OT: Kobe vs Jordan?

[Mr.Gunner]

Jordan had Pippen who you can argue is as good as Gasol talent wise, but Jordan never had a Shaq, a top 5 center of all time, who destroyed defenses during his 3 championships. So basically Jordan did a whole lot more with less talent around him.

I disagree, Pippen was just a better player than Pau, he ran the show when Jordan was out injured. With a rebounder as Rodman they did not really need to rely on a big man to lead them, Pippen, Jodan, Kukoc, Harper, could easily hit from the outside, Luc longley wasn't that bad as a center. IMO Jordan had alot more talent around him than kobe has.

 

[handiman]

Right now he’s [Kobe] the best player in basketball,” Gentry said. “And it’s not even close.”

He would have said the same thing about LeBron if that's who had just beaten him. Most coaches play it safe with that sort of bulletin board material.

 

[huevonkiller]

When you start putting Rodman and Grant in the same category as Shaq, then it's time to give up your argument.

No I was just mentioning a good player, not equating him to Shaq.

 

[KingSpeed]

Interesting stat:

Kobe has played 15 more playoff games than MJ did and yet...

30+ point games in playoffs:

Jordan 109
Kobe 76

 

[KingSpeed]

I disagree, Pippen was just a better player than Pau, he ran the show when Jordan was out injured. With a rebounder as Rodman they did not really need to rely on a big man to lead them, Pippen, Jodan, Kukoc, Harper, could easily hit from the outside, Luc longley wasn't that bad as a center. IMO Jordan had alot more talent around him than kobe has.

Ugh. Listen. Pippen was awesome, but he and MJ had NO OFFENSIVE POST PLAYER to throw the ball to. Kobe has had Shaq and Pau. It is nearly impossible to win in the playoffs without a scorer in the post. Pippen and MJ did it six times!!!! Pau makes Kobe's job soooo much easier.

 

[Sex Panther]

Ugh. Listen. Pippen was awesome, but he and MJ had NO OFFENSIVE POST PLAYER to throw the ball to. Kobe has had Shaq and Pau. It is nearly impossible to win in the playoffs without a scorer in the post. Pippen and MJ did it six times!!!! Pau makes Kobe's job soooo much easier.

Pippen >> Pau
Jordan >>>> Kobe.

That seems about right.

 

[44Thrilla]

No I was just mentioning a good player, not equating him to Shaq.

OK, good. Grant and Rodman were great role players. Shaq was unstoppable for like 5 years.

 

[huevonkiller]

That was never a debate, for me.

Grant and Pau are a little underrated here.

 

[Denny Crane]

The problem for the Bulls with Grant is that how he went, so did the Bulls. They beat Phoenix in a close game in the finals in a game where Grant was terrible. He had an uncontested dunk to tie the game with time running out and didn't even want to take that shot. The game wouldn't have been that close if he had a reasonably good game, let alone his typical game.

For that reason, I think the Bulls let him walk. You can't be as good as your 3rd best player.

 

[huevonkiller]

The problem for the Bulls with Grant is that how he went, so did the Bulls. They beat Phoenix in a close game in the finals in a game where Grant was terrible. He had an uncontested dunk to tie the game with time running out and didn't even want to take that shot. The game wouldn't have been that close if he had a reasonably good game, let alone his typical game.

For that reason, I think the Bulls let him walk. You can't be as good as your 3rd best player.

He had contract demands I thought.

The Magic were willing to pay him 14+ million a year.

 

[Denny Crane]

I think they'd have paid him if they thought he was more consistent. After Jordan retired the first time, the Bulls didn't win with him. Easy enough to lose without him, so the saying goes.

Anyhow, according to basketball-reference.com, his salary with the Magic was $2.1M the first two seasons, or $200K more than he made with the Bulls.

And this article says he signed his big contract after 2 years with the Magic:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15869587.html

And this article says the Bulls offered him $4M/year and rescinded the offer forcing Grant to leave.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/30/s...-leaves-the-bulls-to-help-solidify-magic.html

The trade (of Skiles by the Magic to make room for Grant) came hours after Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said he would no longer try to re-sign Grant, whom he accused of backing out of a handshake deal for a five-year contract worth more than $20 million.

"We were prepared to make him the highest-paid Chicago Bull of all time," Reinsdorf said earlier in the the day about Grant from Chicago.

