41 replies to this topic

[Pedro Cerrano]

I don't believe that the more he shoots the better he is. All I'm saying is if he wins the scoring title it will be very hard to leave him off of the 1st team. It's happened in the past, but rarely. That's my only real point here.

[mweb08]

I don't believe that the more he shoots the better he is. All I'm saying is if he wins the scoring title it will be very hard to leave him off of the 1st team. It's happened in the past, but rarely. That's my only real point here.

Well I don't see that as a good reason to put someone who shoots too much on the All NBA team. If he took a shot less a game, he wouldn't be on your All NBA team? Or if Durant wins it you'll change it?

[mweb08]

As an aside, only 3 times since 1960 has an NBA scoring champion (Iverson, Maravich, Hayes) had a lower PER than Kobe has this year. Most have crushed his 21.96.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Well I don't see that as a good reason to put someone who shoots too much on the All NBA team. If he took a shot less a game, he wouldn't be on your All NBA team? Or if Durant wins it you'll change it?

If Durant wins I'd have a harder time putting Kobe on the 1st team but I probably still would. This is slowly (I can see it) devolving into a "stats vs. intangibles" argument that you and I are (in)famous for so I'll probably just leave it at this:

I respectfully disagree with your assertion although I can see where you are coming from. Certainly a plausible argument can be made that Dwyane Wade was the better player this year (especially if you only consider stats). Kobe meant more to his team and yes, he shot too much, but I think the Lakers would be much worse off without Kobe than the Heat would be worse off without Wade.

It's my belief Kobe played in a harder conference and won a division that most people were simply ready to hand to the Clippers before a game was even played. Wade once again failed to achieve the East's best record (despite having many pundits believe the Heat were the best team in the NBA before the season started), played with the best player on the planet (sorry, you won't convince me that didn't help his underlying #s, especially the points).

And, finally, while I know about PER and respect it to a certain extent, another friend of mine pointed out that the metric has Faried and Brandon Wright both in the top 20 (and Faried higher than Tony Parker who's having the best season of his career!). That makes me quite skeptical of its reliability. Do you think Faried was a better player than Parker this year?

Moving on...please.

[mweb08]

Actually you're the one that has been using one narrow stat to base your entire argument off of. The cumulative stats plus watching the games (including defense) favors Wade imo (only for the watching part, stats are clear other than playing time).

The best arguments for Kobe are that he played more, his teams record was very good, and his team more heavily relied on him, even though we saw what happened without him, so that takes a lot from that argument.

And you always claim you're choosing intangibles over my stats, but really the only intangible you go with is wins, which is a stat. I factor much more into my evaluations and try to look at why a team wins and how much player x has to do with those wins. It can be argued that Kobe is not the best Laker anymore so I'm not sure he should get as much credit for their success as in the past, especially when he often shoots in quantities that is to the detriment of the team.

Going by watching the games and looking at the stats, it's pretty clear Kobe was not a top 5 this season, but you can still argue him for the first team simply because Wade didn't play as much and the competition at G isn't that strong otherwise due to injuries and Westbrook having a bad start and finish to the season.

Watching the games and going by the stats also shows that Wade doesn't benefit from having James as much as you think. I'm fine with not convincing you of something that I know is both supported by the evidence and watching the games.

Concerning PER, those guys you mentioned haven't played anywhere close to enough to be considered top 20 players, and their numbers would presumably decrease with more playing time, but they have been quite productive in limited minutes. PER isn't perfect and it tends to favor guys like that who rebound a lot, make high % shots, and don't turn it over much. But when it comes to Kobe vs Wade, it's apples to apples and Wade easily wins out. If you look at the PER numbers historically, I think they hold up pretty well.

And go ahead and move on. You know I'm not one to generally cede the last word.

[mweb08]

Hollinger has his All NBA teams up, and he didn't go strictly by the normal positions as he went with PG, two wings, and two bigs. I think that probably makes most sense and allows more flexibility in creating the best team.

