Lowest arguable ranking for Kobe?

[dhsilv2]

In 2020 this board ranked Kobe 12th. Here were the next 12 names.

13. Jerry West
14. Oscar Robertson
15. Dirk Nowitzki
16. Karl Malone
17. David Robinson
18. Julius Erving
19. George Mikan
20. Moses Malone
21. Charles Barkley
22. Kevin Durant
23. Chris Paul
24. Stephen Curry

How many of those could you argue are better than Kobe? I'd say West, Robertson, Durant and maybe Moses have arguments. With Curry also possibly having one, especially when it's all said and done. So from that, I guess you could say the lowest arguable spot for him for me is 17. This doesn't factor in other current guys like Giannis who could end up over him eventually. I probably wouldn't personally rank him that low, but just going for lowest arguable, I think that's his floor.

All of them. Though to argue for all of them with the same consistent argument would be difficult. But I as illistrated earlier, if you set a criteria with a heavy focus on stats and peaks vs overall careers. it isn't hard to move him into the mid to late 20's. It just doesn't feel very reasonable to have THAT strong a bias towards peaks.

[jokeboy86]

Players that I have unquestionably above Kobe:

KAJ
MJ
Russell
Chamberlain
Magic
Lebron
Duncan
Shaq
Hakeem
Bird

So no lower than 11. Curry needs at least 1 more ring as the best player to be in the conversation with Kobe and KD needs at least 2 more too because of his time in GS. One player I think you could possibly make a case for being better than Kobe is Moses Malone who imo is criminally slept on.

[Edrees]

There’s absolutely more non Laker fans who think that Duncan was better than Kobe. If you did a poll without Laker fans Duncan would win in a landslide. Putting their resumes next to each other makes it easy. That’s why your arguments against him are reaches, like not winning back to backs and team USA performance.

Maybe 25% (or more) of non-Laker fans hate Kobe and the Laker's though, lol. So let's not pretend there's not a bias.

Duncan's resume may be slightly better but there is an argument for Kobe.

Both have 5 rings as the 1st or 2nd best player on the team, which is very rare/elite company.

I'm not saying that Kobe is tremendously worse than Duncan. In fact on my own list I have Kobe only one spot below Duncan and have them both in my top 10. For Laker fans, I definitely see how Kobe could be ranked higher. He means more to that fanbase than a top 10 ranking will ever be able to quantify. But for non Laker fans, stats and accolades are stats and accolades. Stats could probably be a wash, but Duncan has the same amount of championships, more playoff appearances, more MVP's, and more finals MVP's. Those last two things will always be the tie breaker.

I don't believe you're find any method of looking at stats and coming to a conclusion that Kobe and Duncan are a wash.

Here's a 97-2014 rapm study.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

Clearly missing a few poor Duncan years and has Kobe's but with the sample size a year or two is not moving the needle at all here.

Here's top RAPM numbers, not full careers.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

WS and VORP give Duncan a decided edge in career value. Even their playoff stats tell the same story.

Any argument to move Kobe over Duncan would require significant and fairly great effort to in depth explain how teammates, systems, coaching, and/or roles accounting for the statistical gap both in terms of your traditional box score metrics and the modern advanced ones.

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

[Masigond]

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

A guard accumulating more assists than a C/PF, especially in the era of the 90s to early 2010s. Who would have thought that? Astounding!

[Edrees]

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

A guard accumulating more assists than a C/PF, especially in the era of the 90s to early 2010s. Who would have thought that? Astounding!

I see people comparing Duncans FG% (and other stats related to shooting efficiency) to Kobe's all the time as a contributing reason to placing Duncan higher. If you dont want to count this, you shouldn't count anything related to field goal percentage either, because it's also no shock a big will have better fg% than a guard.

[Masigond]

I see people comparing Duncans FG% (and other stats related to shooting efficiency) to Kobe's all the time as a contributing reason to placing Duncan higher. If you dont want to count this, you shouldn't count anything related to field goal percentage either, because it's also no shock a big will have better fg% than a guard.

So your take is expanding the superficiality of arguments.

Basketball is team sports, and as of yet there is still no team with 5 players playing identical roles. There's no "total Basketball" (you need to know something about Football/Soccer and especially the history of the Dutch strategy of the 70s to understand what I mean with that). That's not the nature of the game. And that's why comparing different aspects of the game is rather nonsensical in the comparison between players of different positions in the game, especially when one of them is a ball-controlling guard (and you might consider that Kobe had the most success with his teams when the TPO lead to more distribution...) and the other is a big man and when the nature of the game is that there are 5 players on a team so that one doesn't need to do everything by himself.

