of their few big men, but a good defender and rebounder with a consistent mid-range shot who was definitely better than any of the Lakers' big men excluding Odom. Not surprisingly, Phoenix finished first at 39.9% and led the league with 837 made 3s, 212 more than the Warriors who were 2nd.

Given the enormous disparity in the talent, I'd argue the Lakers having the 8th best offense was more impressive than Phoenix having the 2nd best offense. Kobe's cast was really bad lacking a legit 2nd option, being surrounded by fringe players other than Odom, lacking shooters as evidenced by the fact that they were in the bottom half in 3P% and a pretty mediocre defense(which was actually virtually identical to the Suns' defense statistically.) The only thing you can really say is that the Lakers were a solid rebounding team outrebounding opponents by 2 rpg. Nash's cast certainly lacked size, but there's no question they had loads of offensive talent with more shooters than anyone could hope for, versatile forwards like Marion and Diaw and if you look at their sixth man Leandro Barbosa, he was definitely a more dangerous scorer than any of Kobe's teammates.

There's so many things to look at, but aside from how impressive it is to lead your team to a very productive offensive season while being asked to play 41 mpg and take over 27 shots per game, just look at how each of these team's offenses fared with and without the stars. The Suns offensive rating was a phenomenal 114.8 with Nash on the court, but still respectable without him at 106.4, which was just above league average. Meanwhile, the Lakers had an excellent 112.6 offensive rating with Kobe on the court, but it was horrendous with him off the court at 93.7. Finally, it's worth noting that Nash played 35.4 mpg, while Kobe played 41 mpg as mentioned before. What it comes down to is there's no question in my mind that Kobe was a better player and had a better season, and there's also no question in my mind that the disparity in team success was not nearly as great as the disparity in talent, and Kobe's success was more impressive considering their situations.

The more I think about this season, the more I'm leaning towards it as Kobe's peak over 2008.

Historical stuff from Bryant. This is a year, offensively, I'd rank only slightly below peak Magic/Bird/Jordan/LeBron. He was at his peak athleticism wise, jumper was there, he could basically do whatever he wanted to any defense he wanted.

Undoubtedly the best in the league. To me, when I was watching back then, it wasn't even close. Only Dirk really had an argument. Once Odom started playing at a decent level for the last 30 games, Kobe had the Lakers at a 111.5 ORtg, 0.1 behind the Mavs for the league lead. Kobe was anchoring a league-best offense with ONE other serviceable offensive player. This says it all I think.

2007: The most efficient season of Kobe's career. It also gave a good glance of the game-management and facilitation skills that Kobe would show in 2008-10.

Through 39 games, he had the Lakers at 26-13. In fact, they were 14-6 through the first 20 games before Odom got hurt. Odom was playing like a near AS, averaging 18-9-5 on good efficiency. This should really dispell notions that Kobe at that era couldn't play with good teammates. Walton was benefiting too, averaging 12-5-4 on 50-43-75 through that good start. Kobe was playing steady basketball as the captain of a ship that was cruising along at a 112.2 ORtg, with 28-6-6 on 59% TS.

Then the injuries really took their toll. As soon as Odom returned, Walton got injured. And Odom was playing far worse than he was pre-injury. Kobe continued to play his part-facilitator role, but the team was just too bad for it to be effective. With Kobe, a broken Odom, and a D-League roster, the Lakers stumbled to a 7-18 record over the next 25 games. They were going to be out of the Playoffs, until Phil told Kobe to completely take over the offense. He did, to the tune of 40-6-5 on 58% TS. The Lakers managed to crack .500 for that stretch at 9-8, showing the difference between Kobe taking a step back (like his detractors love him to) and actually taking control of the offense on a terrible team.

His Playoffs were good by his own standards, but not spectacular. His team was so outmatched there really wasn't much he could do. It is memorable for that 45-6-6 game 3 when he threw the kitchen sink at the Suns and somehow came away with a win despite the Lakers getting 86% of their points from him, Odom and Kwame.

He probably was better than in '06 when he really got going, but for the whole season, probably just slightly worse. I'd put him behind Duncan for second best in the league.

The MVP and repeat years: 2008-10

Spoiler:

2008: The promised land. People love to claim that it was just Pau that turned the franchise around but Kobe had the Lakers at 25-11 through 36 games with his second option, Bynum, averaging 13-10. That's one of the worse second options in the league, and Kobe still had them comfortably in the middle of the WCF standings, flitting between the 2-4 seeds.

The Bynum injury, by all rights, should have killed the Lakers season. Possibly scared of the prospect of being the second option again, Odom went into a funk and averaged 12-10 on 42% shooting over the next 11 games. Kobe refused to let the team slip, going into supernova, averaging 34-8-6 on 61% TS in the same stretch, somehow keeping Fisher, Sasha, Turiaf, Farmar and Walton at a 6-5 record until the front office found a way to replace Bynum's production.

The Gasol trade was the best thing to happen to Kobe's career. It showed just how effective he could make a team with one other truly reliable offensive player. Kobe increased his efficiency, rebounding, facilitation and played better defense, with his volume remaining pretty much the same. Gasol's efficiency jumped up from 50.1% FG to 58.9% FG playing with Kobe, and the Lakers went 22-5 in the games that both played.

Overall, Kobe averaged 28-6-5 with elite defense, on 57% TS. The Lakers finished with a 7.3 SRS, and this was on a team with another truly reliable player for less than a third of the season. This was an underestimated carry job by Kobe. The Lakers could have slipped into oblivion at any time but he didn't let them.

The Playoffs were the cherry on the cake. ShaqAttack again:

The Lakers were virtually unbeatable with Gasol at 22-4 excluding the 2-3 minute game and then dominated the West including the defending champion Spurs in 5 during the WCF. The Spurs were no joke either since they had Duncan who was only slightly past his prime and 2 other all-star caliber players in Parker and Ginobili who was at his peak and probably the 2nd best shooting guard behind only Kobe that year. What was so impressive about Kobe's playoff run is that he almost seemed to be toying with his West opponents as he averaged 31.9 ppg, 6.1 rpg and 5.8 apg on 50.9 FG% in 15 games during the 3 West rounds playing that team-oriented style. Despite the finals loss, I still consider this Kobe's best playoff run. He had that game vs Denver when he shot 18/27 overall, 5/9 on 3s and 8/9 from the line for 49 points, and while I haven't seen the game since, I remember him being so hot that it looked like he could have had 60+ early had he pushed the issue, but LA won easily by 15 points.

32-6-6 on 61% TS against 3 top 6 defenses and 50 win teams. The Finals against the Cs was underwhelming, but as good as the Lakers were the Celtics were just so loaded they were clearly outmatched. I'm not one of those Laker fans that think Bynum would've made a difference. The big 3 were playing at a historic level at that point. Hold it against him if you wish, but remember, make sure to hold KG's failures against him too when his team is lacking in comparative talent.

I have Kobe no. 1 again, the last year he will be at this spot. I do think he was the best overall player for '06-'08, and in terms of three-year peaks it's not quite in the '91-'93 MJ, '63-'65 Russell or '66-'68 Wilt level but I think it matches up fairly well with guys like Bird and Hakeem.

2009: I summed this up with a post in a thread I made a few months ago:

I was watching parts of the Lakers '09 Playoffs and it just occurred to me that 2009 doesn't get brought up enough when talking about Kobe's best seasons, and indeed some of the best seasons by a wing, ever.

