2008: CP3 vs KG vs Kobe vs Lebron

[ardee]

Kobe
CP3
LeBron
-gap-
KG

Kobe's lift was utterly ridiculous that year. He had 35 games of Bynum and 27 games of Pau, managed to lead that team to a 7.4 SRS and the 1 seed. Without him that's a 25 win team tops.

Then he goes and averages peak MJ numbers and murders three 50 win teams in a row to win the Western Conference.

Ranking someone like KG (whose team was already elite without him, 6.3 SRS in the games he missed) anywhere near him is quite frankly a joke and shows the unending bias of so many posters on this board who have hated Kobe for frankly decades at this point.

Dude you have no right to call people biased. You attempted to sabotage an entire project just so your beloved Kobe Bryant could be ahead of Kevin Garnett.

The fact that you think people here are biased and you are calling people Kobe Haters when your hatred towards KG bleeds through every single post you makes really makes you a **** part of this forum considering how blinded and unaware you are. Get some self-awareness before you call people haters and biased. You are the cream of the crop of biased perspectives--always have been and always will be the pinnacle of pitiful posting.

You would think after 10+ years here you would grow up a bit, but you are still just as immature and unaware as you always have been.

Oh man you really take it personally that I prefer Kobe over Garnett right?

You've been bringing up the project forever, which is weird because it's almost like EVERYONE votes based on what players they think should be above others. That's... kind of the point of the project. Otherwise we'd have just had discussion threads for each player and not bother ranking them.

[Colbinii]

Kobe
CP3
LeBron
-gap-
KG

Kobe's lift was utterly ridiculous that year. He had 35 games of Bynum and 27 games of Pau, managed to lead that team to a 7.4 SRS and the 1 seed. Without him that's a 25 win team tops.

Then he goes and averages peak MJ numbers and murders three 50 win teams in a row to win the Western Conference.

Ranking someone like KG (whose team was already elite without him, 6.3 SRS in the games he missed) anywhere near him is quite frankly a joke and shows the unending bias of so many posters on this board who have hated Kobe for frankly decades at this point.

Dude you have no right to call people biased. You attempted to sabotage an entire project just so your beloved Kobe Bryant could be ahead of Kevin Garnett.

The fact that you think people here are biased and you are calling people Kobe Haters when your hatred towards KG bleeds through every single post you makes really makes you a **** part of this forum considering how blinded and unaware you are. Get some self-awareness before you call people haters and biased. You are the cream of the crop of biased perspectives--always have been and always will be the pinnacle of pitiful posting.

You would think after 10+ years here you would grow up a bit, but you are still just as immature and unaware as you always have been.

Oh man you really take it personally that I prefer Kobe over Garnett right?

Of course not. I just don't get how someone can be so disconnected from reality.

"unending bias of so many posters on this board..."

Yet you are the person you openly tried to get KG ranked lower than Kobe. I don't recall doing that myself. I don't recall other KG proponents doing that.

[TroubleS0me]

I don't really think Kobe was ever the best player in the league. Often close, and he was extremely good for a decade or so. I think he was a little more popular than his actual impact, and a lot of his fans are big into minimizing anything other than his contributions in order to elevate him to a higher position, though that fanbase is hardly the only one which does that.

For me, this is Lebron, then Paul, then Kobe, then KG.

kobe over KG why?

[Colbinii]

I don't really think Kobe was ever the best player in the league. Often close, and he was extremely good for a decade or so. I think he was a little more popular than his actual impact, and a lot of his fans are big into minimizing anything other than his contributions in order to elevate him to a higher position, though that fanbase is hardly the only one which does that.

For me, this is Lebron, then Paul, then Kobe, then KG.

kobe over KG why?

Kobe had better +/- and box-score.

[OhayoKD]

I don't really think Kobe was ever the best player in the league. Often close, and he was extremely good for a decade or so. I think he was a little more popular than his actual impact, and a lot of his fans are big into minimizing anything other than his contributions in order to elevate him to a higher position, though that fanbase is hardly the only one which does that.

For me, this is Lebron, then Paul, then Kobe, then KG.

kobe over KG why?

-> KG played alot less minutes than the other MVP candidates, particularly kobe
-> KG shared a disproportionate amount of minutes with his best teammates likely inflating his per-rate numbers
-> Like the 2000 Lakers, the Celtics didn't really play like a 67-win team for most of the playoffs
-> KG had a stable situation all season while Kobe functionally played with 3 different rosters
-> Role, Kobe was playing in the triangle without illegal defense rules. The result is he was schematically asked to take the most difficult shots alot more than other players did. By synergy Kobe actually grades as having good to excellent effenciency on almost every type of play but the triangle set kobe up to take lower effeciency looks.

