Better at basketball, Jokić or Kobe?

[warriorfan]

Stat nerds are simply the laziest individuals to ever walk the earth

Instead of playing the game for thousands of hours and watching thousands of hours of play, they think they can shortcut all of that by comparing two numbers and seeing which one is higher than the other

lol.

[RRR3]

Obviously they take defense into account. I'm talking about across eras, hence Kobe vs Joker. We don't have data that contextualizes Joker's impact with 2000 defensive stats. And the 2000s is arguably the best defensive era of all time.

Bringing up "RAPM" is cool for a 3-5 year sample, and within that time frame. But just using it to compare players from different eras isn't smart. Whoever told you otherwise did you a big disservice lol

So you just don’t compare players from different eras at all?

[warriorfan]

So you just don’t compare players from different eras at all?

it’s better than not educating yourself and taking random numbers and thinking you know it all

[Tavr]

So you just don’t compare players from different eras at all?

When I compare players from separate eras, I'm using film and breaking the game down way before I get into numbers. You should already be cognizant of that for the reasons I mentioned... Defense being one of the biggest.

[HoopsNY]

Kobe is becoming underrated on this board and elsewhere. People are bringing up inefficiencies way too much and not considering the gauntlet that he typically had to run through, or the fact that he played a considerable amount of his prime in the height of the defensive era.

Furthermore, his overall offensive efficiency wasn't some anomaly given the time period.

PS Kobe '00-'10: 28 PPG on 45/34/82 splits (56% TS%)

PS TMac '00-'08: 29 PPG on 43/30/77 splits (52% TS%)

PS Iverson '00-08: 30 PPG on 40/33/77 splits (52% TS%)

PS Sprewell '00-'04: 20 PPG on 42/36/78 splits (50% TS%)

PS Allen '00-'10: 19 PPG on 44/40/90 splits (58% TS%)

PS Vince '00-'10: 23 PPG on 41/31/79 splits (51% TS%)

PS LeBron '06-'10: 29 PPG on 46/32/74 splits (56% TS%)

PS Manu '03-'10: 16 PPG on 44/38/83 splits (58% TS%)

PS Wade '04-'10: 26 PPG on 48/35/79 splits (57% TS%)


What are we really arguing here? Clearly during Kobe's prime, his efficiency was relative to his peers. And I'd argue that it was usually on the tougher road, given he played the entire time in the Western Conference. T-Mac, for example, faced one top 5 defense (Detroit) in that entire spread. Kobe faced two top 5 defenses just in 2000 alone. And that doesn't even account for the mix of offense that those teams brought to the table.

I'm biased, but I believe the 2000s was the greatest era we ever saw. It brought all the elements of historical basketball all into one, with the highest level of guard play we had ever seen. Kobe likely stands on top of that hill, and that means a lot.

Made a mistake here, it should be 55% for Kobe, and not 56%. I also looked up some other elite guys and here's what I found.

PS Duncan '01-'10: 55% TS%

PS Garnett '00-'10: 53% TS%

PS Shaq '00-'06: 56% TS%

What's telling is how similar Kobe's performances were to his peers. In some cases better. I'm actually surprised Shaq's TS% was similar. LeBron's sat at 56% also. Duncan is also surprising to me. His is roughly the same as Kobe's. And these are big men who were regularly taking higher percentage shots.

I'm beginning to think that Kobe wasn't inefficient at all. I watched his whole career. The conversations I recall having was his overshooting, and not necessarily inefficiency. Iverson was always the inefficient one IIRC.