Jordan and Kobe
Kobe Bryant (Wikimedia)
I agree with Bill Simmons that it’s not a good idea to compare Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, but I don’t agree with this reasoning:
We’re never seeing another Jordan, just like we’re never seeing another Brando or Lennon. It’s just not happening. They might compare statistically and stylistically, but Jordan could command a room of 10 people or 20,000 and get the exact same reaction: Every set of eyes trained on him for as long as he was there. His personality, his charisma, his aura, his passion … indescribable. Like nothing I have ever seen. Nobody remembers this now because he hasn’t played in awhile, but Jordan was always the coolest guy in the room. Without fail. He was like Doctor J. crossed with Sinatra.
The reason “we’re never seeing another Jordan” is precisely because they don’t compare statistically. It’s truly not even close, and I really don’t understand why people sometimes say things like this. When Kobe Bryant was 21, he put up 22.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.9 assists per game. Jordan got 6.5 rebounds, offered 5.9 assists, and scored 28.2 points. And not because he was shooting more, because he was shooting better with a TS% of .592 to Kobe’s .546. In Kobe’s most efficient scoring season, he put up a .580—worse than Jordan’s rookie year. Jordan did better than that in six different seasons, and maxed out at .614 in the 1988-89 season. In Kobe’s most prolific scoring season he got 31.1 points, in Jordan’s most prolific season he got 33.4 points per game. Jordan consistently snagged more rebounds and dished out more assists. And he did it all before they changed the rules to make things easier for guards!
There’s no shame in being substantially worse than Michael Jordan. But that’s what Kobe is. It’s right there in the numbers.
146 Responses to “Jordan and Kobe”
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June 17th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Um. Kobe Bryant averaged over 35 a game just 3 years ago, and Jordan had 37 per game. If you’re going to make the statistical argument, you should probably get the stats right.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:39 am
“The reason “we’re never seeing another Jordan” is precisely because they don’t compare statistically. It’s truly not even close, and I really don’t understand why people sometimes say things like this.”
Indeed.
Jordan’s run of four straight years leading the league in scoring with a TS% of over 60% is fucking surreal. How do you do that without being a Shaq sized monster?
Kobe is the best two guard of his age cohort, but his numbers aren’t even close to being in the GOAT’s range.
The interesting question is whether or not LBJ will be able to put up multiple years of MJ-like numbers. His stat line for ‘08-’09 is entering MJ territory.
——
Simmons is almost always entertaining, but like Gladwell, he doesn’t care much whether or not he gets his facts correct.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:43 am
And do we have general consensus that SVG’s decision to play Jameer was the single most psychotic decision since the Iraq war?
I assert that if Jameer had been in street clothes, the Magic would have been more likely than the Lakers to win a seven game series.
Free Rafer Alston! Free Courtney Lee!
June 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Specifically about the rules, when Jordan played he’d usually be hand-checked by two guys on a drive to the basket before getting whacked by a big man inside and maybe drawing a foul if he was lucky. Today he could score 80 any time he wanted. Kobe may be the best “pure” scoring guard (ie not Magic or LeBron) in history not named Jordan, but the gap is still pretty sizable.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Being a team sport, the significance of individual stats does not show the mettle of the individual. Jordan’s shooting percentage dropped precipitiously in the latter part of his career but he still was surrounded by great players. This LA bunch is very good but I would not expect a repeat. However, I would agree that as of now, I would consider Jordan a better player. Where I disagee with the article is with the personality take. Kobe is infinitesimallly more compelling.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:48 am
The flipside of what is wrong with Simmons’ analysis is that it is possible that we will someday see someone who is as much better than Jordan statistically than Jordan was better than Kobe.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Comparing stats of players (or even the same players) of different years is problematic at best, for every year (as with every era) is different. But MJ and Kobe are alike in one major respect: each improves (or improved) the play of his teammates. That’s what makes a great player. By this measure, Bill Russell was the greatest player ever. Bill Bradley makes this point in his review of Russell’s recent book in the NYT. And who can challenge Russell’s most important stat: 11 NBA championships in 13 NBA seasons.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:50 am
The numbers are wrong (check basketball-reference.com), but the point is accurate. By the numbers, Jordan was a better, more prolific scorer. By most accounts, he was at least as good on defense. Sometimes I just don’t understand where these accounts are coming from. If somebody starts scoring like Jordan did, we will take notice.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:53 am
“Um. Kobe Bryant averaged over 35 a game just 3 years ago, and Jordan had 37 per game. If you’re going to make the statistical argument, you should probably get the stats right.”
Matthew used the word “prolific” when he meant to use the word “efficient”.
If you assume that error, his stats are actually correct.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:55 am
“By most accounts, (Jordan) was at least as good on defense (as Kobe).”
By all accounts, Jordan was significantly better than Kobe on the defensive end.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:58 am
By this measure, Bill Russell was the greatest player ever. Bill Bradley makes this point in his review of Russell’s recent book in the NYT. And who can challenge Russell’s most important stat: 11 NBA championships in 13 NBA seasons.
I don’t know how you would call this a measure. Russell played with a bunch of HOFers that also spent their careers with the same team. How would we know if they made them any better? Russell gets a lot of old school, ‘played the right way’ kind of love. Very few actually saw him play (certainly not me) and since the account are nearly 50 years old at this point, I doubt they’re remembered remotely accurately. The best account we have is of his titles. But he played in an 8 team league! This would be like advancing to the conference final in today’s league. By that measure, both Kobe’s Lakers and Duncan’s Spurs start to look pretty comparable.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I agree Kobe is no Jordan, but in his defense, put Shaq in his prime on MJ’s team for the first several years of MJ’s career, a presence that truly demanded an inside-outside offensive game, and MJ’s scoring and rebound numbers would probably roll out differently. (Don’t even say “Pippen.”)
Like raylward suggests, stats don’t tell the whole story.
And while LBJ is blessed with greater athleticism and strength than either MJ or Kobe, he doesn’t have the b-ball IQ of either.
Mr. “I wanna be the first billionaire athlete” (that’s what LBJ said) will end his career standing far behind MJ, Kobe, Magic, Bird, West, Oscar and probably a few other cats. More money, but fewer rings.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Why don’t you just admit that you hate Bryant, for whatever reasons, and will use any statistics you can gather to justify putting him down? Bill Simmons certainly doesn’t hide his personal bias. It doesn’t make him less of a dick but at least he’s honest about it.
I guess I know why — this will suggest that you are similarly biased on other issues too… that your supposedly analytical approach to politics, economics, health care etc., is also motivated first by emotions and only then by numbers.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:02 am
I’ll just take this opportunity to point out that the Lakers won the championship in rather dominant fashion. And the vaunted Cavaliers . . . not so much. Whatever one might say about Matt’s statistical methods, they don’t seem to help him accurately predict the winners of long series of basketball games.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Not to be overly literal, but – in this passage – Simmons isn’t comparing Jordan and Kobe, he’s saying that we’ll never see another Jordan (despite whatever statistical approximations “they” in the future will be able to attain).
June 17th, 2009 at 9:04 am
13: I fail to see what was so biased about this account. It is, in fact, bizarre to see people fail to point out the basic fact that statistically Kobe was not as good as Jordan.
12: I agree that Shaq’s presence depressed Kobe’s point totals (as evidenced by his 35/game season). But why is Kobe’s shooting% and TS% lower in that case? That is the glaring statistical difference between the two.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:06 am
12: Also, I’m not sure LBJ’s assist numbers match your claim regarding his BB IQ. Additionally, I would maintain that he plays at least as intelligently as Kobe did early in his career. (have we already forgotten those days??!!)
June 17th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Also worth comparing the career playoff stats of the two:
Kobe: 25ppg, 54% TS%, 22 PER
Jordan: 33ppg, 57% TS%, 29 PER
(Worth noting that LBJ put up a 37.4 PER in the playoffs this year, which is pretty remarkably off the charts.)
June 17th, 2009 at 9:11 am
That’s ridicuous. I agree that Jordan is better than Bryant, but to argue that Jordan had to overcome officiating? Michael Jordan has benefitted more from biased officiating than any player in team sports in the last fifty years. You’d have to delve into boxing to find more biased officiating.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:13 am
“And [Jordan]did it all before they changed the rules to make things easier for guards!”
Matt hints at why statistical comparisons are ultimately flawed.
Using statistics to compare Jordan to Bryant, Nicklaus to Woods, Sampras to Federer, et al, doesn’t really tell a complete story because of a number data points not accounted for in those statistical models….competition, rule changes, strategy changes, the level of athleticism, etcetera. A more nuanced analysis is appropriate, but hey, everybody loves stats, or rather, loves to debate stats.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:13 am
“Not to be overly literal, but – in this passage – Simmons isn’t comparing Jordan and Kobe, he’s saying that…”
Well, to be perfectly literal, Simmons is quite clearly saying that Jordan and Bryant are statistically similar. An they aren’t.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I hear a version of this basic idea every now and again and get so frustrated. People remember Jordan hitting buzzer-beating shots, playing super awesome in clutch situations, and making teammates better, etc, but totally forget that underneath this glossy layer is a Michael Jordan who by any statistical measure was at least as good, but probably better, than the 6 championships under his belt would initially indicate. And even if stat-averse fans have some vague understanding that PPG can be unreliable, it’s absolutely critical to understand that Jordan was awesome at everything else. He was an efficient scorer, rebounder, passer, etc. Look, as a Cavs fan, I hated the guy. But to not see the vast disparity is nothing less than disrespectful.