[eminence]

Doc won a title vs the GOAT, it's KG.

[dygaction]

I don't really think Kobe was ever the best player in the league. Often close, and he was extremely good for a decade or so. I think he was a little more popular than his actual impact, and a lot of his fans are big into minimizing anything other than his contributions in order to elevate him to a higher position, though that fanbase is hardly the only one which does that.

For me, this is Lebron, then Paul, then Kobe, then KG.

kobe over KG why?

Only on this board you have to explain why Kobe was better than KG, even in the season Kobe won MVP in a landslide fashion and KG was not even the runner up.

[70sFan]

Only on this board you have to explain why Kobe was better than KG, even in the season Kobe won MVP in a landslide fashion and KG was not even the runner up.

Maybe because MVP win is not an argument by itself?

[70sFan]

One guy took a team that would likely be negative SRS without him to a 7.4 SRS.

The other guy took a 6 SRS team without him to 9 SRS.

How is their impact comparable?

How can you know they'd be negative?

Do you think that players analysis should end at looking at single season WOWY signals?

You think a team with a starting 5 of Fisher/Vujacic/Radmanovic/Odom/rotation of Pau/Bynum/Turiaf at the C spot is gonna have a positive SRS? The 2-5 is worse than Pau's Memphis teams and those were BARELY Playoff teams with him playing 82 games. The games with Turiaf at C where Odom would have to be the no. 1 option, they probably go like 2-18.

I don't actually think WOWY is the be all and end all. It is, however, literally the only thing KG stans typically use to argue in his favor (and it's variants like RAPM), so if he's getting crushed by Kobe in that department literally what argument does he have?

That's not true at all and it's clear that you are arguing with a bad faith. The forum is full of KG impact evaluations, video breakdowns, comparisons etc. but you don't want to hear rational arguments, probably because you don't like the results.

I have Kobe higher for 2007/08 season evaluation. He played more games, more minutes and was more consistent in the playoffs. I don't agree that he was on another level to KG. He actually wasn't at any point of his career until KG got injured the next season.

[dygaction]

Only on this board you have to explain why Kobe was better than KG, even in the season Kobe won MVP in a landslide fashion and KG was not even the runner up.

Maybe because MVP win is not an argument by itself?

Maybe, but maybe because this board's particular hatred or systematic defamation towards Kobe. When you quote me, better quote the context. One person ranks "LeBron>CP3>Kobe>KG" and the next one asked "Why Kobe > KG". It is like someone trying to sneak Kobe into a conversation that he does not belong... Whoever brings up that two or three guys better than that season's MVP needs to explain something, not the other way around, like last year's Embiid or the year before Jokic. One or two cases can be occasionally made, but not at a wholesale discounted volume ...

[OhayoKD]

Only on this board you have to explain why Kobe was better than KG, even in the season Kobe won MVP in a landslide fashion and KG was not even the runner up.

Maybe because MVP win is not an argument by itself?

Maybe, but maybe because this board's particular hatred or systematic defamation towards Kobe. When you quote me, better quote the context. One person ranks "LeBron>CP3>Kobe>KG" and the next one asked "Why Kobe > KG". It is like someone trying to sneak Kobe into a conversation that he does not belong... Whoever brings up that two or three guys better than that season's MVP needs to explain something, not the other way around, like last year's Embiid or the year before Jokic. One or two cases can be occasionally made, but not at a wholesale discounted volume ...

The irony is the biggest kobe defenders in the top 100 project were people with kg way higher than you have him and the biggest detractors tended to have kg closer to where you have him

[70sFan]

Maybe, but maybe because this board's particular hatred or systematic defamation towards Kobe.

Could you please provide examples of how this "systematic defamation" manifests on this board? Let's stop here and discuss that in details.

When you quote me, better quote the context.

Apologies, fortunately people can see the context at the same page, so I don't feel like I'm manipulating here.b

One person ranks "LeBron>CP3>Kobe>KG" and the next one asked "Why Kobe > KG". It is like someone trying to sneak Kobe into a conversation that he does not belong... Whoever brings up that two or three guys better than that season's MVP needs to explain something, not the other way around,

No, someon asked why a certain poster has Kobe ahead of Garnett and that's it. The rest is your projection.

2008 is a very close MVP race and Kobe wasn't a dominant MVP winner. There quite many seasons where you can argue that a few players had better seasons overall than an MVP.

Do you also think it's a "systematic defamation" that people always argue how Kobe, Dirk, Wade and James were all better than Nash in 2006?

[One_and_Done]

Lebron
CP3/KG






Kobe. Not even close to the other 3.

[dygaction]

Maybe, but maybe because this board's particular hatred or systematic defamation towards Kobe.

Could you please provide examples of how this "systematic defamation" manifests on this board? Let's stop here and discuss that in details.

