TS% is the greatest barometer of efficient scoring, the 60% mark is usually the mark for ultimate offensive go to guys, guys whove reached that mark while being main offensive scorers include: Kareem, Shaq, Robinson and MJ. Hard to find gaurds reaching that level of production in ANY era.
Roger that. Your just another sheep in the Hate Kobe club. No problem figuring you out. I am saying that. Jordan didnt deal with a constant Double or Triple team. Dig up some tapes, do some homework. Most people agree that the Defense and athletic ability nowadays is much tougher then in the 80s and early 90's. Pretty easy to figure out when you look at the scoring averages of teams from the 80s to today. And no sorry to bust your bubble again. MJ might of seen some gameplanning, but no one really hounded him like the rest of the superstars in the L at the time while he was on the Wizards. Id say you are greatly mistaken. See I live In Orlando, and Ive seen pretty much Every TMac game given on TV in his hey days. Sorry, TMac for as great as he was, was not hounded on the level that Kobe is now. Im not. I just dont have a problem given the man his place. Seems to me your a Jordan nut hugger to me. But requoting what Ive already stated in an attempt to label me a Kobe lover as a way of debunking what 'you' percieve as fact is pretty childish a way to try and win in a debate. Its like Bush and the whole "why do you hate america" theme to anyone who doesnt agree with him. I would venture a guess that the average team in the mid 80's averaged probably about 110-115 ppg. As to the average now being about 95-98. But the defense was tougher in the 80's? No, the pace was faster in the 80s, but defense was not the premium facet in those days. Players scored more, and defense suffered. Pretty much accepted across the board. Let me help you out since reading comprehension is owning you. "Im by far, NOT a kobe lover" Sorry missed the Not in the sentence, but I think you knew what was meant, which means your only ability to argue is to grasp at straws in a poorly worded sentence. I dont think for one second you didnt know what I was referring to. There you go questioning my like or dislike for Kobe. Who cares. Does this mean I cant argue that Dream wasnt the greatest Center of all time because Im a Dream lover? Pretty poor attempts here man. You just making yourself look silly. Ummm Ill give you one player. Hakeem. For you not to know this shows us that YOU sir are just a closet Jordan nut hugger. Jordan had some superb, outstanding teams. Jordan didnt do it on his own, as he won NOTHING without Pippen and Grant, or Pippen and Rodman, Or Pippen and Harper.
This year: Kobe 31.3 FG 46% Melo 29.1 FG 48% Last year: Kobe 35.4 FG 45% AIv 33.0 FG 45% 04-05: AIv 30.7 FG 42% Kobe 27.6 FG 43% 03-04 TM 28.0 FG 42% Pej 24.2 FG 48% (Kobe, 4th, 24.0 44%) 02-03 TMc 32.1 FG 46% Kobe 30.0 FG 45% 01-02 AIv 31.4 FG 40% SO 27.2 FG 58% (Kobe 6th, 25.2 FG 47%) 00-01 AIv 31.1 42FG% JStk 29.8 40FG% SO 28.7 57FG% (Kobe 4th 28.5 46FG%) Pre Jordan's 1st retirement 1992-93 Michael Jordan 32.6 FG 50% Dominique Wilkins 29.9 FG 47% Karl Malone 27.0 FG 55% 1991-92 Michael Jordan 30.1 FG 52% Karl Malone 28.0 FG 53 % 1990-91 Michael Jordan 31.5 FG 54% Karl Malone 29.0 FG 53% Bernard King 28.4 FG 47% 1989-90 Michael Jordan 33.6 FG 53% Karl Malone 31.0 FG 56% 1988-89 Michael Jordan 32.5 FG 54% Karl Malone 29.1 FG 52% Dale Ellis 27.5 FG 50% 1987-1988 Michael Jordan 35.0 FG 54% Dominique Wilkins 30.7 FG 46% Larry Bird 29.9 FG 53% 1986-1987 Michael Jordan 37.1 FG 48% Dominique Wilkins 29.0 FG 46% There are a lot of oustanding scorers listed here. Kobe, AI. Tm, Melo, Stack have all been 28PPG or more in the most recent group. Meanwhile, Jordan, Nique, Bird, Malone and King where in the previous group. But Jordan seperation from the rest is on another level. (I would argue Kobe's are not all that distinguished from the best of AIs, Tmacs, Melos--the no hand checking stuff may have stilted scoring to guards and wings). Jordan is also doing it a lot more efficiently than the other guards and wings listed with the exception of arguably the best pure shooter ever (Bird). So to say Kobe is a better scorer than Jordan is way off base. Not as silly as saying he is the better player, but nontheless off base. Oh, and here is an even more remarkable table. The comparisons of Kobe to Jordan as an nba basketball player should end. If you want to have a hypothetical comparison of their skill set in practice, or in a 1 on 1 game fine, but within the game of basketball we watch (NBA teams and particularly valuing playoffs) it makes little sense. And I say this as someone who wanted Michael Jordan to lose every professional basketball game I remember him playing. http://www.nba.com/statistics/encyc/Player.jsp
