Top 10 Seasons - Kobe vs Durant

[s0ciety]

How would you rank the 10 best seasons between those guys?
Weight-in post-season as you wish.

[DWhiteMamba]

Durant has the best ones, and probably most of the top 10 list is KD's seasons. He is just a better player than Kobe on both ends. Just not much to discuss here, except which Durant seasons are the best ones, and just how many KD seasons we have to go through on the list before Kobe gets a season in.

[70sFan]

Durant has the best ones, and probably most of the top 10 list is KD's seasons. He is just a better player than Kobe on both ends. Just not much to discuss here, except which Durant seasons are the best ones, and just how many KD seasons we have to go through on the list before Kobe gets a season in.

You show a lot of your opinions here like they are facts impossible to deny. It's not that uncommon, but in your case most of these opinions are not shared by significant part of PC board. In this case, it'd be nice to write a bit more than just "I'm right and it's clear".

Kobe has a lot of arguments over Durant. He's significantly better creator, ball-handler and passer. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that he's better offensive player overall.

Even if you're that high on Durant's defense that you put him significantly ahead of Kobe on this side of the court, Durant had very few seasons where he actually cared about defense.

On top of that, Durant lost three full seasons due to injury. Does it mean that I have Kobe higher? I'm not sure, I'm not that high on either. I don't like Kobe's shot selection and weak off-ball defense. I'm negative of Durant's ball-handing, tunnel vision in ISOs and lack of physicality on defense. I just don't agree that Durant gets most of the best seasons between them. Durant best seasons in order are probably:

2017
2014
2016
2018
2013
2012
2019

I don't see any reason to believe that this top 7 is significantly better than Kobe's:

2008
2009
2001
2006
2003
2007
2010

It's definitely a good comparison worthy this thread. That's why I find the bolded part simply wrong in terms of your approach.

[Blazers-1977]

1. Kobe 2006
2. Kobe 2008
3. Durant 2014
4. Durant 2017
5. Durant 2016
6. Kobe 2007
7. Kobe 2003
8. Durant 2018
9. Kobe 2009
10. Kobe 2001

[No-more-rings]

Durant has the best ones, and probably most of the top 10 list is KD's seasons. He is just a better player than Kobe on both ends. Just not much to discuss here, except which Durant seasons are the best ones, and just how many KD seasons we have to go through on the list before Kobe gets a season in.

As already mentioned you aren’t going to get a lot of agreement that KD is easily better and there’s no further discussion needed, in fact i sort of doubt the majority even picks KD for peak and certainly not careers. I think if you wanted to claim that KD has a higher ceiling as to what he can do in a random game or series, I’d probably agree with that but the reality with Durant is he never really put it all together in one season unless you take some of his Golden State runs at face value. What i mean by that is his best regular seasons and best playoff runs rarely coincided. He looked immortal in some of his Golden State runs, but he had goat spacing next to him and he’s had constant injuries ever since his first year there.

[sansterre]

I feel like Durant's 2017 and 2018 are probably better than anything Kobe had.

But 2019 had him injured for the Finals, and peak Kobe was better than OKC Durant in the playoffs. 2021 was good for Durant, but still with some injury concerns.

I'd cautiously do something like:

2017-2018 Durant
2008-10 Kobe
2021 Durant
everything else in some order

[falcolombardi]

i really dont know how to evaluate warriors durant

there is no more perfect situation for his style than that along with overwhelming talent around him, that team literally would have made the finals without him at least in 2017, and the conference finals in 2018

okc with durant managed to have absolutely elite offense too with less talent and a lot less spacing even if dursnt own efficiency was worse

while warriors improved durant numbers i doubt it improved his impact

[DWhiteMamba]

Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another. It's a ridiculous way of analysing players. Earl Boykins has more offensive skills than Shaq; he is a better dribbler, shooter, passer, FT shooter, etc. He's a worse offensive player by far though. Who cares how many skills he is better than Shaq in? It's irrelevant to their impact. I don't really care that Kobe was better at dribbling, etc, than Durant. He's still a worse offensive player than him. The stats all bear that out. On D he obviously is far superior.

