RealGM Top 100 List #12

[penbeast0]

My problem with Oscar in Cincinnati is that I don't think he maximized the players around him; I do think he maximized his own talent. It's like Michael Jordan in Washington where he broke Kwame Brown's confidence and the #1 overall pick was never any good -- he looked like he could have been from his basic skill set but you need confidence to play without hesitation and he never regained his.

Well, Jerry Lucas looked like a worldbeater coming into the league. He and Pettit were the classic stretch 4's with great rebounding and very good range but Oscar would get mad at Lucas and freeze him out for stretches and you can see Lucas turning more and more into a stand still jump shooter (and rebounder) over his time there which I don't think maximized his talent. Adrian Smith was the other guy who played with Oscar for the longest stretch and again, he turned into a stand still jump shooter (though I think that may have been his best role). There are quotes about how Smith admitted being afraid to make mistakes playing with Oscar -- I don't think that's a positive thing in a leader. It's like my case against Barkley, the problem isn't OScar (or Barkley's) play themselves, it's how their teammates performed. Magic made the game fun, brought Kareem out of his shell, and the team around him played loose and fluid which is especially key in the clutch. Oscar was so demanding that his teams seemed to play tight, afraid to make a mistake and again, you saw this in the clutch. Other players I saw that seemed to lose their way with the Royals and never lived up to the talent I thought I saw were Tom Van Arsdale and Happy Hairston though Hairston played well with LA. Hard to find statistical evidence to back it up because the stylistic changes became part of a player's game . . . it didn't matter how many teams Kwame played with, he was never the fluid confident player the Wiz thought they were drafting and I do believe to some degree that was MJ's fault. Defense is also about team play, effort, and communication and the Royals seemed to underperform there while their offenses were very efficient. Maybe I'm blaming the wrong guy; it was the era of the center oriented offense and Cincinnati was very much a donut team (never that impressed with Embry and the rest were suck) but so was LA yet West carried them a lot further than Oscar carried the Royals.

Kobe was also a jerk and a perfectionist but, probably because of the influence of Phil Jackson who is the GOAT coach to a large degree because of his success in manipulating egos, the Lakers seemed to overperform in the Kobe/Gasol/Odom era. I didn't think that was an NBA championship caliber team, contender but I would have guess 2nd round exit. I was wrong and so I lean to Kobe -- my version of winner's bias I guess.

[90sAllDecade]

Also, with regards to comparing Oscar vs Kobe's defense. I see in film Kobe often guarding the other team's best perimeter player. My question about Oscar is, how often did Robertson guard the best perimeter player?

Did Kobe take on tougher defensive assignments?

Oscar was always praised for his defense(as was Kobe) and played alongside buckhorn and Adrian smith, both of whom were considered below average.
Also there is an earl Monroe post in this thread that talks of oscar guarding him.
So I assume oscar guarded the better players


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Thanks for the response. I'm going to watch what I can of the 71 finals to see Oscar's defense. At first glance he does a good job statistically against Monroe. I wonder how much of that is having a big rim protector in Kareem helping his perimeter defense? (I'll try to analyze Kobe's defense that way as well if I can)

If it was all him, I'll give credit to Oscar, but I don't know if there are more instances like that and if he's better than some of the examples Kobe stepped up defensively that were posted.

Here is what I mean in Oscar against Sam Jones (who played better against the Royals postseason):

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DiUAMzOAaI[/youtube]

Now those admittingly are just two shots without context, so here's the film I watched (Sam Jones is #24, this game Oscar has 37 pts but defensively Sam Jones has 34 against him. He's the lead scorer and Boston clinches the playoff series with the win):

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


Now to be even handed to Robertson, he did dominate Earl Monroe statistically. I'll look at the film and talk about it and his defense looks good against West, I'll post about those likely positives in comparison to Kobe later as well.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... inals.html

[trex_8063]

---snip---

......Meantime, Kobe's average TS% in the given period is 55.7%, as I already said. His playoff average over that time is 54.8% TS if you don't factor in total games played, 54.5% if you do.

Nice post, lots of useful information for comparison.
One technical nit to pick wrt above: TS% is stat derived from only three variables: points scored, FGA, FTA. That's it. Games played doesn't factor into it at all (and thus there is only one "correct answer" for his TS% over that span: the .545).

EDIT: btw, are you casting a vote in the run-off?

[magicmerl]

EDIT: btw, are you casting a vote in the run-off?

He already has, for Oscar.

[90sAllDecade]

It seems Earl had a history of chronic knee and leg injuries, which started when he had a car accident as a rookie.

Some hot topics include Earl's tales of sexual promiscuity, his playground team named the "Trotters," overcoming rampant racism, becoming "Black Jesus", a controversial brush with joining the army, chronic knee pain that stemmed from an automobile accident in his rookie year, an unforgettable experience with angel dust, the influence that the movie Super Fly had on him and his relationship with Clyde.

He seemed healthy before the finals, but watching the 2nd half of game four he got injured early, was limping and had to got to the locker room. I haven't analyzed it all yet and am finishing watching it, but looking at his numbers, he played well game 1 with his usual averages then he plummets game two. I can't say for sure but he might have gotten injured game two and it bothered him game three and flared up again game 4.

