# Prime Kobe vs. Prime J-Kidd



## AIFAN3 (Sep 17, 2005)

If you were building a franchise and had to choose one of these players to start it with who would it be? Now I know this arguement will be kinda close because both of these players impact the game in different ways...


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## Hibachi! (Sep 18, 2003)

That is sooooooooooo tough... I mean on one hand you have a lock down defender in J-Kidd, a guy that can pass like no other, run the break as easy as taking candy from a baby, and rebound like a big man. He is truly the Swiss Army Knife of the NBA. Then you got one of the most clutch, explosive scorers in the NBA. Who can turn on his D at certain points in the game. For having just ONE player to build my team around, I'll take J-Kidd.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

Kidd's great, top 5 pg of all time maybe- but I'll take Kobe.


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## Mogriffjr (Mar 5, 2005)

I'm taking Kidd simply because he can make anyone better...there's still a question if Kobe can do so...of course, he'll just carry the scoring load for those who can't do it...


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## Kidd's Nets (Jun 10, 2006)

jason kidd because another superstar (like say shaquille oneal) would really not mind playing with him and ask to move somewhere else *hint hint*

kobe is a great player but team chemistry is always a question with him whilst with jason kidd, people would kill to play alongside him.

pretty close though.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

lmao.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

I'll take Kobe. Kidd is a greater passer and a more consistent defender in his prime, but Bryant is just far too great a scorer, while still being a strong passer and rebounder. And his defensive ceiling is greater than Kidd's.


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## Kidd's Nets (Jun 10, 2006)

if you asked any nba player who they would prefer to play with, who would they choose? kidd
who single-handedly turned his franchise into a back-to-back finals team? kidd
and though i know it says prime, who has come out of a potential career-ending injury and surgery and continues to produce at an elite level, leading the league in triple doubles too? kidd
who is easier to like? kidd


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## L (Sep 20, 2005)

It depends on what team you make.
If you want a team with above average D and can run, Kidd would be better.
If you want a team thats more half court oriented with a good/excellent big and shooters, Kobe would fit best.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

jasonskills said:


> who single-handedly turned his franchise into a back-to-back finals team?


Neither player did. Kobe had Shaq and Phil Jackson. Kidd had Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson, a healthy Kerry Kittles and a weak Eastern Conference.


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## Vinsane (Feb 27, 2005)

I would have to say kidd simply cuz he makes eveyone around him look good I mean look what he did when he first came to jersey he took a buncha nobody's to the finals twice


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

Minstrel said:


> Neither player did. Kobe had Shaq and Phil Jackson. Kidd had Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson, a healthy Kerry Kittles and a weak Eastern Conference.


So lets compare the two teams. Shaq was arguably in his prime, Jackson was the best coach in the league. What had those guys you mentioned Kidd played with done prior to him coming over to the Nets?


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## PauloCatarino (May 31, 2003)

AIFAN3 said:


> If you were building a franchise and had to choose one of these players to start it with who would it be? Now I know this arguement will be kinda close because both of these players impact the game in different ways...


"_Kinda close_"? Why?

It's Kobe by a landslide....


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

PauloCatarino said:


> "_Kinda close_"? Why?
> 
> It's Kobe by a landslide....


:laugh: this laker fans are something else


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## PauloCatarino (May 31, 2003)

HB said:


> :laugh: this laker fans are something else


what are you alughing at, young grasshopper?

are you truly trying to compare J-Kidd with Kobe?

:biggrin:


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## AIFAN3 (Sep 17, 2005)

PauloCatarino said:


> "_Kinda close_"? Why?
> 
> It's *Kobe by a landslide*....


No..No it's not... I actually think it's quite even..It's really hard to find a true real PG like Kidd..But at the same time not many players can score 81..


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

HB said:


> So lets compare the two teams. Shaq was arguably in his prime, Jackson was the best coach in the league. What had those guys you mentioned Kidd played with done prior to him coming over to the Nets?


But even Kobe supporters won't say that he turned the Lakers around. I think it is a fair point that Minstrel makes. You could have the same argument about Nash making Phoenix a contender, and being responsible for nobodys like James Jones having career years, but it is more than that. Kidd obviously contributed the most in changing the fortunes of the Nets, but athletic and talented players such as Martin, RJ, Van Horn and Kittles, and their fast-breaking style, along with the conference being weaker also were responsible. The thing that is still true is that the arrival of Kidd brought credibility and a winning culture to a doormat organization, and that will ultimately be a big part of his legacy.


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## Hoopla (Jun 1, 2004)

It's Kobe. Kobe holds such a huge edge in scoring that Kidd's advantages in passing, defense, and perhaps a small one in rebounding don't overcome that.

But I will say that Kidd's prime is inclusive of his peak in various subcategories moreso than Kobe's prime, in which his offensive and defensive peaks haven't coincided.


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## Dre (Jun 20, 2003)

This is close. Either team is guranteed at least fringe playoff status, but if you have Kobe instead of Kidd, your team is easier to build. You already have that key cog as far as scoring, and you can fill your team out around your perimeter star.


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## bootstrenf (May 24, 2006)

i'll take kidd...


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

HB said:


> So lets compare the two teams. Shaq was arguably in his prime, Jackson was the best coach in the league. What had those guys you mentioned Kidd played with done prior to him coming over to the Nets?


And the Lakers were a dynasty, while the Nets won a weak East. So yes, Kidd had less around him and did less. Exactly as one would expect.

I'm just saying he didn't turn the Nets around "single-handedly" because, well, he didn't.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

_Dre_ said:


> This is close. Either team is guranteed at least fringe playoff status, but if you have Kobe instead of Kidd, your team is easier to build. You already have that key cog as far as scoring, and you can fill your team out around your perimeter star.


Kidd's got a big edge in leadership, and Kobe hasn't exactly distinguished himself as a team leader. That's gotta count for something when you're building a team.