I also find these injury comparisons a bit silly to be honest. In 2019 KD played 78 regular season games healthy, then another 11 playoff game before he got hurt, for a total of 89 healthy games that season. Am I supposed to rank Kobe's 2006 season as more durable, as someone above suggested, when he only played 87 healthy games that season? Kobe could have had a random injury in game 89 too. When you are playing more games that's enough for me to say it's basically irrelevant and is a random variable. You want to penalise KD for the season he played 27 games, or missed the season, that's obviously fine. You want to scratch off a season where he played more games than the guy you're comparing him to? Not fine.

The top entries on this list are all KD, and the majority of entries are too. KD last season, and from 2016-19, was at a level Kobe never was, and frankly 2010-2014 KD it's much the same. I dunno how much I'm going to penalise KD for his lack of games last season, given what a weird year it was, and how much of it was by design, I guess it hurts him a fair bit. For the most part though KD has been a superior player to what Kobe was for a long time now. Once he retires there's unlikely to be much of a pro-Kobe argument left.

[falcolombardi]

Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another. It's a ridiculous way of analysing players. Earl Boykins has more offensive skills than Shaq; he is a better dribbler, shooter, passer, FT shooter, etc. He's a worse offensive player by far though. Who cares how many skills he is better than Shaq in? It's irrelevant to their impact. I don't really care that Kobe was better at dribbling, etc, than Durant. He's still a worse offensive player than him. The stats all bear that out. On D he obviously is far superior.

I also find these injury comparisons a bit silly to be honest. In 2019 KD played 78 regular season games healthy, then another 11 playoff game before he got hurt, for a total of 89 healthy games that season. Am I supposed to rank Kobe's 2006 season as more durable, as someone above suggested, when he only played 87 healthy games that season? Kobe could have had a random injury in game 89 too. When you are playing more games that's enough for me to say it's basically irrelevant and is a random variable. You want to penalise KD for the season he played 27 games, or missed the season, that's obviously fine. You want to scratch off a season where he played more games than the guy you're comparing him to? Not fine.

The top entries on this list are all KD, and the majority of entries are too. KD last season, and from 2016-19, was at a level Kobe never was, and frankly 2010-2014 KD it's much the same. I dunno how much I'm going to penalise KD for his lack of games last season, given what a weird year it was, and how much of it was by design, I guess it hurts him a fair bit. For the most part though KD has been a superior player to what Kobe was for a long time now. Once he retires there's unlikely to be much of a pro-Kobe argument left.

dursnt is much more efficient

but him having the clearly better defense, advanced stats or stats in general besides efficiency is more questionable

[DWhiteMamba]

There are things a "6-10" superfreak with ridiculously long arms like KD can do on D that Kobe never could. To objective fans Kobe's defense had been falling badly after the early 00s, and many of his late all-defensive team selections were an outright joke that highlighted how horrible defensive voting around that period was. They should rename the DPOY trophy after Tim Duncan as an apology for never naming him defensive player of the year, when he was arguably the most impactful defensive player in the post merger era. There are whole videos devoted to how bad Kobe's defense often was, and he played most of his career in an era where so much less was required of him defensively. KD meanwhile can switch to the 5 spot comfortably and switch on bigger guys. The defense is a bigger gap than the offense. If this was about naming the top 10 seasons defensively Kobe wouldn't have a single 1 probably(or if he does it's because of KD not being healthy enough for some seasons).

[70sFan]

Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another. It's a ridiculous way of analysing players. Earl Boykins has more offensive skills than Shaq; he is a better dribbler, shooter, passer, FT shooter, etc. He's a worse offensive player by far though. Who cares how many skills he is better than Shaq in? It's irrelevant to their impact. I don't really care that Kobe was better at dribbling, etc, than Durant. He's still a worse offensive player than him. The stats all bear that out. On D he obviously is far superior.

I also find these injury comparisons a bit silly to be honest. In 2019 KD played 78 regular season games healthy, then another 11 playoff game before he got hurt, for a total of 89 healthy games that season. Am I supposed to rank Kobe's 2006 season as more durable, as someone above suggested, when he only played 87 healthy games that season? Kobe could have had a random injury in game 89 too. When you are playing more games that's enough for me to say it's basically irrelevant and is a random variable. You want to penalise KD for the season he played 27 games, or missed the season, that's obviously fine. You want to scratch off a season where he played more games than the guy you're comparing him to? Not fine.