[Roger Murdock]

One thing about these threads....

Its very easy to rank George Mikan above just about anyone. How many players were the 'clear cut best of their generation'

Mikan - 50s
Kareem - 70s
Jordan - 90s
LeBron - 10's

Thats basically it. Those are the only ones to stand head and shoulders above everyone else during their prime. Any weak competition, lacking skill arguments you can use to kill Russell, Wilt, Baylor, West, Cousey, Pettit with as well.

Mikan from a historical context is an absolute giant and powerhouse and if someone wants to rank him top5 you can do it using basically the exact same argument you are using with the other guys in that top 5 list.

[dhsilv2]

I'm not saying that Kobe is tremendously worse than Duncan. In fact on my own list I have Kobe only one spot below Duncan and have them both in my top 10. For Laker fans, I definitely see how Kobe could be ranked higher. He means more to that fanbase than a top 10 ranking will ever be able to quantify. But for non Laker fans, stats and accolades are stats and accolades. Stats could probably be a wash, but Duncan has the same amount of championships, more playoff appearances, more MVP's, and more finals MVP's. Those last two things will always be the tie breaker.

I don't believe you're find any method of looking at stats and coming to a conclusion that Kobe and Duncan are a wash.

Here's a 97-2014 rapm study.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

Clearly missing a few poor Duncan years and has Kobe's but with the sample size a year or two is not moving the needle at all here.

Here's top RAPM numbers, not full careers.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

WS and VORP give Duncan a decided edge in career value. Even their playoff stats tell the same story.

Any argument to move Kobe over Duncan would require significant and fairly great effort to in depth explain how teammates, systems, coaching, and/or roles accounting for the statistical gap both in terms of your traditional box score metrics and the modern advanced ones.

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

As I covered the career value (longevity) stats which are box score based overwhelmingly favor Duncan. And no WS and VORP are not efficiency stats. They are designed to assess through the box score the players contribution to his team's winning as measured by box score metrics. Nobody has ever put focus on raw career totals in the NBA and nobody ever will. They're nice little side notes, but by no means will you see them used to measure who was better. They more importantly are NOT a longevity stat. They *can* be gotten through just playing forever, but at that point they're meaningless. The measure of longevity is a question of meaningful QUALITY seasons that contribute to team success.

Case and point Duncan has 19 years of a WS of 5 or greater. Kobe has 16. In terms of quality seasons Duncan had more, by any statistical measure.

Statistically, the longevity topic is unquestionably Duncan.

[nikster]

I'm not saying that Kobe is tremendously worse than Duncan. In fact on my own list I have Kobe only one spot below Duncan and have them both in my top 10. For Laker fans, I definitely see how Kobe could be ranked higher. He means more to that fanbase than a top 10 ranking will ever be able to quantify. But for non Laker fans, stats and accolades are stats and accolades. Stats could probably be a wash, but Duncan has the same amount of championships, more playoff appearances, more MVP's, and more finals MVP's. Those last two things will always be the tie breaker.

I don't believe you're find any method of looking at stats and coming to a conclusion that Kobe and Duncan are a wash.

Here's a 97-2014 rapm study.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

Clearly missing a few poor Duncan years and has Kobe's but with the sample size a year or two is not moving the needle at all here.

Here's top RAPM numbers, not full careers.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

WS and VORP give Duncan a decided edge in career value. Even their playoff stats tell the same story.

Any argument to move Kobe over Duncan would require significant and fairly great effort to in depth explain how teammates, systems, coaching, and/or roles accounting for the statistical gap both in terms of your traditional box score metrics and the modern advanced ones.

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

You mention rebounds and steals are positional stats, but what about blocks? Duncan has 2300+ blocks. Kobe is a guard, he has the ball in his hands more, he will get more assists. Longevity is more than just counting stats. Duncan had elite impact leading a team to a title at 37 with poor counting stats. Kobe at 36 had impressive counting stats but poor impact. Which season should we value more when it comes to longevity?

[CLosP]

I don't believe you're find any method of looking at stats and coming to a conclusion that Kobe and Duncan are a wash.

Here's a 97-2014 rapm study.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

Clearly missing a few poor Duncan years and has Kobe's but with the sample size a year or two is not moving the needle at all here.