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## unluckyseventeen (Feb 5, 2006)

This thread is just turning into NJ fans vs LA fans. While it is a great and debatable question, too many radicals are making this discussion uninteresting.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

The real truth is you aren't any better off with either of them as the best player on a team,but you have to take Kidd because of positional value.It's an easy concept that the Nets fans should learn and repeat over and over.If you have something that is difficult to find then it's more valuable than something that is not hard to find.That's why great interior scorers are so valuable,most teams don't have one and have difficulty overcoming the innate advantage of having a player that commands attention inside the paint.

No matter how good a wing Kobe is ask yourself this simple question.Has he ever been markedly better than rest of the top five wings in the NBA.The unbiased answer is that he really hasn't even been the indisputably best wing in the league and that you could alway find something somewhat comparable.In fact a wingplayer is the easiest thing to replace in the NBA and it doesn't matter how good they are.


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## Burn (Feb 2, 2003)

I don't really think Kidd can 'carry' a team that doesn't have at least some talent, you can make the greatest pass in the world and have the other guy still miss it somehow. Kobe is less reliant on teammates to fill their end of the bargain. So you take Bryant if there's a question as to how the good the rest of team will be.


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## DuMa (Dec 25, 2004)

prime kobe i would have to assume when he was playing at his highest level around the 3 peat laker years. 

its really simple. take kidd and kobe of those years and swap them. NJ would not even sniff the ECF let alone NBA finals. Lakers would win easily against any team. 

so its obviously Kidd.


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## Burn (Feb 2, 2003)

DuMa said:


> prime kobe i would have to assume when he was playing at his highest level around the 3 peat laker years.
> 
> its really simple. take kidd and kobe of those years and swap them. NJ would not even sniff the ECF let alone NBA finals. Lakers would win easily against any team.
> 
> so its obviously Kidd.


But that's not true, if you switched them the Lakers would've gone 38-44 and the Nets would've lost a grueling 2nd round series on a last second buzzer beater to eventual champs the Indiana Pacers


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## AJC NYC (Aug 16, 2005)

Jason Kidd
Im not a kidd fan


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## bootstrenf (May 24, 2006)

once more for good measure...

Jason Kidd...


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

Hmmm, build around the self-indulgent narcissist that plays every play for his glory, or the bulldog PG who has lifted every team he's ever been on, creates instant chemistry, makes everyone better, will do whatever it takes to win, and is the best team perimeter defender I've ever seen? Kidd by a landslide.


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## Real (Aug 3, 2005)

AJC NYC said:


> Jason Kidd
> Im not a kidd fan


:laugh:


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## bootstrenf (May 24, 2006)

just a suggestion, but maybe you should add a poll...


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## Real (Aug 3, 2005)

I personally wonder how Jason Kidd would do on those Laker teams in the early 2000's paired with Shaq...


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## bootstrenf (May 24, 2006)

Real said:


> I personally wonder how Jason Kidd would do on those Laker teams in the early 2000's paired with Shaq...



shaq would've probably averaged 40ppg, but he probably would've got less rebounds...

kidd's numbers?

16ppg/15apg/7rpg/2spg...


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

bootstrenf said:


> shaq would've probably averaged 40ppg, but he probably would've got less rebounds...
> 
> kidd's numbers?
> 
> 16ppg/15apg/7rpg/2spg...


Nah, Lakers maybe win one title best case scenario, and Kidd gets nowhere near 15 apg, ROFL. Kidd as a 2nd scoring option is death on those Laker teams. After Shaq and Kobe it was....Derek Fisher. As a PG, if you can't hit open jumpers in the triangle (or any motion O) you're not going to be very good at putting points on the board. Since Shaq's strength, besides scoring, was opening up the floor for shooters, Kidd is pretty much the worse fit imaginable because his jumper is highly erratic. 

Additionally and more importantly, Kidd's strengths are by far in open court basketball, and considering the Lakers were a half court team running the triangle with no athletes near the level of players Kidd has played with (Martin, Jefferson, Carter, etc.), and considering the triangle takes the ball out of the PG's hands more often than not, it's pretty clear it would have been game over for the Lakers if Kidd had replaced Kobe. Like it was for the Nets in the 02 Finals. 

If you're a thinking fan, it's pretty clearly Kobe, in virtually any scenario.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

SeaNet said:


> Kidd is the best team perimeter defender I've ever seen


"Watches basketball".


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

EHL said:


> *
> If you're a thinking fan, it's pretty clearly Kobe, in virtually any scenario*.


Oh really, considering the only thing Kobe does better than Kidd is scoring thats a very debatable comment. The fact that Kidd is also an excellent teammate pretty much swings this arguement in favor, say what you want about Kobe, but we all know he'd rather play one on five than defer to teammates.


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

EHL said:


> Nah, Lakers maybe win one title best case scenario, and Kidd gets nowhere near 15 apg, ROFL. Kidd as a 2nd scoring option is death on those Laker teams. After Shaq and Kobe it was....Derek Fisher. As a PG, if you can't hit open jumpers in the triangle (or any motion O) you're not going to be very good at putting points on the board. Since Shaq's strength, besides scoring, was opening up the floor for shooters, Kidd is pretty much the worse fit imaginable because his jumper is highly erratic.
> 
> Additionally and more importantly, Kidd's strengths are by far in open court basketball, and considering the Lakers were a half court team running the triangle with no athletes near the level of players Kidd has played with (Martin, Jefferson, Carter, etc.), and considering the triangle takes the ball out of the PG's hands more often than not, it's pretty clear it would have been game over for the Lakers if Kidd had replaced Kobe. Like it was for the Nets in the 02 Finals.
> 
> If you're a thinking fan, it's pretty clearly Kobe, in virtually any scenario.


Exactly the kind of facile 'replace A w/ B' and all else stays the same 'reasoning' I've come to expect from you. It must be comforting to live in such a simple world.


