Win Shares looks at offense and defense separately. Hakeem's WS/48 was hurt mainly due to his ORtg (an offensive efficiency metric) being merely average for much of his career and below average in a number of seasons.
Duncan's game has zero flash and very few spectacular moments -- just consistently really good. It would be very easy to not appreciate a player like him enough.
Kobe isn't as good as the Greatone claims he is or as bad as Clippy claims he is. One of the biggest problems with placing the guy is you have so much love and so much hate for him that you often end up with ridiculous over rating of him and ridiculous underrating of him.
It's hard to associate moments with Duncan. Even Hakeem has his domination of David Robinson and the dream shake which were transcendent moments. It's why Kobe is slightly overrated overall (I think people do hate on him unfairly). Kobe's career is a collection of those WOW moments. Same with Allen Iverson.
i think the problem with evaluating kobe is the nba wanted him to be the jordan replacement and pretty much everyone embraced him as that. the media, the nba, and kobe himself kobe is not in the line of jordan, oscar robertson, to lebron. he is just not as physical as these guys, he is a great scorer, and can be a facilitator but as the article points out when kobe had no other superstar the lakers were barely a playoff team. all he does is scores, he does it at an exceptional level but at the end of the day kobe is nothing more than a scorer
What is considered ridiculous underrating? The problem is that the media and fans have hyped Kobe as a Top-10 alltime talent and, objectively speaking, he simply isn't. His resume is certainly up there with the greats that is largely due to having been on stacked teams as well as having played so many seasons (which, to be fair, is an accomplishment but shouldn't be weighted as much as peak performance when judging a player's ability). Throughout the years, therre have neeb plenty of guys in the Kobe mold that don't get near the hype. Drexler, Nique, Dantley, English, etc. This is the tier Kobe belongs in. These guys are all greats but not game changers like Magic, Bird, LeBron, Shaq, Duncan and the others at the top. Put any of those guys in a bad team and it immediately contends. Put Kobe on a bad team and we've seen what happens. That's the difference.
What is considered ridiculous underrating are the ridiculous over the top idiotic comments you make about Kobe sometimes. You have some very valid points but you often take it to a ridiculous level bc you hate him so much.
How do you know this btw? Magic only played on stacked teams, Bird only played on stacked teams, Shaq had Penny, Kobe and Wade, Duncan had Robinson and then TP and Manu. None of those guys ever played with a roster made up of players comparable to Smush/Mihm/Walker/Walton/Odom etc.
In the season before Magic's retirement, he led the Lakers to a 58-24 record and the finals. Who did that team have besides Magic and Worthy? The next season without Magic, the Lakers won 43 games. In the 78-79 season, the Celtics won 29 games. The following season, a rookie Larry Bird led the team in points and rebounds (and 2nd on the team in assists), and the Celtics won 61 games. When Shaq was a rookie (without Penny/Kobe/Wade), he improved the Magic by 20 wins. He also led the 97 Lakers to 56 wins with a rookie Kobe who averaged 8ppg. In 2003, Duncan led the Spurs to the title. At that time, TP (20 years old) was young/inexperienced, Manu was coming off the bench and playing 20 mpg, and Robinson was 37 years old.
Karl Malone's regular season stuff is more impressive than Hakeem. Playoffs are a completely different matter.
your posts are glorious but this one is travesty. ..any chart that has david robinson right after hakeem should be condemned!
Uh, LeBron took a team as bad as that to the Finals. Bird and Shaq were drafted onto terrible teams (that's how they got the top picks those years). They came onto those teams, established themselves as the stars, and always took them into the playoffs (and deep after their rookie years). Magic was drafted onto a team with talent (nothing like what Kobe had) but still, in his rookie year, in a game with their franchise center injured, he carried them to a title in one of the most epic playoff games anyone has ever had... LOL @the idea that Magic couldn't carry a bad team... You don't even need to just look at the numbers either. Just look at how these guys play. Kobe has this ego that makes him make the team be about him, which is why the stacked Lakers lost in 2004, why Shaq got driven out of town, and why he is taking one of the most talented teams in the history of the league to an 8th seed at the moment. Take any of those guys and put them on the team Kobe has today and that team is a contender. This is indisputable. I love how Kobe has ONE set of bad teammates for like two years out of 17 and his stans try to make it seem like he's had it so bad.
