Kobe-LeBron II: Eclectic Group Says Boo
I'm going to start by revisiting the Kobe-LeBron debate, because I heard a lot of grumbling about my post -- with much of it coming from non-Lakers fans, surprisingly -- and I'd like to re-state my position. In terms of what they've done in their careers, Kobe is the better player. If I were trying to define each's place in history, there's no doubt I'd rank Kobe higher in terms of the all-time greatest NBA players. Do I think that at the end of their careers, he'll still be higher? Probably not. Do I think Kobe is better than LeBron, at this very second? Hell no.
I want to first address this guy's opinion, as he was the only one with the decency to use the comments section of the site -- by commenting on the site, you can help make it appear that my blog has, you know, some actual readers -- instead of emailing me. Though you will notice that he rather conspicuously withheld his name. And no, it's not me, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not that desperate. Yet.
While I was hopeful I had an actual NBA player as a reader, I found out via Facebook that it's actually from a college friend who I played intramurals with. Nevertheless... Not categorizing a man by his titles alone? Good. Not thinking Kobe is the best ever? Better. The rest of it? Ya lost me.
There is no doubt that Kobe knows the game. But to say that his basketball IQ is better than LeBron's is taking it too far. LeBron has the greatly-superior court vision, and despite having lousier teammates, he actually tries to get them involved. Take a look at Pau Gasol's numbers against the Magic:
42.4 mpg, 18.6 ppg, 9.2 rpg, 36-60 FG (.600), 21-27 FT (.778)
Gasol was utterly unstoppable in the Finals, shooting at least 50% from the field in each of the five games. Quite simply, no one on the Magic could stay with him. And yet, despite playing heavy, heavy minutes, he averaged just 12 shots per game. Why?
Kobe Bryant.
Despite never hitting even 50% of his shots in any game during the Finals -- his best-shooting night came in Game 1, when he went 16-for-34 -- Kobe took a whopping 27 shots a night. That's 125% more attempts than Gasol, despite Gasol converting at a 40% better rate. And before you say that all of Kobe's shooting is what opened up the floor for Gasol, you should know that of the latter's 36 baskets, Kobe assisted on just 10 of them. If Kobe was drawing all this attention away from Gasol, shouldn't he have found him more than twice a game, especially considering that he was their primary ballhandler?
And if you don't like the statistical evidence, how about the anecdotal kind: If Kobe's basketball IQ is so high, how in the world could he go 1-on-3 at the end of regulation in Game 2? Once the triple team came, shouldn't he have found the open man -- excuse me, men -- instead of trying to do it all himself? This remains Kobe's main failing as a basketball player; that is, he is still too selfish.
I believe that LeBron is barely scratching the surface, but due to his practically limitless potential, he is already the superior player. There are certainly plenty of things he could do to improve as a basketball player, but I can't help but feel that the most important one is Get better teammates.
Meanwhile, Jody Oehler, host of Tucson's ESPN Radio 1490 The Fan's Happy Hour with Jody Oehler (you can download his podcasts here) and a notable non-Kobe fan, sent me a comprehensive email on the subject, championing Kobe's superiority. While I'm not going to reproduce it in its entirety, I'll try to summarize (and dispute) his main points.
1. Jody calls me out for discounting Kobe's early-career titles as largely the product of having been lucky enough to play with Shaquille O'Neil, while not similarly making an adjustment to LeBron's statistics because he hasn't had to sublimate any aspect of his game to accommodate a superstar teammate.
This is a very reasonable argument; surely some of LeBron's stats would have suffered had he played with Shaq at the peak of his dominance. But while his scoring likely would have gone down, wouldn't his assists have increased? Couldn't his shooting percentage have improved because he wouldn't've been drawing the defense's undivided attention? And it's worth noting that in both categories, LeBron already has sizeable advantages over Kobe. (Career assists: 6.7 to 4.6; FG% .471-.455.)
Jody also doubts, given all the hype he received, that LeBron could have accepted being a second banana out of high school. But I remember watching several of LeBron's games his rookie year, and he was extremely deferential to his teammates, almost to the point of excess. He was always looking to make the extra pass, even forgoing up breakaway dunks to dish to a trailing teammate, and appeared to want to avoid stepping on anyone's toes. So instead of being a hindrance to his transition to the NBA, I believe that playing with Shaq -- and having someone to deflect some of the immense pressure he surely felt -- would have made LeBron an even better player today.
But that's neither here nor there in terms of who is the better player right now. As I said, I believe to this point that Kobe has had the better career, and thus would rank higher than LeBron all-time. But I just can't accept that he's the better player now when the main piece of evidence is the championships. Especially because three of them have zero bearing on how they played this season. And yes, Kobe's team also won the 2009 NBA title, but that championship doesn't make him the best player this year any more than Paul Pierce's did last season.
2. Jody argues that Kobe Bryant's numbers have suffered because he's played virtually his entire career under Phil Jackson, who holds him accountable and forces him to play within a structured offensive system as opposed to kowtowing to his every whim the way Mike Brown appears to do with LeBron. While that has some merit, am I supposed to discount LeBron's value because he didn't have the misfortune of playing for the winningest coach in basketball history? While Jackson might have depressed Kobe's stats a bit, I believe that LeBron's perception as a winner has been harmed to a much greater degree by Brown's incompetent boobery.