It also states the Bulls felt he cost them a championship without Jordan that season:

Reinsdorf said Grant's unhappiness with the Bulls -- manifested as unconfirmed injuries or "blue flu" that kept Grant out of a handful of games -- cost the team the home-court advantage in the playoffs.

"I believe we failed to achieve the best record in the Eastern Conference because we lost the games that Horace failed to play," Reinsdorf said. "You might conclude that he cost us the championship."

 

[bbwtrench]

Good point.

How can a player with only a SINGLE MVP trophy be talked about as being the greatest player of all time? I mean hell Bob Pettit has more MVP trophies than Kobe.

I just wanted to point out that MVP trophy's are sh*t. NASH = 2 back to back. NO TITLES.. LEBRON = 2 back to back. NO TITLES. The MVP trophy is a joke. The real TROPHY comes when the FINALS ARE WON. KOBE > LEBRON and NASH. Everyone talks about SHAQ and GASOL helping KOBE without giving any credit to SCOTTIE PIPPEN. The man was all star talent. He is listed as one of the NBA's 50 greatest players. Without Scottie would Jordan have WON 6? Its highly debatable.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

When talking about who is the greatest player of all time, I do not think it is right to consider NBA titles. MVP isn't that great but it is better. I think it is absolute bullshit when people say if they were that good they would have won titles. One player cannot win titles. and arguing about supporting cast is incredibly subjective. I know I'm in the very small minority with that opinion but it is just how I think.

 

[Minstrel]

When talking about who is the greatest player of all time, I do not think it is right to consider NBA titles. MVP isn't that great but it is better. I think it is absolute bullshit when people say if they were that good they would have won titles. One player cannot win titles. and arguing about supporting cast is incredibly subjective. I know I'm in the very small minority with that opinion but it is just how I think.

I agree completely. Winning (games and championships) is the ultimate measure of teams, not individuals. Individuals can only do their best to help their teams win...if the rest of their team isn't good enough, even the best individual contributions won't be sufficient.

 

[Mr.Gunner]

I just wanted to point out that MVP trophy's are sh*t. NASH = 2 back to back. NO TITLES.. LEBRON = 2 back to back. NO TITLES. The MVP trophy is a joke. The real TROPHY comes when the FINALS ARE WON. KOBE > LEBRON and NASH. Everyone talks about SHAQ and GASOL helping KOBE without giving any credit to SCOTTIE PIPPEN. The man was all star talent. He is listed as one of the NBA's 50 greatest players. Without Scottie would Jordan have WON 6? Its highly debatable.

Agreed 100%

 

[blazerboy30]

I just wanted to point out that MVP trophy's are sh*t. NASH = 2 back to back. NO TITLES.. LEBRON = 2 back to back. NO TITLES. The MVP trophy is a joke. The real TROPHY comes when the FINALS ARE WON. KOBE > LEBRON and NASH. Everyone talks about SHAQ and GASOL helping KOBE without giving any credit to SCOTTIE PIPPEN. The man was all star talent. He is listed as one of the NBA's 50 greatest players. Without Scottie would Jordan have WON 6? Its highly debatable.

Pippen was a GREAT player. But to compare him to Shaq (while on the Lakers) isn't reasonable. Shaq absolutely terrorized teams, and completely dominated games.

IMO, as far as most dominant player ever: Shaq is above Kobe, let alone Pippen.

 

[MrSelfDestruct]

I know PER doesn't tell the whole story, so don't bother stating that. I am however going to use it as a metric to those saying Jordan's supporting cast was better.

Playoff PER

Jordan:                Pippen:             
90-91-  32.0         90-91-  22.0                 
91-92-  27.2         91-92-  20.1
92-93-  30.1         92-93-  16.9   
95-96-  26.7         95-96-  19.4
96-97-  27.1         96-97-  18.1
97-98-  28.1         97-98-  19.5


Bryant:                 O'Neal:               Gasol:
99-00-  19.3         99-00-  30.5
00-01-  25.0         00-01-  28.7  
01-02-  20.5         01-02-  28.3
08-09-  26.8                                 08-09-  21.9
09-10-  25.3                                 09-10-  24.1

Like I said, PER doesn't tell the whole story, but it's interesting to me to see the parity between the two players. Kobe's best championship year is basically equal to Jordan's worst championship year. Also, Kobe has had significantly more help than Jordan ever received from their respective cohorts.

If you're wondering why I'm only using playoff PER, it's because the conversation turned towards championships and playoffs. However, regular season is actually pretty similar. Also, I included this season for a larger sample size.

