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Jordan and Kobe's advanced playoff stats:
lmao at Jamstone cherrypicking only the stats that make Jordan and Kobe look comparable.
Jordan and Kobe's advanced playoff stats:
You know, you could incorrectly say that Jordan played against weaker compe ion. But why did Kobe hardly ever lead the league in any advanced statistics in his era? I guess the advanced stats are Kobe haters. Or Jordan was just on an entirely different level from Kobe.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can believe in advanced stats or you can believe in comparing Kobe and Jordan. It's one or the other people, but not both.
Thanks for posting those playoff advance stats. If you look at Michael Jordan 1996, 1997, 1998 and Kobe Bryant 2008, 2009, 2010, it does show very comparable advances stats too. Thanks. That was what I was getting at.
Your problem is not understanding my point.
I have never said in this thread or otherwise that Kobe is better than Jordan. Nor have I said that Kobe is equal to Jordan. You might think that was my point, but it wasn't.
My point introducing a comparison of Jordan's NBA Finals stats from 1996, 1997, and 1998 to Kobe's NBA Finals stats from 2009 and 2010 was to shed some light and perspective on how each of the two players are perceived and/or remembered. Kobe has played comparatively well the last two NBA Finals as Jordan did in his second three peat NBA Finals. But not back in the mid 1990s and certainly not now was or is Jordan criticized for having subpar shooting. And that's because he and the Bulls still won. However, even though Kobe and the Lakers won the last two les, Kobe still gets blasted unequivocally for poor shooting despite still making his mark and helping his team win.
That was the point and purpose of the comparison.
If you look over the course of their respective careers, it's no contest. Jordan was the superior player over the regular season, the playoffs, and the Finals... over their entire respective careers. People forget that Jordan in that second threepeat run had become a volume scorer who wasn't always efficient, nor was he particularly dominant in any other area other than scoring. At the time, he was still considered the best player in the league and is still remembered that way. People don't talk about game 6 of the 1996 NBA Finals or about his FG% in that second threepeat run. They didn't back then either. They just called him great, no disclaimers, no qualifiers.
I'm trying to show how Kobe hate manifests itself. People yell, "well he can't win without Shaq." He wins without Shaq, and the Kobe critics scream, "well Pau is the MVP of the team." That's not enough, they go to the "well his shooting percentages suck in the Finals." Ok, and? Doesn't matter that his team wins? Individual stats more important than winning? People use different logic when it suits them.
We can get into a deeper discussion about Jordan playing against weaker compe ion if you really want to. But it would be futile to do so. I hated Michael Jordan growing up. And I still think he's an asshole to this day. But you won't catch me saying he isn't the greatest player ever or that Kobe is better than him. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player to ever play in the history of the NBA. Period. End of story. It doesn't mean I can't wipe off some of Jordan skeet off some of your eyes to show you the guy wasn't perfect, on or off the court. It doesn't mean I can't tell you how in that first threepeat run, the NBA was transitioning from the great Lakers and Celtics 80s era and was a much weaker league or that for much of those early 90s, 6'6, 215 lbs. Michael Jordan regularly faced 6'3, 185 lbs. shooting guards. When the league starting catching up to the "big" 2-guard, look at how Michael performed against them. An average 2-guard today is about 6'6 210. Back in the early 90s, Michael and Clyde were rare breeds. You could count the other good 2-guards who were that size, Ron Harper who was pretty good before he ed up his knee, Reggie Miller who had the height but was 180 pounds soaking wet early on in his career, Dan Majerle who was a good defender and had good 2-guard size back then. Other guys that size and athletic were small forwards. Both Clyde and Majerle actually played quite a bit of small forward, in fact. We can talk about defensive zones in the 2000s versus the 1990s and not only no zone but very little double teaming because of the illegal defensive zone rules. Now if you want to go there, by all means.
But again, that endeavor would really be futile on your part.
In my hot opinion, the reason why Kobe is degraded to the extent he is and MJ being full blown to elite status is the result of one thing.... The internet. You might think I sound re ed by saying that but let me tell you something.
Back then in the 90's the internet was not popular where you could go on a forum and discuss basketball and so called 'Mass Communicate' to 1,000 people at a time. Basically it was the media telling us the G.O.A.T the good, and the bad. It was the media separating from what they want to be shown to the audience and what not. Lets be honest.
You didn't have blogs or articles on the internet bashing a particular player or worshipping him like they do nowadays. When a player chokes in a playoff game, the very next day its the hot topic in all sports forums, bloggers are ready to blog about it people aren't hesitant to write an article about it especially if they hate the player. Basically in a matter of hours the whole world knows about it.