To think of it in another way, for any argument LeBron fans use to conclude LeBron’s better than Kobe, Jordan was already superior to both. For any argument Kobe fans use to conclude Kobe is better than LeBron, Jordan was superior to both as well.
Except, man, LeBron’s God-given physical gifts make me wonder if he might actually turn out to be way better on D than either Kobe or MJ. And no, it’s not a fair fight, but, yeah, exactly… that’s the point.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:14 am
here’s another take on Simmons and his anti-Kobe attitude: Deconstructing Kobe
June 17th, 2009 at 9:16 am
“And while LBJ is blessed with greater athleticism and strength than either MJ or Kobe, he doesn’t have the b-ball IQ of either.”
I don’t think LBJ’s athleticism is any freakier than MJ’s.
And as far as basketball IQ goes, let’s remember that LBJ is 24yo. If you want to compare LBJ’s basketball IQ to MJ’s, you need to compare them at the same age. And Jordan had accomplished little in the realm of team success by the age of 24…
June 17th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Is it really conventional wisdom that LeBron is more athletic than MJ? Where’s the proof? What sorts of things could be proof?
On a somewhat related topic, I’ve always thought that the most underappreciated aspect of MJ was his incredible endurance. It’s true that MJ had an incredible work ethic and will to win, and that those attributes help to explain his consistent effort on the court, but it is also true that Jordan was just more capable of playing near maximum effort for longer periods of time because of his greater stamina.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Matt hints at why statistical comparisons are ultimately flawed.
He’d probably be better off just not making that point: if the NBA has evolved to favor some types of players over others, fine, but it is what it is. You look at how good players are relative to the game they’re actually playing.
Statistical comparisons aren’t perfect, but they’re better than anything else we’ve got.
In my personal opinion, it’s not nearly as flawed as comparing NFL QBs in 2008 to QBs in 1978 or comparing batting average in 2008 to batting average in 1938.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:22 am
“To think of it in another way, for any argument LeBron fans use to conclude LeBron’s better than Kobe, Jordan was already superior to both.”
Huh?
LBJ is quite obviously better than Kobe. Jordan is quite obviously superior to Kobe.
And because we don’t yet have the published stats for future seasons of basketball, we have no idea if Jordan was superior to LBJ. Bron-Bron has a decent chance of being better than Jordan if he remains healthy.
I’ll note again that LeBron put up a 37.4 PER in the playoffs this year. His playoff production this year exceeds any MJ postseason by a hefty margin.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:22 am
“12: Also, I’m not sure LBJ’s assist numbers match your claim regarding his BB IQ. ”
I think the biggest knock against LBJ vs. Jordan IQ’wise is that James hasn’t fired his coach and aquired better team mates yet.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:24 am
“In Kobe’s most prolific scoring season he got 31.1 points, in Jordan’s most prolific season he got 33.4 points per game”:
Umm..Kobe averaged 35ppg in 2006…
June 17th, 2009 at 9:25 am
1) Like Lao Tzu, I tend to focus on the basics — so I admire the basketball player who charged up into the stands and smacked the shit out of a heckling fan a year or so ago.
2) And the fan who threw a metal folding chair onto the visiting team from 20 feet up as the team exited the court during the ensuing melee.
Kobe and Jordan are pussies, in comparison. OJ could beat either one of them in a knife fight.
3) A society is fucked when it worships the paid gladiators in the arena and ignores the legionaires serving in foreign lands. When it avoids combat service — and strongly patronizes mere sport.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Don, that was like 5 years ago. And the Pacers (the team that happened to) used to regularly go deep in the playofs and haven’t been remotely competitive since. I’d say it’s a good example of when keeping it real goes wrong.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I don’t think LBJ’s athleticism is any freakier than MJ’s.
I don’t really know if LeBron has a higher vertical, if he runs faster, etc, but I do know he can do a lot of the same types of things Jordan did but with a body that’s a few inches taller and a solid 60 pounds heavier. Jordan was strong, but LeBron’s size/athleticism/balance combo gives him the edge in the freakish department for me.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Lebron James is 24, and he has zero rings. When Kobe Bryant was 24, he had 3 rings.
Kobe Bryant is 30, and he has 4 rings. When Michael Jordan was 30, he had 3 rings.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Statistics!
June 17th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Comparing Jordan/Bryant is ridiculous; stats don’t tell the whole story. Kobe’s stats are slightly worse than Jordan’s, but what people forget is that guys aren’t out there playing by themselves–it’s a team game, and each team is opposed by another team. The overall athleticism of the league is SO much higher today than in was in Jordan’s time, due to greatly increased competitiveness in youth leagues and also to increased foreign recruiting. And Kobe is playing against that competition, and he’s THRIVING. Jordan would not be a standout player in the NBA today. On many teams he probably would not even be a starting guard–more likely a reserve player off the bench. So the statistical comparison is apples to oranges.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:38 am
When Kobe Bryant was 24,
heShaq had 3 rings.Fixed.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:38 am
There was a Game 4 years ago in a Bull/Knicks series, I don’t remember which series, but the Bulls were up two games to one playing on the Knick’s home court. Big game, obviously, it is either two/two series on, or three/one Bulls -series over.
In the greatest performance I have seen on a basketball court, Jordan tore a great defensive team apart, not by scoring, but by distributing the rock. He had a surreal -for him- 14 assists at halftime, the Bulls had a 28 point lead and the series was effectively over.
And I always thought, what if Jordan played that way all the time? Could the Bulls conceivably have gone 98-0 including playoffs? And the answer, at least to me at the time, was yes. It was possible. That is how great Jordon could have been, but that kind of greatness did not appeal to him. Strange.
Trevor Ariza won the key game -game four- in the Finals for the Lakers by having a giant 3rd quarter. He kept them from getting blown out and allowed the Lakers to creep back in the game and steal it at the end.
After the game Kobe was asked about the importance of Trevor Ariza’s terrific 3rd quarter performance. Kobe replied, “Trevor did a great job of keeping his spacing.”
Jordan and Kobe may or may not have fairly similar stats and styles, but, for sure, they have identical mindsets. The team -the concept of it- is something to be tolerated in the pursuit of personal glory.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:42 am
When Kobe Bryant was 24,
he Shaqthe Lakers had 3 rings.Fixed.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:42 am
And because we don’t yet have the published stats for future seasons of basketball, we have no idea if Jordan was superior to LBJ. Bron-Bron has a decent chance of being better than Jordan if he remains healthy.
I won’t deny that. But based on what we’ve seen to this point, Jordan’s career is superior to both LeBron’s unfinished career and Kobe’s unfinished career. I’m not comfortable extrapolating with age, so I’m just going with what’s on paper thus far.
For all we know, yes, LeBron very well could become chronically injured Bo Jackson-style. Or he might actually have had a body that developed about 5 years ahead of the average NBA player and is now maxed out (by the way, notice that head band keeps getting pushed back to follow that receding hairline? What’s he gonna look like when he’s 40?). I don’t believe either of these to be the case. I’m a huge LBJ fan. But I have no idea what will happen either and I’m not interested in leaving the comparison that open.
But I do know based on the available evidence right now, Jordan’s career is superior to LeBron’s career. This is not to say that this will always be the case.
And while I’ll generally defend statistical comparisons, I’m less staunch in defense of narrower measures like playoff performance. Man, things really can get skewed there.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
“I don’t really know if LeBron has a higher vertical, if he runs faster, etc, but I do know he can do a lot of the same types of things Jordan did but with a body that’s a few inches taller and a solid 60 pounds heavier”
Point taken. LBJ has a bigger frame.
But my larger point remains that both MJ and LBJ are off-the-charts athletic freaks for their size.
Kobe, on the other hand, is just a merely above-average athlete who has perfected his Karaoke Jordan schtick to the point where he’s had an exceptional career. Kobe doesn’t have the freakish athletic gifts that would allow him to be in the MJ / LBJ stratosphere.
Kobe has utterly maximized the return on his talents, which would be a commendable achievement were he not such an otherwise repellent human being.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Also the rape.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I assert that if Jameer had been in street clothes, the Magic would have been more likely than the Lakers to win a seven game series.
Yeah, OK. Nothing spells success like Rafter Alston’s 30% shooting percentage (or whatever it was).
I don’t think LBJ’s athleticism is any freakier than MJ’s.
Except, if reports are true, he’s four inches taller and almost 100 pounds heavier than Jordan was when he entered the league. You can probably make a pretty good case that Shaq isn’t all that much more athletic than any number of 6′8″ stiffs. But he’s not 6′8″.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Jordan would not be a standout player in the NBA today. On many teams he probably would not even be a starting guard–more likely a reserve player off the bench. So the statistical comparison is apples to oranges.
bwahahahaha! not old enough to have seen jordan play, i take it?
June 17th, 2009 at 9:46 am
LBJ got 37.4 ppg in the playoffs largely because the Cavs ain’t got NOBODY else who can score.