The Lakers had a 10 game lead on one of the toughest conferences in history. Not to say Kobe didn't have a great cast, but this was a 7.8 SRS team and he was +11.1 on/off for the +/- guys. For an elite team, it doesn't get too much higher, because they aren't going to be putrid when the star is off, they wouldn't be elite then. His +116.1 On-Court ORtg is among the highest we've seen from a player not on the Suns dynasty.

He was also still quite elite on defense, probably the last year he was consistently up there.

The Lakers cruised to a 37-9 record, and then Bynum got injured. Many people feared a slowdown, but Kobe took on the extra load and averaged a 32-5-5 over the next 12 games, leading the Lakers to a 11-1 record. That stretch shows he was still absolutely capable of scoring how many ever points he needed to, just like '06 and '07, he just took it easy to get the team-mates into the game as well.

That stretch put the Lakers in the driving seat for the conference and they cruised from then on. They beat every other contender, home or away. Snapped the Celtics' 19 and 12 game winning streaks, and the Cavs' 23 game home winning streak. Kobe kept them focused as hell, this was probably when his team-mates' fear of him transformed into a determination to please. His leadership had real, tangible impact on the Lakers that season.

Then in the Playoffs, the Lakers stomped. The Houston series was a minor blip where they were losing focus from time to time, but every time they lost they responded with a blowout. After that 118-78 result, did they ever look like losing that series? Kobe was still consistent enough in that series, it was the supporting cast who couldn't keep it together mentally. He did, however, along with Phil, keep getting them back on track and winning all the statement games. He did so while dealing with Battier and Artest tag-teaming him on defense.

The Denver series was his magnum opus. Has anyone forgotten that 'bad mofo' face? Has anyone forgotten all the insane shots he hit with a hand in his face, Dahntay and the other Nuggets playing picture perfect defense? Has anyone forgotten the way he pulled a team that was struggling to close game 1 to a victory by scoring or assisting 13 of the last 15 points? Has anyone forgotten that game 6 when he basically looked untouchable, going for a 35/10 and ripping the Nuggets to shreds while the Lakers won by 30? Has anyone forgotten the ridiculous 35/6/6 overall performance he put together?

I'm not saying he was better than LeBron that year, but this should be considered one of the best seasons by a wing ever. His numbers weren't as good as they used to be, but what was he supposed to do, put up nicer stats when he had Odom/Gasol and lose instead? He did everything his team needed him to, and when his guys were sagging, he picked up all the slack and dominated, as we saw in multiple stretches throughout the season.

Really, I think the only Playoff run by a wing definitely better than this (after Jordan) is '12 LeBron. What do you guys think?

LeBron was definitely better this year. No question in my mind. But Kobe was a deserved no. 2. I can get ranking Wade over him, but I think Kobe played just as well in the later Playoff rounds as Wade did in the regular season, and Wade really didn't have a good Playoffs at all.

2010: A very underrated year for Kobe.

This was the year he completed the development of his post-game, and it was more effective than Jordan's ever was. Here's Bill Simmons on Kobe during the first half of the season, a stretch when Bryant had the Lakers at 25-6 through 31 games (more than half of which Pau missed by the way), averaging 30-6-5 on 57% TS.

I can't remember anyone reinventing himself historically as well as Kobe did these past 16 months. The Olympics, then the 2009 Finals, then the media victory lap that everyone ate up … and then, when it seemed as if we were headed for a decline, he reinvented himself as the second coming of post-baseball Jordan and developed an even nastier, more physical post-up game than MJ had. I can't believe what I am watching. It's staggering. He's like a 6-foot-6 Hakeem Olajuwon. I went into this season thinking Kobe would be able to last just one or two more seasons at a high level; now I'm wondering whether he could play like this well into his late 30s. Why not? I mean, Karl Malone did it. Like Malone, Kobe is a workout freak who takes care of his body and seems predisposed to staying healthy, anyway. Malone averaged a 26-10 and made second-team All-NBA in the 1999-2000 season when he was 36 years old … and then he played four years after that. Kobe is only 31. Could he replicate Malone's longevity and consistency?

He did get injured later on, yes, no one is disputing that. But before that, he was playing as well as he ever had, and picked up at that level in the Playoffs. I don't know why people were shocked in the Playoffs, he played just as well in the first half... For 9 games before his injury, he averaged 37-7-5 on 58% TS!

I'm not going to lie and say the second half of the regular season was pretty. Coming out of the regular season one could argue he was behind LeBron, Durant and Howard all.

But then he went and had one of his best Playoffs ever. He still struggled with his knee for a bit at the beginning of the OKC series, but after game 5 had his knee drained and then ripped off an all-time hot streak. He averaged 31-7-6 on 59% TS over the last 18 games of the regular season. He was easily the best player in the Playoffs that year, and I think it should boost him over Durant and Howard. I'd still give LeBron the edge that year, with Kobe 2nd. Wade, Nash, Durant and Howard fight it out for spots 3-5.

He had that historic Phoenix series, averaging 34-7-8 on a 135 ORtg, 64% TS!!! People don't appreciate how dominant he was in that series.

His Finals got marred by game 7, but before that he was doing 30/7/4 on 56% TS. Against the kind of defense he was facing, that's remarkable to say the least.

It's hard to argue against what Kobe did in the Playoffs that year.

Overall, I think Kobe from 2008-10 was more impressive than second threepeat Jordan in the Playoffs... But that's just me.

I know that was a ridiculously long post, lemme give it to you in cliffs:

-2000 was a great second option year, comparable to prime Pippen. Got the Lakers out of several tight situations (game 7 Portland, game 4 Indy), and doubled up as the best perimeter defender in the league. Perfect second option to Shaq.

-2001: Underrated regular season, historical Playoffs. Carried the Lakers while Shaq was less than his usual self at the start, combined with him for the best run by a duo in NBA history in the Playoffs, was Jordan-esque in the WC Playoffs (32-7-6 on 60% TS).

-2002: Slightly underwhelming regular season but still solid. Killed the Spurs in the Playoffs, came up big in games 6 and 7 against the Kings with Shaq, and had the best finals of the threepeat part of his career.

-2003: Became a complete player. Arguably his best defensive year, added the 3 point shot. Had an all-time 35/40 point game streak to drag the Lakers back into Playoff contention

-2006/2007: All-time offensive years. Dragged garbage to top 7-8 offenses, and when Odom actually played well and gave him a good second option he took the team to the best offense in the league for that same stretch, in both seasons.

-2008: Peak year. Got his defense back. Showed that he could make a bad team decent as well as make a decent team elite, as soon as Pau arrived. What's impressive is the Lakers had a 7.3 SRS with Pau only playing 27 games for them that year. Historically dominant in the Playoffs.

-2009: lead one of the best Laker teams ever despite Bynum getting injured AGAIN, with Pau again his only real reliable teammate. Dominated in the Playoffs, had possibly his best series ever against Denver, and was decisive in the Finals against Orlando.

-2010: Killed it for the first two months in the regular season, clearly the second best player behind LeBron for that stretch. Developed the post-game. Slipped into injuries, but shook them off in the Playoffs to dominate again. Killed the Jazz and Suns, had a good series against Boston considering the level of defense he was facing.

-From 2000 to 2010, here's how I'd rank Kobe in the league year by year: 8, 2, 3, 3, 4, 9, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2. Other than the blip of 2005, that is stunning consistency over a long stretch. Comparable to prime Bird easily.

-In terms of peak play, Bird was better at his absolute zenith, but Kobe gives you 7 years at that level: 2001, 2003, 2006-10, while Bird has 1984-88. The two extra years make a real difference, at that level.

I don't think I can do more talking about the meat of Kobe's career. I'll answer any questions anyone has, and expand more on 2011-13 later.