I might be wrong, but I read he's had 30 surgeries on his legs and multiple hip replacements stemming from chronic injuries in his playing years.

Monroe retired in 1980 after averaging only 7.4 points in 51 appearances. During his 13-year career he had amassed 17,454 points in 926 games, evidence of his durability despite a history of knee and leg problems.

http://www.nba.com/history/players/monroe_bio.html

Knicks great Monroe faces 30th post-playing surgery:
http://nypost.com/2012/01/10/knicks-gre ... g-surgery/

If he was hurt, then it wasn't about Oscar's defense than his injuries imo. So those quotes celebrating his defense might be misleading imo. Again I'm still finishing this and may be totally wrong.

I might not be able to vote in time tomorrow, so I'll go ahead and vote for Kobe Bryant. For the reasons I listed earlier and I'll add more if I have time.

As an individual combined two way player Kobe is better and played better competition imo. This is subject to change if an argument changes my mind, and again I might be wrong on this in which case I will edit later.

[Moonbeam]

Interesting runoff as prior to this, I had Oscar and Kobe occupying consecutive spots in my list.

I don't want to rehash the debate too much. In my mind, it's a battle between Oscar's statistical edge and Kobe's team performance edge. penbeast makes a good point about Oscar's teammates falling short of expectations in Cincinnati and the Kobe-helmed 09-10 Lakers exceeding expectations. A factor that I think is also worth considering is coaching.

In Oscar's first 3 years, the team was coached by Charles Wolf, who had no previous experience and then finished his coaching career with a disastrous 25-66 stint with Detroit that had All-NBA 2nd teamer Bailey Howell (and a young but mostly injured Dave DeBusschere). For the next 4 years, Cincinnati was coached by Jack McMahon, who outside of Cincinnati amassed a total of one first round loss across 6 seasons with a combined record of 113-209. The next 2 years for Cincinnati were the only head coaching years of Ed Jucker. Oscar's last season in Cincinnati saw new coach Bob Cousy at the helm, and as has been gratefully pointed out, Cousy didn't seem to get along with Oscar. Following that season, Cousy's teams never made the playoffs and had a combined record of 105-161.

That is the entirety of the head coaching expertise that Oscar had at his disposal across 10 years in Cincinnati - 3 of the 4 coaches had never had a head coaching position in the league prior to coaching the Royals, and their combined resume outside of Cincinnati boasts 2 playoff wins and an overall record of 243-436 (35.8%).

In Milwaukee, Oscar was coached by Larry Costello, and outside of the run from the time when Oscar was there, Costello likewise did not have much success, with one series victory in 6 other seasons.

Meanwhile, Kobe had the luxury of consistently better teammates and Phil Jackson's coaching for 11 years. Even Del Harris, Kobe's first coach, boasted a better resume outside of his time coaching Kobe than any of Oscar's coaches had without him.

I began typing this up interested in the comparison having been unaware of Oscar's coaches, but in light of this new information, I think I've convinced myself to cast my runoff vote for Oscar Robertson.

[Baller2014]

Karl is not a better offensive player than Kobe, please, don't be ridiculous. How can he be, Kobe being a slightly superior scorer and infinitely better ballhandler and passer? Malone is no Shaq or Barkley.

You've got to be careful how you conceptualise "offense". Magic Johnson was the GOAT offensive player, and he didn't score that much at all. It's not about volume, but nor is it about an artificial collection of categories to box tick. You provide the perfect example of this when you give the example of Shaq as a better offensive player than Shaq (or Karl). And you're completely right, he was... but I could make the same sort of analysis you just did to claim Kobe or Wilkins was a better offensive player than him, because technically he was at best a "slightly superior scorer, and infinitely worse ballhandler and passer" than both those guys. Nonetheless, Shaq was the more valuable offensive player to have.

The same is true of regular season Karl Malone (and even Tsherkin just acknowledged that looks to be the case). Kobe looks to have an edge in playoff scoring in general, but it depends an awful lot how you look at it, what your sample/narrative is, etc, and that's literally Kobe's only edge. Karl wins on RS offense, playoff D and RS D, longevity, intangibles, etc. He's probably ahead on accolades too, assuming that matters.

Anyway, I'm going to let it go and keep working my way through these Oscar/Kobe posts so I can work out who to vote for.

[colts18]

The same is true of regular season Karl Malone (and even Tsherkin just acknowledged that looks to be the case). Kobe looks to have an edge in playoff scoring in general, but it depends an awful lot how you look at it, what your sample/narrative is, etc, and that's literally Kobe's only edge. Karl wins on RS offense, playoff D and RS D, longevity, intangibles, etc.

I don't know why you keep posting that. Do you realize that intangibles are by definition not measurable? No one knows how to measure because you can't measure it. It's intangible. Seriously, how would you as some random message board poster who was never in the locker rooms or had any connections with the players, know how these guys rate in intangibles and leadership? Do you know Karl or Kobe personally? If not, you can't rate them on intangibles. The only way you can rate them in that category is if you engage in some armchair pop psychology.