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## King Sancho Fantastic (Jul 19, 2005)

HB said:


> , but we all know he'd rather play one on five than defer to teammates.


Dude did you even watch the Lakers in the playoffs last year??


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

CubanLaker said:


> Dude did you even watch the Lakers in the playoffs last year??


Umm yes


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## AIFAN3 (Sep 17, 2005)

HB said:


> Oh really, considering the only thing Kobe does better than Kidd is scoring thats a very debatable comment. The fact that Kidd is also an excellent teammate pretty much swings this arguement in favor, say what you want about Kobe, *but we all know he'd rather play one on five than defer to teammates*.


This is a HUGE misconception...


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## King Sancho Fantastic (Jul 19, 2005)

HB said:


> Umm yes


Then you should know that that was exactly what he did throughout the entire series with the Suns at the expense of losing the series.


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

CubanLaker said:


> Dude did you even watch the Lakers in the playoffs last year??


Yeah, those 7 games erased 10 years from my mind too. And I loved how he acted like a baby in the 2nd half of the 7th game, gave up and more or less refused to shoot. What a team first winner!!!


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## King Sancho Fantastic (Jul 19, 2005)

SeaNet said:


> Yeah, those 7 games erased 10 years from my mind too. And I loved how he acted like a baby in the 2nd half of the 7th game, gave up and more or less refused to shoot. What a team first winner!!!


Not really. You obviously didnt watch the game because then you would have seen that the Lakers were playing absolutely NO DEFENSE that game and no matter how many times he shot it wouldnt have mattered because they couldnt get a stop on the other end. and we all know that if he started chucking up shot after shot and they still lost then the haters like you would have been all over him callin him a "ballhog". He did what a TEAM FIRST guy is supposed to do and tried to make his teammates get back into the game. It just sucks that they didnt show up....


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

CubanLaker said:


> Not really. You obviously didnt watch the game because then you would have seen that the Lakers were playing absolutely NO DEFENSE that game and no matter how many times he shot it wouldnt have mattered because they couldnt get a stop on the other end. and we all know that if he started chucking up shot after shot and they still lost then the haters like you would have been all over him callin him a "ballhog". He did what a TEAM FIRST guy is supposed to do and tried to make his teammates get back into the game. It just sucks that they didnt show up....


You are right. When your team isn't playing D, its OK to pout on the court for the final 24 minutes of the season.


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## Drewbs (Feb 16, 2004)

SeaNet said:


> You are right. When your team isn't playing D, its OK to pout on the court for the final 24 minutes of the season.


As opposed to what? scoring another 25 pts in the 2nd half to have people complain about how he shot too much and lost the game?


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

EHL said:


> Nah, Lakers maybe win one title best case scenario, and Kidd gets nowhere near 15 apg, ROFL. Kidd as a 2nd scoring option is death on those Laker teams. After Shaq and Kobe it was....Derek Fisher. As a PG, if you can't hit open jumpers in the triangle (or any motion O) you're not going to be very good at putting points on the board. Since Shaq's strength, besides scoring, was opening up the floor for shooters, Kidd is pretty much the worse fit imaginable because his jumper is highly erratic.
> 
> Additionally and more importantly, Kidd's strengths are by far in open court basketball, and considering the Lakers were a half court team running the triangle with no athletes near the level of players Kidd has played with (Martin, Jefferson, Carter, etc.), and considering the triangle takes the ball out of the PG's hands more often than not, it's pretty clear it would have been game over for the Lakers if Kidd had replaced Kobe. Like it was for the Nets in the 02 Finals.
> 
> If you're a thinking fan, it's pretty clearly Kobe, in virtually any scenario.


Why do you assume that Kidd replacing Kobe would mean he would be doing the same things that the latter was doing on the Lakers and PJ would continue to run the triangle? It doesn't work that way, esp when swapping players who play different positions and who have a completely different style of play. While his strengths are in the open court, Kidd is still good in the half-court. You may say that you like Kobe more, but don't make it sound like this is something not even worth arguing.


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## DaBruins (Jul 30, 2003)

Kidd is unbelievable. The answer is Kobe. I would go with Kidd if he could shoot, but he can't.


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## DANNY (Aug 9, 2005)

I'll take Kidd. Just because I haven't seen Kobe in his prime yet. Let's wait like 2 years before we discuss Kobe's prime time, o-kay-ee? :biggrin:


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## SharpShooter (Oct 11, 2005)

*Sharpshooter*



Aurelino said:


> *Why do you assume that Kidd replacing Kobe would mean he would be doing the same things that the latter was doing on the Lakers and PJ would continue to run the triangle? * It doesn't work that way, esp when swapping players who play different positions and who have a completely different style of play. While his strengths are in the open court, Kidd is still good in the half-court. You may say that you like Kobe more, but don't make it sound like this is something not even worth arguing.


Has PJ ever not run the triangle? the same offence that got him 9 nba rings. The question is: If you had to pick ONE of these players (KOBE or JKIDD) to START your franchise, who would it be? Well, for starters if you had to pick one to START your franchise, it would be alot easiers to pick kobe because now, no matter whoes left on the board you will still have a CHANCE to beat anyteam in the league, simply because you have kobe on your team. With Jkidd on the other hand, alot depends on whoes on his team. Sure Jkidd is a better rebounder (slightly) and passer, but kobe scoring ability eclipses Jkidd, that and kobe's reputation to make BIG shots when it matter most, puts him over the TOP of JKidd IMO.


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## JT (Mar 1, 2004)

> but we all know he'd rather play one on five than defer to teammates.


I don't know that. Neither does Kobe. Nor does Phil Jackson.


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## speedythief (Jul 16, 2003)

If you're building a team I'm guessing your not concerned about making the playoffs right away. The question would be is it harder to build around a point guard that does almost everything well or a shooting guard that does everything well but has a questionable mental makeup? Both players have off-court transgressions in their past.