[ardee]

this spot should be go to bryant. nobody has his combo of best player in the league type peak play, ridiculously long 10 year prime, insane longevity, phenomenal box-score and +/- numbers, team success, and accolades/accomplishments. it’s a joke hes out of the top 10.

relevant seasons:

2000: Kobe put up 23/6/5/2/1 on good efficiency (+2.4% TS relative to league average) 110 ORTG (+6) and was very arguably the best perimeter defender in the entire league (youngest player in history to make an all-defense team) on 67 win team that happened to one of the best defenses ever --98.2 DRTG, -6 relative to league average. (Does bird have a defensive peak even close to this?(2000).

Lakers first 15 games without Bryant: 104.6 ORTG (+.5 relative to league average so they were barely above league-average offensively, +5.7 differential overall)
Lakers next 67 games with Bryant: 108.6 ORTG (+4.5 relative to league average, would rank #1 offensively, and a overall differential of +9.9)

Best regular season ever/GOAT level play with Bryant in the lineup.

Yeah,hes not the player he would later become but right away we can see that he’s having huge impact and is a top 10 player in the league.

22/5/4/1.5/1.5 and his defense was even better in the post-season, and he had an all-time great Game 7 in the WCF (25 pts/11 rbs/7 asts/4 stls/3 blks).



2001:

Sorta of an amusing regular season filled with false narrative. Kobe gets off to an amazing start through the first two months. He averages 30/6/5/2 on amazing efficiency-- 56% TS/114 ORTG (would be 58% TS/118 ORTG today) and the lakers go 30-15 and have the best offense in the league. they’re #1 in ORTG and are +6! relative to league average. This is a borderline GOAT level offense. naturally a certain big fella starts bitching and moaning even if if Bryant has been incredible and the offense is historically good. and you start getting all the nonsense in the media and the silly “selfish” narrative appears. Its pretty amusing.

Bryant plays the first 52 games. At this point the lakers are 35-17 (67% win, 57 wins over full season) with still the best offense in basketball/historically great offense @ +6 relative to league average.. But they are seen as an “underachieving’’ team.. Naturally the fools in the media and everybody else are quick to blame Bryant, but the real for their “underachieving” is the mediocre defense. They have a 106 DRTG.+3 over league average. Its clear their “anchor” is back to coasting defensively and everyone else is too. They also have some injury issues. Of course kobe too deserves criticism for not playing up to his full capabilities defensively the reg season. I simply wanted to point out how (Please Use More Appropriate Word) the narratives about kobe “being selfish” and other nonsense that sprang up that reg season are.

Anyway, he misses the next 3 games after playing 52 straight. The lakers win by 2 pts against the spurs, beat the 18-37 hawks at home, and a .500, 28-27 magic team at home…

He misses 2 games in mid-march. Lakers beat a 27-38 Celtics team at home by 5, lose by 12 against a 32-33 sonics team.

But how about when he misses an extended stretch? Obviously an extended stretch will be a lot more telling than 2 games here and there. Well he misses 10 straight later on (plays 11 minutes in one of them before leaving). Lakers beat the 17-41 wizards, impressive win against the kings, impressive win vs. mavs, good win vs. jazz, beat the 12-62 bulls, beat the 34-42 Celtics, 5pt win over wolves. They lose by 21 against the suns, by 24 against the kings, lose to the knicks, but of course we know that point differential/offensive rating/defensive rating is a far greater indicator of team quality than W-L record. So how do the lakers look without the “selfish” Bryant during their only extended stretch without him.. These 10 games? well their offensive rating during this stretch is 105.7...good but nowhere near the borderline historic 109 ORTG/+6 offense they put up when Bryant is playing. What about defense? Well it’s still thoroughly mediocre at 103.9 (+1 over league average). Their overall point differential over this extended stretch? A measly +1.8.…(Their 4 losses without Bryant come by an average margin of 14.5 PPG…)

Now lets look at how much better they are when he return. It’s a bit better than +1.8 team…

After missing 10 straight kobe returns to play the last 4 . His astronomical impact is immediately clear. Lakers have a 120 ORTG and DRTG of 102.5...for a differential of +17.5...that’s just a bit better than the +1.8 they were in the previous 10 without him…
,
Overall he averages 28.5/5.9/5.0/1.8/0.6/25 PER/55.2% TS/112 ORTG (+3.2 above league-average, equivalent to around 57% TS/116 ORTG in today's league so fantastic efficiency) in the regular season.
Helps co-anchor the #2 ranked offense in the league, finishes #3 in ORAPM(https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2001-npi-rapm), and plays good defense though he's not as consistent as he was in 2000.

*small note: shaq missed 6 straight games (only missed 8 all year) in late jan/early feb and the lakers went 4-2. Bryant averaged 34 PPG/9 RPG/4 APG/1.7 SPG/1.7 BPG on 55% TS/114 ORTG*

After a phenomenal reg season Bryant has one of the best postseasons in history.

He averages 29.4/7.3/6.1/1.8/0.7/25 PER/3.8 WS (#1)/+14.2 +/-(#1 on team)on phenomenal efficiency--56% TS/116 ORTG (would be a 120 ORTG in todays league environment) in the post-season while playing absolutely fantastic defense. Hes getting steals, he’s helping and doing a excellent job of getting back on shooters, causing deflections, shutting his man out, rebounding the ball, dude is everywhere defensively. watch some games from that post-season and you’ll hear commentators like doug collins raving about how incredibly quick and active the lakers perimeter defense is.. How great they are at swarming. Kobe plays a HUGE part of this. and is a major reason the lakers finish #1 in post-season DRTG with an amazing 98.2 DRTG.

He averages 34/7/7/2/61% TS in the WCF including a ridiculous 45/10/58% TS on the road in game 1 and this is against the best defense in the league, and 35/9/5/2/57% TS in the WCSF. For the postseason lakers have a 113.0 ORTG with him on the court, and 98.0 when he's off. most impressively he does it on the greatest post-season team in history BY FAR (15-1!). A team that had the #1 defense and #1 offense and won by an average margin of 15 PPG. this is some of the best all-around ball any player has ever played. dude is EVERYWHERE. 22 years and already a top 3 player in the world. you could make a great case that he was a top 2 player.

2002: 25+/5.5/5.5/1.5/0.5/55% TS/112 ORTG (equivalent to 114 ORTG today,so fantastic efficiency) while playing all 82 games. again, finishes #2 in ORAPM (https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2002-rapm) and co-anchors the #2 offense in the league.

puts up 27/6/5/2 with his usual excellent defense in the post-season including a 27/6/5+/1.5/0.8/62% TS/120 ORTG in the finals against the best defense in the league.

27+/6/4/2 in the WCF including 31/11/5/2/132 ORTG and 30/10/7/2/121 ORTG in back-to-back elimination games to win the series. his WCSF is probably one of the greatest "clutch" series ever. shaq has the worst series ever and the lakers still beat a 58 win/6.2SRS/#2 DRTG spurs team in 5 games...because of bryant's incredible 4th-quarter play. every game goes down to the very wire and bryant averages a ridiculous 11 PPG/63% TS in the 4th quarters as he takes over down the stretch in EVERY single win for the lakers. lakers win 3rd straight title.

2003: no need to go too in depth... this is one of the greatest all-around seasons ever.