When you quote me, better quote the context.

Apologies, fortunately people can see the context at the same page, so I don't feel like I'm manipulating here.b

One person ranks "LeBron>CP3>Kobe>KG" and the next one asked "Why Kobe > KG". It is like someone trying to sneak Kobe into a conversation that he does not belong... Whoever brings up that two or three guys better than that season's MVP needs to explain something, not the other way around,

No, someon asked why a certain poster has Kobe ahead of Garnett and that's it. The rest is your projection.

2008 is a very close MVP race and Kobe wasn't a dominant MVP winner. There quite many seasons where you can argue that a few players had better seasons overall than an MVP.

Do you also think it's a "systematic defamation" that people always argue how Kobe, Dirk, Wade and James were all better than Nash in 2006?

Besides this board, you will not find another place, be it General board, Reddit, ESPN, Athlete, Fortune 500 ranking... where Hakeem and KG would rank ahead of Bird and Kobe.

For 2008, it was more of landslide than half of the MVPs in the past decade. CP3 was in the discussion. Garnett had no shot over Kobe as it was so much easier to cruise on a superteam and only needed to scoring in the teens and grab 75% of rebounds as he used to in the past 10 years.

Yes, to have Kobe, Dirk, Wade, and James all better than 2006 Nash is absurd, maybe you also missed Billups. Unless you only look at advanced stats but not watching games to analyze their real impact.

[70sFan]

Besides this board, you will not find another place, be it General board, Reddit, ESPN, Athlete, Fortune 500 ranking... where Hakeem and KG would rank ahead of Bird and Kobe.

So you focus on the results, but you don't look at the methodology that led some of us to these results. You don't like that the results don't line up with more popular views, but that's not the evidence that they are wrong. Results are not interesting if you don't understand how they are accomplished.


Instead of talking about results, I would kindly ask you to provide me the answer to the question of how this board underrates Kobe in Garnett's comparisons. Where do the board treat Kobe unfairly compared to other players? These questions are more interesting than the fact that Kobe is usually ranked higher than KG and the board disagrees. This is just an observation, nothing else.

For 2008, it was more of landslide than half of the MVPs in the past decade. CP3 was in the discussion. Garnett had no shot over Kobe as it was so much easier to cruise on a superteam and only needed to scoring in the teens and grab 75% of rebounds as he used to in the past 10 years.

Kobe got 65% of first votes, which is indeed the majority but far from a dominant ballot. Garnett got 12% of first votes, so he actually had some support at the first place despite your narrative.

It's also not true that his MVP was clearer than most of the ones from the last decade. If we take a look at available voting results, Kobe's first and only MVP doesn't look dominant at all. First votes percentage for the winners:

2023: 73%
2022: 65%
2021: 90%
2020: 84%
2019: 74%
2018: 85%
2017: 68%
2016: 100%
2015: 77%
2014: 95%
2013: 99%
2012: 70%
2011: 93%
2010: 94%
2009: 90%
2008: 65%
2007: 64%
2006: 46%
2005: 51%
2004: 98%
2003: 50%
2002: 45%
2001: 75%
2000: 99%

So out of the last 24 MVPs, only 6 won without more first votes than Kobe in 2008. This is not a dominant win at all, it's one of the most controversial ones in our century.

Yes, to have Kobe, Dirk, Wade, and James all better than 2006 Nash is absurd, maybe you also missed Billups. Unless you only look at advanced stats but not watching games to analyze their real impact.

Is it also absurd to have Nash outside top 4 in 2007?

[tsherkin]

Besides this board, you will not find another place, be it General board, Reddit, ESPN, Athlete, Fortune 500 ranking... where Hakeem and KG would rank ahead of Bird and Kobe.

TBF, most of those places are locales where quality discourse goes to die. Not necessarily for the reason you're implying here, but in general, so appealing to them as some kind of marker of value isn't really going to work.

[HeartBreakKid]

Reddit and the general board? Get out in the world buddy, I've seen Olajuwon ranked above Bird and especially Bryant on those platforms, and other communities.

As for the high ranking of KG - that is not something that was created on RealGm. I knew about KG getting highly ranked and becoming a impact data story before I even knew what RealGm was.

But then again this is coming from a fellow who seemingly thinks that the 08 MVP race was one of the most dominant and lop sided races when it is the polar opposite in both mainstream media and non-mainstream. Safe to say he's not the most observant.

[HeartBreakKid]

For fun I typed in "Kobe Bryant vs Hakeem Olajuwon" on another message board (Inside Hoops).