[Baller2014]

The very first thing I said in my post about Kobe's intangibles, back on page 1, is that we have to be careful, because they are hard to measure. I also point out that I would never take points away for a guy being a jerk, if it didn't effect on court play. For instance, Karl Malone was a horrible human being by all accounts, yet I just voted for him. Kobe's situation is different, because there is a large amount of (well documented) evidence that his attitude and antics effected on court play. His own coach and team mates are sources, and Kobe's never really denied any of it.

When a guy's own coach tells him to follow the team plan, and he consistently tells his coach he's not going to because it doesn't showcase his talent enough, am I really supposed to act like that didn't effect on court play? I know it did affect on court play, it almost certainly cost them a title in 2004, and forced the Lakers to become a worse team, just because Kobe couldn't co-exist with Phil and Shaq any longer. That's horrible. Just imagine what the reaction would be if a player you didn't like, say Allen Iverson, did the following:
- Told his coach he didn't want to follow his game plan because it didn't let him showcase his talent
- ball hog to the point his own coach and team mates are (continually) calling him out about it
- Have his lawyer call his coach threatening to sue him
- intentionally don't take shots during a game to "make a point", then attack your team mates at practise to try and discover who told the press they were disappointed in the way he'd behaved
- Hold 2 public interviews during the season in which you rip on your fellow star for being fat, out of shape, jealous of you, and immature, then discuss how you'd like to be traded to another team
- Get your owner to agree to fire your coach, then gloat about it to your team mates, leaving your coach feeling blindsided. When asked about it by the media, tell them you "don't care" if he's fired.
- During the season go over to the Clippers coach and try to talk to him about your future with their team next year. Just to emphasise, all these things are happening while you are trying to win a title.
All this is documented by Phil Jackson in his book 11 Rings, and I didn't even include the absurd Karl Malone incident, and the rape trial.

[Clyde Frazier]

Runoff vote - Oscar

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ros01.html

Averaged a triple double over his 1st 5 seasons in the league (pace aside, that's nuts)

Pace adjusted stats:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 2YlE#gid=0

http://doubledribble.wordpress.com/2012 ... ted-stats/

Funnily enough, the writer compares oscar to wade offensively, and kobe defensively.

Oscar was very clearly one of the most fundamentally sound players of all time. Those pace adjusted stats look a little more realistic, but still impressive nonetheless. His combination of size, strength, ball control and court vision really hadn't been seen before, although west was certainly right there talent-wise.

In 4 of oscar's first 6 playoff appearances, he was eliminated by the eventual NBA champs (celtics in 63, 64, 66 and sixers in 67). There's no real indication that he struggled mightily in the playoffs. I think losing to a team in the celtics that dominated the 60s and then what's considered one of the best teams of all time in the 67 sixers is telling. When he teamed up with kareem in 71, he still played an integral role in their winning the title, averaging 23.5 PPG, 5 RPG, 9.5 APG on 52% from the field and 81% from the line.

On oscar defending west during the 72 WCF and prior to that:

Something which would not go away by itself was Oscar Robertson, who guarded West tightly, harassing him with firm hand checks and his superior size and strength despite a deep muscle pull in his stomach which restricted his normal quickness. Since Robertson arrived in Milwaukee in 1970, West has not played well against the Bucks: last season he hit only 32% of his shots, and by the fourth game of this year's playoffs he was still under 40% for the series. In the third game West scored on nearly half his attempts, but he tried only 19 shots and generally took only wide open ones.

http://www.si.com/vault/1972/04/24/6125 ... y-out-west

This video isn't overflowing with highlights, but i'm just amazed at the high quality film this guy got his hands on.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPdQ7EhCYa8[/youtube]

[Owly]

How about the titles the Lakers could have won, but for Shaq being traded? The Heat won in 2006, and were an injury away from making the finals in 05. Perhaps with a few smart role player additions the Lakers win those years. We never got to find out because Kobe wasn't happy just winning, he wanted to win as "the man". This is pretty well documented on page 1.

How many times do people have to tell you before you get it. Shaq was traded because of money issues, not Kobe. Shaq even said it himself.

"O'Neal speaks of Kupchak in only six pages of the 281-page "Shaq Uncut: My Story," co-written by Jackie MacMullan, slated for a Nov. 15 release. But that's enough prose to label Kupchak as the main culprit behind Shaq's hasty departure from the Lakers.

According to the book, Kupchak promised to grant Shaq a contract extension following the 2003-04 season and not to discuss their contract negotiations publicly. Once the 2003-04 season ended, however, O'Neal was disturbed by an apparent interview in which Kupchak revealed the Lakers' plan to hold onto Bryant while keeping their options open with O'Neal.

http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblo ... pchak.html

" Charles Barkley – I got a question for you [to Shaq]. Do you wish you and Kobe woulda handled ya’ll relationship differently and if so how many championships do you think ya’ll woulda won.