Here's top RAPM numbers, not full careers.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

WS and VORP give Duncan a decided edge in career value. Even their playoff stats tell the same story.

Any argument to move Kobe over Duncan would require significant and fairly great effort to in depth explain how teammates, systems, coaching, and/or roles accounting for the statistical gap both in terms of your traditional box score metrics and the modern advanced ones.

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

You mention rebounds and steals are positional stats, but what about blocks? Duncan has 2300+ blocks. Kobe is a guard, he has the ball in his hands more, he will get more assists. Longevity is more than just counting stats. Duncan had elite impact leading a team to a title at 37 with poor counting stats. Kobe at 36 had impressive counting stats but poor impact. Which season should we value more when it comes to longevity?

Obviously Duncan if you completely ignore how awful Kobe’s team was which you are clearly doing lol.

[dhsilv2]

I don't believe you're find any method of looking at stats and coming to a conclusion that Kobe and Duncan are a wash.

Here's a 97-2014 rapm study.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

Clearly missing a few poor Duncan years and has Kobe's but with the sample size a year or two is not moving the needle at all here.

Here's top RAPM numbers, not full careers.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

WS and VORP give Duncan a decided edge in career value. Even their playoff stats tell the same story.

Any argument to move Kobe over Duncan would require significant and fairly great effort to in depth explain how teammates, systems, coaching, and/or roles accounting for the statistical gap both in terms of your traditional box score metrics and the modern advanced ones.

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

You mention rebounds and steals are positional stats, but what about blocks? Duncan has 2300+ blocks. Kobe is a guard, he has the ball in his hands more, he will get more assists. Longevity is more than just counting stats. Duncan had elite impact leading a team to a title at 37 with poor counting stats. Kobe at 36 had impressive counting stats but poor impact. Which season should we value more when it comes to longevity?

Agree with you completely. But we're getting into objectivity a bit when we have stats.

Simple WS and VORP which only look at their box score numbers and they are like, NOPE...Duncan was way better. I mean how do you as a fan look at player A took x shots x turnovers x fouls x rebounds...and so on...it's impossible. That's why we have tools for that.

[hoosierdaddy34]

This one is interesting because Kobe wasnt the best shooter and wasnt the best clutch player... And his rings can be argued that Shaq and Pau carried him. When Shaq left Kobe didnt even make the playoffs til they got Pau. Will be interesting to see where people rank him.

*quoting before the edit*

Pau only joined the lakers in 2008. Kobe led the lakers with smush parker and kwame brown to the playoffs in 2006 and 2007.... took your suns 7 games to defeat them in 2006

I was just going off the top of my head so they missed the playoffs once when shaq left and were first round exits until pau... W.e same thing... The argument can still be made that Shaq and Pau carried.

Not in any sort way that’s bound in reality.

[hoosierdaddy34]

No, the argument would include longevity, and it's not that hard to bring up a ton of stats that favor Kobe in that department. You didn't include any longevity stats, like career points, career assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc. Did you know Kobe has 2000+ more career assists than Tim Duncan? Kobe's 4th all time in points at 33,000, where Duncan is 15th at 26,000, which is not even close. Duncan has a big lead in rebounds, which is countered by Kobe in steals - makes sense for their respective positions, so those two are kind of a wash. But I think the assists tells a HUGE part of the picture that Kobe accomplished a lot more in running an offense and making plays for others, his entire career, a lot more than Duncan did overall.

The idea is that while Duncan had a better peak, Kobe's longevity makes it a close contest between the two. It's reasonable to ague that if you think longevity is just as important to peak, that Kobe should rank higher. It's the same reason most rank Duncan is over Shaq, for example. Because they aren't just looking at 3-5 years. They are looking at entire careers. WS and VORP are efficiency based career numbers, yes, but they don't account for total career acccomplishments in stats, which very much do matter if we're talking all time greats.

A guard accumulating more assists than a C/PF, especially in the era of the 90s to early 2010s. Who would have thought that? Astounding!

I see people comparing Duncans FG% (and other stats related to shooting efficiency) to Kobe's all the time as a contributing reason to placing Duncan higher. If you dont want to count this, you shouldn't count anything related to field goal percentage either, because it's also no shock a big will have better fg% than a guard.

They are using FG% because of its narrow scope that favors Duncan.