Don’t even say “Less Williams.” Puhleeze.
Nobody. No team. Now they’re even looking to trade for Shaq’s corpse. That’s how dead they be.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Again, I was never one of the Jordan kids growing up and I’ve certainly never been one to seek out arguments to defend MJ. But my God, it’s pretty shocking that Matt’s claim here is not as universally agreed upon as it should be. What the Hell?
June 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
“And while I’ll generally defend statistical comparisons, I’m less staunch in defense of narrower measures like playoff performance. Man, things really can get skewed there.”
No doubt. But still, 37.4 PER? Jesus Christ. 35ppg, 9rpg, 7apg, on 62% TS%? Again, Jesus Christ.
And even if you forget the limited sample size of a single playoffs, LBJ’s regular season numbers this year compare quite well with Jordan’s regular season numbers at his peak…
June 17th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Donald gets the award for the least informed comment of the thread.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Ahem.
The highest points per game in league history; the highest points per game in playoff history. 6 NBA championships; 6 Finals MVPs. 5 MVP awards, 10 First Team All NBA, nine time First Team All Defense, and a defensive player of the year award.
There’s no argument. At all.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:57 am
This is a huge personal pet peeve, but can we stop with the “age” based comparisons? Age comparisons are BULLSHIT. Every time I read about LeBron or Dwight Howard or somebody setting a “youngest to get statistical benchmark X” mark, I go and check how many years in the league it took them to get there vs. how many years in the league it took the previous record holder, who on average played three years of college ball, to get there. I’m a lot less impressed with getting Xthousand rebounds by 23 than I am with getting Xthousand rebounds in fewer pro seasons.
And, look, Jordan was a phenomenal, you could say freakish, physical athlete, but he wasn’t even dominant in that regard in his own day. Dominique? Who is LeBron’s Dominique? LeBron has, to paraphrase someone else, ‘Nique or Jordan level athleticism in Karl Malone’s body. I don’t think LeBron has shown himself to be in the GOAT conversation yet, but he’s one of the most physically impressive players of all time, and IMO more physically impressive than MJ.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:57 am
That probably isn’t true of Bob Cousy. It would be silly to say than about Oscar Robertson. To say it about Jordan is so ridiculous, that it could only be uttered in parody of people who say it about other past greats.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Lebron James is 24, and he has zero rings. When Kobe Bryant was 24, he had 3 rings.
Kobe Bryant is 30, and he has 4 rings. When Michael Jordan was 30, he had 3 rings.
And if Jordan had played with a prime Shaq, they would have gone 82-0. If Kobe was on those teams and had no Shaq, they wouldn’t have made it past the second round.
Come on, man.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am
“Nothing spells success like Rafter Alston’s 30% shooting percentage (or whatever it was).”
Rafer is problematic, but if he had been given proper minutes, he still would have given the Magic a slight edge over Fisher/Farmar at the ‘1′.
Not to mention that SVG’s decision to play Jameer had a second (more important) effect than just reducing Alston’s and Lee’s minutes: it took the Magic away from using Hedo to key the offense in the fourth quarter, which was their secret weapon.
They only used Hedo at the point in the fourth quarter during Game 2, which worked pretty well, even though the Lakers won the game.
——
Congrats on your victory, SCMT. All that matters is who ends up winning, and you won.
But I thought prior to the series that it was 60/40 favoring Orlando based on Jameer being in street clothes, and nothing I saw during the actual games convinced me I was wrong.
SVG handed you folks a gift. Be grateful.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:03 am
And if Jordan had played with a prime Shaq, they would have gone 82-0.
Maybe. But Jordan’s numbers would have been off by a third at least. Except maybe assists. That’s the point.
Call me back if LBJ ever gets a ring.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:06 am
No doubt. But still, 37.4 PER? Jesus Christ. 35ppg, 9rpg, 7apg, on 62% TS%? Again, Jesus Christ.
LeBron also played exactly 4 gajillion minutes in the playoffs, too, so you’re getting that 37.4 PER almost entirely throughout each game.
Yeah, he was awesome. And very impressive, for the most part, in the series against the best defense in the league.
So I probably haven’t appreciated that enough since after every loss to Orlando I went to bed crying like a child.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Donald? 6 years ago, at 40 years old, on bad knees, playing mostly a slightly undersized 3 because he’d lost the step necessary to play the 2, Jordan was at worst one of the top 15 wings in the game at the time, and maybe in the top 10, but I’m not going to go scan 2002-03 league rosters to think about it.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:23 am
“So I probably haven’t appreciated that enough since after every loss to Orlando I went to bed crying like a child.”
I’m keeping the Cleveland/Orlando series on my TiVo so I’ll have something to watch when I get a serious basketball jones in September.
Here’s my suggestion for the Cavs next year: you should convince Ben Wallace to not retire, and then have him defend the opposition’s best three point shooter on every possession next year. It’d be fun!
Or alternately, you should get a time machine, and go back and convince SVG to play Jameer one series earlier. That way, you could win a title in ‘08-’09 despite Mike Brown.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:25 am
We shouldn’t be so impressed with Jordan’s stats, which were put up when he was a very selfish player and his team couldn’t beat the best teams in the league.
This is why jordan isn’t the greatest of all time. Russell is, because he understood that it was a team game from year 1.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:32 am
LeBron also racked up ridiculous numbers against two teams that wouldn’t have made the playoffs in the West. The second the Cavs played an opponent that could put up a fight, they folded faster than Superman on laundry day.
I know scoring is sexy and such Jordan is considered the best ever, but if I was starting a team from scratch, Magic Johnson (a better comparison for LeBron as well) is who I’m building a team around. For his career, he assisted 40% of all of his team’s baskets, had an TS% of 61% for his career (high of 64%) and can and has played all 5 positions, including playing center in the NBA Finals. Yeah he scored 10 ppg less, but it’s because he didn’t have to.
Kobe vs. Jordan isn’t an interesting conversation because he isn’t as good.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:35 am
“We shouldn’t be so impressed with Jordan’s stats, which were put up when he was a very selfish player and his team couldn’t beat the best teams in the league.”
His stats for the year Jordan first won a title:
32ppg, 6rpg, 6apt, 3spg.
32 PER, 61% TS%.
Not only are you never the sharpest knife in the drawer, Dilan Esper, but you tend to almost always be the dullest.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:38 am
The second the Cavs played an opponent that could put up a fight, they folded faster than Superman on laundry day.
Oh, please. It’s not like they never played a team in the West during their 82 game schedule.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:43 am
“I know scoring is sexy and such Jordan is considered the best ever, but if I was starting a team from scratch, Magic Johnson … is who I’m building a team around.”
Well, if you are starting a team from scratch that already includes a dominant scoring center, then you can make a vaguely plausible argument for Earvin.
But without someone like Kareem already on the team, picking Earvin over MJ or LBJ becomes pure silliness.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Here is a conservative list of players who played with Jordan or Bryant who are better than anyone James ever played with:
Horace Grant
Bill Cartwright
John Paxson
Scottie Pippen
Tony Kukoc
Ron Harper
Dennis Rodman
Stacey King
BJ Armstrong
Shaquille O’Neal
Derek Fisher
Glenn Rice
Ron Harper
Gary Payton
Karl Malone
Lamar Odom
Caron Butler
Pau Gasol
I didn’t include people like Robert Parrish, who were well past their prime when they played with the people mentioned.
Keep in mind, without Michael Jordan, the Bulls were one of the 4 best teams in the NBA (5 teams had better records,but once they were used to playing without Jordan, the Bulls were clearly better than Atlanta or Phoenix). Take James, and add him to a team like the Nuggets without taking anyone away, and that’s the equivalent of Jordan’s team.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:44 am
“When Kobe Bryant was 24, he had 3 rings.”
And if Paul Pierce was on those Laker teams he’d have 4 rings now and be considered one of the greatest of all time while Kobe would be slotted alongside Tracey McGrady as a phenomenal talent who never really won that much.
Mike
June 17th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Yes, we should be so impressed with them because they are amazing, unmatched, and put up with an astonishing consistency over 15 years while winning six championships. And is there any real doubt that it would have been eight had he not stepped away to play baseball? I’ll answer that for you, no there is no doubt.
Russell was a great player and I won’t say a word bad about him. BUT, there were eight teams in the NBA when the Celtics won their fist championship with him and 14 when he won his last. It’s the whole John Wooden thing. Great coach, absolutely. No way he can accomplish that in the modern era.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Here’s my suggestion for the Cavs next year: you should convince Ben Wallace to not retire, and then have him defend the opposition’s best three point shooter on every possession next year. It’d be fun!
I’d honestly feel a lot better if they could just be, definitively, the better team throughout the series. I won’t count on another miracle shot from LeBron with one second left and I’d rather not count on anyone having to defend a 6-10 three point shooter with the game on the line. I’d rather the game be won before that point. At least the home games, anyway. Play with fire all you want on the road, but when you have home-court advantage and considering these last-second games are frighteningly close to being 50/50 propositions, there’s only so much last-second strategy can or really ought to do for you.
I don’t know if they need Shaq, but someone that could guard Dwight Howard half as well as Pau Gasol just did might be enough. And maybe someone to defend, not Turkoglu, not Lewis, but Mickael Effing Pietrus!!!