Shaq - We didn’t have a bad relationship cause we won 3 out of 4 championships. That’s not a bad relationship at all. Second of all, it was a money situation. I was getting older, they wanted me to take less money, I wasn’t gonna do that. So they traded me to Miami. The way it turned out was the way it was supposed to turn out.

Shaq - I was making 30 [million dollars] at the time but they wanted me to go to 20 [million dollars] and I wasn’t gonna do that…A lot of people ask me that Chuck. I’m gonna go with 5 or 6 [total titles]."

http://lakeshowlife.com/2014/02/07/shaq ... be-exit-l/


The Lakers didn't want to pay him $30 million/year and they were justified because Shaq was getting lazy at that time and didn't have many prime years left.

That's one side, the other is the stuff from Phil Jackson (also posted many times on these threads), and this from Shaq

I couldn’t trust Mitch anymore, and it was clear Kobe was now the one with all the power

Given the (lack of) value in the package that sent Shaq out, there wasn't any urgent need to move him straight away (if there was a good package then you could argue LA would lose trade leverage, but that package was bad given the size of the contracts, and Butler in particular was coming off an awful year so you aren't losing anything). It was Kupchak's decision but he seemed to have the impression it was Shaq or Kobe and Kobe was the one with leverage.

Much like Bird vs Julius Erving, I found a great outside post about Jerry West vs Oscar and wanted to post it here.

I'm still weighing out who is the better player, but if Oscar ever defended West he didn't slow him down either (neither did West for Oscar either btw). West pretty much seems to maintain his numbers at this time at first glance. I haven't deeply analyzed it so I could be wrong.

Oscar Robertson vs Jerry West Career Head to Head

Spoiler:

I have decided to compile the never before seen Oscar Robertson vs. Jerry West Head-to-Head data. It's interesting because the two men were no doubt the greatest guards in the 60's. They were known to guard each other during games and Jerry West said that as a young player Oscar was the guy he looked up to. And that Oscar is the player he tried to get better than and saw as his main competitor because he was the best guard he ever faced. I've excluded the numbers where either player was injured and DNP. I tried to indicate beside the data in parentheses when the player did dress but was hobbled. West generally played through more nagging injuries than the Big O. Without further ado here is the data for every season.

* indicates that the rpg/apg numbers are missing for some games in that season

1960-1961

Oscar: 32.9 ppg, 9.8 rpg*, 11.9 apg*

West: 18.7 ppg, 6.5 rpg*, 5.0 apg*

Royals win 8-5.

1961-1962

Oscar: 31.4 ppg, 10.8 rpg, 10.2 apg

West: 34.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg*, 7.0 apg*

Lakers win 7-4.

1962-1963

Oscar: 31.2 ppg, 10.3 rpg, 11.6 apg*

West: 30.0 ppg, 5.3 rpg*, 6.0 apg*

Lakers win 5-1.

1963-1964

Oscar: 30.7 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 8.6 apg on 44.2 %FG

West: 28.4 ppg, 8.0 rpg*, 7.0 apg*

Lakers win 4-3.

1964-1965

Oscar: 35.6 ppg, 7.9 rpg*, 11.4 apg*

West: 31.7 ppg, 6.5 rpg*, 5.2 apg*

Royals win 5-4.

1965-1966

Oscar: 35.7 ppg, 6.9 rpg*, 11.1 apg*

West: 35.4 ppg, 6.6 apg*, 8.0 apg*

Lakers win 6-4.

1966-1967

Oscar: 32.8 ppg, 8.5 rpg*, 10.8 apg*

West: 29.7 ppg, 6.2 rpg*, 6.6 apg*

Lakers win 5-2.

1967-1968

Oscar: 33.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 6.0 apg on 29.7 %FG (injured much of the season)

West: 22.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 1.0 apg on 72.7 %FG (injured much of the season)

Lakers win 1-0.

1968-1969

Oscar: 23.8 ppg, 4.7 rpg*, 9.3 apg*

West: 26.0 ppg, 3.7 rpg*, 8.7 apg*

Lakers win 4-2.

1969-1970

Oscar: 20.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 7.3 apg on 39.3 %FG

West: 30.0 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 8.0 apg on 48.7 %FG

Lakers win 4-2.

1970-1971

Oscar: 15.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 7.3 apg on 52.2 %FG

West: 15.0 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 8.3 apg on 31.6 %FG (played injured for many games and missed the playoffs)

Bucks win 4-1.

1971-1972

Oscar: 15.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 6.8 apg on 39.1 %FG

West: 26.8 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 9.5 apg on 44.4 %FG

Lakers win 3-1.

1972 Western Division Finals

Oscar: 9.0 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 5.7 apg on 36.1 %FG (pulled abdominal muscle)

West: 21.8 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 8.3 apg on 34.8 %FG

Lakers win 4-2.

1972-1973

Oscar: 12.8 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 5.6 apg on 46.4 %FG (many minor injuries)

West: 17.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 7.0 apg on 42.0 %FG (leg injuries)

Bucks win 3-2.