 

[huevonkiller]

I know PER doesn't tell the whole story, so don't bother stating that. I am however going to use it as a metric to those saying Jordan's supporting cast was better.

Playoff PER

Jordan:                Pippen:             
90-91-  32.0         90-91-  22.0                 
91-92-  27.2         91-92-  20.1
92-93-  30.1         92-93-  16.9   
95-96-  26.7         95-96-  19.4
96-97-  27.1         96-97-  18.1
97-98-  28.1         97-98-  19.5


Bryant:                 O'Neal:               Gasol:
99-00-  19.3         99-00-  30.5
00-01-  25.0         00-01-  28.7  
01-02-  20.5         01-02-  28.3
08-09-  26.8                                 08-09-  21.9
09-10-  25.3                                 09-10-  24.1

Like I said, PER doesn't tell the whole story, but it's interesting to me to see the parity between the two players. Kobe's best championship year is basically equal to Jordan's worst championship year. Also, Kobe has had significantly more help than Jordan ever received from their respective cohorts.

If you're wondering why I'm only using playoff PER, it's because the conversation turned towards championships and playoffs. However, regular season is actually pretty similar. Also, I included this season for a larger sample size.

The factors PER misses are durability, usage rate, assisted bucket %, and defense. Generally I'd rather go with Win Shares and it seems to correlate much better with greatness (for the modern era, missing numbers complicate things before Magic's time).

Since the post-season is a bit longer now, I would also suggest WS/48. Jordan struggled in two of his title runs (for his standards), because he had some usage rate problems and adjusting for teammates, he didn't ALWAYS come out on top of Kobe. Kobe was at about .24 WS/48, beating MJ two of those titles. LeBron was all-time historic in the 09 playoffs, so he deserves credit as well. Now of course, MJ had two other non-title years where he played better than Bryant. Shaq was a dominant player but Kobe almost had two outliers in the playoffs, which brought his dominance to a similar level in his prime.

Pau Gasol is also being underrated because his defense has improved (Dwight Howard had a better series against Boston this year than against Pau last year), and he works well without an exorbitant amount of touches. I would say some of Grant's/etc. abilities and contributions are being solely attributed to Pippen. Just some nuances I wanted to take into account.

 

[CelticKing]

It's safe to say that without Pau Gasol, Lakers wouldn't have won last year's championship, and we could say same for this year, (haven't won it yet, but 3 games wins away from doing it). Isn't Pau considered as best big post player in the league right now? So was Shaq during the 3 rings they got together. What happened when he left? Did LA win anything?

Plus when talking about Grant, Rodman, etc, remember Kobe has had Horry, Fisher, etc. (role players who played big for their championships)


Then remember all the great teams MJ and Bulls had to beat to get to the Finals, year after year. HOFers like Barkley, Ewing, Stockton, etc etc, didn't get any rings because of MJ.

 

[ehizzy3]

all you kids are wrong.

 

[KingSpeed]

Kobe with 21 points tonight. Jordan was never held to 21 in a Finals game.

In case you've forgotten how great Jordan was, here are his stats for the 1993 NBA Finals, the most watched Finals ever:

Game 1- 31 pts, 7 rebs, 5 assts, 5 steals, 1 block
Game 2- 42 pts, 12 rebs, 9 assts, 2 steals
Game 3- 44 pts, 9 rebs, 6 assts, 2 steals, 1 block
Game 4- 55 pts, 8 rebs, 4 assts
Game 5- 41 pts, 7 rebs, 7 assts, 2 blks
Game 6- 33 pts, 8 rebs, 7 assts, 1 steal

Kobe has never been nor will he ever be that good. And America doesn't care either way. 30 million people watched Mike. Only 10 million watch Kobe.

 

[huevonkiller]

Jordan was definitely better in that Finals and just in general. However the 93 Suns defense compares to the 2010 Atlanta Hawks, definitely not the 2010 Boston Celtics.

I wouldn't be using raw numbers to make that specific point, that's a flawed outlook. He's had games in the Finals where he had 22 points and played poorly. It isn't just about point total either.

 

[blazerboy30]

Kobe with 21 points tonight. Jordan was never held to 21 in a Finals game.