30 PPG
7 APG
6 APG
2.2 SPG
0.9 BPG
55.2% TS( 57.2% TS in today's league)
38% from three on 6 attempts per game
26+ PER
15 WS
#2 in ORAPM (https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2003-rapm)
20 40+ point games including 9 straight at one point
averaged 40+ PPG for the entire month of march
5 50+ point games
5 triple-doubles
22 double-doubles

in the post-season he does 32/5/5/2 with a +/- of +17!

top 3 player in the league at least.

and he's doing this season and others in the GOAT defensive era (99-04) where league average TS/ORTG was notably lower....

2004: the single toughest defensive season in history...league average ORTG is at at a ridiculously low 102.9...league average TS is at 51.6%...

kobe gets off to a slow start because of the off-court issues/conditioning but still puts up 23/5/5/54% TS (+2.4) and 111 ORTG (+8, equivalent to 115 ORTG today) through 33 games. lakers go 23-10 with a 106.7 ORTG (+3.8 relative to league average, #4 in the league) and a overall differential of +6. he gets injured and misses the next 7 games (plays 15 min in one of them) and the lakers go 3-4. 98.5 ORTG in those 7 games, a decline of 8.2 points! he comes back for two games and lakers put 115 ORTG and win both. he gets injured again. misses next 7 games. lakers go 4-3 with wins against the 21-24 raps, 19-30 cavs, 13-40 magic, 21-32 heat) and get blow out in every single loss. again, lakers offense totally falls off. ORTG during those 7 games is 100.9 (-2) and overall they play like a -4.3 team.

kobe pretty much plays the rest of the season (only misses two games during which the lakers go 1-1 and their offense collapses yet again--96.6 ORTG in those two) and puts up 26.6/6.4/6.0/1.8/0.6/56.3% TS (58.2% TS today) and 116 ORTG ( 120 ORTG today) and is the best player in the league (outside of KG) over the second half of the second. lakers have a 107.3 ortg (top 3 in the league) over this span.

overall for the season he puts up 24/6/5+/2 on fantastic efficiency (55.1 TS/112 ORTG which is equivalent to 57% TS/116 ORTG today) and has his best defensive season since 02.

basically, when he's playing the lakers look like a 1st-tier contender and a top 3 offense. and when he's out they're mediocre and absolutely awful offensively. imo kobe has clearly become the best player on the lakers by this season.

his numbers fall off in the post-season (25/6/5/2/51%TS/103 ORTG) but you know what the insane thing is? his efficiency is still well above league-average in the post-season. there's never been a tougher defensive environment than the 04 post-season. league average ORTG in that post-season was a ridiculously low 98.8. thats insane. seriously, there's a reason they changed the rules and eliminated hand-checking the next season. it should also be pointed out that no star in modern history has played better defensive competition than what kobe saw that post-season.

he played:
the rockets (#5 defense, -3.9 relative to league average)
the spurs (GOAT level defense, #1 ranked, -8.8! relative to league average)
the wolves (#6, -3.3 relative to league average)
the pistons (GOAT level defense,#2 ranked defense, -7.5! relative to league average...but these numbers don't tell the full story. after the rasheed wallece trade the pistons had a defensive rating of 91.9 . that's -10.9!!! relative to league average. this is easily the best defense ever)

so he played two GOAT level/top 5 all-time defenses and two other top 5 defenses in the toughest defensive environment ever. insane. of course, he was still phenomenal through the first round three rounds and torched the GOAT level spurs defense in the last 4 games ((28/6/6/2/56% TS)including a all-time great 42/6/5/2/65% TS game in game 4 as the lakers backdoor swept


imo top 3 player in the league behind only KG/Duncan

2005: obviously easily the worst season of his prime. his numbers are still phenomenal (28/6/6/1.4/56.3 TS (+3.3) and i have no doubt that he would be in contention for best player in the league with better health and a better environment but of course the only thing that matters is what actually happened.. he suffered through plantar fasciitis the entire season and never really looked like himself. clear huge down season but still a top 10 player.

2006: the return. this is one of the greatest offensive seasons of all-time.

he puts up 35+/5+/5/2/28+ PER/15+ WS/56% TS/114 ORTG and somehow takes a horrific supporting cast (kwame brown/luke walton/sasha vujiec/odom/chris mihm/smush parker/devean george/brian cook/laron profit) and leads them to 46 wins, 7th best offense ,and 7th best SRS (2.52) and basically has them at 50 win caliber/quality in the west.

he put up the greatest adjusted offensive +/- scorer to EVER be recorded at +18.9: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bryanko01/on-off/2006/

That same year he was #1 in ORAPM at with nobody even remotely close to him: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2006-rapm

he has 27 40+ point games, 8 50+ point games,two different months where he averages 40+...he has a 81 point game...and another game where he puts up 62 pts in three quarters against the best team in the west.

what's crazy about this season is that he actually got off to a slow start. he suffered a sprained hand in the 3rd game which really bothered him for a couple of weeks. Only put up 32/5/4/50% TS though 15 games...

Then 36+/6/5/2/58% TS/116 ORTG through the next 67 games and the lakers had a 110.5 ORTG over that 67 game stretch. that's the 4th best offense in the league (+4.3 relative to league average)that's right. he was anchoring a top 5 offense with total and utter garbage around him. incredible.

best player in the league.

2007: not as great as 2006 due to the off-season knee surgery which caused a somewhat slow star...but still an extraordinarily season.

averages 32/6/5/2/26+ PER/58% TS/115 ORTG with a monster +6 ORAPM
10 50+ point games
20 40+ point games
couple 60+ point games
two different months of averaging 40+
puts up 38/6/5/2/58% TS/117 ORTG in the last 35 games

somehow takes this supporting cast:
smush parker
lamar odom (missed 24 games)
luke walton (missed 22 games)
maurice evans (6 games missed)
kwame brown (missed 41 games)
jordan farmar (missed 10 games)
ronny turiaf (missed 10 games)
brian cook (missed 17 games)
vladimir radmonivic (missed 17 games)
sasha vujacic (missed 10 games)

and still makes the playoffs in the West, has them at the #7 ranked ORTG, and #4 in eFG%. incredible. this is even worse garbage than what he had in 2006.

best player in the league.

2008: puts up 28+/6+/5+/2 on fantastic efficiency-- 58% TS/115 ORTG--

his +/- numbers continue to be amazing.
finishes #2 in ORAPM/+6.1 overall (https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2008-rapm).

plays all 82 games at 39 MPG. and his defense is excellent. legitimately all-defense worthy and his best defensive season 2004. so we're talking about a guy who is at least a top 2 offensive player in the world and a legitimately very good defender. leads the most inury-riddled team in the league to 58 wins and a 7.2 SRS/#1 seed in the best/toughest conference ever. anchors the #3 offense in the league...a team that was GOAT level offensively after the pau trade. they went 29-7 with a 9+ SRS! and 116.6! ORTG in the 36 games after the trade. bryant put up 29/6/6/2/59% TS/118 ORTG in those 36 games. he averages 34/6/5/2/59% TS/119 ORTG including a 49/10/5/2/66% TS game against a 50 win nugs team in a 1st-round sweep. he does 33+/7+/7+/2/63% TS/122 ORTG in the WCSF, and then 30/6/5/2/61% TS against the #2 defense/defending champ spurs.overall the lakers go 12-3 in the first three rounds of the playoffs with bryant putting up 33/6/6/2/61% TS/119 ORTG…and even those numbers don’t really capture how well he was playing. His D continued to be strong and his play-making/creation for others amazing. This season is easily the best he’s ever been as a passer/creator.

overall he has another all-time post-season run.30+/6/6/2/58% TS/116 ORTG over 23 games against 4 50+ win teams including a 66 win GOAT level defenses and the defending champs.

best player in the league.