Ugh.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Oh, please. It’s not like they never played a team in the West during their 82 game schedule.
Regular season != regular season. As the Magic learned against the Lakers and the Lakers learned against the Rockets. The Cavs were the clumsy bully of the NBA, the can beat up on the good teams, but fall to teams their same size.
I didn’t say it was an East vs. West thing. After all, they got felled by a team in the East. However, they got their wheels blown off once they played a team that wasn’t Detroit or Atlanta. I was just pointing out, prior to Orlando, every team they played was worse than the Jazz.
FWIW, in the regular season:
Cavs vs the Lakers, Celtics (2 sans KG) and Orlando – 3-5
June 17th, 2009 at 10:53 am
“SVG handed you folks a gift. Be grateful.”
Also, the Candyman’s 3pt shooting rampage helped.
How does the dude shoot 61% from the charity stripe and 51% from behind the arc during the playoffs? Isn’t that just a little bit bizarre?
I mean, one of the few certainties in life is that Lamar Odom can’t shoot the basketball. I would’ve bet my farm, my ranch, and my dog that Odom wouldn’t shoot 50% from behind the arc, and I’d have lost.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:57 am
“I don’t know if they need Shaq, but someone that could guard Dwight Howard half as well as Pau Gasol just did might be enough.”
The answer for Cleveland is Roscoe, not Shaqtus.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I don’t think so. This Laker team is probably the closest thing to a one man show since Rick Barry won a title almost single-handedly. We lose sight of it because his support is so much better than LBJ’s, but I can’t think of a championship team minus it’s best player that would be worse than this year’s Lakers since 1975.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Petey:
You cherry picked. Why don’t you look at all 6 jordan title years.
As for calling me not a sharp tool, I will remind you that you first called me that whrn you objected to me calling john edwards a phony.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:00 am
But without someone like Kareem already on the team, picking Earvin over MJ or LBJ becomes pure silliness.
Like Game 6 of the 1980 Finals?
I also disagree that Jordan would have won 8 rings had he never played baseball. The 2 years off made the second 3-peat more likely. Had he not had two years of wear and tear from the grind of playing basketball, he probably would have ended up with fewer, not more rings (and Karl Malone & John Stockton might have one).
Njorl,
When Kobe player with Harper, Malone, Rice and Payton, they were washed up as well. Less Williams is a better player than Fisher (but Fisher has veteran wiles and clutch experience). Carron Butler wasn’t yet that great when he was a Laker. I’ll give you Odom, Pau and Shaq though.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Jordan may well have been the best defensive guard I’ve ever seen. He was stunningly quick and very strong and tough. And more competetive than just about any human on the planet.
As for the notion that he wouldn’t be an all star (I won’t even dignify the “he wouldn’t be a starter claim) now, I saw him play in his last year with the Wizards and drop 40 plus in a game. He was a shadow of his former self in terms of quickness, but he was still able to dominate the game for periods of time.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Bill Cartwright
Z’s better than Cartwright, who doesn’t have a PER score of even an average player during his Bulls years.
John Paxson
Mmm, no.
Stacey King
Now you’re just fucking with us. King is an infamous failure.
BJ Armstrong
I doubt this one, too, but less confidently.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Matt,
As a style choice, I’m curious why you switch the order around for the stats you list for each player. For Kobe you list points, rebounds, and assists. For Jordan you list rebounds, assists, and points.
You do realize that readers trying to analyze your comparison (which would be easier to do in table form) will scan to compare these numbers. So my initial reaction was: Which category could Kobe possibly be out performing Jordan 22..5 to 6.5?
Blech.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:06 am
“This Laker team is probably the closest thing to a one man show since Rick Barry won a title almost single-handedly.”
The Lakers are a very thin team, but they’re not a one man show. They have one of the elite big men in the league as Kobe’s wingman. They’re a two man show.
Don’t forget that the Grizz won 50 games with Pau as their “one man show”…
June 17th, 2009 at 11:11 am
This Laker team is probably the closest thing to a one man show since Rick Barry won a title almost single-handedly.
You really thing so? I think the Lakers talent is just absurd. If they bring everyone back, it will be the first team that I can remember that I can imagine really bringing back the old Showtime days. If and when Bynum gets back to his form of earlier this year, they might have a player advantage at four of five starting positions in most games. And given the nature of the PG in Phil’s offense, Brown just needs to confirm that he can shoot the three.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:15 am
69: I guess it depends on how much better you think Gasol makes the team. But he was the best player on some pretty bad Grizzly squads, so that has to say something, I think. Did he ever put up more than 20-25 a game on those teams? I think the Lakers would have some pretty substantial problems offensively without Kobe, it is true…
It’s amazing how bad Lebron’s teammates are as well. With Jordan, we have a very good reference since he left for two years and the team was still pretty damn good. They wouldn’t have been as good if he wasn’t there all 6 of those title years, but they would have still made the playoffs. That’s not true of either the Lakers or the Cavs, of course.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:20 am
The overall athleticism of the league is SO much higher today than in was in Jordan’s time, due to greatly increased competitiveness in youth leagues and also to increased foreign recruiting. And Kobe is playing against that competition, and he’s THRIVING.
Bull. Greater athleticism is largely canceled out by: a) much poorer fundamentals (IMO mostly because of the dearth of Americans with 4 years of college ball), b) much greater competition internationally for the talent’s of the world’s ballers; and, c) expansion. I strongly suspect any NBA championship team from the early 70s to the mid nineties would have prevailed over this year’s Lakers. The 1992 dream team would annihilate its contemporary counterpart.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:23 am
75: That’s one season Pau played with Memphis. In his first two seasons they were terrible. Then they had 3 seasons were they lost in the first round followed up by a 22 win season. And they didn’t look too good when they traded him the following season. So if he was a 1 man show for that 50 win season, what happened in 2006-07? He still played in 59 games.
76: That’s a big if on Bynum, I think. Certainly he’s not very good right now.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:25 am
“If they bring everyone back, it will be the first team that I can remember that I can imagine really bringing back the old Showtime days. If and when Bynum gets back to his form of earlier this year, they might have a player advantage at four of five starting positions in most games.”
If the Lakers are willing to spend to bring back Ariza and Odom, and if Bynum can be healthy, and if Bynum can develop, and if Ariza doesn’t take a step back after getting paid, and if no one can exploit the weakness of the Fisher/Farmar spot during the playoffs, and if Odom can repeat his black swan shooting of the ‘09 playoffs, then the Lakers could be a really dominant team next year.
There are plenty of places where the train could run off the track. You are Kobe and Pau and a lot of duct tape and bungee cords.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Russell was a great player and I won’t say a word bad about him. BUT, there were eight teams in the NBA when the Celtics won their fist championship with him and 14 when he won his last.
Right. Which means compared to today there was virtually no dilution of talent. Have you seen some of today’s bottom feeders play hoops? Can you imagine how powerful the average NBA roster would be if the league were to suddenly collapse to eight teams via a reverse expansion draft?
June 17th, 2009 at 11:30 am
“It’s amazing how bad Lebron’s teammates are”
I’d dissent here. It’s true that LBJ doesn’t have a second elite player on his team, but the Cavs’ roster this year wasn’t that bad.
They just hit a matchup against Orlando that they didn’t have the roster flexibility to match up with. They were short a mobile big, and they still almost pulled out the series.
I mean, it’s amazing how bad Dwyane’s teammates are. LeBron had a solidly mediocre supporting cast.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:36 am
76: That’s a big if on Bynum, I think. Certainly he’s not very good right now.
He’s young and inconsistent and on a very good team. Go back and look at his early season numbers. I like PER a little too much for my own good, but he’s about where, e.g., Howard was at that age/stage. (And, unlike Howard, he’s built like a real center. But who knows if that matters.)
June 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am
78/81: Foolishness and idiocy. If the fundamentals were so important teams could draft project players and put them in the D-Leagues with quality coaching and have solid role players in a few years. In actuality, those guys are killing themselves for a spot in the NBA and failing. The desire is as strong as it ever was, but when the talent isn’t there those fundamentals don’t make up the difference. And it’s not as if the coaching in college is actually good anyhow. Those guys need such a diverse skill set there’s no guarauntee that they’ll actually be good at developing player skills and there are tons of spots to fill. It looks an awfully lot to me like good players develop better in the NBA. Are you really foolish enough to claim that LBJ and Kobe lack proper fundamentals? What the hell are those, then?
And talk of league dilution is probably even more foolish. The NBA draws from other countries not the other way around. There’s hardly a single player in the world that could start in the NBA that doesn’t. And basketball was much less popular pre 1960, so even if the population you were drawing from per team was larger (which it isn’t), the percentage of that population interested in playing basketball was much smaller. It wasn’t the most popular sport by a wide margin and it was a pretty crappy job.
