Same vote as last time.
1. 1977 Bill Walton
Not much needed to be said about this season. I think it's basically equal to peak Russell. Below him defensively but above offensively: I think if I had to pick the second best defensive peak of all time though it would be hard to choose against him here. There was a quarter against the Sixers in the Finals when he took over defensively in a manner comparable to when an offensive player scores 20 in a quarter. Announcers were losing their ****, screaming "the Sixers cannot find a way to score against Bill Walton!!" Unreal awareness on defense, insane rebounder, and one of the top 3 playmaking centers of all time (with Wilt and Jokic). To me his offense is worth more than someone like Alonzo Mourning or most of Patrick Ewing's career outside of his outlier peak. Those guys aren't outlier scorers like Kareem or Shaq, in which case I'd rather have Walton's creation and lower volume than medium volume on not so great efficiency.
2. 2008 Kobe
ardee wrote:Lakers have a 7.4 SRS, 57 wins, no.1 seed.
The standard line-up with everyone healthy was Fisher/Kobe/Radmanovic/Odom/Pau. Pau was only healthy 27 games. Bynum was healthy for 35, and they never played together.
Player by player: Fisher had a good year. 12/23, 44% from the field and 41% from 3. He was still all right on defense. I want you to note his jump in efficiency going from the Jazz to playing with Kobe. This is something that has been seen when many players play with and then without Kobe. He draws so much attention that they see their percentages rank.
Radmanovic was also basically a shooter. He shot 41% from 3, and 44% for the first half of the '09 season. This dipped to 36% when he was traded in the second half, and further to 28 the next season. So elite shooter with Kobe, average to bad without.
Odom was phenomenal that year, no doubts about it, great player all around. The main reason was because we first had Bynum and then Pau to be the second option to Kobe, while Odom was more comfortable as no. 3. His TS% jumped 3.5% from 55 '05-'07, when he was no. 2, to 58.5 in '08, when he was no. 3. In the stretch between Bynum's injury and the Gasol trade when he had to be the no. 2 option again, he shot 42% TS.
Pau was the perfect no. 2 option for Kobe, of course he was, we won 2 titles with him. Remember 2 things though:
1. He played 27 games.
2. As the no. 1 in Memphis, his team was 13-32 before he got traded. They ended up 22-60, so they went from a .280 win pace with him to a .244 win pace without him.
Bynum was also good, however, he wasn't as good as Pau, the numbers spell it out. He played 35 games, and would likely get injured quicker if he
Kobe took this cast to a 7.4 SRS and 57 wins.
I want you to imagine this team with no Kobe.
You'd be starting Fisher/Vujacic/Radmanovic/Odom/27 games of Pau + 35 games of Bynum + 16 games of Turiaf.
The best team would be the one with Pau. Consider, however, like I said, how Pau did on a Memphis team that was poorly built but still had some talent. Their lead scorer was Rudy Gay, who is a flawed player but can at least provide some kind of offense when needed. They had a lights out shooter at the 2 in Mike Miller.
This hypothetical Lakers team built around Pau would have Odom as their second option. Scoring wise, he is worse than Gay for this role. I have already shown he struggles to be consistent in that role. He struggles like that with KOBE as his first option. Pau is a far inferior first option to Kobe and that would put a ton more pressure on Odom. Fisher and Radmanovic can't create, neither can Sasha, and their efficiency dropped heavily when not playing with Kobe.
You can make the argument that this efficiency was due to the triangle partially, and not all Kobe, but the triangle only WORKS when you have an elite perimeter creator like Kobe. So therefore, you can rest assured their efficiency would drop a good bit, if not all the way down to what it was when they didn't play for the Lakers.
So, Pau, inconsistent in the 2nd option role Odom now with the added pressure of playing with a worse no. 1 option than Kobe, and Sasha, Fisher and Radmanovic offering little. I honestly don't see more than .500 in those 27 games and that's being VERY optimstic. In fact, it's more likely to be like 10-11 wins out of 27. The Blazers were a .500 team and they had 2 legit scoring options in Roy and Aldridge surrounded by fitting role players. The Lakers without Kobe are worse then that, even with Pau. Let's call it a push at 12-13 wins in those 27 games.
Bynum's 35 games. Bynum was worse than Pau at everything. He doesn't offer Pau's high-post playmaking. He can still be the main scorer but now Odom has to be the primary creator. More pressure on him. Bynum might get injured from the extra strain. I don't see more than 12-14 wins out of 35. Again, optimstically.
16 games of Turiaf. Odom in the no. 1 role. The team completely falls apart. Maybe 1-2 wins in 16 games.
So essentially, that team in a full season without Kobe wins 25-29 games. They won 57. Kobe was providing roughly ~30 wins of lift.
With this knowledge, it is hard for me to rank Kobe lower than 12 on the all-time peaks. I have Walton at 11, and this is equivalent to the kind of lift we know him to provide.
This was not a good supporting cast. If he had a full season of Pau it would be different, I think the '09 Lakers were great, but 27 games means he was working with a lot less for the rest of the season. It was a good-fitting supporting cast but aside from Pau all the players were supremely dependant on Kobe to do well in their roles.
He took an otherwise lottery team to elite status and put up a historical ORtg for the team when he had Pau.
Through the first 3 rounds of the Playoffs, the Lakers played 3 50 win teams and Kobe averaged 32-6-6 on 60% TS. That is peak Jordan level production against elite opposition. People forget the Jazz were a 7 SRS team and Kobe averaged 33-7-7 against them. People forget he dropped 30 ppg on 53% from the field against the defending champ Spurs while no other star in the series got anything going on that end.
On the weight of the RS and his stunning Playoff performances, Kobe absolutely should not be ranked any lower.
3. 2006 Kobe
Very similar lift to 2008 Kobe. Led a putrid cast to 48 Pythogorean wins, the 7th best SRS and the 8th best ORtg in the league.
For reference, the 2006 Lakers performed as well as the 2019 Nuggets relative to the league and the 2019 Sixers offensively. Look at those rosters and then look at the roster Kobe was surrounded with. Tell me he doesn't deserve this spot.