The top entries on this list are all KD, and the majority of entries are too. KD last season, and from 2016-19, was at a level Kobe never was, and frankly 2010-2014 KD it's much the same. I dunno how much I'm going to penalise KD for his lack of games last season, given what a weird year it was, and how much of it was by design, I guess it hurts him a fair bit. For the most part though KD has been a superior player to what Kobe was for a long time now. Once he retires there's unlikely to be much of a pro-Kobe argument left.

If Durant is so much better, prove it statistically.

[Jaivl]

There are things a "6-10" superfreak with ridiculously long arms like KD can do on D that Kobe never could.

Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another.

[DWhiteMamba]

There are things a "6-10" superfreak with ridiculously long arms like KD can do on D that Kobe never could.

Alot of people have the habit of adding up different "skills" and then trying to explain how this greater number of "skills" means one guy is better than another.

Physical gifts are not a skill, they are a fundamental aspect of your talent. 2 guys can be equals at defensive moves and intellect, but if one is 6-6 and the other is 6-10 with super long arms the latter guys will have more impact, same as if a 6-0 guy had all the skills of Tim Duncan. He wouldn't be Tim Duncan, because he's 6-0 tall.

[DWhiteMamba]

If Durant is so much better, prove it statistically.

I didn't think something so obvious was contentious. In the last 7 seasons Durant has averaged at least 27 points per 36. Kobe has done that exactly twice in his career (we'll get to that in a sec). During those 7 seasons Durant's TS% ranged from 634. to 666. Kobe's highest ever TS% is 580. That's a huge difference. So how about the 2 stand out years? In one Kobe was at 27.9 per 36 in 2007, and 31.1 in 2006. How did he post these higher than usual KD numbers? By having a ridiculously high usage, and scoring far less efficiently than KD. His usage in these years was 33.6% in 2007 and a preposterous 38.7 in 2006. KD has never had a usage rate that high. Kobe's offence is also worse those years. His TS%, while high for Kobe, is low for KD and clocks in at 559. and 580.

So right off the bat it's obvious KD is the better offensive player. He scores as much or more per 36, doing it much more efficiently, and does it without needing the ball as much as Kobe, which helps everyone else in the offense. KD is better at 3s, also important, and is harder to stop because of his size and higher release point. Kobe has had tonnes of bad series, but KD can't be stopped or slowed down in the same way Kobe was so many in bad playoff series.

Then on D it's no contest at all.

[70sFan]

If Durant is so much better, prove it statistically.

I didn't think something so obvious was contentious. In the last 7 seasons Durant has averaged at least 27 points per 36. Kobe has done that exactly twice in his career (we'll get to that in a sec). During those 7 seasons Durant's TS% ranged from 634. to 666. Kobe's highest ever TS% is 580. That's a huge difference. So how about the 2 stand out years? In one Kobe was at 27.9 per 36 in 2007, and 31.1 in 2006. How did he post these higher than usual KD numbers? By having a ridiculously high usage, and scoring far less efficiently than KD. His usage in these years was 33.6% in 2007 and a preposterous 38.7 in 2006. KD has never had a usage rate that high. Kobe's offence is also worse those years. His TS%, while high for Kobe, is low for KD and clocks in at 559. and 580.

So right off the bat it's obvious KD is the better offensive player. He scores as much or more per 36, doing it much more efficiently, and does it without needing the ball as much as Kobe, which helps everyone else in the offense. KD is better at 3s, also important, and is harder to stop because of his size and higher release point. Kobe has had tonnes of bad series, but KD can't be stopped or slowed down in the same way Kobe was so many in bad playoff series.

Then on D it's no contest at all.

So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

[DWhiteMamba]

So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

[70sFan]

So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

I'm not the one who brings up very strong opinion in authoritative manner, states it as a fact and shows extremely weak arguments when asked. Extraorodinary claims need at lest very solid evidences, it's not on me.