Because I value winning and doing it in dominant fashion? And funny you mention me hating Kobe when Ive actually defended him on MANY of the posts in this thread. Look through them, tell me why an alleged Kobe hater would care if people bashed discredited Kobe? Why when the common knowledge is that MJ faced more physical defenses? The onus is on you to prove Kobe saw more doubles than a guy who was the better scorer/winner/Bball player. Who are these people? What are the numbers? Again the mere fact that MJ saw doubles as a 40 year old in a tougher defensive game and still had effective numbers proves that he couldve dominated this league. This is one of those thats going to go back and forth so whats the point? Tmac saw more doubles dig up some tape and do research, Ive seen the numbers (fg/a taken while doubled, double team per possession %) I guess it doesnt matter if synergy was still open, youd still say the numbers were bull****. OK re-read post number 1, I actually Im of the belief that your sub-conscious mind puprosely made you forget to add the NON in the NON Kobe lover sentence. Ill get back to you on that, but Im allready sure your right about the pace of the game, but the physicality of the game is questionably tougher in MJ's championship era. The notion that you cant be a good defensive team playing at a fast pace is false, but lets just say I agree 100% with your oppinion. How are you going to put a value on such an intangible figure? Considering you called me a Kobe hater in the very thread Ive been defending Kobe proves who you perceive to be "silly" is discredited Yes it all makes sense now, you believe Kobe is greater than MJ because you hate the fact that the general consensus is that Hakeem was not the player MJ was. All those years of people saying Hakeem couldnt win when MJ was dominating has really gotten to you. Either way the point is moot, Hakeem was also a greater player than Kobe, so I fail to see why you would mention Hakeem in a MJ vs Kobe debate on an issue regarding how great a role they played on their championship team proves you had no rebuttle so you tried to attack me personally.
Look man I appreciate the effort and love that your taking a leap in the stats department but if your going to use numbers atleast use the right ones. FG% is used and outdated, eFG% and TS% are the standard now. So if you could take the team to add them to your post Ill try and see what your trying to conclude.
What does that statement mean? FG% "outdated?" From '86-'87 to '92-'93, Jordan averaged over 50% (over the course of that period) easily. He did it while shooting from all over the court. The more recent players mentioned by DS average, almost entirely, in the low to mid 40% range. A very, very big difference. I'm at a loss to understand whatever point you are trying to make.
Let's look at the efficiency of the scorers compared to the era they played in... NBA Average (99-06): .476 eFG% Kobe (99-06): .483 eFG% (+.007) NBA Average (85-98): .490 eFG% MJ (85-98): .518 eFG% (+.028) 1998-99 was the first year Kobe was a starter, which is why I started him off at that year. As you can see from the stats MJ was not only an amazing scorer in quantity, but also in efficiency. Usually the eFG% of a go to guy will be lower than average. Kobe's eFG% is pretty good, it's above league average and shows he's a pretty efficient scorer. Jordan's eFG% is MUCH higher than the NBA Average, incredible for a guy who put up the number of shots he did. Kobe's a brilliant scorer and will one day go down as a Top 10 and maybe Top 5 all-time player, but MJ was just simply on another level....
Well if you have time go ahead (I think you have to do it by hand for historical data). But I would suggest Point Per Shot as a better indicator of offensive efficiency than eFG%, but TS% might be just as well. Still, even these are imperfect for describing real offensive effectiveness as they don't consider TOs, assists, quality of teammates, etc, etc, etc. So I gave everyone a slice, and compared the players with their contemporaries. Meanwhile Kobe hardly seperates himself from AI, Tmac, Stack, Melo and Jordan consistently (7 years strait) whoops his, with a whopping 8PPG discrepency from the #2 guy in 86-87 (second only in NBA history to a couple of Wilt's years I believe). Sometimes the trends are so strong and the outcomes are so obvious you gain very little insight from looking for a slightly better statistical measure. But like I said go ahead if you want, I don't think Jordan's TS% or PPS will make his case any weaker.
fg% doesn't account for the fact people take 3's and ft's as well (and points per shot doesn't account for the fact that taking free throws still uses up possessions). shooting 40% on 3's is better than 50% on 2's. so you can't just say a guy is more efficient b/c he shoots 50% and another guy shoots 40%. effective field goal percentage accounts for 3's. true shooting percentage accounts for 3's and ft's. so if someone, like kobe in this thread, takes a significant number of 3's, it will most likely lower their fg% since essentially everyone shoots worse from 3 than 2, but could help their true shooting percentage because, obviously, 3 points counts for more than 2. so just like baseball has tried to move away from just average and toward things like OPS, basketball should try to move from just fg% and toward TS%. rip hamilton once had a game where he shot 0-10 from the field and 14-14 from the line. would it be appropiate to say he shot 0% and it was the worst game ever? no, because he still got to the line and made all of them. would it be appropriate to say he had 1.4 points per shot and was very efficient? no, because those 14 fta still used up offensive possessions. but saying he had a 43.3 TS% and was still inefficient but not horrendous is a more accurate portrayal of what happened.