You can't just throw in Worthy. Worthy is a hall of famer. I have nothing for this. Shaq being a rookie and improving his team doesn't make them a contender. Also, the Lakers weren't a bad team when Shaq got there. They had Eldin Campbell, Eddie Jones, Cedric C., Van Exel, and Horry but they weren't a real contender that year and didn't start being a real threat until Kobe came along. What you listed is still a whole lot of talent. That's not Duncan carrying a bunch of scrubs.
David Robinson is very underrated by this board mainly because he was embarrassed by Hakeem in that playoffs series. But he was a consistently elite center in his prime. That said, I am not sure if durvasa's ranking is biased toward offense. Boxscore stats are known to be vastly biased against defensive impact. That could explain why Hakeem was under ranked.
Left out LeBron for a reason Bird is a good argument but not Shaq. Shaq didn't make the playoffs his rookie year and then they got lucky and got the number one pick which they flipped for Penny who was a really good player from the stars. Magic never had to. The Lakers were never bad. He had an amazing game when Kareem was out but that's not him carrying a bad team for a season. Put those players on this injury riddled Lakers team in the 17th year of their career and I guarantee that all of those players don't make them contenders. 100% guarantee. They might be better but they won't all be contending. [/QUOTE]
I'm glad at least you admit LeBron is better than Kobe. That's the first step in the rehabilitation program. It's funny, because in a vacuum if you were just presented with their accomplishments, it would be a no-brainer but because the media has been hyping "clutch" Kobe for so long, it actually appears to be a debate in some NBA circles. Shaq was drafted to the worst team in the NBA (21-61) and immediately made them decent (41-41). This was in his rookie year when he was still very raw. Then in his 2nd year they went to the Finals. Yeah, they had a rookie Penny (who put up 16ppg) but anyone who knows anything can see why they were good. Just look at the jump in production from Shaq's rookie to 2nd year. There are very few players that could take the worst team in the NBA and have that kind of impact in two years. Those players are your GOAT candidates. Kobe is not in this tier. In fact, he isn't even close. Magic was drafted to a decent NBA team (47-35) and turned them into the best team in the NBA (60-22). Yes, Kareem was the best player on that team (and was for a few more years) but Magic was what put them over the top, since they were mired in that familiar Houston Rockets bottom seed / no lotto for the pre-Magic Kareem years. It is hard to think of another player that could have made this impact because the piece the Lakers were missing at the time was leadership, not talent. This is not what Kobe provides. What makes Kobe not as special as Magic is that he is replaceable-- there are plenty of shooting guards with nearly the same capability (given the same opportunity) and you could have subbed in any of them during Kobe's sidekick years and, while they may not have been quite as good, they would have been sufficient. Tell me the the 2000-2003 Lakers really would have been so worse off with Ray Allen or TMac or VC. And as far as today's Lakers.. yes, they have problems beyond just Kobe. But it is clear as day watching the games that Kobe-- who rightly is going to get the blame since he so clearly has made this "his" team-- is a huge issue. The team plays better with him on the sidelines because they actually get to utilize the talent they have. There is no other top player in NBA history whose team plays better with him out (and this is historically an accurate statement, record wise if you factor in the years Kobe was on contenders).
What are you even talking about dude. What rehabilitation program? LeBron is playing at a level right now that Kobe never has and is better than Kobe has been at any point in his career. Just because I like Kobe doesn't mean I can't realize that. Kobe is better than Allen, TMac and VC so no I can't say that the Lakers would have won 3 in a row with those guys. I think they probably get at least one but it isn't like the Lakers were just strolling through the WC back then. I will just agree to disagree on this one.
