Kobe joins the 30,000 point club: so where does he rank all-time now?

[JMS]

Is there anyway to rank them not in the games it took them but the minutes they played?

Maybe they do track average minutes played... but really what's the point. All the stats are subjective really. and you are comparing folks from different era's too....

It's a totally subjective discussion in the first place.

[Dr. Do Itch Big]

It would be interesting.

[Sticksboi05]

It would be interesting.

Well considering Kobe plays like the entire game every night it probably wouldn't change much.

[Dr. Do Itch Big]

What if it did?

[stevemcqueen1]

As for Russel, Yes any individual measure except for Championships, Rebounding Titles, and league MVP's (both tied at 5),

I would throw overall defense in there too... Jordan was a great great defensive player, but Russel changed the game.

Russell played from 1956-57 to 1968-69. From 1956 to 1961, the league had only 8 teams. In 61-62 it added a 9th team, now known as the Washington Wizards. In 1966-67 the league added a 10th team, the Chicago Bulls. In 67-68 it added an 11th and 12th team, the Sonics and the Rockets. In Russell's final season of '68-89, the league added 13th and 14th teams, the Bucks and the Suns. All of those expansion teams were terrible of course. In 67-68, the four expansion teams finished with the four worst records in the league. In 68-69, five of the expansion teams finished bottom six in the league with the Baltimore Bullets being the lone expansion team to make it out of the cellar, finishing with the league's best record behind Wes Unseld's MVP winning rookie season.

So basically, for almost all of Russell's career, there were only 8 or 9 teams in the league. And in the final two years when it rapidly expanded to 12 and 14 teams, those extra teams were garbage anyway.

Russell simply played in an era that was orders of magnitude less competitive. Same is true for all of the great players of the premerger era, especially those from the 40's, 50's, and 60's.

Those championships he gets all that credit for are primarily a team achievement. What about the 8 other HoF teammates Russell played with during his career? They don't factor in? The only other truly great player Jordan played with was Pip. Rodman was outstanding but he's a fringe HoFer at best. I value Jordan's six rings in a far more competitive era with much, much lesser surrounding talent more than I do Russell's 11 rings, almost all of which came in a league that's totally unrecognizable today.

Also Jordan has probably changed the game more than any other player in NBA history. That's not an argument that favors Russell.

Come on Kobe has 2.3% better field goal percentage than Elgin Baylor while averaging fewer points and about 9 fewer rebounds per game over his career....

Wow, that's a really weak attempt to manipulate a basic stat. That 2.3% is huge when you realize the difference between a perimeter player shooting 38% and 48%--10%--is often the difference between being a complete scrub and an elite player.

You're the only person I've ever seen present FG%s that way. A much more familiar and common way to say it would be that Kobe shot twenty-three % better than Baylor since you're talking about the tenths and hundredths place. That's huge. Do you seriously not know this or are you just trying to throw arguments out there to see what sticks?

This is what we call a selective metric. I'm sure you don't think Dr. Jay was a better overall than Kobe even though Julius Erving had 5% better FG% for his career while only averaging about 1 point less per game over his career.
Yet Kobe was better than E.. because E. had 2.3% smaller FG% while scoreing 2.3 more ppg. Not even taking rebounding into the picture.

No Dr. J was not better than Kobe, and it's not wholly based on their shooting %s. I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here.

Elgin Baylor was a better scorer, better team mate, better rebounder, better leader, and overall more versatile player than Kobe. Period..

I'm not going to speculate on Baylor being a better leader or teammate than Kobe. I don't know much about Baylor's reputation is here. Perhaps he is a better teammate and leader. But since Kobe's win share metrics crush Baylors, I know I win a ton more games with Kobe on my team than Baylor. Since that's what matters most, ultimately, that's not being a good teammate? As for the rebounding, Elgin Baylor was a forward, Kobe is a guard. And Baylor played in an era with a pace that was almost twice as fast as today's. His rebounding numbers should obviously dwarf Kobe's. But if you're judging Kobe by things that off guards are typically judged by, scoring, efficiency, assists, Kobe comes out ahead when you adjust for pace or use the %s. And while we don't have steals numbers for Baylor, I wouldn't be surprised if Kobe beats him here too. Kobe's career PER of 23.5 is better than Baylor's career PER of 22.7 despite the fact Baylor had such crazy rebounding numbers. And the big difference is Kobe has 166.0 career win shares with a .185 WS/48 while Baylor has just 104.2 and .148. Those numbers are not close. If Baylor was actually better than Kobe, those numbers should at least be close.

And again, Baylor's NBA was far less competitive than Kobe's.

As for their scoring, Kobe can absolutely do everything Elgin could do and much more. There is just no comparison between them. Elgin's efficiency was much lower than Kobe's and Kobe has never been lauded for efficiency. And when you recognize that Kobe actually has incentive to take many more difficult, lower percentage shots because of the three point line, and that he's a guard and Baylor was a forward, it makes Baylor's percentages look that much worse. This is accounted for in the fact Kobe's TS% is 61% higher than Baylor's and his eFG% is 56% higher. Those are huge differences.

---------- Post added December-6th-2012 at 05:01 PM ----------

How on Earth did I end up being the one defending Kobe?

Asiatic where are you in this?

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

[Renegade7]

You can always tell who doesn't like Kobe in threads like these. I'm not a basketball expert, but 30,000 is a lot of points, imo. I remember when he dropped 81 on Toronto, and people are still talking about how many other players could've done that in any era.

5 rings is pretty good, too. It's not like he was coming off the bench for the those championships, either...