Additionally, while Kobe's might've posted better numbers playing for Brown's Cavs, I have a hard time believing he'd have won 66 games with them. The Lakers record, post-Shaq and pre-Gasol, was 150-141 for a winning percentage of .515. That was mostly under Jackson, and it covers several of Kobe's prime years, beginning with his age 26 season. His supporting cast in that span included Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Derek Fisher, and Andrew Bynum.
Meanwhile, Cleveland's record in the three seasons before this one (when LeBron allegedly got his own Gasol, the grossly-overrated and since-exposed Mo Williams) was 145-101, for a .589 winning percentage. LeBron was 21 when that stretch began, and his supporting cast included Zydrunas Ilgauskus, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, and Anderson Varejao. At a younger age he was able to carry similar teams to better records with a worse coach. So how could LeBron not be better now when he is just entering his prime and Kobe is leaving his?
3. Jody also takes me to task for my ludicrous Michael Jordan-to-random-50's-and-60's-Celtics-nobodies-who-have-more-rings-than-he-does comparison, which admittedly was a gross oversimplification, saying, "We are all operating under the assumption we are comparing apples to apples, not apples to steaming piles of shit."
Fair enough. At the same time, there is really no such thing as an apples-to-apples comparison because said apples are all in different baskets. Alright, perhaps that's taking the apples metaphor a little too far. But the head-to-head comparison based on team results is in itself problematic because the situations are not identical, resulting in problems of colinearity. That is, you cannot entirely separate any player from the contributions of his teammates because they are all interdependent. I don't think anyone would argue that LeBron's teammates are more skilled than Kobe's, so to use his lesser results as the primary indicator of his ability just seems wrong to me. Does anyone really believe that if LeBron was on the Lakers, they wouldn't have won the title? Or that Kobe on the Cavs would have brought a championship to Cleveland? I really, really hope not.
Jody loses me again when he says that championships are the one near-unanimous measuring stick in professional sports. I'll agree that's true when assessing a career -- LeBron will not join Kobe in the top-15 all-time if he remains titleless -- for a single-season I believe that it usually says very little. Jody says, "Until LeBron wins one, just one, he cannot be considered better than Kobe, or frankly much better than Dwyane Wade." Again, career-wise, yes. This season? I respectfully disagree.
Jody, if you feel I misrepresented your point of view in any way, please let me know. But for the love of God, man, I beseech you to do it in the comments section.
Derrek Lee, Option 3
In my Derrek Lee is making me look like an idiot post from yesterday, I neglected something that should have been an important part of the analysis. Instead of just healed injury and fluky hot streak, there was a third possibility for Lee's resurgence: that he might just be hitting more fly balls, which would in all probability lead to more homers.
So here are Lee's ground ball to fly ball ratios, beginning with 2005, the season he hit 46 homers.
2005 0.66
2006 0.73
2007 0.71
2008 0.81
And this year? After pretty much rising steadily for the past few seasons, Lee's 2009 GB/FB stands at 0.58. That represents the lowest mark of his career. To put it another way, he is hitting more flyballs than ever. Since his doubles rate has fallen off much less precipitously than his home run rate -- after hitting 50 in 2005, he hit 43 and 41 in his first two full seasons back -- maybe his power never really left, and this recent surge is simply the result of a concerted effort to hit more flyballs.
More Cutler debate: What if Kyle is great?
In my fervor to convince everyone not to judge the Jay Cutler trade based on the players the Broncos acquire with the Bears' picks, I wrote the following:
When you are trading picks, you have already assigned value to them, and it's what they were worth that day that counts. The value isn't variable based on the players ultimately selected. From here on out from the Bears' end, all that matters is what Cutler does. The production of the players the Broncos select is relevant to the trade, but only on the Denver side. And so while it's up to Pat Bowlen's guys to make the deal look good for the Broncos, only Jay Cutler can make the Bears look bad.Well that's just super. Only I forgot one thing: Kyle Orton, who showed some flashes last year, can make the Bears look absolutely terrible.
What if Orton -- playing with a much more skilled receiving corps than he had with the Bears -- puts up better stats than Cutler? Even worse, what happens if the Bears miss the postseason while Orton leads the Broncos to the playoffs? Or, perish the thought, the Super Bowl? Obviously that is a nightmare scenario for the Bears' brass. Because if they gave up Orton, two first rounders, and a third to get a quarterback who is actually worse, it might spell the end of the Jerry Angelo Era.
While I don't think it'll happen, that's almost enough to get me to root for Kyle Orton's Broncos.
Posts
As a basketball player myself I would never categorize a man by the "titles" he has collected alone. Do I think Kobe is the best ever? No, Is he better that LeBron? Kobe's understanding, or the new token phrase "Basketball IQ" is better. The edge goes to Kobe until LeBron understands that patience and defense not haste or force lead to championships.