In case you've forgotten how great Jordan was, here are his stats for the 1993 NBA Finals, the most watched Finals ever:

Game 1- 31 pts, 7 rebs, 5 assts, 5 steals, 1 block
Game 2- 42 pts, 12 rebs, 9 assts, 2 steals
Game 3- 44 pts, 9 rebs, 6 assts, 2 steals, 1 block
Game 4- 55 pts, 8 rebs, 4 assts
Game 5- 41 pts, 7 rebs, 7 assts, 2 blks
Game 6- 33 pts, 8 rebs, 7 assts, 1 steal

Kobe has never been nor will he ever be that good. And America doesn't care either way. 30 million people watched Mike. Only 10 million watch Kobe.

Regardless of what those numbers prove, they are damn impressive. Wow.

 

[craigehlo]

I thought the Knicks Blog put it best in 2009 when they broke down the stats and mentioned "representativeness heuristic" as the reason people bring up this ridiculous comparison.

http://www.knickerblogger.net/?p=1702

 

[STOMP]

Kobe's best two years beat Hakeem's best two years in win shares. Kobe had a more dominant playoff run last year than Hakeem ever did.

Hakeem Olajuwon is one of the most overrated players because of those title runs. He was very good in the playoffs, he wasn't all-time historic. He was never on Jordan's level statistically.

That said Kobe's not on Jordan's level either. But by far neither is Olajuwon.

I've been on vaca so excuse the delayed response, but if you're going to ignore every point I made, why quote me?

I'll try again. It's pretty difficult to accurately compare players from different eras when it's A. a team game & B. they play different positions. Stats can only be a starting point for such a comparison. But to compare Kobe and Hakeem stats I'll see your Win Shares and raise you two DPOYs and higher career PERs both in the regular season and playoffs despite stretching out his career to age 39... and then there is this

Who a guy's teammates are affects not only their personal stats but of course the team's ability to win games/championships. If a player is so dominant that they're consistently dragging a sub-par collection of teammates to playoff appearances and even a championship or two, thats to their credit not detriment. During his 20s the only Rockets that Hakeem played with who made an AS team were Ralph Sampson and Sleepy Floyd (who was traded to Houston midseason from the Warriors where he'd played much more productively). Other regular starters during this period included Lewis Lloyd, Rodney McCray, Robert Reid, Jim Peterson, Mike Woodson, Otis Thorp, Buck Johnson, Mitchell Wiggins, Vernon Maxwell & Kenny Smith... an underwhelming list to say the least. Comparing the sort of supporting cast HO enjoyed to Kobe's is a lopsided joke.

It's very rare for a player to be double teamed on the perimeter but a common tactic verses solid post players... you don't double even a great player out on the wing because of the risk of exposing your interior for a dunk. Drawing and passing out of double teams doesn't help the post player's personal stats much, but it does help their teammates get open looks. HO drawing a double team was a given not only because of his superior talent but because the Rockets other weapons were so feeble. An able and willing passer, his teammates consistently enjoyed wide open looks from 3's but they just weren't very adept at converting them. A glance at that eras Rockets and Bulls teams have the Bulls consistently shooting a much higher % from deep despite not having a low post presence. Hell, in the Rockets first championship year their most prolific 3 point shooter (batshit crazy/undersized SG Vernon Maxwell) shot under 30% from deep.

this discussion is largely subjective with what matters defined differently by each fan. I'd probably place Kobe in the top 10 players I've seen while Hakeem would be in the top 3 along with Magic and Mike. Overall he was good to great at most every aspect of post play on both ends... best low block player I've seen.

STOMP

 

[huevonkiller]

Sorry you came in with a very arrogant statement about Hakeem, I decided to simply address it. I feel your criticism about Kobe is very hypocritical because Hakeem gets by on reputation as well. The way you used random conclusions was inappropriate, imo.

if you're going to ignore every point I made, why quote me?

I'll try again. It's pretty difficult to accurately compare players from different eras when it's A. a team game & B. they play different positions. Stats can only be a starting point for such a comparison. But to compare Kobe and Hakeem stats I'll see your Win Shares and raise you two DPOYs and higher career PERs both in the regular season and playoffs despite stretching out his career to age 39... and then there is this

Explain to me how WS doesn't account for any of this already. PER is a non-usage adjusted, per minute formula. That estimates assisted buckets which favors Bigs.