1973-1974

Oscar: 8.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 7.0 apg on 25.0 %FG (nagging shoulder and back injuries)

West: 18.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 4.0 apg on 38.1 %FG (pulled abdominal muscle)

Lakers win 1-0.


Cumulative Regular Season Head-to-Head Numbers (1960-1961 through 1973-1974)

Oscar: 28.6 ppg, 7.3 rpg*, 9.7 apg*

West: 27.7 ppg, 5.3 rpg*, 7.2 apg*

Cumulative Playoff Head-to-Head Numbers (1972 WDF)

Oscar: 9.0 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 5.7 apg on 36.1 %FG (pulled abdominal muscle)

West: 21.8 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 8.3 apg on 34.8 %FG

The two men have met 91 times in those 14 seasons with West's Lakers having a 52-39 edge in wins over Oscar's Royals and Bucks teams. In their one encounter in the postseason in 1972 WDF West's Lakers beat Oscar's Bucks 4-2 in one of the all-time great series.

Oscar hit the ground running much faster than West and really dominated through the early seasons but by 1965 West had caught up and from 1968 onwards Jerry was the greater player although perhaps never as great as peak Oscar?

EDIT: To fact check, BBall Reference has Jerry West with more PPG than Oscar and this average he got:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 2=westje01

That's because the span you're citing begins when basketball reference starts game logs in '63-'64.

If were using Oscar winning MVPs against Russell and Wilt, Bob Pettit won it over Bill Russell the year right after young Bill won the MVP and Wes Unsled and Willis Reed won it over a 32/33 year old (but still very potent) Wilt Chamberlain the year right after he won it too.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/mvp.html

I don't like accolades but those guys lost other years as well, Wilt posted great numbers at LA during those two years in 69-69 and 69-70 when those guys won MVP over him; and Russell at Boston when Pettit won MVP over him in 58-59.

EDIT: I reread your post and saw you mentioned them, I also ask did Oscar really deserve it over Russell or was it voter fatigue? It's usually a team success award and even in individual play Russell is arguably just as good or better (Wilt was killing it too), so isn't that MVP questionable as well?

It also seems there is less discussion about Oscar vs Kobe as much and the thread is getting derailed for Malone and Barkley comments. I too like Malone, but he isn't in the runoff correct?

I'm not necessarily sure how big a deal busting the Chamberlain, Russell dominance is. But ... Pettit won it over Russell the year after he'd won a title (some halo, team level stuff going on there) and over young Russell isn't the same as over near peak Russell and Chamberlain (and West and Baylor). The Unseld mention is odd. That's one of the notably weaker, more open MVP competitions and Chamberlain wasn't a contender (struggling to fit in LA), it's not like peak or near-peak Russell and Chamberlain competition at all.

No (known) MVPs (official or otherwise) went to Russell in 1964, nor was he second in the voting. Oscar took the official with Wilt taking 2nd, the order was reversed for the known press MVP. So for what it's worth players and press thought Oscar was more valuable than Russell that year.

[rich316]

Run-off vote: Kobe Bryant.

I'm bummed I didn't get a vote in before the run-off, but I'll go with Kobe between these two. I am very cautious about being swept up in ring-counting, but the fact remains: Kobe won two rings as the best player on his team. Oscar won a ring as a 2nd banana. I know that doesn't mean much to some in this project, but I don't think it can be completely ignored. KG had such an overwhelming skills advantage over Kobe and did win a title as the best guy on his team, but as has been pointed out, his Celtics situation was different than Oscar's Bucks situation. Their team support situations for most of their careers were night and day, but Kobe performed (IMO) just as impressively as Oscar when he didn't have a good team around him, and even more impressively than Oscar when he did.

On the court, Kobe DID play his early and mid prime in probably the toughest defensive era of the NBA. This has to be taken into account when looking at his efficiency, and the fact that he did manage to be the consensus best perimeter player during that time has to also be considered. Oscar, by comparison, played in a run-and-gun league which, while not watered down, was certainly much more conducive to accumulating jaw-dropping counting stats. It would be a mistake to look too much into the stat difference. By all accounts, they are similarly skilled players - able to take what the defense gives them and score and distribute in a variety of ways. Oscar probably has a rebounding edge, there were so many more rebounds available in his era that it's difficult to know how big that edge is.

There is also the fact that must be noticed: Kobe is universally admired by his peers. I recently saw a Dirk interview by Simmons where Simmons asked Dirk who the "toughest player he ever faced" was. Without hesitation, Dirk said Kobe. Not Duncan, not Lebron, not KG. This kind of sentiment isn't uncommon from the NBA elite. I don't think it's the be-all-end-all, but I think it's worth considering that there many be things we don't know about being an NBA player, getting ready for every game, living the daily grind, that we as civilians are qualitatively unable to understand, that Kobe was incredible at. I don't think Kobe's chemistry problems can be held against him in this comparison, since everybody seems to think that Oscar was the same, if not worse.

[Baller2014]

This is probably the toughest vote I've had so far in the project, even more so than my initial vote of Karl Malone v.s Dr J (even now, I'm ready to be swayed on which is better in the next thread). I've been a big critic of both players, and I think #12 is a little too high for either. As such, I went back through the last 12 threads and diligently read through the material on Kobe and Oscar before voting.