I think it would be harder to build around Kidd. Though he can elevate his teammates you need to find someone else to take game-winning shots and carry the burden offensively. I think if the poll was phrased "would you rather have Kidd and an average shooting guard or Kobe and an average point guard" it would be heavily skewed towards Bryant, despite the influx of Nets fanatics.

Answer: Kobe.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Positional value: Kidd


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## SharpShooter (Oct 11, 2005)

Pioneer10 said:


> Positional value: Kidd


thats not the question....


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## ballistixxx (Jan 24, 2006)

another Kobe thread going multiple pages


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## g-dog-rice#2 (Jan 29, 2006)

*Career averages:*
Kobe: 24 ppg, 5 rpg, 4.5 apg
Kidd: 15 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 9 apg

If you factor out Kobe's rookie year (15 mpg) on a crowded Laker team, Kobe's stats are even better. Kidd is a surprisingly good rebounder, but I've got to go with Kobe. Kidd is a career .403 shooter, ouch!


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## Fray (Dec 19, 2005)

Kidd shares the ball and makes his teammates better. He does whatever it takes to win games. That's who I am going with.


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## g-dog-rice#2 (Jan 29, 2006)

Let's not get carried away here. People with Vince Carter avatars claiming that Kobe is selfish etc...That's ridiculous. Kobe successfully sacrificed his game in order to make Shaq better and to win titles. He's a team player, this season even proves it.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

g-dog-rice#2 said:


> *Career averages:*
> Kobe: 24 ppg, 5 rpg, 4.5 apg
> Kidd: 15 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 9 apg
> 
> If you factor out Kobe's rookie year (15 mpg) on a crowded Laker team, Kobe's stats are even better. Kidd is a surprisingly good rebounder, but I've got to go with Kobe. Kidd is a career .403 shooter, ouch!


Carter: 24 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4 apg. 
Kobe: 23.8 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 4.5 apg

Carter= Kobe, right?


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

SeaNet said:


> Kidd ... is the best team perimeter defender I've ever seen


Good one.


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## Hibachi! (Sep 18, 2003)

Aurelino said:


> Carter: 24 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4 apg.
> Kobe: 23.8 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 4.5 apg
> 
> Carter= Kobe, right?


PWNED


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## AZNoob (Jan 21, 2006)

This is like Nash V.S Lebron, or Jordan V.S Stockton. The two playas in question are in DIFFERENT position.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

g-dog-rice#2 said:


> Let's not get carried away here. People with Vince Carter avatars claiming that Kobe is selfish etc...That's ridiculous. Kobe successfully sacrificed his game in order to make Shaq better and to win titles. He's a team player, this season even proves it.


:laugh: and thats why Shaq is still on the Lakers right.


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

Minstrel said:


> Good one.


Its too bad you can't appreciate what Kidd does for a team defensively, but it doesn't surprise me.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

SeaNet said:


> Its too bad you can't appreciate what Kidd does for a team defensively, but it doesn't surprise me.


I think Kidd was an excellent defender in his prime. Best perimeter team defender in your viewing lifetime is absurd. There's no NBA expert who would place him ahead of Pippen, for example, in that regard. And plenty of other all-time great defenders have also graced the 1980s, 90s and current decade.

Hyperbole is nice, but I was going for reality.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

HB said:


> Oh really, considering the only thing Kobe does better than Kidd is scoring thats a very debatable comment. The fact that Kidd is also an excellent teammate pretty much swings this arguement in favor, say what you want about Kobe, but we all know he'd rather play one on five than defer to teammates.


Except the scoring gap is, well, absolutely huge. What you're claiming is essentially pointless; it doesn't matter that Kidd is a slightly better rebounder or defender when Bryant's scoring is so far superior to not even make it debatable. And whatever your perception of Kobe's true "desires" are is irrelavant (also unprovable, a common ingrediant among VC fanatics); all that matters is does he have more impact on a franchise, and it's quite clear that he has been able to have high impact on successful squads, winning multiple championships in the process. So even if he is selfish, his team successes and individual awards clearly outstrip Kidd anyway, which leaves with statements like "Kidd is a team player and Kobe isn't, and my proof is....because I say so!!!". Which is fine; the validity of a blanket statement like that pretty much speaks for itself. 



SeaNet said:


> Exactly the kind of facile 'replace A w/ B' and all else stays the same 'reasoning' I've come to expect from you. It must be comforting to live in such a simple world.


Coming from someone who has seemingly watched so little basketball that he hasn't seen a better defender than Jason Kidd (and you're 31 years old, so I assume you've been watching for years), I'll take this as a glowing compliment.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

EHL said:


> Except the scoring gap is, well, absolutely huge. What you're claiming is essentially pointless; it doesn't matter that Kidd is a slightly better rebounder or defender when Bryant's scoring is so far superior to not even make it debatable. And whatever your perception of Kobe's true "desires" are is irrelavant (also unprovable, a common ingrediant among VC fanatics); all that matters is does he have more impact on a franchise, and it's quite clear that he has been able to have high impact on successful squads, winning multiple championships in the process. So even if he is selfish, his team successes and individual awards clearly outstrip Kidd anyway, so your last resort is "Kidd is a team player and Kobe isn't, and my proof is....because I say so!!!".


Baseless and pointless arguement. What does me being a Vince fan have to do with this? You do know there is a big difference between being a fan and being a fanatic

But anyways back to the topic at hand, how exactly does Kobe have more impact on a franchise when Kidd's impact on the Nets is greater than anything Kobe has done ever since he got sole control of the lakers. And you are seriously underestimating Kidd's rebounding and assist numbers if you think Kobe's scoring puts him significantly over Kidd.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

EHL said:


> all that matters is does he have more impact on a franchise, and it's quite clear that he has been able to have high impact on successful squads, winning multiple championships in the process. So even if he is selfish, his team successes and *individual awards* clearly outstrip Kidd anyway,


It is not at all clear that Bryant has had more impact on his team than Kidd on his.