Back then, MJ was considered the greatest thing that has happened in the history of sports, you never saw ESPN bash MJ (considering that was the primary news source for everyone) so no one ever noticed the bad performances of MJ. The only people who noticed it were the people who actually saw it. They probably told their friends but thats it, it wasn't discussed on the internet whatsoever and it wasn't spread massively like nowadays.
I think part of the reason why MJ is made god status was because the media always portrayed him to be the perfect athlete always said good about him, basically brainwashed everyone, and all the haters had no way of transmitting their opinions to the mass. I remember when Kobe came into the league, from 1997-2002 (The early stages of the internet) you never heard people degrading Kobe, I never once heard people saying after the first 3 peat Kobe couldn't win it without shaq. As the internet grew Kobe haters began expressing their opinions and negated the full Kobe homerism.
To be honest, I didn't watch the Lakers / Celtics Game 7 finals. I just woke up one morning went to NBA.com and saw a picture of the Lakers holding the trophy. I watched the highlights and thats it. I looked at the boxscore 'NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO FG%, and to be honest the average person just looks at points not fg%. I only found out about his fg% via spurstalk which I then rechecked. Had there been not internet, I would have just thought that Kobe had a great performance.
If MJ played in today's era no doubt some of his flaws would have been exposed and put on blast.
kobe for prez!
So because of the internet, efficiency is now looked at as an important part of basketball..before the internet, efficiency didn't matter, it was completely irrelevant..makes sense..
Kobe hasn't been an inefficient player or anything, but he does lack in comparison to some of the big names from the past(Jordan) and today(Wade/Lebron)..obviously his shot selection is a significant part of that..his ability to make extremely tough shots obviously has it's bad side..
Yea I see whats BullsDynasty is saying but MJ had criticism from the media before he started winning championships. Him retiring and playing baseball was also seen as a "wtf c'mon" kind of move by many. There's also the gambling issue, coming back again for the Wizards, and stuff he did after fully-retiring as a player like the infamous HOF speech which seemed to have lowered his stock a bit, his lackluster time as a NBA suit which got criticism as well, etc. MJ also was really hated by devout East coast homers just for the fact that he dominated that conference.
Kobe simply doesn't really compete against Jordan whether its on or off the court or their intangible effect on the game of basketball and the pop culture world. Advanced stats, basic stats, averages, individual accomplishments and awards, impact on the game, and taking individual popularity and the game of basketball to the next level favor Mike.
What Kobe can do though is further solidify a top 10 GOAT ranking and he's on track to having a lengthy career and might be able to get all time records in sheer totals like points and minutes until LeBron breaks 'em; health permitting.
Last edited by Cane; 08-01-2010 at 04:00 PM.
No thats not what I'm saying. Read ALL OF MY POST before making accusations. Im just commenting on JamStone's post how no one ever talks about Jordan's bad game in game 6 of 1996 but people are fast to punch Kobe in the face for his bad game 6 last year. Thats because his bad games were never put on blast to the masses like Kobe's was. I mean back in the 90s where else would you have heard all the NBA news? Not the internet but ESPN. And we all know ESPN back then worshipped MJ so you won't hear them bashing Jordan for that bad game 6 but rather talk about how he is the greatest of all time. The only people that knew about Jordan's bad game are the people that watched it. And most likely they forgot about it later on.
Kobe hasn't been an inefficient player or anything, but he does lack in comparison to some of the big names from the past(Jordan) and today(Wade/Lebron)..obviously his shot selection is a significant part of that..his ability to make extremely tough shots obviously has it's bad side..
Nowadays when Kobe has a bad game, its all discussed on the forums to the masses, people blog about it to the masses, people write articles about it to the masses and next thing you know, even the people that didn't actually watch the game knows about it and gets stuck in their head because its being talked all over the internet.
Kobe's an awesome player. Definitely. But it's just tiresome that people compare him to Jordan. Jordan led the league in scoring, Hollinger's questionable PER (by about 4-6 points each of the comparative years), and destroyed Kobe in win shares 59-35 over the three years we're comparing. He also led a team to 72 wins which could have been 75-76 if Rodman hadn't missed 18 games and Pippen 5 that year. The kind of focus and leadership that takes is amazing. They brought it every damn night, even on the second night of a back to back in New Jersey on a Tuesday in January. The fact that you just can just discount that and say weak era is sad.
Rather than argue Kobe versus Jordan for the millionth time. I'd rather argue the eras.