Even without evaluating the prospects of dilution or not, it’s not like Russell was winning those titles single-handedly. He had multiple hall of famers to help him out. So if there was any concentration of talent, it was onto his squad! I wasn’t alive for it, but the film of basketball from that era looks pretty terrible. And I’d be willing to be that the bottom feeders of the league in the 60s would be a lot more pathetic looking than of today’s squads.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:39 am
82: Well, yeah, Miami is a worse squad. But I don’t think they’re really all that much worse (sans Wade/LBJ). I haven’t seen the Cavs upgrade their roster much in the last 3 or 4 years, but they’ve gotten a heck of a lot better. I pretty much attribute that to one place.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:48 am
This is a silly thread, but I wanted to take exception to this in particular:
This Laker team is probably the closest thing to a one man show since Rick Barry won a title almost single-handedly… I can’t think of a championship team minus it’s best player that would be worse than this year’s Lakers since 1975.
Um, what? Pau Gasol had a GREAT series – he was dominant both offensively and defensively. He is certainly good enough to be the #1 guy on a playoff contending team – he was All-NBA third team this year. And, in fact, Gasol WAS the #1 guy on playoff teams in Memphis that had far less talent than the Lakers w/o Kobe. In fact, looking at Pau’s stats, he has never had a PER of below 19.5 in his 8-year NBA career, and hasn’t been below a PER of 21.6 in any of the last 6 years.
Plus, you’ve got Lamar, who is as good a third banana as you can possibly get (consistently a 16+ PER guy), and both savvy veteran role players like Fisher and up and coming guys like Ariza and Bynum.
Kobe’s supporting cast this year is probably as good as any we’ve seen in the past 20 years.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:51 am
a) much poorer fundamentals (IMO mostly because of the dearth of Americans with 4 years of college ball)
What a terribly ignorant statement. The fundamentals of players right now are higher than they have ever been — shooting percentages, free throw percentages, 3-point percentages, all UP. The guys nowadays are playing AAU ball with experienced, knowledgeable coaching from far earlier than 20+ years ago. Plus they are going to camps galore.
Plus, the competition for spots on NBA rosters is incredible. Many of the European leagues are notably stronger than anything the college game puts on the floor, and the competition for Americans to get one of the two roster spots those teams allow is fierce.
I am so tired of the “NBA is just a glorified pick-up game” stupidity. . .
June 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Malone, Barkley, Ewing, Bird, Johnson, Jabbar, McHale, Robinson, Ewing, Stockton, Olajuwan, Pippin, Thomas, Drexler, Shaq, Mutombo, Hardaway, Hill (the “next Jordan” for a few seasons), Mourning, Larry Johnson (for five good seasons), etc. … in an era with far more physical contact. Hell, Jordan started in the league when the Sixers, Rockets, and Cavs fielded championship calibre teams–but they still couldn’t get past the Celtics, Lakers, and Pistons. Had Jordan not gone on “hiatus” (Baseball? I buy into the gambling conspiracy theories…), he might have run the table for eight straight years. I mean, that’s Russell territory, only in a modern NBA.
Look at the All-Star rosters from 1985, 1990, 1995 and tell me how they stack up against squads from Kobe’s time.
I know I’m restating the obvious, but there is no way Kobe plays against a more competitive league than did Jordan.
Plus, who did more to urge, cajole, shame, and encourage their teams to victory? Jordan was the most gifted, most athletic, smartest, and most driven player ever to lace them up. Kobe’s one of the greatest. Statistically, Kobe comes within shouting distance of Jordan (though he’ll never average 40 a game for a season like Jordan did–nor should he HAVE to…), but Kobe’s not in Jordan’s class, and likely never can be.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Kobe’s supporting cast this year is probably as good as any we’ve seen in the past 20 years.
This is just ridiculous. How about the Lakers minus Shaq in 2000-2003? Remember those teams had… Kobe! Or the 99 Spurs when Robinson was not as old? And later when Parker and Ginobli had matured in 2003 and 2005, I think those squads were pretty good as well. Or how about the fact that the Bulls made deep playoff runs while Jordan was ‘retired’? I’ll grant that there is a lot of room for debate on this point because it’s a really tough one to consider, but there are at least some extremely clear counter-examples to your claim.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I know this thread and comments are played out … but I thought I would post a link to the definitive defense of Kobe Bryant. Objective, empirical, nuanced.
Kobe is polarizing, just like politics. As a huge Kobe fan, who is realistic about his personality, as well as his amazing game, it saddens me that people do not recognize what a great player he is.
1. He is not Jordan, and that shouldn’t be a argument against Kobe.
2. Anyone who buys into the hilariously simplistic criticism that Shaq won three titles and Kobe was just along for the ride … obviously did not watch those teams and their playoff runs. Even Shaq has admitted that he wouldn’t have won any rings without Kobe. Its not a defense of Kobe, just an assertion of common sense.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Kobe’s supporting cast this year is probably as good as any we’ve seen in the past 20 years.
Sometimes I really wish you weren’t a fucking Red, Al. Agree almost entirely.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I’d dissent here. It’s true that LBJ doesn’t have a second elite player on his team, but the Cavs’ roster this year wasn’t that bad.
If there’s one thing I take away from the non-LBJ portion of the Cavs’ roster, I think it’s how good a defensive coach Mike Brown is. The team is top 2, top 3 in any important category with guys like Ilgauskus and Mo Williams in the starting lineup, a second point guard starting at shooting guard, and the likes of Szczerbiak, Joe Smith, and Boobie Gibson getting a lot of minutes off the bench. Their best defensive bigs, Wallace and Varejao, are pretty much specialists, not all-around great defenders. Mike Brown isn’t the best coach in the NBA, and yes he got the award, but I’m disappointed so many fans don’t really appreciate his strengths.
That aside, yes, thank you, the Cavs non-LeBron roster had to be a little above average to win 66 games. That just doesn’t happen with one guy. Right, D-Wade isn’t that much worse than LeBron and for God’s sake, KG was doing amazing things in Minnesota without winning that many games. A long list of above-average role players (that don’t suck on D) can probably get you as much as one elite wing man + a bunch of scrubs, but there really shouldn’t be any superficial preference for one scenario or the other.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
“The fundamentals of players right now are higher than they have ever been”
Individual skills, perhaps. But fundamental understanding of the game and how to play it? Not so much.
Mike
June 17th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
92: Well Brown is usually an excellent defensive coach, which he is recognized for. (as far as I can tell) But he did have trouble coming up with a good looking plan for defending Orlando, which hurts. And he’s pretty bad on the offensive side of things. Overall, he definitely brings something to the table, but leaves a little to be desired.
I do think LeBron is quite a bit better than Wade, but also the Cavs have a lot more to play for and that brings more out of the role players, I think. And, with a really good defensive coach squeezing the most out of those guys they can really overachieve against the good-bad teams of the NBA (explaning their 66 wins). But against a great team their lack of surrounding talent was exposed, imop.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
93: What does that even mean? And how can you claim to evaluate that? For one thing, the best way to play the game is heavily dependent on the rule-set, which has changed quite a bit. So if they don’t play the same way today as 20 years ago.. there are perfectly good reasons why!
June 17th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Jordan probably edges Kobe out in the greatest SG of all time discussion, but an area that I think Kobe surpasses Jordan is in the area of fundamentals. Jordan was excellent fundamentally and worked hard to become so, but Kobe’s mastery of footwork and shooting mechanics is astounding. Watch his footwork on even his difficult shots and you will see his ability to maintain solid shooting mechanics and good footwork. It’s why his game has not degraded very much because of his age.
Two additional points that I think are important to this discussion. First, as Phil Jackson had pointed out on multiple occasions, Jordan had huge hands that gave him a unique control of the ball. Kobe has normal sized hands and this difference gives Jordan a physical advantage that shuld be underestimated. Second, Kobe played this year with a significantly injured finger on each hand. This contributed to an increase in turnovers off the dribble and an occasional bad shot. When you get down to it, the comparisons get more difficult as you focus on specifics.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
This is just ridiculous. How about the Lakers minus Shaq in 2000-2003?
The 2001-2003 Lakers minus Shaq were better than this year’s Lakers minus Kobe? Uh, no.
The second banana on that team – Kobe – was about as good (2001) or slightly better (2002, 2003) than Pau. But what about the rest of the team? The never had a third banana *even close* to as good as Lamar (Glenn Rice’s corpse? Rick Fox?). 2001-3’s savvy vet in Horry may be as good this year’s savvy vet in Fish, but their other players are nowhere as good as this year’s Ariza, Bynum, Farmar, Walton, etc.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
2007-08 Boston Celtics – So much better that you don’t know if Garnett or Pierce is the star – one of those Rondo and Allen are better than the Lakers – Kobe.
2006-07, 04-05 San Antonio Spurs I’ll take Parker, Ginobli and Bowen
2005-06 Miami Heat I’ll take Shaq. And don’t bother quoting regular season PER.
2003-04 Detroit Pistons – not even close
2002-03 San Antonio Spurs – David Robinson might have been their 5th best player.
1999-2002 Los Angeles Lakers – Kobe was a better supporting cast than he had this year
1998-99 San Antonio Spurs – Robinson, Elliot and Johnson were better
1995-98 Chicago Bulls – Pippen and Rodman, better.
1993-95 Houston Rockets – This is an exception. The Lakers without Kobe were much better than Rockets without Olajuwan (of course, Olajuwan was probably better than Kobe.)
1990-93 Chicago Bulls – Without Jordan would have been one of the best teams in the NBA
1989-90 Detroit Pistons – After Isaiah, their next 7 players could start for most NBA teams.