I didn't say even once that I have Kobe over Durant offensively. I honestly don't know who was better. There are very close when you look at them from various perspective, that's why I wanted you to show the reasons to believe that KD is significantly better and it's not close. You showed a bunch of scoring stats taken from basketball reference. Anyone can do that. It's not an analysis.

By the same criteria, you'd put Durant significantly ahead of Larry Bird, which would be at least controversial (and just wrong in my opinion). By the same criteria, you should have Adrian Dantley higher than Kobe as well. I'd be very glad if you do - I love Dantley - but it would be wrong.

Do you have Adrian Dantley inside top 15 as well? He was arguably a better scorer than Durant.

[No-more-rings]

So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

I'm actually more interested in your evidence for why KD is a "much better" defensive player. I know you mentioned his size and ability to switch. The first doesn't necessarily mean anything in a vacuum, KD is much taller than Jason Kidd, but i wouldn't consider him a better defender for example. The latter you mentioned doesn't hold a ton of water imo, KD definitely can't adequately defend true big men with any regularity, and he's going to generally get roasted against quick point guards. I find the claim that KD has around 9 seasons better on defense than Kobe, to be extremely bold and bordering on ridiculous.

KD was actually a pretty weak defender early on in his prime, it wasn't really until like 2013 where he at least became average, and aside from maybe 2016 and 2017 i don't think he resembled anything like an all nba type of defender. For one example, i know his team was significantly better on defense with him off the floor in 2018 going by those metrics that was an 06 Kobe level of defensive effort. Idk, frankly i don't see much difference between them defensively, KD may have peaked higher but his season to season effort and impact wasn't any greater than Kobe's imo. You seem to be subscribing to this narrative than KD was this all time great wing defender comparable to the likes of Pippen and Lebron and i don't think anyone else would really buy that. It's just not asserted in reality.

Defense probably isn't worth discussing much between them though, they had the vast majority of their impact coming from offense. I might do a bit more research on this later, to see if there's any clear separation in offensive impact metrics because i generally assumed them to be around the same level. When i say impact metrics i mean things like ORAPM and the likes, not things like OBPM or ts% those don't interest me as much.

[DWhiteMamba]

So far you only showed that Durant is more efficient scorer and scored more per minute. If that's where your argument ends, then you should realize that this board requires a bit more than that.

There's something ironic about someone telling me I need more facts getting presented with them, then relying that more is required, when you have in fact presented zero arguments yourself.

I humored you by elaborating, feel free to do everyone else here the same courtesy. Do tell us how Kobe was somehow a better offensive player. Should be interesting.

I'm not the one who brings up very strong opinion in authoritative manner, states it as a fact and shows extremely weak arguments when asked. Extraorodinary claims need at lest very solid evidences, it's not on me.

I didn't say even once that I have Kobe over Durant offensively. I honestly don't know who was better. There are very close when you look at them from various perspective, that's why I wanted you to show the reasons to believe that KD is significantly better and it's not close. You showed a bunch of scoring stats taken from basketball reference. Anyone can do that. It's not an analysis.

By the same criteria, you'd put Durant significantly ahead of Larry Bird, which would be at least controversial (and just wrong in my opinion). By the same criteria, you should have Adrian Dantley higher than Kobe as well. I'd be very glad if you do - I love Dantley - but it would be wrong.

Do you have Adrian Dantley inside top 15 as well? He was arguably a better scorer than Durant.

You have not showed us any reasons KD is not significantly better, not one. None appear apparent. The stats prima facie confirm what the objective eye tells us; KD was far more impactful offensively. Nor do I see some logical reason Kobe was better. Ok, he can dribble better I guess, but KD can dribble fine and it doesn't hurt his game because his unblockable release point means he can almost always get the separation he needs to get his shot. It would be like saying Al Jefferson is better than Shaq, because Al has more post moves. Ok, maybe he does, but so what? Shaq doesn't need them, his raw talent is simply too undeniable. Kobe likes to take tough shots, but so does KD; and he hits them at a better rate. It's not like the playoff numbers here would do Kobe any favours. Kobe's saving grace, that the degree of difficult of his shots which prevents scheming against him as well, goes double for KD.