Let's look at the 50 win 2010 Boston Celtics which you have unbelievably said is better than any team Jordan ever played in the Finals.
1996 Sonics vs. 2010 Boston
Gary Payton is significantly better than Rajon Rondo on both ends of the floor. Pierce is better than Hawkins but it's not like the Payton-Rondo gap, 2010 Pierce is no longer the guy who averaged 30 ppg over the course of a calendar month a few years back. He's managed to average 18 ppg in each of the regular season, playoffs, and Finals in 2010 and he killed his team's offense imo when he tried to isolate and do things by himself down the stretch (Bill Simmons called the PP end of game isos the "clogged toilet offense"). Schrempf was probably better than Allen or at the very least that it was a wash. 1996 Kemp was light years of 2010 KG though, it's not even close. Although I would argue at least in the playoffs KH was Boston's second best player. But Kemp even beasted on Rodman a couple of times in the finals and was the second best player in that series. Kendrick is better than Sam, worse on offense but better on defense. And Boston's bench was slightly better than Seattle's but it wasn't great. Sheed had one of the worst three point shooting seasons in history and posted a 10.4 PER in the playoffs. Ervin johnson was an above average shot blocker and rebounder off the bench. Nate McMillan was supposed to be a really good defender so having him off the bench might be a wash with Tony Allen.
So let's recap: Seattle has the best two players in the series and is younger. Boston has more experience but is at a mismatch at two positions (I think Payton eats Rondo alive for one and Kemp is definitely better than KG), and Seattle's three through five players are about even to Boston's or slightly worse.
That Sonics team is also better than last year's Orlando team imo. Plus although the 90s was definitely weaker, in comparing eras the 90s s on the current era in big men. Dwight Howard has a mechanical post game similar to Otis Thorpe's and he would be the 5th best center in the early to mid nineties and he's the best big man in the league now. if you threw in PF's Howard would be like 7th or 8th best big if he was playing in the 90s. Th big man are straight up sad nowadays.
That era was weaker but they had the hand check rules which is probably a wash with the illegal defense versus zone. Basically, you had to commit to double teaming, which tons of teams did in certain situations. And teams doubled the out of Jordan. They forced the ball out of Jordan's hands a lot and sent waves of guys after him this was the Pistons whole Jordan Rules strategy (granted the strategy involved mixing up defenses but they always came hard at him in the paint and doubled the out of him a lot) even Dumars says when Jordan started passing early in the double team is when he knew they couldn't beat the Bulls. That's one of the reasons Jordan's passing numbers were better than Kobe's
Kobe has had some similar players in his careers. Clyde, who was a solid defender and a great athlete played heads up with Jordan and got smoked.
I would also say the 96 Magic are better than the Magic team Kobe beat in the Finals. Shaq>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Howard , Penny>Jameer, Nick Anderson>Courtney Lee, Hedo is better than Dennis Scott but not by much Hedo sported like a 14 PER that year iirc and only really shined in the playoffs for a few games. And Rashard is about equal to Horace Grant although they are different players and very hard to compare. About 5 ppg difference in scoring I think but since Horace was a very good athlete (although not as good as in his first threepeat days) he could cover Shard. And he was a better defender and rebounder obviously.
Bill Simmons stupidly argues in his book that Grant's game 1 injury prevented the 96 ECF (a Bulls sweep) from being a good series but he doesn't mention that the Bulls were up by 30 at that point in game 1 and won by 39 and had a 18 ppg victory margin in that series. Grant doesn't make that much of a difference. Still they're better than that 2009 Magic team imo.
Last edited by Booharv; 08-02-2010 at 03:41 AM.
Last year's Celtics team wasn't all that great in the regular season, but played very well in the playoffs. They were kind of inconsistent, and I'll attribute some of that to age and injuries. But when it comes down to overall talent especially when you consider depth, I'd give the edge easily to last year's Celtics over the 1996 Seattle team. Obviously, Kobe's better supporting cast over Jordan's supporting cast is something else.
I don't know what you want. If you're going to constantly complain about anyone talking about Kobe/Jordan, you might as well just ignore the thread and discussion. You misplaced my intentions when I brought up the original Finals stats comparison. Heck, you berate me with irrelevant stats. And now you want to continue with the discussion.
Either you're sick of the comparison and you leave it alone, or you actually perpetuate the debate, which you're doing now.