2009: pretty much the perfect season. he sorta coasts during the reg season and still completely dominates. puts up 27/6/5/1.5/56% TS/115 ORTG/#3 in ORAPM/+6.1 overall and is still a good defender. takes incredible care of the ball. somehow manages a ridiculously low 9% turnover rate. anchors the #3 offense in the league and his raw offensive +/- is amazing. lakers have a 116! ORTG with him on the court. leads his team to 65 wins, 7.3 SRS, and they win a great conference by 10 freaking games.

he then has another all-time post-season run. puts up 30+/6/5+/2/56.4% TS/9% turnover rate/116 ORTG while playing excellent defense (especially in the last two rounds) over 23 games. including 34/6/6/2/63% TS/132 ORTG in the WCF and 32+/7+/6/1.5/1.5/54% TS/111 ORTG in the Finals. anchors a dominant post-season team. they go 16-7 with the 12th best playoff SRS ever and 8th highest point differential...with a supporting cast of essentially pau/odom and a bunch of role-players. wins his 4th championship.

top 2 player in the league.

2010: starts out putting up 30+/6/5/2/57% TS/115 ORTG through the first two months and the lakers are well on their way to another 60+ win season. injures really hurt him, he's not healthy for the entire second half of the season pretty much, and his numbers take a tumble. still, he ends up with another fantastic reg season, though clearly a step down from his 06-09 runs. still ends up averaging 27/6/5/1.5/0.5/+5.6 RAPM and his +/- numbers are still phenomenal. clearly he's in the very last stages of his prime by this point. leads his team to 58 wins and the #1 seed.

he then has one last hurrah with yet another incredible post-season run.
averages 29+/6+/6/1.5/57% TS/117 ORTG over 23 games. after he gets his knee drained after game 4 of the first round...he proceeds to have one of the great stretches of his career: 30+/7+/6/1.4/0.8/58% TS/119 ORTG over the last 19 games including a ridiculous 34+/9/7/2/64% TS/135 ORTG WCF ...lakers have a GOAT level 116 ORTG during that 19 game stretch. wins his 5th championship. this is the end of his prime.

top 3 player in the league.

he then falls off clearly and is no longer the same guy, but we're still talking top 10 payer in the league level in 2011, 2012, and 2013. \

2012 in particular is underrated. 28/5/5/1.4 while playing 39 MPG with easily better defense than 2011 and 2013 and he had a terrific playoff run…and the only bad thing was that his efficiency was only slightly above league-average…but that’s almost exclusively caused by the horrific spacing on that team. Two slow plodding 7-footers in the foot-court and very little shooting+ coached by the worst offensive head coach in the league (mike brown) is a recipe for disaster. He would have been significantly more efficient on almost any other team in the league.

Proof?
His TS% that season with both Pau/Bynum on: 51% TS
With just Pau: 56% TS
With just Bynum: 56% TS
Both out: 55%

More proof" in the games either Bynum or pau didn’t play he had a TS% of 57%.

And in 2013 we saw his efficiency shoot back up to excellent levels---57% TS/112 ORTG--and its exclusively because of the much better spacing.

2012 kobe is still a top 6-7 player.2011 and 2013 is still top 10.that’s still a hugely valuable player to have.


basically bryant holds one of the very greatest offensive seasons ever (2006), one of the greatest all-around seasons ever (2003), and multiple all-time great playoff runs (01, 08, 09, 2010).

We’re talking about a guy who has about 8-9 different seasons where he was a top 3 player in the league, 15! All-NBA seasons in total (insane longevity), and a 3-yr peak (06-08) where he put up 32/6/5/2/57% TS/27 PER and was very widely regarded as the greatest player on Earth.

He has one of the sickest post-season stretches EVER with his run from 08-10...30+/6/6/2/57% TS/116 ORTG/26+ PER while leading his team to 3 straight Finals and back-to-back championships.

The dude's career averages are 26/5/5/1.5/56% TS/112 ORTG...over nearly two ****ing decades. He has more 30+ point/40+ point and 50+ point games than anyone outside of Mike and Wilt. During his 10-year prime you'll looking at averages of 29/6/5/2/56% TS/25+ PER...and 4 of those seasons were spent in the GOAT defensive era (99-04), while sharing the ball with another star, and playing in the triangle.

Those numbers are just as good in during his post-season prime...expect no star (outside of Shaq) has ever played better defensive competition during the postseason.
This list is the strongest opposing playoff defenses for modern stars in the playoffs

PS Prime Avg. Opp Drtg ▾
Shaquille O’Neal 101.9
Kobe Bryant 102.6
Kevin Garnett 103.5
Dwyane Wade 103.7
Tim Duncan 103.7
Karl Malone 103.9
Steve Nash 103.9
Dirk Nowitzki 103.9
LeBron James 104.4
Michael Jordan 105
Larry Bird 105.5
Hakeem Olajuwon 105.8
Charles Barkley 105.8
David Robinson 106.5
Magic Johnson 106.7


He has some of the most ridiculous feats/stretches of all-time.
5 different months where he averaged 40+ PPG
9 straight 40+ point games
13 straight 35+ point games
27 40+ point games in one season
10 50+ point games in one season
5 different 60+ point games
81 points
62 points in three quarters
4 straight 45+ point games
A different stretch of 4 straight 50+ point games
Last 30 games of 07: 38 PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/2 SPG/58% TS
Last 68 games of 2006: 36+ PPG/6 RPG/5 APG/2+ SPG/57% TS/116 ORTG

And he doesn't just dominate in the box-score...dude is also a +/- monster.

He has the #3 RAPM (regularized adjusted +/-) of the decade once you adjust for minutes and is #1 in ORAPM: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/10-year-rapm

At his offensive peak (06) he put up the greatest adjusted offensive +/- scorer to EVER be recorded at +18.9: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bryanko01/on-off/2006/

That same year he was #1 in ORAPM at with nobody even remotely close to him: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2006-rapm

#2 in minute-adjusted 01-12 ORAPM behind only Nash: http://godismyjudgeok.com/DStats/2012/nba-stats/overrated-and-underrated-via-rapm-part-2/

*note: I realize RAPM is not even close to being a perfect tool, nor do I see it as such. I'm merely pointing out that Kobe definitely seems to be a player who has enormous impact even outside his terrific box-score numbers*


Efficiency:

Considered and ‘inefficient chucker” by ignorant fools even though he’ put up fantastic/excellent efficiency numbers throughout his prime and has a career TS/ORTG. Of 56%/112 over 18 seasons!. This is just one of many false narratives/myths about him.

He’s consistently +3-4% relative to league average TS/+9-11 points over league average ORTG in his 10 year prime. This is very good and more than comparable to many of the guys ahead of them.

Here’s what prime Kobe’s TS/ORTG numbers would look like in the today’s era based on league-average TS/ORTG of 2014--53.6% TS, 106.7 ORTG

2001: 57% TS/115.7 ORTG
2002: 56% TS/115.7 ORTG
2003: 56.7% TS/114.1 ORTG
2004: 57.1% TS/115.8 ORTG
2005: 56.9% TS/111.8 ORTG
2006: 56.0% TS/114.5 ORTG
2007: 57.5% TS/115.2 ORTG
2008: 57.2% TS/114.2 ORTG
2009: 55.3% TS/114 ORTG
2010: 53.8% TS/108 ORTG---injured

As you can see his efficiency is consistently excellent/very good throughout his prime.
Another myth destroyed.


If you wanna just look at his game from a skill/ability/talent position...we're talking about of the 5 best scorers ever, one of the best non-PG creators/play-makers/ball-handlers of all-time, someone who was legitimately a good and sometimes even great defender for many seasons, a fantastic rebounding guard, and a guy with an almost perfect skill-set.