On the one hand, I don't like Kobe as a team mate. He has a lot of negatives which his supporters more or less refused to engage in, even though they were clearly relevant. On the other hand, Kobe was the man on 2 title teams, and was one of the more potent offensive players of his era. His longevity is a little exaggerated, but still impressive, and he has a particularly good offensive stretch from 06-10. Unfortunately this stretch came a long time after Kobe's best defensive days were done, and once his D was pretty ordinary to be frank. I don't really care about rings. He had 5 titles, but titles are a product of team effort, and Kobe's titles all came on stacked teams. I don't much care about advanced stats, except as a loose indicator to look at and see if it broadly correlates to what other indicators tell me, but obviously advanced stats are generally very tough on Kobe.

As for Oscar, I find his Bucks years to be commonly exaggerated. For my money, the Bucks were a 60 win team who was going to win the title in 1971 irrespective of Oscar's presence (and I've gone over the evidence for this quite a few times). I am also quite tough on Oscar's Royals run, which does not seem to show the top 10 impact his fans claimed it did. There were some genuinely bad teams often behind the Royals. However, we're no longer in the top 10. I notice a few posters suggesting "well, Oscar had a bad attitude too". Maybe he did, though the evidence for that has been extraordinarily scant. Truelafan, a very distinguished poster, spent a long time talking about his work on an old NBA project looking at 70's basketball, during which he apparently got to interview a lot of ex-players and staff, and he admitted he never heard anything concretely bad about Oscar, rather he wondered whether some people implied it. In any case, I reject the suggestion of equivalence between Kobe's extremely well documented attitude issues, and Oscar's virtually non-existent ones (he threw a ball at a guys head a few times for not paying attention... I've heard worse, there's no evidence of any negative on court impact because of it at any rate).

As I've noted in several posts over the last few votes, and even way back when he was first being discussed, I've been softening on Oscar, thanks in large part to the very impressive evidence presented by Lorak and Owly. I think there are problems with the sample size from year to year, indicating that Oscar was worth 26-27 wins, but I admit I was surprised at how much he seemed to be improving the team. It wasn't Tim Duncan or Shaq level impact, but those sorts of players (except a few like Dr J) have all been voted in at this point, and we're now closer to territory where Oscar's apparent impact is a strong argument for him. Conversely, Kobe's trump card is continual high level play, not his peak. I covered in depth on page 1 why I think the RPOY project is right, and Kobe was never the best player in the league for any one year. I don't think he could have had the sort of impact Oscar had on the Royals, and he had a lot of chances on bad teams to prove otherwise.

Another point in Oscar's favour is his obvious portability. Dr MJ made a similar point about Dr J v.s Kobe in another thread, he said he was impressed by how Dr J was willing to change his game once he got older, in order to accommodate a younger star in Moses Malone. He said he couldn't really see Kobe agreeing to do that, and that Dwight seemed an obvious example of how it hadn't worked. Oscar is like Dr J in that respect, he showed he could change his game to come in and be Kareem's sidekick as a 32 year old, and thanks to that the Bucks played at a historic level (rather than merely a title team level). Various advanced stats love Oscar's ability to take the Bucks from being awesome to epic, and others have done a really good job of showing Oscar to be a good defender, who is obviously very durable (just look at all those minutes played over the years). I've learned a lot from this project that makes me think I was underrating Oscar a little, even though I still think he's too high here.

It's maddeningly close, but ultimately I vote Oscar for the run-off. Oscar played in a weak era, but he transcended that era too.

[FJS]

My run off vote is going to Kobe Bryant.

Of course Robertson put fantastic numbers, the triple double season and so, but.... he missed PO several times being in his prime, and this paired with Jerry Lucas, who was a great sidekick.

We know not everyone can win a ring, we know every team could have an off year... but I think you have to have a minimun of requeriments to be a top 20, and one of them it's not to miss Playoffs several times when you are in your prime. I think this is a major fault of KG who missed 3 times in a row PO (and not to pass from 1st round in 12 years but one time)
Robertson played at least ECF before Milwaukee, but not to play PO in 5 years and 4 in a row, playing with another all star like Lucas... it's not telling nothing good about him.

Kobe had luck, a lot of luck. He played with O'Neal and for Jackson. Still he showed he could be a dominant player in RS and PO. He was able to force a 7 games series vs Suns playing with a poor suporting cast. He was an awesome defender when he was young (overrated in his lastest years) and he was always a fantastic scorer.
1 MVP, 5 rings, being an important part in every one of them.
I really hate Kobe, but altough I voted Karl Malone for 12th, I think Bryant deserve it as well.

[Owly]

Run-off vote: Kobe Bryant.

