Speed? Rate the fastest out of MJ, Lebron, Kobe, Wade

[B-Scott]

When it comes to flat out straight away foot speed how would you rate the players below.

MJ
Kobe
D-Wade
Lebron

Here's a interesting video on Kobe, Lebron and MJ. Wade is not in this video but he's definetely got great straight away speed.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GcH18iA_GDY

[Baller 24]

Wow MJ was a 4-3.04? thats pretty amazing. But I think I'd put it like this:

LBJ
MJ
Kobe

I'm putting LBJ at 1 because of how impressively quick he is for his size. He is bigger then both Jordan and Kobe, weighing in a 260LBS, while only being 6'8. Thats Dwight's weight but LBJ is just shorter, which is pretty amazing.

[eatyourchildren]

End to end I'd put it as

MJ>Lebron>Kobe>Wade

Change of speed I'd put it as
MJ>Wade>Lebron>Kobe


The thing is, MJ kept that elite speed and acceleration late into his 30's. Kobe is only 30 and already has lost a good chunk of both. We'll have to see if anything happens to Lebron and Wade.

[NO-KG-AI]

^^

[kooldude]

Jordan is def faster than Kobe. I can't think of a highlight where Kobe outright zooms past a defender to the rim whereas I seen plenty of Jordan and growing Lebron highlights of that. Not to mention general watching of their games. Wade is slower than Lebron.

So if I had to guess: Jordan > Lebron > Young Kobe > Wade

[ronnymac2]

I don't know about full court foot speed, but in terms of explosiveness and first step, I'd say Jordan, Wade, Lebron/young kobe, present kobe. I don't think wade is slower than james. Wade's first step is the most explosive in the league today. James has more of an ability to bounce off defenders while maintaining his speed because of his strength, though wade is very good at this, too.

[tkb]

Jordan was the quickest out of those IMO, but Kobe has indeed told his 40 time. Stu Lantz mentioned it during a game last year. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe Stu said 4.4.

[NO-KG-AI]

End to end I'd put it as

MJ>Lebron>Kobe>Wade

Change of speed I'd put it as
MJ>Wade>Lebron>Kobe


The thing is, MJ kept that elite speed and acceleration late into his 30's. Kobe is only 30 and already has lost a good chunk of both. We'll have to see if anything happens to Lebron and Wade.

I agreed with all this, but I might actually give Kobe(young Kobe at least) the leg up on LeBron in change of direction speed.

[Jordan23Forever]

I agreed with all this, but I might actually give Kobe(young Kobe at least) the leg up on LeBron in change of direction speed.

I think he meant change of pace, not change of direction speed. I can't speak for him, though. In my opinion, however:

End to end speed w/o dribbling:

1. Jordan
2. Lebron
3. Kobe (I'm talking about 22-25 year old Kobe here, btw)
4. Wade

Explosiveness (i.e., acceleration from a standstill or while changing speeds):

1. Jordan
2. Wade (note: Kobe has a better first step imo, but Wade's change of pace is unbelievable)
3. Lebron/Kobe (again, Kobe has the better first step while I feel Lebron changes speeds better)

Speed while dribbling (open court):

1. Jordan
2. Lebron
3. Kobe
4. Wade

Speed while dribbling (halfcourt; point A to point B speed):

1. Jordan
2. Wade
3. Lebron
4. Kobe

Speed while dribbling (halfcourt; quickness/agility with the ball):

1. Jordan/Wade
2. Kobe
3. Lebron

[eatyourchildren]

Tex or Phil, I can't remember who, said during Kobe's athletic prime (23-25) that in a race against MJ that MJ would win by a hair.

But, Kobe as of now after a knee surgery and accumulation of NBA mileage is really a shell of his former self (although that shell is still better than a lot of other guys). When you watch him on offense and defense, he depends a lot more on fakes, footwork, and bodying up (even on drives he keeps the guy on his hip the entire time and then pushes him off at the last second) to get to his moves, after which he has supreme focus on the shot-taking part of his game.