Career true shooting, which is a far more complete statistic in terms of scoring efficiency…

Kobe 55.0%
Duncan 55.1%

But they got to protect their Duncan anyway possible…

[theforumblue]

in a very strange way this thread is one of the least anti-kobe thread i've seen on here.

[Nazrmohamed]

One thing often not mentioned when speaking of Kobe, especially when comparing him to Jordan or Lebron is that Kobe won all his titles in the toughest conference in the NBA. The East was weak during Lebrons entire career out there and now the West is weaker. The East was weak in the 90s and I know people dispute that but the Bulls made up 90% of that reason anybody would feel that way. They won the title every yr, they were in the East so therefore the East is strong. But you take them away and he faced the Knicks and maybe the Pacers then a bunch of mediocre teams.

Kobe went through a crucible every single yr before even getting to the finals.

The argument against Kobe was that for his 1st 3 titles he wasn't even the beat player on his team.....and I'm not talking about the Pau argument. I mean the whole season, he was the beta player under Shaq.

[SonicMcMahon]

^ speaking of all time overrated things - Kobe's defense. Yeah he was amazing in like 2001 - 2004 but after that he skated on reputation.

Worst awards in history - Crash Best Picture, a bad Bob Dylan album winning Record of the year over OK Computer, and like 9 of Kobes all defense awards

Just came to rep Crash as the worst Best Picture ever.

Yep.

[Lala870]

One thing often not mentioned when speaking of Kobe, especially when comparing him to Jordan or Lebron is that Kobe won all his titles in the toughest conference in the NBA.

Kobe went through a crucible every single yr before even getting to the finals.

You could probably throw a * on almost every season they advanced. During the threepeat years there was always serious allegations of officiating corruption in favor of LA that was basically validated by David stern. Fast forward to 08/09 and LA hardly beat anyone in convincing fashion...Houston didn't have Yao and there were reports Chauncey Billups playing injured as was Melo.in 2010 they beat...who? Like Utah and Phoenix...wow big deal

And once again yes...Kobe played with 2 HOF bigs in their prime...possibly even 2 1/2 given how impactful Bynum was when healthy.

Given how much KoME cried for attention and held the league ransom with his "Mamba mentality" marketing nonsense his career is hardly remarkable outside of being more of an "icon" than a player.

[dhsilv2]

One thing often not mentioned when speaking of Kobe, especially when comparing him to Jordan or Lebron is that Kobe won all his titles in the toughest conference in the NBA. The East was weak during Lebrons entire career out there and now the West is weaker. The East was weak in the 90s and I know people dispute that but the Bulls made up 90% of that reason anybody would feel that way. They won the title every yr, they were in the East so therefore the East is strong. But you take them away and he faced the Knicks and maybe the Pacers then a bunch of mediocre teams.

Kobe went through a crucible every single yr before even getting to the finals.

The argument against Kobe was that for his 1st 3 titles he wasn't even the beat player on his team.....and I'm not talking about the Pau argument. I mean the whole season, he was the beta player under Shaq.

The goal here is to create the LOWEST POSSIBLE ranking for kobe that you can defend! This isn't that. You have to try and move kobe down, that's the ENTIRE POINT of this thread! If you're trying to move him, up, you've missed the point.

[yellowknifer]

...anyway, moving past the blatant trolling that is somehow permitted when it comes to Kobe, the answer to the OP would be around 15th. I'd say the reasonable spectrum for Kobe to be ranked would be 7th-15th. Anything higher or lower seems egregious.

Just because u dont like something doesn't equal trolling. You know this is a discussion when it comes to Kobe.

There is no discussion or argument that "Pau carried Kobe". It's like saying Pippen carried Jordan, or Manu carried Duncan, or Kyrie carried Bron. It's lazy trolling to get a rise out of people because you're bored. Just because YOU don't like someone doesn't mean you have to make ridiculous claims to downplay their accomplishments.

It's not quite that egregious a position but it's definitely incorrect. I will say I think the Celts/Lakers finals you could argue Gasol deserved MVP. They don't win without either guy.

Same goes for with Shaq. Without Kobe he wins nothing. Kobe was huge in those games. He was the best player many times. It was peak Kobe. Imo.

[Kingsway_fan]

...anyway, moving past the blatant trolling that is somehow permitted when it comes to Kobe, the answer to the OP would be around 15th. I'd say the reasonable spectrum for Kobe to be ranked would be 7th-15th. Anything higher or lower seems egregious.

Sounds about right....