Paul
James
Durant
Love
Bynum

He says Howard was better, but can't give him the top spot due to not being committed to the team. If I went with this way of creating a team, I would have replaced Wade with Love.

Westbrook
Wade
Bryant
Griffin
Howard

Parker
Harden
Pierce
Gasol
Jefferson

[Pedro Cerrano]

Interesting to see who he would have put at the 2 if he were forced to.

[mweb08]

Interesting to see who he would have put at the 2 if he were forced to.

James can play anywhere from the 1-4 so I'd say him.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Ok well that's not his natural position otherwise you would have put him there and taken Love instead of Wade/Kobe.

[mweb08]

Ok well that's not his natural position otherwise you would have put him there and taken Love instead of Wade/Kobe.

Of course.

I'm not really sure how strict they're about positions, but I assumed you couldn't do what Hollinger did, thus my teams.

[mweb08]

But of course neither of our first teams have a PF on them. So is that any better than what Hollinger is doing?

[mweb08]

It'd be silly imo for Kobe to even play tomorrow. So if he doesn't, Durant will be the scoring champ. Kobe needs 38 I believe if he plays.

[Pedro Cerrano]

The Lakers are saying that Kobe might be the only starter to play.

And since mweb is currently en route to California let me just say, once and for all, Kobe Bryant rules and Dwyane Wade sucks.

/CloseThread

[Nuclear Dish]

Kobe is for sure going to target the scoring title, but believe me when I tell you that he has two numbers on his mind, every game he plays: 38,388 and 6

Kobe Bryant is driven to be considered the best who ever played. In his mind, he can do that by doing two things:

First, he must become the NBA's all-time leading scorer. That means passing Kareem's 38,387 points. As of right now, he's at 29,484 and counting. He's going to need about another 4 seasons at his current pace.

But that won't be enough. People will still point the MJ's 6 titles to Kobe's 5. So he needs one more title to get even with MJ.

Scoring titles are nice. He's done that before. He's close enough that I expect him to go for it. But that's really not his foremost concern.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Which raises the question:

If he retires with 6 titles and the #1 scorer of all time, would he be considered the GOAT?

[Nuclear Dish]

I doubt it. But he would be the most prolific, which is something.

Keep in mind that Kobe's first few titles are as much Shaq's as they are his, whereas MJ's are all considered his. Pippen wasn't an equal partner the way Shaq was to Kobe. In fact, had Kobe not won the 2 titles since Shaq left, he might not get much credit at all for those first 3.

Kobe is in the discussion for that 2nd tier. The discussion of greatest ever really comes down to MJ, Chamberlain, and maybe Russell.

The 2nd tier is Kobe, Robertson, Kareem, Magic, and Bird. Then you have guys like Shaq, Jerry West, Tim Duncan, Hakeem, and maybe Moses Malone.

[mweb08]

Which raises the question:

If he retires with 6 titles and the #1 scorer of all time, would he be considered the GOAT?

Absolutely not.

MJ was the clear best player in the league for a long stretch and was the clear best player on a championship team for 6 years.

Kobe has not been the clear best player in the league for any stretch and has been the best player on 2 title teams, the second best player on 3. If he wins again, he probably won't be the best player on that team, at least not the clear best player.

He would be arguably the most accomplished player in NBA history with the points, titles, all-star games, all-nba teams, etc, but no way would be the greatest.

[mweb08]

The results are in:

1st team:

Paul
Kobe
Durant
James
Howard

2nd team:

Parker
Westbrook
Griffin
Love
Bynum

3rd team:

Rondo
Wade
Anthony
Dirk
Chandler

[SportsGuy]

Kobe is great but he ain't MJ.

[mweb08]

Obviously I disagree with Kobe being on the 1st team and Wade being all the way down at 3rd team, but even though Wade > Kobe, Kobe played a lot more, so I'm alright with it. I also don't think Rondo or Melo should have made teams, especially Melo who ran his coach off the team, missed plenty of games, had his team play better without him, and didn't play well at all for much of the season. He was great late, but that isn't enough imo.