I'll say it again so it's completely clear to you. Jordan is and always will be greater than Kobe. Kobe won't touch Jordan individually as a player. Even if Kobe wins a couple more les to tie or surpass Jordan's championships, Kobe won't be better. Kobe's resume in the Finals will always be a sticking point to show how he didn't dominate on his way to les, at least most of the time. And that won't change even if Kobe averages 50 points on 75% shooting for any other future Finals series he plays in if he's lucky enough to get back there again.
Is that what you want to read? I believe it. I've put it in writing.
My point was to show that Michael wasn't the perfect player that he's remembered for being. My point is that Michael actually had crap performances on his way to winning les as well. My point was that people love to say that Kobe can't sniff Jordan's jock but without realizing that Jordan had similarly bad shooting performances. There's a disproportionate amount of hate on Kobe even when he and his team wins. People don't say, "well Michael didn't really deserve that 1996 Finals MVP because it was Rodman who made the most impact on that series." People don't argue that, "Michael didn't really win 6 les because he wasn't playing against Magic and Bird for those les." There are no qualifiers to Jordan's les or greatness. But there are qualifiers to everything Kobe has done in his career. But it's not just that those criticisms aren't made with Jordan. They really aren't made with any other great player. Shaq gets some criticism for jumping from team to team to win another le. But the amount of criticism he gets about not winning without Kobe versus Kobe not winning without Shaq is miniscule.
If you're really sick of the Jordan comparison, why continue with the debate?
And he had 15 rebounds and kept Ray Allen from having a good shooting night. Must suck for you to know Kobe still won another NBA le in spite of things as they played out. If LeBron ever wins one shooting 6-24 in the closeout, what will you say then? Did you even watch the Finals MVP presentation? Kobe admitted to the world he had a bad game, it almost slipped away because he wanted it too bad. He thanked Gasol. He should have thanked the other guys individually too, particularly Artest, but he did thank his team. Most importantly, Kobe gave you what you craved and you missed it. He said he sucked. No one talks about that. Probably because the haters turned the TV off after the game was over.
Props Jamyour takes are always well thought trough, nuanced and usually pretty neutral. Keep up the good work.
The fact that Kobe has made it to the finals half of his seasons is overlooked and pretty damn amazing. The blatant hate and minimizing of Kobe is getting prosperous.
Don't get me wrong I still see MJ as goat. But there are stats the proves he was not immortal e.g. 400 career winning % without Pippen and 1 for 9 in playoff games without Pippen.
Question for Laker fans... where do you guys rate Kobe All-Time? Personally... i have him at #9.
Sounds like haterade. Who do you have ahead of him?
Regardless of what Spur and Laker fan think, history will remember Kobe as a greater player than Tim Duncan. It's basically fact at this point.
Let's leave aside the Jordan-Kobe stuff and compare eras just to have some basketball talk. I don't know how in God's green Earth anyone could say last year's Celtic's team was better than that Sonics team if you look at the rosters and ignore the fact that 1996 appears before one team's name and 2010 appears before another's. The top seven is a clear advantage to the Sonics. Unless you're going to say that Big Baby as the 8th man over Vincent Askew is some kind of Trump card, I don't get it. Heck McMillan is even a way better defender/role player off the bench than Tony Allen. They both were bona fide defensive pests, but McMillan is a guy who lead the league in steals while averaging 25 mpg two years earlier and was coming off two all defensive teams in 1994 and 1995. He was also a good three point shooter while Allen can't shoot and sports turnover rates that are the worst in the league for shooting guards. And Ervin Johnson while dumb as a bag of hammers at least could rebound and block shots while Wallace is doing neither, and sporting a 10 PER in the playoffs. He's also bricking threes and confusing people whose memories are tinged with visions of 2004 Sheed into thinking he's barely better than an Ervin Johnson level scrub at this point. That's also ignoring his 10.6 playoff rebound rate which is a pretty infamous accomplishment for a 7 footer.
If it was the 2008 Celtics versus the 1996 Sonics I could understand. KG was much closer to his prime then as was Pierce and Allen. I would pick the 08 Celtics as KG wasn't limping around then and could have done a better job in 2008 versus 2010 against Kemp (who was a straight beast in that 96 Finals).
That goes triple for the 1995 or 96 Magic team compared to the 2009 Magic team. I broke both of these cases down above already. Besides teams shorten their rotations in the playoffs. Witness the Lakers teams from the last two years who have had horrible depth and one solid bench player in Odom who was needed to cover for the 7 and 5 they got from their center in the playoffs the last two seasons. Fisher was so awful in the 09 playoffs that when he hit one shot in the Finals everyone was literally shocked. Like Gary Payton "This guy's still alive?" in the 06 Finals when he made some big shots shocked. He's the kind of guy who would be getting bought out if he was on a lottery team like Minnesota.
