Great piece by David Thorpe, a guy who understands and appreciates the numbers-side of analysis, but is also a coach with a deep understanding of the fundamentals of the game as well. http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=thorpe_david&page=KobeLeBron-091223 This is based purely on his evaluation of their game this season. His "scorecard": Perimeter shooting: LeBron 10, Kobe 9 Pure Scoring: Kobe 10, LeBron 9 Making Teammates Better: LeBron 10, Kobe 8 Primary Defender: LeBron 10, Kobe 9 Secondary Defender: Kobe 10, LeBron 9 Impact in Transition: LeBron 10, Kobe 9 Rebounding: LeBron 10, Kobe 10 Intangibles: Kobe 10, LeBron 9 Conclusion: LeBron with the slight edge. Both are awesome. Thorpe goes into detail on each player for each of those categories. He makes great arguments at each point, in my opinion.
This guy is a complete idiot. We've seen Kobe destroy the Rockets enough times to know that is he better than anyone else in the league today.
Not that they are "equal rebounders"; but he gives them equal credit for how their rebounding contributes to the team. Slightly different. He adjusts for the positions they play (LeBron gets more minutes at PF), and also considering that Kobe is better on the offensive glass. Ultimately, its subjective -- he's not going based on a strict formula. Like I said, he makes good arguments on all the points. Perhaps it was a mistake to just post the "scorecard" tallies rather than the actual analysis.
Its like a scorecard, so the 10 goes to which ever player is better in the particular category, and the other player's score is set relative to that. If Howard was joining in the comparison, it would probably be something like : Howard -10, LeBron - 8, Kobe - 8 (again, the rating being relative to their position).
People are jumping to conclusions just by glancing the scorecard. Thorpe knows his stuff and does back up his assessments with some good points in the article. FTA:
Tried to post the whole thing so people wouldn't just glance at the scorecard and jump to conclusions... looks like the post is too big :grin: I've read enough from and about Thorpe to realize that he knows what he's talking about. He does back up his numerical assessments of the players with valid arguments in the article.
Very interesting, thanks for posting. One point I always found interesting is how Thorpe points out how NBA players almost unanimously feel Kobe is the game's best, meanwhile it seems the majority of us fans seem to side with LeBron. But anyway, I agree with the general conclusion that LeBron gets the slight edge today, that Kobe is the closest thing to MJ and that the league has never seen anything like LeBron.
BTW, I just ran through my play-by-play spreadsheet (updated through 12/19). For shots taken greater than 18 feet distance, Kobe is 64/172 (37%). LeBron is 99/248 (40%). So LeBron takes more longer shots this year, and he's making a higher percentage. Thorpe is an expert on shooting, so I trust his judgment there. He made it clear that his evaluation is strictly based on performance he's observed this season. And, it looks like the numbers back him up in this case.
I agree with this guy, I personally would prefer to have a guy like kobe on my team, but i do think lebron is slightly better. Lebron took the cavs to the finals couple years ago and the the ecf last year with really no supporting cast, if you look at kobes championship team, hes had guys like shaq, pao, odom, horry, fisher, a great supporting cast
Threethings I have an issue with: 1. Rebounding: Why is this even being used to test who's better? Especially if both players scores the same and somehow both scores the maximum number of points? If rebounding is being taken into account, why aren't steals or assists accredited for as well? 2. Perimeter shooting: Isn't it a well known fact that Kobe's been laying off on the perimeter shooting while utilizing more of his inside/post up game? I mean, those lessons/practices with Olajuwon must have been for something right? The only thing that one can conclude from using this year's stats ALONE is that LeBron is improving his perimeter shooting and that Kobe isn't shooting like crazy from 3 point land like he has been the past 3-4 years. 3. Making teammates better: Would this be accounting for assists? I don't have Insider so I'm just taking the information at face value without reading the article itself. What else does this include? +/-? And wouldn't "making teammates better" fall under the "intangibles" category? I don't have an issue with Thorpe's conclusion because I have respect for the guy and because LeBron hasn't tapped a fraction of his physical talents/abilities yet but some of those rated "categories" seems to be either unnecessary or require a bigger sample size