As a pure scorer KD is more effective than Bird. Where you can push back a little is that Bird was a savant who can impact your whole offense with his passing and bball IQ in a way Kobe and KD can not, and alot of the critiques that rank Bird highly (including from Ben Taylor) focus on this. Also I'm not sure why this is such a blow against my argument; I literally said in the other Kobe thread that I felt Bird was dropping out of the top 10 these days. Bird also has the advantage in this comparison of playing in a time when he skills were not optimally used. In today's league the rules and 3pt focus would help Bird alot.

Dantley was more a more efficient scorer than Kobe... at the type of shots he took, which were much more limited and did not include 3s, and were not conducive to a great offense. On other hand Kobe's offensive skills were often not utilised in a way to optimise an offense. Watching Kobe gun it with his selfish shot jacking in the 2004 finals for instance does little to inspire confidence in the consistent benefit of his offensive skills. It wasn't always like that of course, but in terms of scoring 2 point shots Dantley and Kobe are closer than you might think in terms of ability. However, Dantley doesn't pass as well as either, doesn't involve the whole team in the offense, doesn't hit the same degree of difficulty shots that make his scoring harder for a good defensive team to take away, and his offensive efficiency is skill worse than KD. Dantley would also translate less well to today's game, and isn't a good defensive player (though I think he is unfairly maligned for the Pistons coming up short, they'd have won the title with health in his last year regardless, and won the next 2 years with him over Aguirre).

Kobe wasn't a consistently good defensive players after the early 00s. He basically stopped trying consistently, and by the 10s it was a joke that he kept making defensive teams while putting in horrid effort. KD in his early career could have worked on D too, he wasn't always consistent, but what he can and always could do is so much more impactful, especially if utilised correctly as it often was not. Kobe's D can only do so much no matter how you utilise it.

[70sFan]

You have not showed us any reasons KD is not significantly better, not one. None appear apparent.

Again - that's not my purpose here. If you feel that KD is significantly better and it's not represented by big part of the board, then it's on you to prove it. Why should I give reasons for ranking Durant close to Kobe? Don't change the order, it's on you to prove your opinion - not on me to prove it wrong.

The stats prima facie confirm what the objective eye tells us; KD was far more impactful offensively. Nor do I see some logical reason Kobe was better. Ok, he can dribble better I guess, but KD can dribble fine and it doesn't hurt his game because his unblockable release point means he can almost always get the separation he needs to get his shot.

1. What stats comfirms that KD is "far more impactful offensively"? So far you only showed scoring efficiency as a proof. Let's take a look at more reasonable arguments, shall we?

At first, let's look at on/off offensive numbers for each (RS):

2012 Durant: +2.8
2013 Durant: +8.8
2014 Durant: +8.9
2015 Durant: +4.2
2016 Durant: +9.4
2017 Durant: +9.0
2018 Durant: +8.1
2019 Durant: +13.8
2021 Durant: +8.2

2001 Kobe: +5.5
2002 Kobe: +6.9
2003 Kobe: +9.1
2004 Kobe: +6.7
2005 Kobe: +4.7
2006 Kobe: +18.9
2007 Kobe: +5.0
2008 Kobe: +6.2
2009 Kobe: +12.6
2010 Kobe: +8.9

Don't see a clear edge for Durant here. Raw on/off stats are not very informative though, I don't have the access to updated RAPM dataset unfortunately, somebody can share it there (I'd highly appreciate that!). I can post scaled version of APM from backpicks though:

Durant's 5 best seasons: 6.3, 4.9, 4.4, 4.2, 4.0
Bryant's 5 best seasons: 5.8, 5.5, 5.2, 5.1, 5.1

Maybe something more boxscore-oriented?

Durant's 5 best backpicks OBPM: 5.6, 5.1, 5.0, 4.6, 3.9
Bryant's 5 best backpicks OBPM: 4.5, 4.4, 4.3, 4.3, 4.0

So yeah, Durant is more liked by boxscore stats, but it doesn't look like Durant is liked more by impact metrics.