Dude has seasons (2013) where he led the entire freaking lead in post-up efficiency as a freaking guard: Among 106 players to finish at least 75 post-ups with a shot, drawn foul, or turnover, Bryant was the most efficient in the league, per Synergy Sports. The most efficient! At age 34! He hit 55 percent of his post-up shots and produced 1.05 points per possession from the block, per Synergy.

He's one of the greatest mid-range players/shooters ever: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/courtvision-kobe-bryant-and-the-elbow-test/

He can shoot the 3. He has superb handles. He might the greatest triple-threat player ever, and has GOAT level foot-work and shot-making ability. Seriously, we're talking about one of the three best ever in terms of sheer skill.

In terms of accolades/accomplishments...
5 NBA Titles and 7 Finals Appearances
2 Titles/4 Finals appearances as the best player
2X Finals MVP
1X NBA MVP
2X Scoring Champion
15X All-NBA including 11X All-NBA 1st Team
12X All-NBA defensive team including 9X 1st Team
16X Time All-Star

It’s a joke hes not in the top 10.

Just want to highlight this monster post by our newest ballboy.

No one has replied to half the points he's made here.

[Quotatious]

For the people looking at Oscar right now, what do you guys think of 1970...what exactly happened that year in Cincinnati? Before that, Oscar was putting up huge numbers on mediocre teams, which might suggest that they were somewhat empty...but now that BBR has ORatings and DRatings for that era, we see that Cincinnati WAS an elite offense pretty much every year under Oscar...except for 1970. Oscar was still doing his thing at 25/8/6, but the team really declined.

I see that Lucas was traded that year after just 4 games, but previous posts by I think bastillon painted him out to be a pretty ineffective player despite his big stats. However, that seems to be the major difference for this year, and the offense really declines big time.

I think that as bad as Lucas may've been defensively, leaving his man for rebounding opportunities, his offensive impact was clearly positive - he was still a very talented offensive bigman, really efficient scorer for that era, and a high bball IQ guy with great shooting range, probably a prototypical pick & pop guy. I could him see being a poor man's Kevin Love, and that's a clearly positive impact player. Nothing to really support my claim, but Lucas leaving the Royals after the first 4 RS games, in October 1969, and them declining heavily on offense, IMO just screams that it's due to Luke's departure. Also, Cincy was starting a rebuilding mode at that time - for example, even before letting Lucas go, they hired a first year coach Bob Cousy, initially even as a player coach. Looking at Cousy's career as a coach, he seems to be really mediocre - his teams posted a 141-207 record over a little more than 4 seasons, and were never really able to establish any kind of identity - they were mediocre both offensively and defensively (except for the 1972-73 season when they had the best offense in the league, being led by Tiny Archibald, who famously averaged 34/11 that season).

Still, Oscar's body of work in terms of him leading the top offensive teams in the league seems consistent enough to include him in the conversation of the GOAT offensive players.

Also, I agree that Oscar/West is very similar to Magic/Bird, although the majority at the time considered Robertson and Bird as the better player. For a long time, I supported Magic and West over their respective counterparts, but lately, I've been getting more impressed with Oscar and Bird, though there are a lot of great arguments both ways.

As far as Oscar's shooting range, I've never thought of him as a shooter with limited range. Rather (and Oscar admits as much himself) he tried to use his size and strength (athletically, he had a really big advantage over almost any other backcourt player in the 60s, except for West, but Oscar was still bigger and stronger than Jerry) to create a shot for himself as close to the basket as possible, very often with his back to the basket - so he was very similar to Magic in this regard, but I've never heard about him having a limited shooting range. He rarely took long jumpers because (I remember reading or hearing that in an interview), he felt like if he could create a shot that HE wanted, rather than always taking what a defender gave him, he had a psychological advantage over him, because that guy felt like he couldn't guard Oscar if he struggled to deny him the shot that he wanted. I've been unable to find the quote from Oscar, but here's an excerpt of Earl Monroe's (so a guy who played against Robertson quite a few times) autobiography:

"On the bus ride to Cincinnati, we were scheduled to play our next game. I kept visualizing Oscar Robertson and the way he played offensively. I remember "The Big O" used to put his back up against his opponent and he dribbled the ball in the front court. Then he would back the defender down to get closer to the basket and shoot his turnaround jump shot over him from about 15 to 18 feet away from the hoop. So I said to myself "Okay, I'm going to try that". "

[therealbig3]

BTW, just looking into Oscar a little more:

The year before Oscar joins the team, the Royals are a +0.2 offense and a +5.4 defense (-5.6). When Oscar joins the team in 1961, he's putting up monster stats with a near 31/10/10 stat line (26/9/8 per 36). The Royals are a +3.5 offense and a +6.3 defense. Their offense clearly improves...but that doesn't look like GOAT-level offensive impact. Their defense is more or less the same (a little worse).

The Royals' offense with Oscar:

1960: +0.2 (4th)

1961: +3.5 (1st)
1962: +4.7 (1st)
1963: +3.5 (1st)
1964: +4.3 (1st)
1965: +4.4 (1st)
1966: +2.6 (3rd)
1967: +2.3 (2nd)
1968: +4.3 (2nd)
1969: +4.7 (1st)
1970: -1.0 (10th)

1971: -0.1 (9th)

I posted the deviations from league average, but I'm not even sure what they really mean in the context of that era...this was before the 3pt line, and a lot of that was before complex offensive schemes were prevalent around the league. But clearly, looking at their offensive ranks, they were elite with Oscar. However, as I pointed out before...their offense struggles in 1970...and when he goes to the Bucks in 1971, the Royals actually IMPROVE offensively. So what's going on there?

OTOH, if we look at the WOWY data for Oscar from ElGee:



It looks like he DOES have major impact all the way through 1972, including in the 1970 season I had questions about. And Jerry Lucas DOES look like an ineffective player despite his huge stats.

So I'm still not sure what to do with Oscar, but I'm not really seeing any real reason to knock him down a peg at all. I don't know if I'll change my vote from KG, because a huge reason I like the guy is his portability, as ronnymac2 pointed out, which he definitely has over Oscar. But I'm really thinking of Oscar next.

[lorak]

For the people looking at Oscar right now, what do you guys think of 1970...what exactly happened that year in Cincinnati? Before that, Oscar was putting up huge numbers on mediocre teams, which might suggest that they were somewhat empty...but now that BBR has ORatings and DRatings for that era, we see that Cincinnati WAS an elite offense pretty much every year under Oscar...except for 1970. Oscar was still doing his thing at 25/8/6, but the team really declined.

I see that Lucas was traded that year after just 4 games, but previous posts by I think bastillon painted him out to be a pretty ineffective player despite his big stats. However, that seems to be the major difference for this year, and the offense really declines big time.

The major difference wasn't Lucas (he was a player with negative impact), but Bob Cousy and his deep personal conflict with Oscar. He was jealous about what Big O accomplished (including breaking many Cousy's records) to the point that he even made come back at age of 41, to show how good he is... what of cousre was a disaster. But what's even more important is that he wanted him to play differently, tried to trade him for Gus Johnson (and Robertson vetoed that trade - yes, he had some kind of "no trade clause" at the time), in fact he wanted to trade all older players, because he wanted Roylas to play as fast as possible (like his 50s Celtics teams), what was a bad decision, when you had GOAT HCO player like Robertson. Look at Royals pace and ortg during Oscar's career:

11th (of 14) in 1969 (and 1st in ortg)
11th (12) in 1968 (2nd)
8th (10) in 1967 (2nd)
7th (9) in 1966 (3rd)
6th (9) in 1965 (1st)
6th (9) in 1964 (1st)
5th (9) in 1963 (1st)
5th (9) in 1962 (1st)
8th (8) in 1961 (1st)

and in 1970 4th (of 14) in pace and 10th in ortg, because Cousy wanted different style of play, which obviously wasn't too good for basketball in late 60s/early 70s.