What individual awards are you talking about, exactly?


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Aurelino said:


> Carter: 24 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4 apg.
> Kobe: 23.8 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 4.5 apg
> 
> Carter= Kobe, right?


Yeah, to be more accurate, he should have listed Kobe's career averages from the same age Carter entered the league (22), which puts Kobe at 28.5 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 5.3 apg and Carter still at 24 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4 apg. 



Aurelino said:


> It is not at all clear that Bryant has had more impact on his team than Kidd on his.
> 
> What individual awards are you talking about, exactly?


All NBA Teams (8 to 6 in favor of Bryant) All Defense Teams (8 to 6 in favor of Kidd), All Star Teams (8 to 7 in favor of Bryant), top 5 MVP finishes (4 to 2 in favor of Bryant), career PER/statistics (24.8 to 18.8 in favor of Bryant), and other things, such as finishing games. All favor Bryant by a hair, except statistically where it's by a wide margin, all despite the fact he is 5 years younger than Kidd. 

Granted, I don't agree with the methology of some of those awards, but in terms of listing off criteria for impact in terms of subjective analysis (All NBA, All D, MVP votes, etc.) and objective analysis (statistics), I'd say it's clear Bryant makes a better case. 




HB said:


> But anyways back to the topic at hand, how exactly does Kobe have more impact on a franchise when Kidd's impact on the Nets is greater than anything Kobe has done ever since he got sole control of the lakers. And you are seriously underestimating Kidd's rebounding and assist numbers if you think Kobe's scoring puts him significantly over Kidd.


Rebounding numbers? lmao. From the same age Kidd leads Kobe in career rebounding numbers 6.5 to 5.8. That's negligible, who cares. Kidd's passing ability is obviously much better, but the gap is much larger between the two in terms of scoring, where Bryant leads Kidd by nearly 14 points on far superior efficiency (FGP, TS%).


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

EHL said:


> Coming from someone who has seemingly watched so little basketball that he hasn't seen a better defender than Jason Kidd (and you're 31 years old, so I assume you've been watching for years), I'll take this as a glowing compliment.


As I said to Minstrel, the fact that you can't appreciate what JKidd does for a team defensive effort does not surprise me. In fact, I doubt you can even comprehend the very notion of what makes someone a great *team* defender. I understand, though, how hard it must be for you to see the game w/ your nose buried as far up Kobe's *** as it is. I might recommend a sequence of carefully placed mirrors to give you a better view of the action.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

Isnt it kinda convenient of you EHL to just take Kobe's numbers from age 22 to come up with this stats of yours. Why not also do the same for Kidd from age 22 onwards? A bit one sided arent we. Its not Kidd's fault that Kobe came into the league unprepared. As it stands, his career scoring numbers are only 9 points better. Considering Kidd creates so much scoring opportunities for those around him, its almost irrelevant trying to say thats what puts Kobe over him.

Question for you, how many guys have played with Kidd and had career highs


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

EHL said:


> All NBA Teams (8 to 6 in favor of Bryant) All Defense Teams (8 to 6 in favor of Kidd), All Star Teams (8 to 7 in favor of Bryant), top 5 MVP finishes (4 to 2 in favor of Bryant), career PER/statistics (24.8 to 18.8 in favor of Bryant), and other things, such as finishing games. All favor Bryant by a hair, except statistically where it's by a wide margin, all despite the fact he is 5 years younger than Kidd.


None of those are awards. The only award Kidd has is ROY and Bryant has an All-star MVP. You're talking about distinctions, not awards, but anyway....let's play along. Kidd has 5 all-nba first team selections. Kobe has 4. All star teams are worthless since they are based on popularity. PER is not a good basis for comparison when discussing a topic like this. David Robinson is third on the all-time career PER list. Is he the third best player ever? If you want to mention stats, why not mention that Kidd has led the league in assists per game in 5 seasons. How many scoring titles does Bryant have? Triple doubles? Kidd is soon going to be third all-time on that list behind Oscar and Magic. This despite the fact that Kidd is one of those players whose impact cannot be measured by stats alone.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

SeaNet said:


> As I said to Minstrel, the fact that you can't appreciate what JKidd does for a team defensive effort does not surprise me. In fact, I doubt you can even comprehend the very notion of what makes someone a great *team* defender. I understand, though, how hard it must be for you to see the game w/ your nose buried as far up Kobe's *** as it is. I might recommend a sequence of carefully placed mirrors to give you a better view of the action.


Dude, you just said you've never seen a better defender than Kidd and you're 31 years old. Hate to break it to you, but if you've been watching ball for 10 years, you missed the boat. The boat left


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

One failure of PER is evaluating PG's. Since assists are such a poor barometer of judging the impact of passing this seems to make PER inaccurate a bit in judging PG's. For example both Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson, unquestionably the two best PG's of all time who are top 10 at the very least in all positions, never had a PER above 27. While as far as I can tell every other position has had multiple players above 28.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

HB said:


> Isnt it kinda convenient of you EHL to just take Kobe's numbers from age 22 to come up with this stats of yours. Why not also do the same for Kidd from age 22 onwards?


Uh, Kidd came into the league at age 21. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/jason_kidd. If we exclude his rookie season his PER is nearly the same, 19.2, and he grabs 6.65 rpg instead of 6.6. My point is still unchanged, didn't think I had to calculate _everything_ for you. 



> A bit one sided arent we. Its not Kidd's fault that Kobe came into the league unprepared. As it stands, his career scoring numbers are only 9 points better. Considering Kidd creates so much scoring opportunities for those around him, its almost irrelevant trying to say thats what puts Kobe over him.


I'm not interested in what 18 year old Kobe did as a backup on a Lakers team loaded with All Stars, just as I wouldn't be dumb enough to be interested in what Kidd was putting up at 18 years old at California U. 

At least be intellectually honest when you argue, otherwise it's kind of sad. 