Going back further, the Bird and Magic had better support. The Sixers team without Moses Malone probably would have beaten the Magic in the finals. The Bullets team without Elvin Hayes would be Dandridge, Unseld, Henderson, Grevey and Kupchak – damn good. The Supersonics didn’t have a superstar, they were all a supporting cast.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Bynum, Farmar and Walton? Those guys have all had moments where they looked good, but two of them barely played in the finals because they have been so bad lately. I don’t think you get much credit for Farmar or Walton. And Ariza was never remotely decent until he was shooting wide open 3s for the Lakers. As for Fish… he was 8 years younger and in his prime, right? Odom is a legit player without an equivalent match on those squads but those older Laker teams had deeper benches of players who had quality careers elsewhere and were either young or still had something left.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I can see Njorl’s point about the Celts and a couple of the others. To look at it, we’d really need to decide on a measurement. It would be interesting to see how various championship teams weighted PERs looked. My general sense is that the best teams have normally had at least one great player and a couple of v. good ones, but weren’t very deep after that.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Harper was only supposed to be on the “Jordan” list. My mistake. Rice, Payton and Malone were not washed up – past their prime, but not washed up. Payton had a terrible playoffs, but a decent regular season. Malone was never washed up.
SCMT had better points. Cartwright had lost it, Armstrong and King were decent role platers, but not as good as Ilgauskas (king was a failure as a star, which he was thought to be, he was OK as a role player.) I don’t know what I was thinking with Paxson. I was going from memory, and I guess that one shot stood out.
Still, that leaves a long list of players better thananyone LeBron played with.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I’ll grant that there is a lot of room for debate on this point because it’s a really tough one to consider, but there are at least some extremely clear counter-examples to your claim.
Look, to the more general claim, I am not saying that this year’s Lakers supporting cast is clearly better than other championship winning supporting casts – just that it is not weaker than any recent supporting cast.
I don’t think you can find any second banana/third banana pairs clearly better than Pau and Lamar: Ginobli/Parker isn’t clearly better; Pierce/(elderly)Allen isn’t clearly better. I guess Pippen/Kukoc in ‘97 was better.
And then the role players (players #4 through #9) – were they better on ‘08 Celts or ‘05 Spurs or ‘00-’02 Lakers (think I’m off by a year in the post above)? Not clear to me either. Again, ‘97 Bulls probably better, with Rodman, Harper, Kerr, Longley.
I suppose I’d amend the prior answer – the ‘97 Bulls supporting cast was probably better than this year’s Lakers supporting cast. Other recent supporting casts: not clearly better. Certainly the original statement that this year’s supporting cast is the WORST in the last 20 years is wrong.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Let’s take a look at Kobe’s stats from the Shaq threepeat.
2000 21.1 pts 4.5 rbs 4.4 ast 1.5 stl 34% 3pt 44% overall
2001 29.4 pts 6.1 rbs 6.1 ast 1.6 stl 32% 3pt 47% overall
2002 26.6 pts 5.8 rbs 4.6 ast 1.5 stl 38% 3pt 44% overall
Now, Paul Pierce played on some crappy Celtics teams so we can’t match up playoff stats, but here are his regular season numbers for those years.
2000 19.5 pts 5.4 rbs 3.0 ast 2.1 stl 34% 3pt 44% overall
2001 25.3 pts 6.4 rbs 3.1 ast 1.7 stl 38% 3pt 45% overall
2002 26.1 pts 6.9 rbs 3.2 ast 1.9 stl 40% 3pt 44% overall
So, if Pierce elevates his game even slightly in the playoffs, he matches or exceeds Kobe stats in all areas except assists and probably points in 2001.
There’s no guarantee that Shaq/Pierce wins those three championships, but the idea that Kobe’s contribution to those Laker teams couldn’t have been replaced by another great player is nonsense.
Mike
June 17th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I have this little test: if someone thinks Kobe Bryant has had a better career than Tim Duncan, they don’t know a thing about basketball. Period.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
2007-08 Boston Celtics – So much better that you don’t know if Garnett or Pierce is the star – one of those Rondo and Allen are better than the Lakers – Kobe.
Pierce/elderly Allen clearly better than Pau/Lamar? No.
2006-07, 04-05 San Antonio Spurs I’ll take Parker, Ginobli and Bowen
2005-06 Miami Heat I’ll take Shaq. And don’t bother quoting regular season PER.
2003-04 Detroit Pistons – not even close
2002-03 San Antonio Spurs – David Robinson might have been their 5th best player.
David Robinson was 150 years old, Parker was just out of the womb, and Ginobli was still processing his visa at the airport. So, no.
1999-2002 Los Angeles Lakers – Kobe was a better supporting cast than he had this year
Covered above – incorrect.
1998-99 San Antonio Spurs – Robinson, Elliot and Johnson were better
Please. Robinson was still in his prime (in fact, I’d say Robinson was the main guy, and Duncan the second banana), but Elliot and Johnson? Really?
1995-98 Chicago Bulls – Pippen and Rodman, better.
Yeah, that ‘97 team probably better.
1993-95 Houston Rockets – This is an exception. The Lakers without Kobe were much better than Rockets without Olajuwan (of course, Olajuwan was probably better than Kobe.)
1990-93 Chicago Bulls – Without Jordan would have been one of the best teams in the NBA
1989-90 Detroit Pistons – After Isaiah, their next 7 players could start for most NBA teams.
This Pistons team had a lot of one-dimensional players after Dumars (who I think is overrated). I don’t think I’d take Dumars/Laimbeer (or Aguirre or Rodman or whoever) over Pau/Lamar. But at least it’s interesting.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Did you see Pierce play last year?
Last year, I’d take Pierce and anybody over this year’s Gasol and Odom. Adding Allen and Rondo remove all doubt.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
For those who say that former players aren’t good enough for today’s game due to higher athleticism, two things. First of all, this may have been true in the 60s or 70s, but by the 80s and 90s there were a lot of very good players, probably more than today. For example, in the 90s I’d take Olajuwon, Robinson, O’Neal, and Ewing over any center in the league today, and I’d probably take Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, and even Vlade Divac, and maybe some others, over any center except for Howard and Yao.
As for earlier years, I heard someone say (and I agree) that while the average player’s athleticism has gone up, the freakish athletes have always been there. Wilt Chamberlain, for example, was as freakish an athlete as anyone who has ever been in the league. You know how MJ dunked from the free throw line? Wilt could dunk from the free throw line without a running start. And there is a story on Wikiquote about him effortlessly lifting a dolly with 600 pounds of supplies 6 inches off the ground.
Finally, MJ is clearly better than Kobe. I couldn’t think of something Kobe did that MJ didn’t do. Just look at his greatest hits on Youtube.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Except being the first and only banana has a major inflationary effect on stats. Kobe has those stats as the second option in an offense designed to get the big man the ball. Pierce got his stats in a system where he was the first option, of course he scored more. Plus, how many Kobe led teams missed the playoffs or threw games to get a draft pick. Yeah, he was injured for about half of 2006/7, but they were 20-27 before he went down, not a playoff pace. In addition, Pierce has never had a supporting cast as bad as the one led by Smush Parker and Kwame Brown.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Which is why I said Robinson was their 5th best player.
Evidently the coating of amniotic fluid helped Parker slip past defenders very well. They also had Malik Rose with his best year, and a pre-derangement Stephen Jackson. Ginobli was probably their 6th best player.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Without Gasol the Nuggets beat the Lakers. Hell, Gasol with a tweaked knee or sprained finger the Nuggets probably win.
Then where’s Kobe and this discussion?
June 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
“Right. Which means compared to today there was virtually no dilution of talent. Have you seen some of today’s bottom feeders play hoops? Can you imagine how powerful the average NBA roster would be if the league were to suddenly collapse to eight teams via a reverse expansion draft?”
Then Russell obviously played in a watered down league compared to George Mikan, right?
Somebody made the point earlier, but Jordan playing in his prime with today’s hand checking and contact rules. Sick. The only thing Kobe does better than His Airness is shoot threes.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
“Except being the first and only banana has a major inflationary effect on stats.”
Right, just like playing with a dominant inside force makes everything easier for a great wing player. How much of a load did Kobe have to carry night-in-and-night-out with Shaq there?
“In addition, Pierce has never had a supporting cast as bad as the one led by Smush Parker and Kwame Brown”
Uh, in the 03-04 season, here are the players who played meaningful minutes for Boston – Pierce, Ricky Davis, Chucky Atkins, Mark Blount, Jiri Welsch, Walter McCarty, Chris Mihm, Raef LaFrentz, Marcus Banks, Brandon Hunter and Jumaine Jones. Kobe’s NEVER played on a team with that talent level…and I didn’t even have to go to the J.R. Bremer/Bruno Sundov Celtic era.
Mike
June 17th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Kobe has those stats as the second option in an offense designed to get the big man the ball.
Which usually means that he gets more efficient shots. So maybe the volume is down, but the efficiency should be up.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Somebody made the point earlier, but Jordan playing in his prime with today’s hand checking and contact rules. Sick. The only thing Kobe does better than His Airness is shoot threes.