Who a guy's teammates are affects not only their personal stats but of course the team's ability to win games/championships. If a player is so dominant that they're consistently dragging a sub-par collection of teammates to playoff appearances and even a championship or two, thats to their credit not detriment. During his 20s the only Rockets that Hakeem played with who made an AS team were Ralph Sampson and Sleepy Floyd (who was traded to Houston midseason from the Warriors where he'd played much more productively). Other regular starters during this period included Lewis Lloyd, Rodney McCray, Robert Reid, Jim Peterson, Mike Woodson, Otis Thorp, Buck Johnson, Mitchell Wiggins, Vernon Maxwell & Kenny Smith... an underwhelming list to say the least. Comparing the sort of supporting cast HO enjoyed to Kobe's is a lopsided joke.

Absolutely not, individual stats like Win Shares are virtually always adjusted for teammates. Kevin Garnett had 16 win shares on a non-playoff team, Michael had 20 on another sub-par team.

It's very rare for a player to be double teamed on the perimeter but a common tactic verses solid post players... you don't double even a great player out on the wing because of the risk of exposing your interior for a dunk. Drawing and passing out of double teams doesn't help the post player's personal stats much, but it does help their teammates get open looks. HO drawing a double team was a given not only because of his superior talent but because the Rockets other weapons were so feeble. An able and willing passer, his teammates consistently enjoyed wide open looks from 3's but they just weren't very adept at converting them. A glance at that eras Rockets and Bulls teams have the Bulls consistently shooting a much higher % from deep despite not having a low post presence. Hell, in the Rockets first championship year their most prolific 3 point shooter (batshit crazy/undersized SG Vernon Maxwell) shot under 30% from deep.

this discussion is largely subjective with what matters defined differently by each fan. I'd probably place Kobe in the top 10 players I've seen while Hakeem would be in the top 3 along with Magic and Mike. Overall he was good to great at most every aspect of post play on both ends... best low block player I've seen.

STOMP

I'm just going by the facts. Kobe > Hakeem in two title runs according to Win Shares and WS/48.

Sorry, Win Shares > PER. PER has far more flaws, and the DPOY was not there during the second title (108 defensive rating and didn't really contain Shaq). The facts are that Hakeem was not even the best player in the second playoff run.

 

[The_Lillard_King]

A Blazer thread analyzing Kobe's greatness in the NBA . . . probably not the best place for an accurate analysis.

 

[huevonkiller]

Wins Produced (no position adjustment): 0.3296
Wins Produced (position adjustment): 0.4545
Win Score (no position adjustment): 0.3079
Win Score (position adjustment): 0.4466
Old Win Score (no position adjustment): 0.1538
NBA Efficiency (no position adjustment): 0.3765
NBA Efficiency (position adjustment): 0.4460
PER (no position adjustment): 0.4345
PER (position adjustment): 0.4423
Offensive minus Defensive Rating (no position adjustment): 0.4137
Offensive minus Defensive Rating (position adjustment): 0.4481
Win Shares (no position adjustment): 0.4897
Win Shares (position adjustment): 0.4863
Win Shares per Minute (no position adjustment): 0.4327
Win Shares per Minute (position adjustment): 0.4420
My Statistical Adjusted Plus/Minus Rating: 0.5820

This is really interesting. Both Win Score and Wins Produced are both pretty terrible without position adjustments, but with the position adjustment they are not bad. It suggests that a lot of other methods have overvalued shot creation. But notice that the position adjustment is really important here - much more important than with any of the other metrics except for NBA Efficiency.

(Berri and co-authors have published at least one paper using what I call the Old Win Score, which ignored assists, blocks, and personal fouls. I also could not find any discussion of a position adjustment. That measure performs much worse than any other measure here.)

NBA Efficiency is is a lot like Wins Produced/Win Score - terrible without positon adjustments and good with them. In fact, if NBA efficiency is fixed so that similar efficiencies on two pointers and three pointers are counted the same, then NBA Efficiency with position adjustments is slightly better than Wins Produced/Win Score. This is contrary to what the authors argue in the book. Given how much of their argument in parts of their rests on their measure being better than NBA Efficiency (and not because of the position adjustments), these findings would significantly change their conclusions.

PER is much better than Wins Produced/Win Score without position adjustments, but once position adjustments are made, Wins Produced/Win Score does a little better than PER. But given that adjusting for position is much less important for PER, one might prefer PER on the grounds that positions are sometimes very difficult to determine for some players.

Dean Oliver's Offensive Rating minus Defensive Rating (at least I think this is Dean's) is worse than PER without position adjustments. But with position adjustments, it does a tiny bit better.

Win Shares comes out smelling like a rose. Without position adjustments it comes out better than any of the other measures so far. And unlike the other measure position adjustments actually make it worse, not better. Win Shares looks like it does not get as much credit as it should.