I would argue Fg< eFG < PPS < TS% Both PPS and TS% factor in 3s and FTs. Regarding PPS, the FTs can be an and 1, so FTs don't always mean a possesion. FTs and fauls draw probably have other benefits not factored in (getting to the bonus early, fouling out opponents). http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html#TSP TS% True shooting percentage; the formula is PTS / (2*(FGA + (0.44*FTA)). I am not sure where the .44 comes from but I am guessing some weighting based on league trends in FTA that factor in and 1s (which are not extra possesions). Certainly players wouldn't all have the same and 1 percentages among FTs taken, so this measures has its faults right there. Back to the task at hand, I don't think Jordan will appear any less distinguished from the rest of these scorers using PPS or TS%, he is some overwhelmingly better in the basic stats you will spend a lot of time for little change digging deeper.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/scorecard/04/15/truth.rumors.nba/index.html Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan have developed an interesting bond over the past year and are often in contact. Jordan wonders how Bryant would do against the better talent he (Jordan) played against and the rules he played under, including hand-checking that allowed a strong defender like Mitch Richmond to affect his movement. Jordan, though, didn't have to face the zones Bryant now sees. -- Chicago Tribune
i would put PPS 3rd or 4th, because it's basically a lie without counting possessions used on ft's. fg% and eFG at least don't pretend to account for ft's. eFG is really the true points per shot stat as it actually counts the points scored on field goal attempts. yeah, that's where .44 comes from. and true, some people will be different. like i suspect shaq's and1 percentage would be quite high, although all the purpose fouls he takes where he's not even given a chance to shoot (like when he gets great position and someone just bear hugs both his arms) - which almost no one else gets - may balance that out, i don't know. but i'm guessing even the high and low guys aren't too far off. it at least factors in ft's better than anything else. i can't remember if it was this thread or another, but i compared kobe and jordan's TS% relative to the league. and while jordan is way ahead of just plain ol' FG%, he only beats kobe by 1.7% on TS%, and league average TS% was 1.1% higher during jordan's years, so it's fairly close to a wash, which FG% alone would not suggest. and right now kobe stands to close the gap by another .3% after this year is over.
If we go by PPS then Shaq if probably the greatest offensive force of all time. PPS doesnt care if a player gos 2-10 from the ft line, which if you know your math is essentially going 1-5 from the field. Obviously that rarely happens but the fact that such a case is possible has lowered my appreciation for PPS. But as you said Ill look it up myself and post whatever I find, you got me curious. FG% doesnt take into acount 3pt shots made. For example Kobe shoots what 46% according to fg% which would leave you to assume hes a less efficient shooter from the field than a Kevin Garnet. But when you account for 3pt made you see Kobe is the better shooter. TS% Takes it a step further and adds free throws to the mix.
Impact Zone defense had on the game 2000-2001: 94.8 PPG, .443 FG%, .354 3P%, (OFF.RATING:103.0) 2001-2002: 95.5 PPG, .445 FG%, .354 3P%, (OFF.RATING:104.5) Now the impact hand-checking had on the league 2003-2004: 93.4PPG, .438FG%, .347 3P%, (OFF RATING:102.9) 2004-2005: 97.2PPG, .447FG%, .355 3P%, (OFF RATING:106.1) One year to the next the jump was more significant, but does the trend continue the following year? 2005-2006: 97.0PPG, .453FG%, .358 3P% (OFF RATING: 106.2) Remarkably similar, but I conclude handchecking > zone defense in terms of impact on the game.
And I would guess the changes have made it easier for guards and tougher for bigs. Guys like Malone, Robinson, Hakeem and Ewing probably would find offense a lot tougher. Perimeter oriented players built on quickness like Iverson, Kobe, Wade, (younger) Tmac probably find the sledding easier. Doubles (which zones allow) are also more easily implemented on a post player. Point taken on PPS, but that probably only comes into play when the guy is a flat sucky free throw shooter--and even then they are not gettting a lot of points from FTs anyway. For players of decent FTs I think it is a pretty good metric--not as good as TS% perhaps, but since eFG and FG don't weight FTs at all (and FTs and fouls drawn do other good things for your side like getting into the bonus early and fouling out opponents--that is why Hack a Shaq can never be more than a limited late game strategy) I'd say they are inferior measure of efficiency. And TS% does look the best of all--but the .44 weighting of FTA certainly isn't going to adjust for player differences in types of fouls. For most cases using TS% or PPS are pretty good measures of efficiency IMO.