Robertson also missed 13 games in 1970 and Royals w/o him were 4-9 and 46.4 W% with him, so worse than in 1969 (51.9% with Oscar), but Cousy's madness explains that difference.

My vote goes for Oscar. I think his situation was very similar to KG's (Minnesota = Royals, Celtics=Bucks), both with great impact, but I value Robertson a little bit more, because of mental/leadership aspects of the game. I think that Oscar is also very underrated, for example he definitely wasn't worse shooter than West (for instance look at their FT%) and was actually pretty good defensively (BTW, I really would like to see with/without ortg/drtg splits for West if that would show his much better defensive impact). And yes, I also think Oscar was the best Bucks player in 1971 regular season and playoffs (BTW, he should have won finals MVP) and in 1972 was basically equal to KAJ until injury. Bucks main strength was offense (of course on defense they were also very good, just not as good as on O), and the main reason of that was Oscar, who also helped a lot for KAJ - he never again was as efficient scorer with that kind of volume as during years with Robertson. KAJ's FG% and PPG:

Code: Select all

FG%   PPG   PPG per36   period
56,2   30,9   26,1   4 years with Oscar
51,6   29,3   24,7   2 years in MIL w/o Oscar
55,8   25,9   24,2   4 years in LAL before Magic
58,6   24,2   24,3   first 4 years with Magic
56,0   18,2   21,6   last 6 years in LAL

And relatively to league average it looks even better in favor of Oscar, because during late 70s and 80s league FG% was higher.

And I value Oscar so high only based on impact relatively to his own era, but if we would use "time travel" approach, then he is in GOAT conversation IMO, because in 3p league his impact would be LeBron like, just higher, because of better skills (especially shooting and p&r game as good as Nash's), better fundamentals. If Duncan is "Big Fundamental", then Oscar is "Mister Fundamental".

[Baller2014]

Just want to highlight this monster post by our newest ballboy.

No one has replied to half the points he's made here.

Pretty much all the things he said have been addressed in the many posts about Kobe to date. Some people value volume scoring, rings and some of the other things he cites less than they value actual impact. Meanwhile his monster post continues to ignore the numerous negatives attached to Kobe, which have remained unresponded to since thread#5. Kobe has big stats, so do guys like Adrian Dantley, but his actual impact is not on par with some of the guys he's being compared to here IMO.

[ardee]

Just want to highlight this monster post by our newest ballboy.

No one has replied to half the points he's made here.

Pretty much all the things he said have been addressed in the many posts about Kobe to date. Some people value volume scoring, rings and some of the other things he cites less than they value actual impact. Meanwhile his monster post continues to ignore the numerous negatives attached to Kobe, which have remained unresponded to since thread#5. Kobe has big stats, so do guys like Adrian Dantley, but his actual impact is not on par with some of the guys he's being compared to here IMO.

Actual impact? Did you even read it?

He's lead historic offenses when on good teams and stunningly overachieving offenses when saddled with crap. His presence was the difference between a lottery team and an all time team in 2004 (supposedly his worst year). Not that I care about it but he's no. 1 in ORAPM over 2000-2014.

The 'negatives' you speak of have been addressed in that he didn't receive votes until recently, and not much higher.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[Baller2014]

So if we're concerned about the various +/- stats, how does Kobe fare against KG when using those? If we're using offensive ratings, why aren't we ranking 2 time MVP Nash over him? Accolades wise lots of guys beat Kobe here too, while Karl Malone has better longevity, comparable scoring once you factor in efficiency, and way better D. I'm just saying, it seems like a lot of cherry picking of what we value IMO. Meanwhile all the evidence of Kobe's actual ability to carry teams (like how they played without him from 99-04, how he carried mediocre teams in 05-07, etc) strongly suggests he's not as impactful as a bunch of the guys still on deck.

Throw in the mountain of negatives and there's a pretty compelling case not to vote for him just yet.

[therealbig3]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE6kIu34Qsc[/youtube]

Pretty entertaining game, showcasing both Oscar and Russell. Oscar is dominating the Celtics, and then Russell just takes over the game defensively around the 37:00 mark.

The thing I'll note about Oscar just based on that game...he seems like more of a shoot-first guy, and although he makes some nice passes, he's not exactly picking apart the defense to find the open guy...he's either pulling up for midrange jumpers (which he's money on), or he's making the simple passes. He made a couple of passes where he nicely drew defensive attention and hit his man for a layup, but other than that, I don't see Oscar, at least in this game, playing the way Nash or Magic do. Also, I've always preferred the playmakers that are more hectic and risky and make passes that nobody else could/would. I like the playmakers that relentlessly push it down the defense's throats, always looking for opportunities to attack. Oscar was known for playing it safer, and more fundamentally, and in that regard, he reminds me a lot more of CP3 than Nash or Magic, actually. And I've always preferred Nash to CP3.

In that game specifically, Oscar plays the passing lanes well, but other than that, nothing really stands out about his defense, good or bad.

[Owly]

Question for the room: How do you see Oscar's defense? How do you think it compares to West? Or maybe put another way, how do you not see West as a better defender, and assuming that you do, what's the margin?

The honest answer is we can't be sure.

Some of the nicer things said about Oscar's D

Oscar is without a doubt the all-time everything basketball player. His tremendous offensive ability has overshadowed his great defensive skills.

He was tough on defense too. He had great physical strength and was big and strong and would beat guys up.

There's a quote that I'm not sure where it's originally from but I think the source is sound

Anything Jordan could do, Robertson could do better. He could shoot better, defend, pass better, and he was two inches shorter"

Some coaches on the later model Robertson

He plays even better defense than Walt Frazier of the New York Knicks. He's stronger than Frazier, and no one is going to take him inside and get six-foot shots ... If anyone scores against Robertson, it's going to be on 18 footers

Robertson should have been on the all-defensive team. He got my vote. He may have played better defense than any other guard this the league this year. When a man is a great offensive player and he's as smart as Oscar is, he knows what the offensive player is going to do, and that helps him tremendously on defense.

And then there's all the "closest to perfect", "most complete", "most well rounded", "no flaws" type quotes (that never seem to come with a qualifier about D). Obviously the Koppett quote seems hyperbolic.

The negative factors would be Wilt's review in Who's Running the Asylum, but tbh Wilt was self promoting, and very unreliable at that point. And he didn't always guard the best opposing guard (at least at one time) because Cincinatti felt they couldn't risk him getting into foul trouble (and because Bockhorn was supposed to be a defensive specialist).

For what it's worth Robert Kalich's basketball ratings handbook from 1969 gave him an 8 out of 10 on D, his lowest rating (amongst then active guards Frazier and West get 10s, Sloan 9, Wilkens 8, Joe Caldwell, Howard Komives and Al Attles get 7s; of retired guards K.C. gets a 10, Slater Martin 9, Larry Costello and Tom Gola 7s. That's all the top end defenders.)

Subjectively I'd guess he was a good, not great defender whose defensive impact was sometimes limited by his other roles (he showed he could be part of a great defense in Milwaukee with Alcindor). And yes this means he was worse than West at that end. How much? It's hard to precisely measure or articulate defensive impact at the best of times, going back to that era, in a vacuum? That's beyond me. I guess not enough to outweigh Oscar's offensive advantages.