> Question for you, how many guys have played with Kidd and had career highs


Shawn Marion put up career high PERs and made more All Star teams after Kidd. Martin was injured after Kidd, who knows. Jefferson hasn't played with anyone but Kidd. And Carter put up his career highs in Toronto. 

Good call there. :laugh: 



Aurelino said:


> None of those are awards. The only award Kidd has is ROY and Bryant has an All-star MVP. You're talking about distinctions, not awards, but anyway....let's play along.


I'm not particularly interested in the irrleavent semantics, but continue. 



> Kidd has 5 all-nba first team selections. Kobe has 4. All star teams are worthless since they are based on popularity. PER is not a good basis for comparison when discussing a topic like this. David Robinson is third on the all-time career PER list. Is he the third best player ever?


David Robinson is one of the best players ever, yes. I'd put him at very minimum top 15. Besides, never said PER was perfect, it's just better than, well, most of the arguments I've heard here. 

edit: And what of Kobe's superior MVP finishes and All NBA team selections despite being 5 years younger? No comment?



> If you want to mention stats, why not mention that Kidd has led the league in assists per game in 5 seasons. How many scoring titles does Bryant have? Triple doubles? Kidd is soon going to be third all-time on that list behind Oscar and Magic. This despite the fact that Kidd is one of those players whose impact cannot be measured by stats alone.


Triple doubles are a pointless distinction, means nothing other than a random fluctuation of 3 double digit outputs in a player's statline on particular nights. Kidd having more triple doubles than Jordan doesn't make him the GOAT. I also fail to see how leading the league in assists is relavent to you if PER isn't also relavent to you; PER being a far better indicator of impact than assist numbers. Those are clearly conflicting thought processes.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Pioneer10 said:


> One failure of PER is evaluating PG's. Since assists are such a poor barometer of judging the impact of passing this seems to make PER inaccurate a bit in judging PG's. For example both Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson, unquestionably the two best PG's of all time who are top 10 at the very least in all positions, never had a PER above 27. While as far as I can tell every other position has had multiple players above 28.


Yes, that's very true. Though, I believe that's because PER punishes TOs more and rewards FTM more than other formulas. But as with any formula, intangibles always have to be taken into consideration. Obviously PER isn't perfect, otherwise Kobe's 06 campaign would be considered better than Magic's best season, which it damn well was not.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

EHL said:


> Shawn Marion put up career high PERs and made more All Star teams after Kidd. Martin was injured after Kidd, who knows. Jefferson hasn't played with anyone but Kidd. And Carter put up his career highs in Toronto.
> 
> Good call there. :laugh:


How about the Kerry Kittles, Luscious Harris, Aaron williams and Brian Scalabrines' of that Net teams. What ever happened to those guys after the Nets decided to blow up that team? And before K-Mart's injuries what type of numbers did he put up his first season in Denver.


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## Hoopla (Jun 1, 2004)

Diable said:


> No matter how good a wing Kobe is ask yourself this simple question.Has he ever been markedly better than rest of the top five wings in the NBA.The unbiased answer is that he really hasn't even been the indisputably best wing in the league and that you could alway find something somewhat comparable. In fact a wingplayer is the easiest thing to replace in the NBA and it doesn't matter how good they are.


While I agree that value relative to position should be considered, I don't think there is much difference between the PG and SG positions. You can't limit your analysis to the top few players since the next best option usually isn't available. To properly gauge positional value, you have to consider the quality of the players at a particular position _as a whole_, top to bottom. Because if a team doesn't get Kobe, then the theoretic alternative will be the mean (or median, mode, etc.) of the remaining starting SGs.

Regardless, in all-time rankings, Bryant would still be ranked higher as a SG than Kidd would as a PG.


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## jazzy1 (Jul 16, 2002)

As one thread ahwile ago said Kobe is the constant in these debates. Doesn't matter who else it is the Kobe versus thread is always hot and heavy. Its why Kobe is the legend he is because no one else is compared and contrasted as much in the last 10 years or so. 

Who next Kobe and OJ Mayo.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

HB said:


> How about the Kerry Kittles, Luscious Harris, Aaron williams and Brian Scalabrines' of that Net teams. What ever happened to those guys after the Nets decided to blow up that team? And before K-Mart's injuries what type of numbers did he put up his first season in Denver.


K-Mart started having (but concealed) his knee problems sometime during his first season with Denver; and despite that posted a PER of 17.5 with them. His average PER as a Net was 15.9 and his career high PER with the Nets was 18.7. Not really much of a difference. And Martin had his two highest FGP's of his career playing with Denver, btw. 

Aaron Williams had his career high numbers before the Nets and Harris did too, with Dallas. But you're right, Kidd made Brian Scalabrine into what he is today.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

EHL said:


> K-Mart started having (but concealed) his knee problems sometime during his first season with Denver; and despite that posted a PER of 17.5 with them. His average PER as a Net was 15.9 and his career high PER with the Nets was 18.7. Not really much of a difference. And Martin had his two highest FGP's of his career playing with Denver, btw.
> 
> Aaron Williams had his career high numbers before the Nets and Harris did too, with Dallas. But you're right, Kidd made Brian Scalabrine into what he is today.


I am not a big fan of the whole PER stat. I am going by what I saw from those players with Kidd and without Kidd. Kittles is out of the league right now. Luscious Harris was terrible with the cavs, out of the league right now also. Kenyon Martin wasnt exactly good his first season in Denver. Guess Andre Miller couldnt get him the same gimmes Kidd used to. Aaron Williams bounced around for a while and is pretty much forgotten right now. I am not even a big fan of Kidd, but its plain to anyone who watches the man play, see how he impacts those around him. If there is one thing thats not even debatable, its the fact that he is a much better leader than Kobe Bryant.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

HB said:


> I am not a big fan of the whole PER stat. I am going by what I saw from those players with Kidd and without Kidd. Kittles is out of the league right now. Luscious Harris was terrible with the cavs, out of the league right now also. Kenyon Martin wasnt exactly good his first season in Denver. Guess Andre Miller couldnt get him the same gimmes Kidd used to. Aaron Williams bounced around for a while and is pretty much forgotten right now. I am not even a big fan of Kidd, but its plain to anyone who watches the man play, see how he impacts those around him. If there is one thing thats not even debatable, its the fact that he is a much better leader than Kobe Bryant.