MJ was still pinning guys' shots on the backboard after sprinting the length of the court at age 39, so what can you really say about that.

[tsherkin]

Kobe's game hasn't been about speed in years, if it ever really was. He's an elite athlete, almost underappreciated because he doesn't have a 40" vertical, but his greatest attribute (when he has chosen to use it) has always been his brain. His anticipation skills, his ability to read defenses, his trained skills, all that stuff really enhances his physical attributes to a degree because he's forcing the defense to react to him and faking them out. Kobe's bag of tricks is as deep as I've seen since Jordan's (not as deep but not terribly far away) and that can sometimes make his athleticism difficult to read, because he often striaght-up doesn't bother to use explosion to get what he wants (especially as he's aged). He's a very savvy, intellectual player if you want to call it that. Like Jordan, actually.

Jordan is definitely the fastest out of this group, by any category (even if it's only a little above Wade and Kobe in some of them) and his longevity in that regard is also impressive (though let's not forget he took most of two seasons off in his minutes-heavy prime and then took off another 4 years or so before playing for Washington, which eased the wear on his body and left some of his athleticism intact).

Lebron's fast for his size and I've seen him beat smaller guys down the length of the court too many times not to respect that but I still think Kobe's faster, even post-surgery and with all the minutes he's played. He's a brilliant athlete, he's just not quite as high a flier as Jordan and Lebron (Wade has less hops but he's got immensely long arms and, like Amare, is just hyper-aggressive about attacking the rim).

The deal with Jordan is that people forget... he hit the league at 190. He had huge ups and was very light, so he was insanely mobile, way moreso in his prime... but he kept a lot of it when he bulked up and became trickier, so that made him even more dangerous, arguably, in '92, '93 and '96 than he was at any other points in his career.

I'm going:

End-to-End: Jordan, Kobe, Lebron, Wade
Change of Pace: Jordan, Wade, Kobe, Lebron
First Step: Jordan, Kobe, Wade, Lebron
While Dribbling: Wade, Jordan, Kobe, Lebron
Acceleration: Jordan, Lebron, Wade, Kobe

I'm underrepresenting Lebron here, unfortunately, but only by comparison to some spectacular, elite athletes in terms of raw speed, which is difficult for a taller guy to match... and I don't think most of these categories are marked by significant separations in any case.

Kobe, IMO, definitely misses a lot of respect for his athleticism, especially because he plays a much more ground-bound game these days with his post game, kind of like Old Jordan.

[semi-sentient]

Someone may recall the particular thread I'm talking about (it was a speed comparison between Kobe and Jordan), but there were videos showing both players going end-to-end dribbling the basketball, and I believe both Kobe and Jordan had near identical times (multiple videos).

If anyone can find that thread, it may add some value to this one.

[B-Scott]

Check out the last clip on this video. MJ is much faster then Kobe. Jordan at his peak had the quicks and speed of a 6-1 PG.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GcH18iA_GDY

[Jordan23Forever]

Tex or Phil, I can't remember who, said during Kobe's athletic prime (23-25) that in a race against MJ that MJ would win by a hair.

I don't put much stock in what people say, because anyone (yes, even coaches) can say anything. I go by what I see with my own eyes. And I can see that Kobe has never been as fast in any way as Jordan.

I have clips of Jordan going from the opposite FT line to a dunk in 3.0-3.2 seconds while dribbling (no running start). The fastest times in the 3/4 court sprints each year at the pre-draft combines each year are 3.1-3.3 seconds without dribbling. I have clips of him going from 36-38 feet out from the basket to a dunk in under 2 seconds. Dude was just liquid speed.

[eatyourchildren]

Tex or Phil, I can't remember who, said during Kobe's athletic prime (23-25) that in a race against MJ that MJ would win by a hair.

I don't put much stock in what people say, because anyone (yes, even coaches) can say anything. I go by what I see with my own eyes. And I can see that Kobe has never been as fast in any way as Jordan.