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

You can always tell who doesn't like Kobe in threads like these. I'm not a basketball expert, but 30,000 is a lot of points, imo. I remember when he dropped 81 on Toronto, and people are still talking about how many other players could've done that in any era.

5 rings is pretty good, too. It's not like he was coming off the bench for the those championships, either...

dude, its strange. They cannot separate their personal feelings from an appreciation of what Kobe has done.

This thread is a backhanded compliment

Instead of congratulating him on his achievement, he has to be torn down because he isnt Michael Jordan.

Kobe is going to be a player that will be appreciated many years later. Its unfortunate that he came into the NBA so close to the MJ era because that is held against him. Especially on here.

[stevemcqueen1]

You can always tell who doesn't like Kobe in threads like these. I'm not a basketball expert, but 30,000 is a lot of points, imo. I remember when he dropped 81 on Toronto, and people are still talking about how many other players could've done that in any era.

5 rings is pretty good, too. It's not like he was coming off the bench for the those championships, either...

I don't really like Kobe. I've always hated the Lakers and Kobe has been the face of them forever. Plus he was selfish and inefficient and those are two things I've usually been harsh on.

But I'm also trying to understand the truth first and foremost and to me, the evidence points to Kobe either being a top ten player right now, or he's almost certainly going to be one by the time he retires. The basketball world agrees with me on this, and judging from the poll, most of the voters here agree too.

And I think he either is or will be the second greatest Laker since I count Kareem as a Laker and I think he will eventually pass Magic.

Lost in all of the turmoil of the Lakers season is the fact that Kobe is having an absolutely amazing year. A legit MVP caliber year. One of the best years of his career. His WS/48 right now is .245, easily the best of his career. Right now he's on pace for a 15.6 WS season, which would be the best of his career. He's also leading the league in PPG at 28.0 and is shooting an awesome .490, which would also be the best % of his career.

Durant has been the best and is the frontrunner for the MVP today, but honestly, I'd put Kobe second so far this season. He won't finish nearly that high because the Lakers aren't winning but it's been no fault of his. And the fact that he's been able to play at this level despite all of the problems surrounding him makes it that much more impressive to me. Not to mention he's 1400 games into his NBA career. It's crazy that he's able to reach this level of play through the first quarter of the season. Especially coming off all of the injuries he had last year. He looks completely rejuvenated and is playing much better than he did last season.

He's played at an extremely high level for an extremely long time. If he keeps up this pace for three more years, he's going to break the points record. And if he does play close to this level for several more years, just how high can he climb on the all time list?

Longevity matters. No it's not enough for him to break into the tier of the completely, spectacularly dominant with Jordan, Kareem, Wilt, and Russell. But everyone else is in play IMO.

Every year your great player turns in a great season is one where you've got a chance at a ring so long as you can put the right pieces in place around him. That's a GM winning his first battle.

[tone_dubbz]

Its unfortunate that he came into the NBA so close to the MJ era because that is held against him. Especially on here.

Him coming into the league thinking he was MJ is what turned me into a Kobe hater.

[nuposse87]

1. MJ
2. Russell
3. Kareem
4. Wilt
5. Magic
6. Bird
7. Duncan
8. Shaq
9. Kobe
10. Oscar

Even winning another championship and surpassing Jordan's scoring total doesn't better his legacy. His inefficiency comparatively to the rest of the field speaks volume as does his win production when he had Shaq shipped out of town.

[Burgold]

It's interesting comparing eras, but one factor I don't know whether anyone's thought about or how in the world you would calculate it is the three point shot. How many extra points would some of the old time players would have had... especially in the pre-dunk era? PPG might be very, very different.

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

Him coming into the league thinking he was MJ is what turned me into a Kobe hater.

you are the same age as Kobe.

You probably looked up to Jordan.

If you played basketball, dont front like you didnt stick your tongue out when going to the basket.

I think thats the other thing with the hatred of Kobe. Dude was a Jordan fan, but was the only one that came close to replicating it, and was doing it at 18. It hurt a lot of peoples feelings, lol.

---------- Post added December-7th-2012 at 10:33 AM ----------

It's interesting comparing eras, but one factor I don't know whether anyone's thought about or how in the world you would calculate it is the three point shot. How many extra points would some of the old time players would have had... especially in the pre-dunk era? PPG might be very, very different.

when was the pre-dunk era? The 1950s?

Most guys were taking 2 point shots from the mid range in that era. You could argue stepping further back would hurt their numbers.

[Sticksboi05]

you are the same age as Kobe.

You probably looked up to Jordan.

If you played basketball, dont front like you didnt stick your tongue out when going to the basket.

I think thats the other thing with the hatred of Kobe. Dude was a Jordan fan, but was the only one that came close to replicating it, and was doing it at 18. It hurt a lot of peoples feelings, lol.[COLOR="Gold"]

Rape charge doesn't help either...

But back to basketball, he's top 10 ever, near the bottom. It's just annoying when the Kobe lovers dismiss the statistically-backed arguments for why he's not top 5. Kobe's biggest edge is longevity. But there are many players in their prime I'd take over him, from this era, one at his position (Dwyane Wade).

[JMS]

So basically, for almost all of Russell's career, there were only 8 or 9 teams in the league.

Hell man there are fewer teams in the league today.... Since Kobe Bryant broke into the league in 1996 only 7 teams have won championships in 16 years. 9 in the last 32 years!
There is no parity of talent in the NBA... a few great players compete for the title every year and every year most teams over decades never have a shot.
The league didn't get any harder to win when the Wizards and Sacramento got franchises.