Everyone always mentions this and fails to mention the counter-point to this, which is the end of illegal defense. Now teams can play zones, making team defense more effective.
Lamar Odom, Smush Parker, Brian Cook, Chris Mihm, Kwame Brown, Devean George, Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Ronny Turiaf, Laron Profit, Aaron McKie, Andrew Bynum, Slava Medvedenko, Devin Green, Jim Jackson, Von Wafer. That year, Ricky Davis had an equal PER to Lamar Odom and the Cs had 4 players with better PERs that the Lakers’ next 4. And this team was one win from upsetting a Suns team that was jobbed out of a Finals trip.
Pierce’s career best PER is 23.6, Kobe has only been below that twice starting in 00-01(23.3 and 23.2) and starting 99-00 Kobe has never had a single year worse than Piece’s career average of 21.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Except being the first and only banana has a major inflationary effect on stats.
Perhaps on shots taken and points scored. But I’d kinda like more evidence that the effect is “major,” particularly rebounds, assists, turnovers, steals. Or especially measures of efficiency, like TS%, FT%, etc.
My hunch is that this effect is smaller than commonly believed. Truly great players excel in a variety of areas and I think during the course of 100 possessions or so there’s plenty of time to fill up the stat sheet, though I’ll concede All-Star games are probably showcases of how this crowding effect theoretically could be very large.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
There is still illegal defense
June 17th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Freddie’s point makes me think of another way to show how ridiculous the Kobe-to-MJ comparisons are: I really think Kobe might only be the 5th best player in the NBA right now! I’d personally have LeBron, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and Dwight Howard ahead of Kobe. That’s probably not well-received, but I think the stats back up this claim. And that’s the whole point. It was obvious during Jordan’s career when watching from afar how dominant he was. But it was also never the case during his career and especially during his prime that someone could make the argument that someone else in the league was stastically better. Maybe you could convince me I’m wrong about exactly where Kobe stands in the league right now, but the simple fact that there is no consensus, that there is objectively some ambiguity about this makes it really, really hard to then think he can stack up to someone who unambiguously dominated the league during his time.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“Lamar Odom, Smush Parker, Brian Cook, Chris Mihm, Kwame Brown, Devean George, Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Ronny Turiaf, Laron Profit, Aaron McKie, Andrew Bynum, Slava Medvedenko, Devin Green, Jim Jackson, Von Wafer. That year, Ricky Davis had an equal PER to Lamar Odom and the Cs had 4 players with better PERs that the Lakers’ next 4. And this team was one win from upsetting a Suns team that was jobbed out of a Finals trip.
Pierce’s career best PER is 23.6, Kobe has only been below that twice starting in 00-01(23.3 and 23.2) and starting 99-00 Kobe has never had a single year worse than Piece’s career average of 21.”
All you’ve proven is that PER isn’t a perfect evaluation of a player. Seriously, Ricky Davis over Lamar Odom? HA! And by the way, I only listed players who logged any significant minutes for the Celtics. That was 11 with Pierce. You listed 17 with Kobe. So, yeah, those 5 or 6 extra players who never saw the court may have been worse than the Celts’ regular rotation.
And this isn’t an argument that Pierce is better than Kobe. He’s not. The argument is whether Kobe played in indispensible role in the Shaq threepeat. I think it’s clear, whether statistically or by common sense, that there were quite a few other wing players you could have substituted for Kobe and it wouldn’t have significantly lessened the Lakers chances of winning.
Mike
June 17th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
There is still illegal defense
Not like it was prior to 2001, when any zone would get an illegal defense call. Now it’s only defensive three-seconds.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
“There is still illegal defense”
Untrue! There is a defensive rule against spending more than 3 seconds in the lane unless you are guarding a player, but other than that, anything goes.
Prior to the changes, there were strict rules about how you were allowed to positionally defend. You basically had to always stay with your man with the only exception being if you fully committed to doubling the player with the ball.
Now you can play soft zones and soft doubles. You can shade towards a player without the ball. The way defenses try to wall off a player like LeBron would have been illegal under the old rules.
In short, the rule changes made it easier on an offensive player because defenses can’t use their hands, and the rule changes made it harder on an offensive player because defenses can strategically position themselves in the halfcourt.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I didn’t follow your ESPN link, but that’s some serious Jordan jock-sniffing. Sounds like Wilbon.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Just a note on comparing eras, Jordan played in an era of isolation offense, where because of illegal defense you could clear out an entire side of the court and let your best player go 1v1. You could double, but they were much clumsier then the double teams that you see today because they don’t have the limitations of the illegal defense rule.
The game is better and healthier for the changes that were made, but it did make it a bit easier for teams to deal with star perimeter players.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I’d personally have LeBron, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and Dwight Howard ahead of Kobe.
If you were drafting now with the long term in mind, sure. But with a single series on the line? No way I’m taking any of those guys (besides LeBron) — all things being equal — over Kobe. And I say that as a rabidly anti-Laker, extremely bitter Celtics fan.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Well, thats what I get with taking my time to post, the ID issue was covered.
If you want to see the differences in offensive styles, just go to youtube and watch compilations of scoring for LeBron and Jordan. A lot of Jordan’s points are scored 1v1, or with a very late double. Lebron is getting to the rim by splitting double teams, and usually has to finish over a shot blocker. He scores a lot posting up smaller guards, which he would have been doubled today effectively.
Jordan’s Bulls teams would have suffered under today’s rules I think. Their big men weren’t very good offensively, and their two best players were similarly sized. A Pippen-Jordan pick and roll wouldn’t have been that devastating, since you could simply switch on the pick and not have too bad a bad match up. Pick with a Rodman or a Grant, and you just follow the ball, neither player would hurt you much offensively. And a ton of what happens today in the NBA revolves around what happens off of the screen.
I cant think of a contending team in the last few years whose main options were a 2 and a 3 without a serious scoring threat from the 4 or 5 spots.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias takes ESPN’s Bill Simmons to task for arguing that Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan “might compare statistically and stylistically, but Jordan could command a room of 10 people or 20,000 and get the exact same reaction: Every set of eyes trained on him for as long as he was there. His personality, his charisma, his aura, his passion … indescribable. Like nothing I have ever seen.” The reason “we’re never seeing another Jordan” is precisely because they don’t compare statistically. It’s truly not even close, and I really don’t understand why people sometimes say things like this. When Kobe Bryant was 21, he put up 22.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.9 assists per game. Jordan got 6.5 rebounds, offered 5.9 assists, and scored 28.2 points. And not because he was shooting more, because he was shooting better with a TS% of .592 to Kobe’s .546. In Kobe’s most efficient scoring season, he put up a .580—worse than Jordan’s rookie year. Jordan did better than that in six different seasons, and maxed out at .614 in the 1988-89 season. In Kobe’s most prolific scoring season he got 31.1 points, in Jordan’s most prolific season he got 33.4 points per game. Jordan consistently snagged more rebounds and dished out more assists. And he did it all before they changed the rules to make things easier for guards! [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Facts, who needs those pesky thing when you can talk about “passion” and “charisma”. I had the privilege and the misfortune of growing up in the Chicago suburbs watching Jordan and the Bulls play. Why it was a privilege is obvious, it was a misfortune for the same reason; the game today does not compare, for all the supposed virtuosity on display. Then again, I was a nascent basketball fan when the Bulls were becoming, arguably, the greatest team of all time, led by, undoubtedly, the greatest player of all time; maybe I’m just spoiled, maybe Bill Simmons is, too.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
“Just a note on comparing eras, Jordan played in an era of isolation offense, where because of illegal defense you could clear out an entire side of the court and let your best player go 1v1.”
Yes and no.
There was actually an illegal offense violation if you tried to move four players to the weak side. So you couldn’t have a player like MJ go 1 on 1, but you could have him go 2 on 2.
“The game is better and healthier for the changes that were made, but it did make it a bit easier for teams to deal with star perimeter players.”
I actually disagree with this. I think the rule changes were a loss aesthetically.
I halfway believe the changes were done after the ‘01 year solely to keep Iverson from winning a title and becoming the face of the association, which management thought would be a marketing nightmare.
But the illegal defense rule allowed a pretty beautiful iso game to develop, and that’s gone now. Now, you just wall off the lone superstar and see if the fifth guy on the team can knock down the wide open three pointer.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
But the illegal defense rule allowed a pretty beautiful iso game to develop, and that’s gone now. Now, you just wall off the lone superstar and see if the fifth guy on the team can knock down the wide open three pointer.
Isn’t this essentially conceding that Kobe stats this finals are every bit as impressive as anything Jordan did? I mean, he scored and got the assists (and got 4 blocks in the final game) under rules that clearly, as you say, favor the great one-on-one iso player.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
One thing that becomes clear from these 120-odd posts is that the arguments against Kobe are now entirely counterfactual: If this didn’t happen, if that didn’t happen, if he didn’t play with this guy, if he didn’t play with that guy. The “factual” part of the argument has been reduced to “He’s not as great as Jordan.” In the factual world, he has an excellent chance to end his career with as many championships as Jordan if not more. I think in the end the measure of Kobe’s greatness is going to be that he made everybody who played against him or rooted against him hate him.