About ball-handling - the difference in their passing and playmaking ability is arguably bigger than in their scoring. Look at these stats:

Durant's 5 best Passing Rating values: 6.7, 6.3, 6.2, 6.2, 5.6
Kobe's 5 best Box Creation values: 7.3, 6.7, 6.6, 6.6, 6.5

The gap gets bigger in playoffs:

Durant's 5 best Passing Rating values in playoffs: 6.6, 6.6, 5.9, 5.2, 5.2
Kobe's 5 best Box Creation values in playoffs: 7.5, 7.1, 6.9, 6.8, 6.5

Durant's ball-handling deficities definitely limit him as a creator, it's not only about creating his own shots. That's why he had a lot of postseason runs when he averaged almost as many turnovers as assists.

Durant didn't anchor better offenses than Kobe. He doesn't look clearly better by impact metrics. He's a more efficient scorer but clearly weaker in terms of passing and playmaking. I don't see any reason to look at Durant in entirely different tier offensively than Kobe. There are arguments on both sides, you simply don't see them.

It would be like saying Al Jefferson is better than Shaq, because Al has more post moves. Ok, maybe he does, but so what? Shaq doesn't need them, his raw talent is simply too undeniable.

This analogy is horrible, because I'm not talking about the number of moves. Kobe was better, more effective playmaker - it's not just a preference of style, it's clear and quantible advantage over Durant. Is it big enough to overcome Durant's efficiency? I don't know, but it's interesting question.

As a pure scorer KD is more effective than Bird. Where you can push back a little is that Bird was a savant who can impact your whole offense with his passing and bball IQ in a way Kobe and KD can not, and alot of the critiques that rank Bird highly (including from Ben Taylor) focus on this. Also I'm not sure why this is such a blow against my argument; I literally said in the other Kobe thread that I felt Bird was dropping out of the top 10 these days. Bird also has the advantage in this comparison of playing in a time when he skills were not optimally used. In today's league the rules and 3pt focus would help Bird alot.

In your previous post, only scoring rate and efficiency mattered. Now you somehow decided to aply the context for these numbers, but you didn't for Kobe.

Yes, Kobe wasn't as good passer as Bird, but he was still significantly better than Durant in this aspect. Again, it's not a small part of the game.

Dantley was more a more efficient scorer than Kobe... at the type of shots he took, which were much more limited and did not include 3s, and were not conducive to a great offense.

Again, you start to apply context only when you want to.

Dantley was more efficient scorer than Durant as well. His type of shots (inside points and isolations) are the things that modern offenses are built around. There was nothing wrong with Dantley's shot selection and it wasn't nearly as limited as you believe.

On other hand Kobe's offensive skills were often not utilised in a way to optimise an offense. Watching Kobe gun it with his selfish shot jacking in the 2004 finals for instance does little to inspire confidence in the consistent benefit of his offensive skills. It wasn't always like that of course, but in terms of scoring 2 point shots Dantley and Kobe are closer than you might think in terms of ability.

No, Dantley was simply far better at creating easy shots for himself than Kobe. He was also much better at drawing fouls, which helps efficiency a lot.

However, Dantley doesn't pass as well as either, doesn't involve the whole team in the offense,

Neither does Durant.

and his offensive efficiency is skill worse than KD

No, it's not.

Dantley would also translate less well to today's game, and isn't a good defensive player (though I think he is unfairly maligned for the Pistons coming up short, they'd have won the title with health in his last year regardless, and won the next 2 years with him over Aguirre).

Who cares about translating today? We're talking about Dantley as he was, not some kind of imaginary version of Dantley playing in 2021.

Kobe wasn't a consistently good defensive players after the early 00s. He basically stopped trying consistently, and by the 10s it was a joke that he kept making defensive teams while putting in horrid effort. KD in his early career could have worked on D too, he wasn't always consistent, but what he can and always could do is so much more impactful, especially if utilised correctly as it often was not. Kobe's D can only do so much no matter how you utilise it.

I've yet to see a convincing argument showing that Durant is so much superior defensively. He's nothing special on that end in historical sense and although Kobe is overrated as well, there is no massive space between them here.