I'm bummed I didn't get a vote in before the run-off, but I'll go with Kobe between these two. I am very cautious about being swept up in ring-counting, but the fact remains: Kobe won two rings as the best player on his team. Oscar won a ring as a 2nd banana. I know that doesn't mean much to some in this project, but I don't think it can be completely ignored. KG had such an overwhelming skills advantage over Kobe and did win a title as the best guy on his team, but as has been pointed out, his Celtics situation was different than Oscar's Bucks situation. Their team support situations for most of their careers were night and day, but Kobe performed (IMO) just as impressively as Oscar when he didn't have a good team around him, and even more impressively than Oscar when he did.

On the court, Kobe DID play his early and mid prime in probably the toughest defensive era of the NBA. This has to be taken into account when looking at his efficiency, and the fact that he did manage to be the consensus best perimeter player during that time has to also be considered. Oscar, by comparison, played in a run-and-gun league which, while not watered down, was certainly much more conducive to accumulating jaw-dropping counting stats. It would be a mistake to look too much into the stat difference. By all accounts, they are similarly skilled players - able to take what the defense gives them and score and distribute in a variety of ways. Oscar probably has a rebounding edge, there were so many more rebounds available in his era that it's difficult to know how big that edge is.

There is also the fact that must be noticed: Kobe is universally admired by his peers. I recently saw a Dirk interview by Simmons where Simmons asked Dirk who the "toughest player he ever faced" was. Without hesitation, Dirk said Kobe. Not Duncan, not Lebron, not KG. This kind of sentiment isn't uncommon from the NBA elite. I don't think it's the be-all-end-all, but I think it's worth considering that there many be things we don't know about being an NBA player, getting ready for every game, living the daily grind, that we as civilians are qualitatively unable to understand, that Kobe was incredible at. I don't think Kobe's chemistry problems can be held against him in this comparison, since everybody seems to think that Oscar was the same, if not worse.

I don't know the everyone to whom you're reffering is but it certainly isn't everyone on this thread. Oscar was certainly demanding. But those statements tend to come with he made the play better (see Bill Bradley's quote) or they wanted to play better for him (see Embry's quote).

On the other hand Kobe's competitiveness meant stuff like public "trade Bynum for aging big contract Jason Kidd" and being probably the leading figure in breaking down a dynasty (not that Shaq didn't bear his share, and that Kupchak shouldn't have done better both in managing the situation and putting better casts around them).

Oscar didn't take what the D gave him, he made it give him something even better, wheras Kobe whilst certainly relatively good at making such shots possibly too often took whatever the D gave him (sometimes when passing might have been a better option, though admittedly this in nit-picking he was fairly efficient on huge volume, just not streets ahead of the rest of the league like Oscar).

I'm not sure about the player respect card thing, but even if I were I wouldn't be confident it went in Bryant's favour (see Abdul-Jabbar, Russell and Chamberlain on Robertson).


To the holding back Lucas, van Arsdale and Hairston thing from Penbeast. If you think Lucas was the next Pettit we're just on a different page. His WoWY numbers are alarming, his defensive repuation is poor, in his public statements his commitment to pro basketball is questionable and there's suggestions he padded his rebounding stats. Also not playing for a year whilst Steinbrenner tried to negotiate the Clevelander Pipers into the NBA probably didn't help his development. Okay that's all the worst stuff but I don't see him in Pettit's league. Tom Van Arsdale broke out and peaked with Oscar. Hairston didn't do as well as he would later, though imo that's more to do with
(a) playing out of position at small forward
(b) being a sub-optimal fit next to Lucas given they were both primarily rebounding power forwards
(c) natural improvement
(d) expansion perhaps weakening the league.

[Baller2014]

Yeh, like I mentioned, I found Rich's comment to be really strange. Has one person suggested their attitude issues were remotely comparable? The evidence Oscar has negatives at all is fairly scant and implied, whereas Kobe's issues are very well documented.

[DQuinn1575]

My run off vote is going to Kobe Bryant.

Of course Robertson put fantastic numbers, the triple double season and so, but.... he missed PO several times being in his prime, and this paired with Jerry Lucas, who was a great sidekick.

We know not everyone can win a ring, we know every team could have an off year... but I think you have to have a minimun of requeriments to be a top 20, and one of them it's not to miss Playoffs several times when you are in your prime. I think this is a major fault of KG who missed 3 times in a row PO (and not to pass from 1st round in 12 years but one time)
Robertson played at least ECF before Milwaukee, but not to play PO in 5 years and 4 in a row, playing with another all star like Lucas... it's not telling nothing good about him.

Kobe had luck, a lot of luck. He played with O'Neal and for Jackson. Still he showed he could be a dominant player in RS and PO. He was able to force a 7 games series vs Suns playing with a poor suporting cast. He was an awesome defender when he was young (overrated in his lastest years) and he was always a fantastic scorer.
1 MVP, 5 rings, being an important part in every one of them.
I really hate Kobe, but altough I voted Karl Malone for 12th, I think Bryant deserve it as well.

Good post - a couple of points-

Oscar missed the playoffs 4 times, 3 in a row

1961 - team that won 19 games year before misses playoffs by 1 game
1968 - missed by 1 game - would have easily made playoffs in West as East was stacked with Sixers,Celtics, Knicks,Pistons
1969 - Would have made playoffs in West
1970- the Cousy year things didn't work - he traded Lucas for virtually nothing, and changed style of team. And Cousy decided to play himself, after being out of the league 7 years.