Re:  Kittles played 11 games after the Nets and then retired due to injury. As any Clipper fan will tell you, his knee sadly gave out in 04-05.

Re: Harris. He was also terrible with the Nets. And he put up identical/slightly better numbers in Dallas right before he went to the Nets. 

Re: Martin. Huh? What kind of argument is that? And no mention of the fact that Martin's FGP was higher in Denver, both seasons career high despite being injury?

Re: Leadership. Hard to prove leadership. In fact, pretty much impossible. Claim what you will, I can't stop you from making unsupported statements. 

You don't like PER or statistics. Er, OK. Guess that gives me free reign to say Smush Parker > Jason Kidd.


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## HB (May 1, 2004)

EHL said:


> Re:  Kittles played 11 games after the Nets and then retired due to injury. As any Clipper fan will tell you, his knee sadly gave out in 04-05.
> 
> Re: Harris. He was also terrible with the Nets. And he put up identical/slightly better numbers in Dallas right before he went to the Nets.
> 
> ...


Agreed, and as a laker fan and a Kobe fan I would be surprised to see you agree otherwise.

Regarding the Smush statement, hey its a free world you can make any claim you want, its your credibility taking the hit :clown:


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

:greatjob: !!!


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## CaliCool (Nov 5, 2004)

Kobe by a slight margin, can't go wrong with either on your team though. My basis is that when you are starting a clean slate and with your teammates being question marks, Kobe can immediately create a larger impact than Jason Kidd. 

Sure Jason Kidd can really make things happen on the court but his offensive game is what made me pick Kobe. Given mediocre teammates, Kobe can carry the scoring load for something and at the same thing play great defense. Kidd on the other hand can penetrate, find the open man, but the question boils down to the complimentaty players he will be getting. If in case Kidd becomes the first scoring option, I really don't think that he can get that team very far offensively. 

Kobe in his prime can really tear up the league. He can influence the opponent's defense a lot of ways and is one of the best perimeter players in the league today.


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## Jesus of CopyMat (Feb 14, 2004)

If it's my team, I take Kidd over Kobe every time, but that's just me. I think Kidd might've been the league's best player in his prime.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

I just wonder, in threads like this, how much people's hate for Kobe come into play. Or how much their love for Kobe or their favorite player factor into an opinion on who is better. I mean, is there really an un-biased fan out there? Some may laugh, but I try to be somewhat unbiased when it comes to these types of threads- I just happen to like certain players more than other players. But, who is really unbiased? Like when someone calls Kobe a self-indulgent narcissist [multiple times], and then proceeds to choose Kidd can they really be taken serious? Hell some people might pull up my past posts regarding Shaq or whatever, but for the most part I try to be biased- but it's as if people try to sway others to see their side of the story and people unfortunately let bias get into the way. Or, more specifically, their hate/dislike for a certain player. Kobe is especially one of these playes. Most people who like him would choose him, I think, and the ones who hate him say they won't choose him.. so really, how do we even decide who is better in their primes?


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## SeaNet (Nov 18, 2004)

beamer05 said:


> I just wonder, in threads like this, how much people's hate for Kobe come into play. Or how much their love for Kobe or their favorite player factor into an opinion on who is better. I mean, is there really an un-biased fan out there? Some may laugh, but I try to be somewhat unbiased when it comes to these types of threads- I just happen to like certain players more than other players. But, who is really unbiased? * Like when someone calls Kobe a self-indulgent narcissist [multiple times], and then proceeds to choose Kidd can they really be taken serious?* Hell some people might pull up my past posts regarding Shaq or whatever, but for the most part I try to be biased- but it's as if people try to sway others to see their side of the story and people unfortunately let bias get into the way. Or, more specifically, their hate/dislike for a certain player. Kobe is especially one of these playes. Most people who like him would choose him, I think, and the ones who hate him say they won't choose him.. so really, how do we even decide who is better in their primes?


For the record, you can choose to take me in whatever way satisfies you. It makes no difference to me. And also for the record, Kobe IS a self-indulgent team destroying narcissist.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

SeaNet said:


> For the record, you can choose to take me in whatever way satisfies you. It makes no difference to me. And also for the record, Kobe IS a self-indulgent team destroying narcissist.




Wow, I'm not going to take you in anyway that sounds a little awkward Seanet. O.K. so Kobe is a self-indulgent narcissist- how can you prove that one? Driving Shaq out of town, Phil Jackson too? Scoring 81 pts. even though he took 17 less shots then Wilt did, averaging 35ppg., only taking 3 shots in the second half of game 7 even though you know damn well if he took more shots people would call him selfish? Which is it? What makes him such a narcissist in your opinion? Because that's all it is- opinion. You have absolutely no inside knowledge of Kobe, the Lakers, or anything associated with his life. The only thing you or I really know about him is that he's an adulter, and that he possibly raped a white girl. That's about it. So how can you say that, for the record, he is what you claim him to be? Just like I can't say that he isn't as I have no inside info. on him... it's really quite pathetic to see a 31 year old 'man' have such a hate for someone. I really don't think it's too healthy at all. You can take this post however you like it- I'm not really sure how that is, but it makes no difference to me either!


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

i love and appreciate what kidd brings to the table. he really does play the game the right way. except in his ability to put the ball in the hole. he helps a team rebound, play defense, get out on the break, play unselfishly. he's not a great half court player. probably contributed to his teams not making it out of the first round until his 8th season (ok, they made the 2nd round in 2000, but kidd played in ony 1 game in the opening round) in the league and a trade to the by then weaker eastern conference. 

kobe gives better upside. i think he complemented shaq better than kidd would have (easily), despite their issues. kidd makes teams compete, automatically puts them in the game. but i'm in camp kobe on this one.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

EHL said:


> edit: And what of Kobe's superior MVP finishes and All NBA team selections despite being 5 years younger? No comment?