And regarding '70, you could start with Oscar declining a little. But lorak covers the main thing. The team changed. Cousy decided he wanted to ramp up the pace and seemingly wanted to play Celtics style, despite his personel. Whether he was jealous or not he made an odd decision to play a bit seemingly initiated in the 18th game of the season (assuming he wasn't injured before, would have to read up on this more). I mean it was sensible to try to rebuild but I don't think he helped Oscar's value (and the rebuild made coming out of retirement all the more bizzare). And tbh Oscar still looked pretty darned good despite the situation.

and when he goes to the Bucks in 1971, the Royals actually IMPROVE offensively. So what's going on there?

To this point in particular it might be worth noting '71 was an expansion year so the league average dropped (it's not usually super useful but in absolute terms their Ortg dropped, it's just that the league dropped more, which I might suggest fits the expansion explanation). And Cincinatti brought in some decent players (Flynn Robinson in the trade, Archibald and Lacey, though not close to their peaks better than what they were replacing) some internal development (Van Lier) and a better atmosphere with everyone on the same page. In any case the "improvement" (if it was that rather than just the league average dropping) was fairly small.

In summary it's not something that affects how I look at Oscar.

[therealbig3]

Oscar is a tough one to gauge, at the very least. He DOES have impressive team lift...but so do KG and West. West reminds me a lot of Larry Bird, and that might be a little more useful for more teams than Oscar's on-ball greatness. Keep in mind, for most of West's career, his Lakers were usually right there with Oscar's teams on offense, so it's not like team results eliminate West from the conversation as an offensive player.

It's true, Oscar seems like a pretty elite shooter in his own right, and since we don't have shooting stats for either player, we only have anecdotal evidence, which seems to support West as the better shooter. Both guys were considered great passers, and West was considered the better defender. I've been watching more of Oscar, and the praise he gets for being big and strong are accurate...nobody is taking the guy inside and posting him up. He's smart, and he's physical. But similar to Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd...bigger PGs also give up some quickness, and I do notice him not being all that great at stopping dribble penetration.

I feel like his defense is a net neutral tbh, not fantastic, not terrible. As a result, I see him as Magic Johnson, but with CP3's fundamentally sound, cautious (in a good way) style of play. A big PG that can drive big-time offenses, who loves to post up, is fantastic from midrange, and is a good passer too. I just think he was more of a scorer than a passer, and his passing isn't on the level of Magic imo.

So right now, I've definitely gained an appreciation for Oscar, but I still kind of view him as a lower middle class man's Magic Johnson, because I prefer Magic's passing and more attacking style of play, even if it resulted in more mistakes. Oscar would have certainly been fantastic in the 3pt era though, no question.

Oscar is probably moving up from where I had him entering the project, and West as well. The question is, who is he going to replace?

[SactoKingsFan]

I was pretty sure I’d be voting for KG due to his great peak, defensive impact and versatility, but I decided to reconsider Oscar for this spot after seeing the WOWY data provided by ElGee.

Spoiler:

The following table shows that Oscar’s 62 Royals and 71 Bucks were comparably great on offense within their era as Magic’s 85-87 Lakers:

Code: Select all

RS+PS         eORtg       z-score

71 Bucks      108.2       2.72
87 Lakers     115.9       2.34
85 Lakers     114.6       2.01
86 Lakers     113.2       1.86
62 Royals     98.4        1.84


Steve Nash and Magic are the only other PG's that were at the center of more historically great offenses. I have Magic ranked higher due to his GOAT passing, elite rebounding, size and BB IQ. Even though Nash orchestrated several historically great offenses, his defensive deficiencies and potential portability issues make it difficult to rank him anywhere near Oscar.

I think Oscar’s skillset is often underrated and is comparable to Magic’s and probably the best of all the remaining players. When you combine his 6’5” frame and high BB IQ with a diverse skillset (impressive passing/playmaking and rebounding, elite shooting and mid-range game, all-time PnR play) you get an elite offensive player within any era.

Some may criticize Oscar for his lack of success on the Royals, however, with the impact shown in the WOWY data I see no reason to significantly penalize Oscar for playing on legitimately bad teams that would have struggled without his overall impact. And his role in helping catapult the Bucks from a very good team to an all-time dominant team is enough to convince me that he’s not out of place at #11.


Vote: Oscar Robertson

[Dipper 13]

A big PG that can drive big-time offenses, who loves to post up, is fantastic from midrange, and is a good passer too.

Quick first step as well. He is indefensible under the modern day rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Gbb9_XAtU&t=17m26s


Big O's quickness would also enable him to have an excellent drive & dish game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aECiYcdvIE&t=11m28s

[Owly]

It's true, Oscar seems like a pretty elite shooter in his own right, and since we don't have shooting stats for either player, we only have anecdotal evidence, which seems to support West as the better shooter.

It depends on what you mean by this (better long distance shooter perhaps) but there's non-anecdotal evidence that points to Robertson.
Robertson's career free throw percentage (including playoffs) 83.8821138%
West's 81.2360532%

Two and a half percent isn't huge but it isn't nothing either (and a reliably large sample, 9840 attempts by Oscar, 10307 by West).

Maybe West was better (at least from long distance), but he might be benefitting from
(1) People focus on Oscar's all-round/stats brilliance, with West they need something to focus on so it happens to be shooting (in reality by any normal standard West was a very complete, well rounded guard, he doesn't need to have one skill set that's legendary, he was able to support high usage, a good shooter - both as as a skill by itself and in terms of smart shot selection and drawing fouls, a good passer, defender, good rebounder for a guard etc).
(2) He's white. When we tend to think of great shooters we often think white. I think Rick Barry benefits from this as well (I seem to recall something, possibly Barry himself, saying he was more a scorer than a shooter coming in to the league, and whilst his ft% numbers are legendary his motion is completely unrelated to his in game shot; his ABA 3 point shooting was nothing to crow about see http://bkref.com/tiny/XVoPH and in case that skews by excluding the most incompetent shooters http://bkref.com/tiny/eXJ7u; nor are any other of his numbers that great though shot selection plays its part). Barry tangent aside I think skin pigmentation might be why West sometimes makes all time great shooters lists (then again Sharman usually doesn't ... )

[ardee]

On Oscar's offensive skills, it's worth noting that even come Playoff time he was hardly feasting on weak teams.

In 1963 and 1964, he played the Celtics in 2 of their 3 best defensive years. He put up 31.3 ppg/11.3 rpg/7.3 apg on 55% TS over 12 games. Limited footage obviously of those specific series' (and I wouldn't know how to root around for them) but I imagine that his being excellent at using screens (one of the first to do so), he was able to make room in the mid-range. However, he scored, he would've had Russell all over him since others on that team were hardly a threat, and he produced in spades.

drza talks about how players play when their teams are just insanely outmatched and they 'stand alone'. Oscar arguably played the best of anyone who's ever been in that situation.

No guard approached that kind of production until the Celtics until West put up 37/4/8 against them in the 1969 Finals.

[FJS]

When you watch that Andrei Kirilenko was better at RAPM than KG in 2005 and 2006, and next to him in 2004, you should ask yourself:
1) AK was so good in that spawn?
2) Rapm it's not as good metric to decice which player it's better?

In Fact, Dikembe Mutombo was better than Olajuwon in 94, better than Jordan in 96, 97, 98... (in fact Jordan was nowhere near the top 5)... So I think that metric is overrated, and don't show the true dominance.

21 players above Jordan.
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/1998.html