So, 1 miss by 1 game with a 14 game improvement.
2 years due to much tougher conference
1 year - coach conflict - shared blame of Cousy and Oscar

[Texas Chuck]

I recently saw a Dirk interview by Simmons where Simmons asked Dirk who the "toughest player he ever faced" was. Without hesitation, Dirk said Kobe. Not Duncan, not Lebron, not KG.

Without a doubt, Dirk holds Kobe in the highest esteem. Constantly mentions Kobe as a player he respects a lot and consistently rates him as one of the best players in the league.

Part of the reason why he thinks Kobe is THE toughest tho is due to the fact that the 2011 PS aside, the Lakers have absolutely owned the Mavericks during the Kobe/Dirk era and outside of old-man Marion Dallas never had the kind of athletic defender to throw at Kobe thus allowing Kobe to kill Dallas--like the game where at the end of 3 quarters I believe the score was Kobe 61. Dallas 60.

[Owly]

My run off vote is going to Kobe Bryant.

Of course Robertson put fantastic numbers, the triple double season and so, but.... he missed PO several times being in his prime, and this paired with Jerry Lucas, who was a great sidekick.

We know not everyone can win a ring, we know every team could have an off year... but I think you have to have a minimun of requeriments to be a top 20, and one of them it's not to miss Playoffs several times when you are in your prime. I think this is a major fault of KG who missed 3 times in a row PO (and not to pass from 1st round in 12 years but one time)
Robertson played at least ECF before Milwaukee, but not to play PO in 5 years and 4 in a row, playing with another all star like Lucas... it's not telling nothing good about him.

Kobe had luck, a lot of luck. He played with O'Neal and for Jackson. Still he showed he could be a dominant player in RS and PO. He was able to force a 7 games series vs Suns playing with a poor suporting cast. He was an awesome defender when he was young (overrated in his lastest years) and he was always a fantastic scorer.
1 MVP, 5 rings, being an important part in every one of them.
I really hate Kobe, but altough I voted Karl Malone for 12th, I think Bryant deserve it as well.

5 and 4 in row? Which years do you have him not making the playoffs?
And wow, that's the first time I've heard him not taking a -5.92 SRS, worst team in the league, straight to the playoffs held against him. '68 too has pretty much been explained. They were clearly a playoff team with him, they were an abysmal, awful, shockingly bad team without. Thats year is not a knock on Oscar's resume in any way. So it comes down to 2 years. 2 years where he's edging out of his prime, one of those with Lucas and the team is .500 and doesn't make it in the stronger conference, and the other one the already somewhat addressed transition year with Cousy.

I'm not sure about "playoff years" as a methodology (arbitrary depending on conference, injuries, teammates play a large role etc) but here it's very superficially done (and wrong in details such as number of years and allegation of "several" missed playoffs with Lucas, which was once when healthy).

[Clyde Frazier]

Interesting stuff from Hubie on when he was an assistant in MIL with oscar and kareem:

Aside from coming up short in the Finals, what stuck with you the most about the years you coached Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson?

I would tell teams the third thing when I would take over a job, I would come in with a list of subject and topics that I would cover, the third thing I would tell them was of being involved with Kareem, who’s going to win his third MVP in four years in the league, and then Oscar, who at that time was the greatest all-around player in the history of the game and was at the end, ‘You will practice hard hard every day. We will run an organized practice session so that you can reach your potential. We as a staff owe it to you to be totally organized on a daily basis, and to give you an advantage every night to win.’ Because I learned that from those two guys. I told them there’s no one in this room who will ever match Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Oscar Robertson. And if you doubt that, just go to the record books and look up what they accomplished.

So I would say to them ‘You will be accountable.’ Because for two years, I never saw a high school or college team practice as hard as the Milwaukee Bucks. And the teaching by Larry Costello opened my eyes to a whole new doctorate’s degree in basketball. Because I say this all the time, when your two best players are coachable and are winners, they demand that you come prepared. And they demand that good game plan. And they demand the scouting. And being with them was enjoyable because each guy in his own way was a genius at his profession. They both knew every play and where all five guys had to be in every one of the sets that we had. And it was eye-opening.

And that loss in Game 7 was so difficult because we both won on the others court. But on the last game of the year in the regular season, we lost our excellent point guard, Lucious Allen, with an ACL. Dave Bing fell across Lucious, and Lucious came down on a uniform that they used to lay out next to the benches in the old days. And he slipped on that thing, and I’ll be dammed Dave landed right across his knee and that hurt us from winning a championship. Because Don Chaney and Jo Jo White pressed us the full time, and our backup point guards couldn’t handle the pressure. And Oscar, at his age, at that time, had to handle the ball in the last two games against that kind of pressure. And when people don’t understand what hand checking is, Don Chaney, at 6-5, had the biggest hands and could put it right on your hip and he could steer you. His hands were that big and that strong. God, you’re bringing back a lot of memories.

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