Over the past 20 seasons, as Kobe’s career unfolded through its successes and growing pains, analytics did too, with the former serving as a touchstone — and lightning rod — for the latter.
The stats were not always kind to Kobe, least of all in his perpetual, mythic struggle against Michael Jordan. Perhaps that comparison would have been less harsh in an earlier era, thanks to a similar ring count and a passing statistical resemblance, but the advanced metrics have consistently debunked the parallel. (They’ve essentially taken on the role of the old noodge at the bar or barbershop, reminding “kids these days” of their historical betters.) Kobe wasn’t nearly as efficient as Jordan, they’d remind; he’d likely never be as valuable no matter what the rings said. Likewise, the numbers always seemed to find some other contemporary upon whom to bestow the “Next Jordan” mantle, be it LeBron James or Dwyane Wade or even Tracy McGrady. As if chasing Jordan’s shadow wasn’t hard enough, the shadow seemed to be armed with the cold, compassionless weaponry of data.
It didn’t help that hoops analytics went through its contrarian phase right around the time Kobe peaked. Every sabermetric movement has a period in which its sport’s sacred cows are officially on notice, and basketball’s came in the mid-2000s — known around these parts as the Hollinger Era — when Bryant embodied many bits of conventional basketball wisdom in need of rigorous auditing. Back then, it was fashionable to unearth the deep cuts, the guys like Carl Landry or Gerald Wallace or, uh, Landry Fields, who didn’t get as much play on SportsCenter but contributed efficiently within their roles. Obsessed with efficiency over context, many in the field downplayed the value of Kobe’s greatest skill — relentless, tireless scoring — and went so far as to suggest that an average player could have notched as many points if given the same number of opportunities. (Note: This is, and always was, insane.) Others raised more valid questions about Kobe’s reputation for clutch shooting and lock-down defense, and these cut more to the core of what fans wanted to know about him and players of his caliber. It was a crucial point for basketball stats; perhaps a fractious relationship between Kobe and stat-geekdom was simply the necessary collateral damage.
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. Kobe's had a 20 year career as an all-star level player, of course his ulative VORP is going to look nice. , Manu is ranked 10th in the stat for the playoffs, and it's because he's played more playoff games than 99% of NBA players. Not that Manu isn't great, but he isn't 10th best playoff player of all-time great.