This is trolling, right?
I average like .72 posts a day in my three years here for a total of eight hundred something. I've discussed Kobe and Jordan in maybe 50 posts in three years. That's like 1/40th of your contributions on the subject. Besides, I was mostly comparing eras in my last two posts. If you want to compare 1995 Houston to 2009 Orlando it would be the same and have nothing to do with Jordan. My point is that there is a bashing of the 90s that in many cases is just veiled Jordan bashing tbh. If you match the teams up on paper its pretty obvious that the teams from the mid 90s could compete with or were better than the teams from today.
That's even ignoring that a lot of the best teams ever had 1-2 stars and then just a bunch of role players with little depth. None of the Lakers teams that won les in the post Jordan era had any kind of impressive depth whatsoever. The deepest Laker team, the 2000 team was worse in the playoffs than the team from the following year even though they lost Glen Rice and Horace Grant and had weaker depth.
Because people keep making the comparison and sometimes it gets annoying.
Really though, I was and continue to be attempting to compare eras in some of my posts as I feel that although the mid 90s was a somewhat era overall, the top teams were better than some of the top teams now. This current era is nothing special. The best big man in the league whether it's Gasol or Howard is like eighth or ninth compared to the big men of the mid 90s. (Olajuwon, O'Neal, Robinson, Ewing, Malone, Barkley, Kemp were probably better than Gasol or Howard) Tbh 1994-96 Mutombo was a greater defensive force than Howard from 09 as he averaged like 4-5 bpg while leading the league then iirc. He just couldn't match him offensively, this current era when broken down doesn't jive with the "Today's athletes and players are far superior to yesterday's athletes" mantra. When you look at the top players in many cases, particularly big men, and then at some of the rosters of the contenders in both eras. The depth of talent is weaker but a lot of teams start average athletes in athetlic positions like point guard and the wings and the top teams aren't any better in a ton of cases than the teams from then.
This is true in a lot of cases. One thing I think that is under-rated is that Bulls team having a player like a prime Steve Kerr. Laugh all you want, but a dead eye three point shooter like Kerr in his prime when he's averaging like a 65% TS makes a team like that even that much more unbeatable. :ook at the heights the Lakers soared to in the 2001 playoffs when Fisher was hitting 15-20 in the WCF and 55% in the playoffs and combine that with a prime Shaq and Kobe plus other role players who hit their shots like Horry and fox and that team becomes near unbeatable. Same thing when you combine Kerr with a Jordan, Pippen and a Kukoc who's also hitting his threes and making plays plus Rodman under the boards. Well oiled machine tbh.
How many teams have been bounced from the playoffs because their spot up shooters failed when called upon? Dozens in my lifetime seems like. Guys like Kerr and 01 Fisher (Fish has never been anywhere near that good again in the playoffs or regular season) send teams up a notch.
1. MJSounds like haterade. Who do you have ahead of him?
Regardless of what Spur and Laker fan think, history will remember Kobe as a greater player than Tim Duncan. It's basically fact at this point.
2. Kareem
3. Wilt
4. Russell
5. Magic
6. Bird
7. Duncan
8. Shaq
9. Hakeem
10. Kobe
Have him at 10 actually.. you could make a case for Kobe to be higher if you blindly look at raw stats like points scored and les won... but when you look a little deeper at efficiency ie FG%, les won as the first option, individual accomplishments... he doesnt have the resume that the guys above him have.
Russell over the man that saved basketball
Devin Ebanks got signed today... Derrick Caracter probably next
Doctor J should be in that top 10.
No he shouldn't and Moses has a better case for that than Dr. J does.
Damn good list and totally agree with the top two. Normally most people put Wilt at #2 but Kareem's resume is on point with anyone's, including MJ.......
1. MJ
2. Kareem
3. Magic
4. Russell
5. Wilt
6. Bird
7. Shaq
8. Kobe
9. Duncan
10. Hakeem
I'll put Shaq over Duncan because head to head, Shaquille's teams win the head to head battles and during that time, Shaquille was just dominant. Should have gone down as the GOAT if he had the work ethic of Mike or Kobe ........
Kobe's definitely top 15 and I would put him in the top ten. That 2001 series with the Spurs was the real NBA Finals and the best player on the floor was Kobe and it wasn't even debatable or close. Shaquille should hand over that MVP from the Sixers series and give it to Bean.
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