How do you go about ranking Kobe Bryant?

[RRR3]

3tard very much needs his opinions to be in line with the popular majority. He needs constant affirmation. That is why he so frequently cites majority opinion whenever he thinks he's winning an argument.

Unless of course his opinion is unpopular and stupid, at which point he will claim he doesn't care about popular opinion.

Are you truly so stupid you don’t realize YOU cited other people’s opinions as evidence Kobe was better? I was arguing simply with impact data before that.

Are you senile? Not being able to remember what you said a few posts ago is scary.

[elementally morale]

Why do you keep accusing me of ranking Kobe outside the top 20-25? Is my username arbitrarywater. Pretty much everyone disagreed with him about that including me.

I didn't even disagree. I'm not sure he agrees with himself, I think it's more of a roleplay here on his part. Dude likes controversy. I have no problem with his thread though as I stated on earlier pages. I just don't necessarily believe he believes in what he says. He believes it is something that will generate many answers and he is right. I don't think he hates Kobe, he is way too young to be emotionally involved. But even if he does, it's okay. If he doesn't but genuinely thinks he is not top 20, so be it. Won't change anything.

[Baller234]

Are you truly so stupid you don’t realize YOU cited other people’s opinions as evidence Kobe was better? I was arguing simply with impact data before that.

Are you senile? Not being able to remember what you said a few posts ago is scary.

I did that only to counter YOUR side's argument you silly bastard.

You guys were the ones who swore Lebron was better because he "appeared higher on more lists".

[RRR3]

I didn't even disagree. I'm not sure he agrees with himself, I think it's more of a roleplay here on his part. Dude likes controversy. I have no problem with his thread though as I stated on earlier pages. I just don't necessarily believe he believes in what he says. He believes it is something that will generate many answers and he is right. I don't think he hates Kobe, he is way too young to be emotionally involved. But even if he does, it's okay. If he doesn't but genuinely thinks he is not top 20, so be it. Won't change anything.

I don’t think you can argue Kobe is outside of the top 20 in total career value added. Outside of the top 20 in terms of peaks is certainly arguable but if he was ranking just by peak he wouldn’t be so certain LeBron is GOAT. He can’t pick and choose when longevity matters as an argument. Kobe was a highly positive player for like 16 years (majority of those years an MVP level player) that’s a ton of career value added regardless of if his peak is too 20 or not.

[RRR3]

I did that only to counter YOUR side's argument you silly bastard.

You guys were the ones who swore Lebron was better because he "appeared higher on more lists".

That was 1987 not me and that was only one aspect of his argument although I’d concede it’s not a very good argument objectively speaking. Considering Kobe’s case over LeBron relies heavily on arguments like that though I fully understand why he used it.

[elementally morale]

I don’t think you can argue Kobe is outside of the top 20 in total career value added. Outside of the top 20 in terms of peaks is certainly arguable but if he was ranking just by peak he wouldn’t be so certain LeBron is GOAT. He can’t pick and choose when longevity matters as an argument. Kobe was a highly positive player for like 16 years (majority of those years an MVP level player) that’s a ton of career value added regardless of if his peak is too 20 or not.

He can argue whatever he wants. :-) Not many people will agree with him. There is a very slim chance he is Einstein, with whom at one time most of the scientific world disagreed on relativity. Most of the time you are not Einstein if you have a really controversial take. The younger you are the more you tend to believe you are the exception though.

The original question was 'how we go about' tanking Kobe. Well, I can only speak for myself. I saw all his career as I've seen plenty of basketball outside Kobe as well. I 'feel' he is comfortably top 15. And then it gets really tough. Greatness is not just 'being good at basketball and winning'. Greatness is in many ways 'how much you were touched'. I wasn't touched by Shaq. I was touched by Hakeem. Just these two examples. Which of these two were better or greater? I'd go with Hakeem, the general consensus (majority) would side with Shaq. And there were many many great players who also have the resume. It is very hard to really argue one player is top 10 and the other is only at #14.

[Phoenix]

Kobe outside the Shaq years from 2004-2013 won 2 rings, 2 finals MVPs, 1 MVP, 8 all-NBA first teams. He also got 6 all-D first teams but alot of those were reputation-based so assign whatever value you wish to that. The bolded achievements, however, fairly make for a top 15 career IMO.

How much higher he goes than that depends on how much value you assign to him being a #2(2000) or 1B( 2001, 2002) to Shaq for his first 3 rings.96-99 and 11-13 before prime and end of prime didn't create any positive or negative legacy bullet points.

Also, I read a comment above about Kawhi being over him? Kawhi's pretty impossible to rank because so much of his career has been marred by injuries. Now, 2019 Kawhi vs Kobe's peak is an interesting argument, but from a career ranking POV? No chance in hell.

[Carbine]

Kobe is top 12 all time without a doubt.

You might not think his peak was top ten, you might not think his longevity is top ten, or his overall resume but combined together there are not 12 other players that have been better.

Signature players of their era

Russell/Wilt
Kareem
Magic/Bird
MJ/Hakeem
Shaq/Kobe/Duncan
Lebron/Steph

That's your top 12 right there. Kobe has to be included.

Jokic/Giannis will be on there next when their careers are winding down as the defining players of their era. We can have a discussion about Kobe being outside the top 12 at that point but not any sooner.

