Who's better? Lamar Odom or Toni Kukoc?

[Cessation]

if you've seen both play, its obviously, kukoc > odom

[ezau]

I have to go with Toni.

He hit some clutch shots in his career.

Odom hasnt.

Also, Ezau, keep in mind that Kukoc logged 25 minutes/games, while Odom is at 35 minutes per game

Good point Lefty.

[LakeShow]

Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Dejan Bodiroga, Dimitri Diamantidis, Peja Stojakovic, and now Ricky Rubio (who many have felt has a bright future in the NBA), to name a few. You can handpick the Kobes and LeBrons and Durants. But you also leave out Kwame Brown, Donnell Harvey, Dajuan Wagner, Louis Williams, Lavell Blancard, Kelvin Torbert, Randy Livingston, all either Naismith players of the year or Gatorade players of the year in their respective senior high school classes, with the exception of Kwame who was obviously a #1 overall pick in the NBA.

It's easy to pick out LeBron and Kobe. Just like I can pick out Dirk and Pau. The caliber of Euroleague has improved since Kukoc was there. But what Kukoc accomplished as a young Euroleague player is still without a doubt impressive. If you're going to use scouting reports of Lamar Odom out of high school and one year at Rhode Island, I think it's fair to look at what Toni did in Euroleague.

For me, Odom is the better athlete, he has had better production in the NBA, and he probably has a higher ceiling than what a 25 year old Toni Kukoc had. But Odom has never reached his full potential and that's mostly on him. As an NBA player, I don't think Toni reached his full potential either, but I think it was more of a product of his situation, the NBA team he landed on, the offense it ran, and particularly two of the teammates he played with in Jordan and Pippen. When Jordan and Pippen left, Toni was already 30 years old. He put up 19/7/5 that season. Then he became a journeyman. I still would have liked to see him have more of a chance to be "the guy" on a team a few years earlier. There was no Jordan his rookie year, but it was still his rookie year in the NBA. Then he had to take a backseat to Jordan and Pippen the next 4 seasons.

As for who is better offensively. It's arguable. Kukoc was the better shooter and at least for me the better passer/playmaker. Odom has different advantages on offense based on his skills. Better at driving to the basket and finishing, a much better offensive rebounder, better one-on-one player in isolation. If you look at each of their true shooting %, they're very comparable with a slight edge to Odom. Kukoc was more of a jumpshooter obviously. But it's more of a toss-up depending on what you look at as to who was better offensively. Even during that Bulls second threepeat, Kukoc's assist percentage was somewhere around 23-24% being a third banana on that team. Odom is also a third playmaker to Kobe and Pau, but I think he gets more touches than Toni got. And since the Lakers acquired Pau, Odom has an assist percentage of around 13-15%. I do think Toni was the better passer and maximized his touches when it came to creating for teammates.

Great Post, Jam.

I have to say Odom. Kukoc suffered from the same thing most euro players suffered from. Soft and weak on D.

[DAF86]

Anyone saying that one is better than the other by a big margin doesn't know what he's talking about, they're as close and similar as any other pair of players I can think of.

I don't like to compare stats in this case, 'cause they played in different eras and we're comparing a player's full career stats against a player who is still in his prime.

Kukoc is the better offensive player: IMO he's the better ball handler and passer but it can pretty much be considered a wash. Kukoc is clearly a better shooter though, that's the biggest difference between them on the offensive end.

Defensively Odom's athleticism and rebounding give him the edge over Toni, although neither is known for this part of their game,

I also think that Kukoc had a higher BBIQ than Odom but that's very subjective.

All in all, I think they're pretty even but I would give the very slight edge to Kukoc.