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?501874-Kobe-Bryant-vs-Hakeem-Olajuwon


And it's hilarious how similar some of the beats are. It's primarily one guy named John Connor, who is pro kobe bryant, flaming people, using popularity and peer pressure (everyone thinks kobe is better so you are wrong), calling people dorks, making asinine arguments how centers can't be goat contenders etc. His account says "retired", so I assume like many Kobe fanatics he got banned for being a maniac in player comparisons.

So in that thread right there many people say Olajuwon is better, and 2-3 people come to a moderate ground saying that Olajuwon was a better player but had a worse career (which I find very hard to argue myself). The slight majority of people said Olajwuon had Olajuwon ranked higher or said that he was a better player with a worse career.

took me about 5 minutes to dig that one up and skim it.

[The Master]

Okay, I'll address this post more specifically, because this is something I'm not too fond of in such discussions on this board in general.

So you're looking at 28-30 wins for the season. I was probably undershooting with 25, but even taking a 30 win team to 57 is gargantuan lift and worthy of top 10 all time peak consideration.

The problem with such methodology is that it kind of misses the point of multi-data players evaluation.

1. KBs advanced boxscore production - measured by BPM - is 5.8. Elite, but nothing spectacular.
2. KBs on/off production - measured by net rating - is +9.0 net and +7.0 on/off. Elite, but short of being historically spectacular.

None of this suggest any historical lift and top10 all time peak consideration. Not saying it wasn't a great anchoring of contender-level team nor it wasn't borderline MVP season level. It was, especially combining with the playoffs (but you were talking about RS specifically, so I'll leave it at this point).

Obviously, it's possible that there are intangibles relevant to Kobe's lift that aren't shown in this basic data.

But we can compare it to the previous regular season of Kobe: Lakers won 42 games with +0.2 SRS.

In 2006/07 season, he was +5.9 BPM, +1.1 net and +6.0 on/off (pretty similar on/off and individual production, much worse net rating due to playing on much worse team). You could've argued his on/off numbers should be better, but it's very circumstantial and lineups-dependent (again, it's another story).

Top12 players in minutes played:

Parker (-2.0 BPM)
Odom (1.1)
Walton (0.4)
Bynum (-1.0)
Evans (-2.3)
Brown (-0.3)
Farmar (-1.7)
Turiaf (-0.7)
Cook (-1.2)
Radmanovic (-2.8)
Vujacic (-1.0)

2007/08 season, in comparison:

Odom (+2.3)
Fisher (-0.3)
Walton (-0.3)
Farmar (1.3)
Radmanovic (0.2)
Turiaf (0.7)
Vujacic (1.2)
Bynum (4.2)
Gasol (5.5)
Brown (-1.9)
Ariza (3.1)

That's why your point isn't too convincing as we have plenty of role players (Vujacic, Bynum, Radmanovic, Farmar, Odom) being more efficient than a year earlier. Bynum (+6.6 TS%), Vujacic (+6.5 TS%), Radmanovic (+6.5 TS%), Odom (+3.0 TS%) and Farmar (+4.8 TS%) - and besides Odom, they were scoring on a higher rate than in '07 season.

Kobe was at 6.7 assists/100 possessions in '07 and 6.9 assists/100 possessions in '08.

To show Kobe's 07/08 RS lift as historical - or, in other words, to find cause-effect relationship - rather than vaguely quantify how many games they would've won in 2008 from 15 years perspective, you have to show what had changed directly in Kobe's level of play in 2007/2008 that from a 3rd player in MVP voting, with pretty much the same boxscore production (less points on better team, but still 29-6-5 before Gasol was traded) - he was able to lift his team, and the same group of players, without influencing his boxscore/on-off numbers, to much higher grounds.

Because there's an explanation in line with data that we have:

1. Kobe was a fantastic player in another prime-ish season,
2. Lakers got better due to better talent (Bynum/Gasol) and role players over-performing (for some of these guys, it was first/2nd-best RS statistically)/improving under the complicated system of all-time great coach,
3. From 15 year perspective - Radmanovic or Vujacic look joke-ish, but they were over 40% 3pt shooters that year with positive BPM and RAPM. Not saying they were per se great players, but you may undervalue them and their RS contribution (even if it was fluke, it still happened in real life, perhaps that's the reason Lakers were +2 net without Kobe on a court that season),
4. Thus, that's why Kobe's BPM or on/off numbers are great, but short of historic - as it's hard to even find a correlation between Kobe's data and improvement of several players, not to mention cause-effect relationship (as correlation doesn't means causality). You're basically suggesting causality without a correlation.

Such discussions are always a matter of interpretation - the more data you have, the more accurate your interpretation may be.

Maybe they would've won 28 wins without Kobe - I don't know. But I think these 'historical lifts' (and players evaluation in general) are more complicated than guessing it in such way.

[Jaivl]

KG, Kobe
LeBron
Paul