[elementally morale]

Kobe is top 12 all time without a doubt.

You might not think his peak was top ten, you might not think his longevity is top ten, or his overall resume but combined together there are not 12 other players that have been better.

Signature players of their era

Russell/Wilt
Kareem
Magic/Bird
MJ/Hakeem
Shaq/Kobe/Duncan
Lebron/Steph

That's your top 12 right there. Kobe has to be included.

Jokic/Giannis will be on there next when their careers are winding down as the defining players of their era. We can have a discussion about Kobe being outside the top 12 at that point but not any sooner.

I had something like this in mind when I said I 'feel' he is comfortably top 15. And I did add LeBron, Steph and Jokic. LeBron is obviously top 10, even if you dislike his game (I do). Steph and Jokic 'feel' top 15 to me. Jokic may need 2-3 years to prove this but I'd put money on him if I were a betting man. Giannis is again someone whose game I don't like. Not top 15 for me as of now but I admit I'm biased.

At any rate, it is fairly easy to fall out of the top 10. Not enough spots for all the great players I've seen. Even if I exclude players whose primes were before 1983-84 (which I do as I don't like rating players before my time and I was 10 at the time) and there is no Russell/Wilt/Kareem/Oscar/etc., there are still too many top 10 worthy players for it not to be a knock on someone to fall just short.

[Wally450]

I've got him in the 10-14 range. I believe if I were to make my list, he's drop at 12.

[ArbitraryWater]

Kobe outside the Shaq years from 2004-2013 won 2 rings, 2 finals MVPs, 1 MVP, 8 all-NBA first teams. He also got 6 all-D first teams but alot of those were reputation-based so assign whatever value you wish to that. The bolded achievements, however, fairly make for a top 15 career IMO.

How much higher he goes than that depends on how much value you assign to him being a #2(2000) or 1B( 2001, 2002) to Shaq for his first 3 rings.96-99 and 11-13 before prime and end of prime didn't create any positive or negative legacy bullet points.

Also, I read a comment above about Kawhi being over him? Kawhi's pretty impossible to rank because so much of his career has been marred by injuries. Now, 2019 Kawhi vs Kobe's peak is an interesting argument, but from a career ranking POV? No chance in hell.

I care much less about these achievements and categorized 1A/1B surface-level descriptions than others it seems.

They do very little in telling us how good a player actually played.

Theres still a million circumstances that go into that, so it makes little sense to compare from that basis.

[John8204]

Signature players of their era

Russell/Wilt
Kareem
Magic/Bird
MJ/Hakeem
Shaq/Kobe/Duncan
Lebron/Steph
.

That's similar to how I see it but I wouldn't discount the first generation....and I would have them in a different order.

Mikan/Pettit/Baylor
Wilt/Russell/Oscar
Kareem/West/Havlicek
Bird/Magic/Moses
Jordan/Hakeem/Stockton
Kobe/Duncan/Dirk/Shaq
Lebron/Steph

[Phoenix]

I care much less about these achievements and categorized 1A/1B surface-level descriptions than others it seems.

They do very little in telling us how good a player actually played.

Theres still a million circumstances that go into that, so it makes little sense to compare from that basis.

It's your thread. Feel free to drop a rankings list removing all the criteria you don't care about and focus on 'how good someone is', however you subjectively define that.

I don't particularly care a great deal about 'rankings' in general and prefer a tiered list approach. Circumstances of how a players career pans out and people valuing different criteria amounts to pissing up a tree.

[elementally morale]

It's your thread. Feel free to drop a rankings list removing all the criteria you don't care about and focus on 'how good someone is', however you subjectively define that.

I don't particularly care a great deal about 'rankings' in general and prefer a tiered list approach, specifically because of the circumstantial nature of how a players career pans out.

He will come back with stats. I mean: he MUST come back with stats. He is to young to have seen enough all time greats. And even if you did see Dirk's championship run at age 12, being 12 is too young for this on one hand and it means you missed most of Dirk's career when it happened almost entirely. Same with Nash, Kidd, Garnett, etc. And if you go back and watch games 'before your time', neither it is the same as it would've been in real time, nor it is 'all the games' or a reasonably large sample. There simply isn't enough time to do that. Plus most of those games are not easily available anyway.

What could I do if I had the task to rank players of the 60s and 70s? Stats... some footage... articles at the time... that's basically it. I woudln't stand a chance in a debate with someone who is e.g. 69 years old.

[outofstomach]

Wait I'm confused.

Before it was "Lebron is better because of efficiency".

Then when that logic was turned on it's head, the argument transformed into "Lebron is better because of TS%"

And now that THAT logic got turned on it's head, the argument has transformed yet again. Now it's "Lebron is better because I've seen him ranked higher on other people's lists..."





If you really wanna break down skill for skill, Kobe is a far better one on one player and he's also better at playing off the ball. So miss me with all that fake advanced bullshit.

I respect Lebron as one of the all time great players, but his fans are the absolute worst and really don't know about dikk about dikk. It's really just stats stats stats with you guys.

It's close but give me Mamba all day.

had to log in to say that this is pretty ridiculous that this is exactly what happened

not even a Kobe fan or anything like that but the dude really moved the goalposts shamelessly 3 times, and then of course resident Kobe hater RRR3 is over here cheering him on

shameless