I have clips of Jordan going from the opposite FT line to a dunk in 3.0-3.2 seconds while dribbling (no running start). The fastest times in the 3/4 court sprints each year at the pre-draft combines each year are 3.1-3.3 seconds without dribbling. I have clips of him going from 36-38 feet out from the basket to a dunk in under 2 seconds. Dude was just liquid speed.

Nothing about my recollection of their statement says that Kobe was as fast as MJ, so I dont know what you're rebutting.

But I also think that the difference you think it is can't really be measured just by watching footage. MJ and Kobe run the floor differently and MJ's 1-leg is 1000000x better than Kobe's which will make any kind of sprint to a dunk look different. I just don't think you're going to see a .1 difference via in-game footage. Not to mention, What tex/phil were talking about wasn't speed while dribbling, either.

But I marvel at how Kobe's been able to sustain excellence and be talked about as one of the best SG's in the game despite lacking eliteness (in the all-time sense) in some fundamental aspects of athleticism, namely acceleration, change of direction, hand size, and base strength.

[Jordan23Forever]

Someone may recall the particular thread I'm talking about (it was a speed comparison between Kobe and Jordan), but there were videos showing both players going end-to-end dribbling the basketball, and I believe both Kobe and Jordan had near identical times (multiple videos).

If anyone can find that thread, it may add some value to this one.

Kobe has never been as fast as Jordan in any situation. I have clips of Jordan going from the opposite FT line to a dunk (3/4 court) in 3.0-3.2 seconds while dribbling. The fastest times at the pre-draft combine each year for the 3/4 court sprint are 3.1-3.3 seconds without dribbling. You will never see a player go from 36-38 feet out to a dunk in under 2 seconds like at the 2:42-2:44 mark of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lusu0lEgb7U

And he changed directions with the dribble a couple of times there -- imagine if he went straight? And he did that from basically a standstill. Or how about going from 30-31 feet out to a layup in under 1.5 seconds like the 1:29-1:31 mark here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7iXywCqqUk

And these aren't even open court situations, where he was even faster, such as the 4:36-4:39 mark of this video, where he goes from FT line to a dunk in 3 seconds flat while dribbling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y19q9478NUo

Or the ~4:45-4:48 mark of this video, where he goes from the opposite FT line to a dunk in about 3.5 seconds despite changing hands with the dribble and changing directions several times, which slowed him down:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPVCJkW4uaU

There are other examples as well.

[semi-sentient]

Someone may recall the particular thread I'm talking about (it was a speed comparison between Kobe and Jordan), but there were videos showing both players going end-to-end dribbling the basketball, and I believe both Kobe and Jordan had near identical times (multiple videos).

If anyone can find that thread, it may add some value to this one.

Jesus **** Christ.

I didn't say jack in the crack **** about Kobe being as fast or faster, only that the videos posted in that particular thread showed that they both had situations where they went end-to-end in approximately the same amount of time.

[kooldude]

Someone may recall the particular thread I'm talking about (it was a speed comparison between Kobe and Jordan), but there were videos showing both players going end-to-end dribbling the basketball, and I believe both Kobe and Jordan had near identical times (multiple videos).

If anyone can find that thread, it may add some value to this one.

Jesus **** Christ.

I didn't say jack in the crack **** about Kobe being as fast or faster, only that the videos posted in that particular thread showed that they both had situations where they went end-to-end in approximately the same amount of time.

actually, you tried to imply that Kobe was almost identical to Jordan's speed, using the said video as a source.

[LakerLegend]

Actually, jim cleamons said Kobe would beat MJ in a footrace. Also remember, Jordan carried far less muscle mass pre 96 than any of these guys.

[kooldude]

Actually, jim cleamons said Kobe would beat MJ in a footrace. Also remember, Jordan carried far less muscle mass pre 96 than any of these guys.

most sprinters have alot of muscle mass. I would consider the length of a bball court, sprinting distance.