underwhelming?
As any person familiar with advanced stats knows, one of the best stats we have to try and quantify how much a particular player makes his team better is RAPM, which wisely adjusts for a variety of variables outside a player's control (ex. which players he's on the floor with), and in fact, yes, Kobe does make his teammates better since they are usually worse off when he's out of the game.
That said, Kobe's RAPM does lack behind many other greats of his era. Oddly, Kobe has finished in the top 10 in regular season RAPM only twice in his career. A player like Tim Duncan has finished in the top 5 thirteen times over his career and topped the list 3 times.
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/
I can already hear the advanced stat detractors (Kobe fans) typing their criticisms. Yes, role players can post a higher RAPM than stars, but we have to remember that role players play significantly less possessions than stars, so their rating is somewhat inflated. However, RAPM is remarkably consistent with our perception of which players we think are the best. Example, here's the career regular season RAPM of some recent greats:
I think most people would agree that the top 6 players on the list are the best since Michael Jordan. Yes,Garnett, but he was a regular season monster in his prime and his RAPM reflects that.
But why is Kobe, a player who should conceivably be near the top of the list, sitting down there with Baron Davis?
I crosschecked Kobe's RAPM with Basketball Reference's all time plus/minus list (I'm unsure if they use APM, RAPM, xRAPM, etc) and Kobe ranks a somewhat impressive 24th. http://www.basketball-reference.com/...pm_career.html
I have some theories why Kobe lacks behind almost all the other top all stars of his era in RAPM (and other advanced metrics), despite his impressive per game stats, and I think the first culprit is ball dominance. When a single player dominates the ball, the other players get out of rhythm offensively and their defense drops off. The second culprit is Kobe's shot selection. He loves 18-20 foot jumpers to a pathological degree. A miss from a long 2 is about the worst miss in basketball and ignites a fast break more effectively than other misses. I also think this is a reason why Kobe has been a net negative defensively for over 10 seasons now.
Kobe does make his teammates better, but there is some truth to the idea that his individual brilliance as a scorer doesn't translate to optimal success for the team.
Your thoughts?
Last edited by midnightpulp; 12-03-2014 at 01:12 AM.
Thought this topic was beaten to death. Kobe isn't an efficient player under any metrics, raw or advanced. Then, now or tomorrow. This season alone represents who he is. He doesn't care much about efficiency, win or lose.
RAPM has nothing to do with his individual efficiency. its based on the on/off effect he has on his team
That's a huge contradiction in itself, considering the huge amount of his usage rate, his efficiency affects
the on and off effect on his team.
Mid already explained his theory.
I have some theories why Kobe lacks behind almost all the other top all stars of his era in RAPM (and other advanced metrics), despite his impressive per game stats, and I think the first culprit is ball dominance. When a single player dominates the ball, the other players get out of rhythm offensively and their defense drops off.
perhaps "nothing" was incorrect. it just has to do with how well his team does with him as opposed to without him. so its not focusing strictly on FG% or something like that. its his net impact on the game
Chris Paul and Steve Nash rank higher than him despite being ball dominant themselves. same with LeBron and Wade (well wade in the pre-heatles era)
Think the difference is that when a PG dominates the ball he's typically moving and angling to find an open man. When Kobe dominates the ball, it's for 10-15 seconds in the post where he dreamshakes his defender for the majority of that time. Players know he isn't passing, they stop moving, and consequently get out of their rhythm.
but he has 6000 assists
gots at FB tbh.
"Who says he doesnt pass?"
A bit OT, but David Robinson dominated the RAPM metrics for the most part of the 90's ranking #1 from 91-96 if I read it correctly.
You could write "Why is glorified TMac plus/minus so underwhelming?" and you're basically talking the same thing...
David Robinson has always graded out remarkably well in any form of advanced statistic. IBM was giving out an award for a while for best statistical player using some metric they came up with, and D-Rob was always up there.
He had gaudy raw numbers (just look at his points/rebs/steals/blocks before his injury in 96), but given the state of those Spurs rosters, his on/off numbers were tremendous too. In terms of team/impact it was a lot like KG and the Wolves tbh
The only year where he didn't play like that was 2009. Honestly at the time I thought his game would evolve to becoming more like LeBron's
Yeah seems to be the case. I remember everytime I looked at newspapers for NBA scores and stats, Robinson was putting up Lebron like numbers on a nightly basis. He was a monster for sure.
Yeah seems to be the case. I remember everytime I looked at newspapers for NBA scores and stats, Robinson was putting up Lebron like numbers on a nightly basis. He was a monster for sure.
Yep. Perhaps the greatest regular season player of the 90's.
KG of the 90's... but instead of hopping to boston he just waited for duncan to get drafted
25-5-5
You have to look at this from a different lens.
You have to understand how stack the current game is, and even an all-time great like Kobe would inadvertently suffer as a consequence.
Look at 2001-2002 season, widely known as Kobe's best season of the Shaq-led three peat seasons. Kobe ranked 20th that season, that is still 95 %tile or so of the league, which really is incredible. And when you look at the people ranked ahead of him, they are all all-time greats! Shaq, Duncan, Robinson, Garnett, Vlade Divac (if you are from Eastern Europe, Divac is basically God over there), Pierce (bested Kobe in the 08 Finals as well, and out-performed him in the 10 Finals in a losing effort), Wallace (one of the best defensive players of all time), Nowitzki, Baron Davis (the best fat PG of all time), and Steve Francis (the best mentally unstable NBA player of all time, tying Artest, Rodman and Marbury).
It's no shame for Kobe to be ranked below any of those players.
Then you look at the 08-09 season (which is the only season Kobe ever led his team in WS in a championship winning year, aka as the year MVPau against D12 in the Finals while Kobe went up against Hed
You guys make it out like he had a lesser impact than Mengke Bateer or Jud Buechler, when he was right along great players like Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd and Steve Francis.
So KG is better than Jim. Ok.
Pretty much, we already know this....Stats DON'T lie.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