...

These results are also a testament to Win Shares - doubly so since there is no need to position adjust with this measure.

Sup.

Got it from another board, don't want to promote it.

Wins Produced does a great job explaining wins because of their team defense adjustment, but the authors admit that this adjustment has very little effect on their relative rankings of players. So if it doesn't matter much for the relative rankings of players, I just don't see how it can be used as a justification for the methodology. To me, that whole exercise raises a big red flag about the validity of using the prediction of team wins as a barometer for a metric for individual players.


But then if we move to another barometer - adjusted plus/minus ratings - we see that Wins Produced only performs better than NBA Efficiency if position adjustments are used for Wins Produced but not for NBA Efficiency. That significantly changes the story of much of their book. Instead of a story about NBA teams overvaluing scorers, their story becomes one that NBA decision-makers are irrational because they don't properly position adjust.

Moreover, the authors provide little justification for their position adjusting, especially in relation to how important it is to their metric. They argue that big players would have difficulty filling the roles of guards; i.e. a team could not play all centers. But if centers truly are worth more than guards as their unadjusted Wins Produced suggests, this would not be the only reaction of NBA decision-makers. Instead of playing centers at guard, what would happen would be that they would pay centers more than guards - which is precisely what does happen. So rather than proving conventional wisdom wrong, maybe the authors have provided justification for conventional wisdom.

Now I am not necessarily trying to defend NBA decision-makers as being super-rational. Lots of points made in Wages of Wins are points I agree with wholeheartedly. And I highly recommend that everyone in this APBRmetric community read this book. You will find lots that you agree with in this book and lots that will force you to think more deeply about things.

But when we go to cast stones at NBA decision-makers, we need to be sure that our own house is in order. And that is really my biggest complaint about Wages of Wins. My experience has been that NBA people often do a much better job than we give them credit for. I work for Cleveland, and last year when we traded for Flip Murray I was against it. Flip was the lowest rated two guard in my system. (And I am sure he would not be rated too highly in Wins Produced.)

But you know what? Flip did not play too badly for us. He was not a star or even a good starter, but he made some changes to how he played in Seattle and he contributed to us doing well down the stretch and in the playoffs. So in that situation if Danny had listened to me (or probably consulted Wins Produced), the team would have won fewer games.

 

[STOMP]

Sorry you came in with a very arrogant statement about Hakeem, I decided to simply address it. I feel your criticism about Kobe is very hypocritical because Hakeem gets by on reputation as well. The way you used random conclusions was inappropriate, imo.

arrogant??? What the hell are you talking about? It's arrogant to say that it's my opinion that comparing post and wing players is awkward at best?

and my only "criticism"/mention of Kobe was that I'd take MJ over him 8 days a week... good grief most everyone in here has said as much including you

Explain to me how WS doesn't account for any of this already. PER is a non-usage adjusted, per minute formula. That estimates assisted buckets which favors Bigs.

As in our past encounter you won't address my questions or links so sorry but no. Whats good for the goose...

Sorry, Win Shares > PER. PER has far more flaws

opinions and assholes... everyone has one

STOMP

 

[huevonkiller]

arrogant??? What the hell are you talking about? It's arrogant to say that it's my opinion that comparing post and wing players is awkward at best?

Your argument is quite subjective then. Someone on par with MJ, yet can't measure up to Kobe.

Certainly arrogant (not always a bad trait ), I thought. You'd take MJ over Kobe 8 days a week, and then pat Hakeem on the back. Yet have you shown Hakeem is clearly better in his regular prime, or playoff prime? Hakeem also loses with raw PER in their top two seasons, let alone shot creation-adjusted and true PER. If you care to address how lame the WP coefficient is compared to WS, I'd like to know.

and my only "criticism"/mention of Kobe was that I'd take MJ over him 8 days a week... good grief most everyone in here has said as much including you

An issue of reputation is what we're discussing.

As in our past encounter you won't address my questions or links so sorry but no. Whats good for the goose...

opinions and assholes... everyone has one

STOMP

"Are you going to go with the PER is BS and only your personal observations are admissible argument or can we look at stats which we actually can compare? If you do place value in that measure (PER) as an overview of whats what, then you'll be surprised" - STOMP

http://sportstwo.com/threads/160545-Merged-Lakers-vs.-Celtics?p=2344285&viewfull=1#post2344285

Just replace the word "PER" with any other respected APBRmetric that doesn't go in your favor. And you pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. ;]