Remember after Orlando won their one game in the finals and Petey asked whether anyone doubted that if the playoffs were beginning again that day Orlando would win? That was awesome. I think his ability to continue to project an air of certainty when no prediction he makes from October to June comes true is remarkable. The man is a walking East Coast bias.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
“Isn’t this essentially conceding that Kobe stats this finals are every bit as impressive as anything Jordan did?”
No. Kobe doesn’t even own the best stats among players of his own era.
The iso rules allowed Jordan to find a niche that permitted him to still be an elite player as hit crucifixion age, which seems less possible now, but the kind of crazy numbers he put up at his peak would still have been crazy numbers under current rules.
Jordan statistically dominated his era in the same way that LeBron seems likely to statistically dominate his era. Kobe, not so much.
Kobe’s a nice player and all. Surround him with an elite big man, a host of serviceable role players, and top notch coaching, and he’ll go do work. But he only is what he is. MJ is clearly a more valuable piece under either set of rules.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
“Remember after Orlando won their one game in the finals and Petey asked whether anyone doubted that if the playoffs were beginning again that day Orlando would win? “
My error there is that I thought by the time the series moved to Orlando that SVG had come to the understanding that the Jameer experiment was a failure. Obviously, I was wrong, as SVG proved in game 4.
I fully admit that Orlando wouldn’t win a seven game series against LA while trying to work Nelson back into the rotation.
“The man is a walking East Coast bias.”
Hey, I got the Finals wrong last year by picking the Lakers over the Celtics. I have no coastal bias in basketball.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
“One thing that becomes clear from these 120-odd posts is that the arguments against Kobe are now entirely counterfactual”
No, the only real argument against Kobe is that he gets credit for those three Shaq championships as though he was a decisive factor in the Lakers winning them. He wasn’t. That doesn’t mean Kobe’s not a great player or even the greatest of his era, but those three titles are what people base the Jordan comparisons on and that’s just nonsense. Replace Kobe with Paul Pierce, Jerry Stackhouse, Ray Allen, Latrell Sprewell, a healthy Alan Houston or a healthy Grant Hill and how much less of a chance would the Lakers have had to get a title at that time?
Mike
June 17th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
G.D., you’re saying that Matthew has proven that he’s biased for saying that Kobe Bryant isn’t as good as Michael Jordan? Seriously?
June 17th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
” Jordan would not be a standout player in the NBA today. On many teams he probably would not even be a starting guard–more likely a reserve player off the bench.”
This is dumber than anything Jeff Sessions said today in the review of the AG. This even is dumber than anything Republicans in the California legislature have said in the last two years.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Schmoe: I grew up there, too. I’m probably a few years older than you given the way you describe your situation. But it really was beautiful to watch.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
“Replace Kobe with Paul Pierce, Jerry Stackhouse, Ray Allen, Latrell Sprewell, a healthy Alan Houston or a healthy Grant Hill and how much less of a chance would the Lakers have had to get a title at that time?” You deny the arguments against Kobe are counterfactual based on a counterfactual argument. This is about par for the course on anti-Kobe arguments. And what have we been hearing for the last seven years but “Kobe can’t win without Shaq,” over and over again like a broken record? Well, now that record isn’t just broken, it’s smashed to bits, and you can’t play it anymore. What the argument now boils down to is “there are Hall of Fame players who are better than he is.” That’s not exactly devastating, particularly when all the players who are better than he is are in the Hall of Fame, or will be.
Anybody who watched the Lakers’ three year championship run and says Kobe wasn’t a decisive factor in it is an imbecile. And anyone who’s followed Kobe’s career knows that the Jordan comparisons started before he ever won a championship. They started in his rookie year, before he was even an effective contributor to the team.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Yes and no.
There was actually an illegal offense violation if you tried to move four players to the weak side. So you couldn’t have a player like MJ go 1 on 1, but you could have him go 2 on 2.
Yes your right, their was technically a rule about having to have two guys on the same side, but frequently that player was standing at the top of the key at 3 point range, while the other 3 players were well on the far side, leaving maybe not 50% of the court to operate, but a good 40% of it open. There were still huge acres of space left open.
I actually disagree with this. I think the rule changes were a loss aesthetically.
I halfway believe the changes were done after the ‘01 year solely to keep Iverson from winning a title and becoming the face of the association, which management thought would be a marketing nightmare.
But the illegal defense rule allowed a pretty beautiful iso game to develop, and that’s gone now. Now, you just wall off the lone superstar and see if the fifth guy on the team can knock down the wide open three pointer.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. Most isolation basketball was terrible to watch. The fact that Jordan could do it and make it look beautiful doesn’t make up for the fact that most NBA games were nigh unwatchable. It usually consisted of 4 guys standing and watching one player go 1v1 against another. There was no movement, no passing. It was boring.
The fact that you need 5 guys now that can score the basketball, and that you need to actually be able to move the ball to open man, leads to a much more watchable game. Getting totally off topic now though.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Kareem is the greatest, most valuable player ever. The Showtime Lakers of the 1980s were the greatest team ever.
Jordan didn’t win squat until Kareem retired an old old man.
June 18th, 2009 at 4:48 am
And this isn’t an argument that Pierce is better than Kobe. He’s not. The argument is whether Kobe played in indispensible role in the Shaq threepeat. I think it’s clear, whether statistically or by common sense, that there were quite a few other wing players you could have substituted for Kobe and it wouldn’t have significantly lessened the Lakers chances of winning.
The Lakers only won one of those titles easily. In the other two, you replace Kobe with a lesser player they’re going to lose. All the other guys you mention were not as good, either offensively or defensively. It’s not a huge difference, but would have been noticeable against Portland or Sacramento. Pierce is probably the only possibility because his size allowed him to do some things defensively that Kobe can’t, but he did have some bad seasons. We don’t have a really good metric for comparing a player like Ricky Davis to Odom- Odom probably has more upside, but has usually fallen short over the course of his career. Davis had a lot of natural talent as well, with similar consistency issues.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:24 am
[...] In Sports on 06.18.2009 at 00:32 First things first, no one. Matthew Yglesias does the right thing. He presents robust statistical evidence that Kobe cannot be compared to [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 10:51 am
“Anybody who watched the Lakers’ three year championship run and says Kobe wasn’t a decisive factor in it is an imbecile. And anyone who’s followed Kobe’s career knows that the Jordan comparisons started before he ever won a championship. They started in his rookie year, before he was even an effective contributor to the team.”
If Kobe doesn’t get traded to the Lakers, does he win those three championships playing in Charlotte or somewhere else? If early in his career Jordan had played with someone as great as Shaq, would it have taken him as long to win his first title?
And I love your obsession with counterfactual arguments after it’s already been clearly explained how Kobe is statistically not on Jordan’s level. So all you guys who fantasize about being Kobe’s little Colorado white girl have to talk about are the championships, yet you ignore how Kobe’s role and importance on those teams was completely different than MJ’s.
Kobe’s an all-time great. You want to say he’s the greatest of his era, I don’t have much problem with that. But he ain’t the equal of Jordan.
Mike
June 18th, 2009 at 11:18 am
“Kobe’s an all-time great. You want to say he’s the greatest of his era, I don’t have much problem with that.”
I do.
For one thing, his career has overlapped MJ’s on one end and LBJ’s on the other. And he’s inferior to both.
Not to mention that even if you want to attach bizarre conditions to “his era” to rule out MJ and LBJ, you are still left with Shaquille, who is pretty obviously the big dog of Kobe’s more narrowly narrowly defined age cohort. And don’t forget Timmy.
Kobe is a top notch two guard, but the only “greatest” items he’s really in contention for are things like greatest hoops player of the ‘08 Olympics or greatest perimeter player of his very narrowly defined age cohort. And even those two aren’t clear cut…
June 18th, 2009 at 11:25 am
It’s not all bout numbers, MJ is much more of symbol than Kobe: http://theeconomicword.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/the-insatiable-question-who-is-the-next-michael-jordan/
June 18th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I think arguments like this will undoubtedly turn into generational differences. I most certainly believe Jordan, at playing age, would dominate today. However, even in cases where an athlete may not dominate today because he was from another era, the argument is dumb. So, say someone like Bill Russell. Somebody could say he wouldn’t be as good today, blah blah blah….but had he been born later he would have all the training, nutrition, facilities, etc… that today’s athletes have and would have been the better for it.
I won’t talk much about Kobe, cause I really don’t watch the NBA anymore. I will say this, Jordan went from phenomenal player to phenomenal leader in his career. He made some of the people around him play literally twice as good as they did normally. He three-peated, took two years off to play baseball, then came back and three-peated again.
LIke I said, I don’t watch Kobe much, so I only know so much about him. If this is a conversation of who is the most “dazzling” or who could take who one-on-one, I’ll say I have no clue. But, in terms of who, in context of the ‘big picture’, is the greatest play, well, it’s hard for me to try to put Kobe alongside Michael.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Kobe Bryant and MJ are very similar players.
Check out this link: http://www.kobeorjordan.com
June 19th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
[...] unremarkable, yet somehow, its enough for ESPN to float Bill Simmons millions of dollars a year for easily disproved garbage. At least they probably don’t pay Gene Wojciechowski a lot of money. Possibly related posts: [...]