The MVP voting isn't exactly a good basis for comparing players. Kobe has been in LA, playing for PJ and (played with) Shaq. That means more media attention and hype and more national TV games. All these factors influence the voting as well. Nash winning two in a row, does that make him better than Kobe? 



> I also fail to see how leading the league in assists is relavent to you if PER isn't also relavent to you; PER being a far better indicator of impact than assist numbers. Those are clearly conflicting thought processes.


Assists titles aree important, because they show that Kidd has been the unquestionably the best player at his position for several seasons. Kobe has not shown that.


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

how do assist titles prove you are the best at your position? 

being the best at your position isn't in itself that important when comparing across positions. what matters is impact on the court.


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## CaliCool (Nov 5, 2004)

To be fair, how can you gauge if you are an elite shooting guard? If point guard is based on assists, then it's say to say that SGs can be based on their scoring? Kobe has been a major offensive threat for a years so I'd say he fills his role as an SG pretty well. He also has the defensive numbers to booth and throw-ins in the form of rebounds and assists so I don't see how leading the league in assists got a lot of bearing in this discussion.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

kflo said:


> how do assist titles prove you are the best at your position?
> 
> being the best at your position isn't in itself that important when comparing across positions. what matters is impact on the court.


I think they help reinforce what we see on the court. Not saying you can use them exclusively to conclude who is a better PG. 

Also, like some other people have mentioned, it is reasonable to choose a player based on his positional value when you're building a team from scratch. People are saying that Kobe has a huge advantage over Kidd in scoring. Of course he has, but that's what he is supposed to do in his role.


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

you'd have to assess the value over a replacement player, to some extent, to truly measure positional value, not just relative rank. 

assists are but one stat. mark jackson had high assist numbers, but was never an elite pg. bogues as well.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

kflo said:


> you'd have to assess the value over a replacement player, to some extent, to truly measure positional value, not just relative rank.
> 
> assists are but one stat. mark jackson had high assist numbers, but was never an elite pg. bogues as well.


Mark Jackson only led the league in apg once.


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

and he wasn't elite for that 1 year. point being that he could have led the league every year and it wouldn't have made him elite. kevin porter had the single season record at one point, and led the league 4 times, but that didn't get him to an all-star game.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

Jesus of CopyMat said:


> If it's my team, I take Kidd over Kobe every time, but that's just me. I think Kidd might've been the league's best player in his prime.


False and it's not even close. What you fail to mention is that what worked during the down time of the Eastern Conference is the exact same thing that didn't work in the Western Conference and had his teams losing year after year. He didn't have to face the Lakers or Spurs or Kings or Blazers in the Eastern Conference and they made it two Finals that they had no chance of winning. 

It's strange because if that deal didn't happen, Kidd would not be as highly regarded as he is. In my opinion some of the change in thoughts about him has to do with how fortunate he was to be traded to the Eastern Conference. He simply could not win out West. Make the playoffs cool, but win not likely.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

Aurelino said:


> The MVP voting isn't exactly a good basis for comparing players. Kobe has been in LA, playing for PJ and (played with) Shaq. That means more media attention and hype and more national TV games. All these factors influence the voting as well. Nash winning two in a row, does that make him better than Kobe?



Wait, you go and say that because Kobe played in L.A. he gets more media attention etc. then you you Kidd doesn't get the media attention, so that should be held against Kobe? And Nash won two MVP's in a non-L.A, New York, Chicago type market, so what does that mean? He gets hyped, sure, but that means your theory of the more-hyped player getting more mvp votes doesn't apply.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

beamer05 said:


> Wait, you go and say that because Kobe played in L.A. he gets more media attention etc. then you you Kidd doesn't get the media attention, so that should be held against Kobe? And Nash won two MVP's in a non-L.A, New York, Chicago type market, so what does that mean? He gets hyped, sure, but that means your theory of the more-hyped player getting more mvp votes doesn't apply.


I am not saying it should be held against him. Just that it is not exactly very objective. Secondly, hype may not win you the MVP, but it can help in getting enough votes to finish in the top 5. I mentioned Nash because if you think that MVP voting is a criterion, then Nash is obviously much better than Kobe. You can't have it both ways with that argument.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

EHL said:


> Yes, that's very true. Though, I believe that's because PER punishes TOs more and rewards FTM more than other formulas. But as with any formula, intangibles always have to be taken into consideration. Obviously PER isn't perfect, otherwise Kobe's 06 campaign would be considered better than Magic's best season, which it damn well was not.


Why wasn't it comparable to Magic's best? Unless of course Kobe's defense was clearly inferior to Magic's?


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## g-dog-rice#2 (Jan 29, 2006)

I love J-Kidd. He's an unselfish player who is humble and just does his job. But...
I don't need stats to tell me which player is better. I think Kobe is the better player just from watching both. Who do fans and other players use as the standard? Kobe. They don't ask if Lebron is better than Kidd, they ask if he is better than Kobe. They don't compare Wade to Kidd, they compare him to Kobe. That should tell you something..

Kobe > Kidd


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## bootstrenf (May 24, 2006)

g-dog-rice#2 said:


> I love J-Kidd. He's an unselfish player who is humble and just does his job. But...
> I don't need stats to tell me which player is better. I think Kobe is the better player just from watching both. Who do fans and other players use as the standard? Kobe. They don't ask if Lebron is better than Kidd, they ask if he is better than Kobe. They don't compare Wade to Kidd, they compare him to Kobe. That should tell you something..
> 
> Kobe > Kidd


the only thing that tells me is that kobe, lebron, wade are the most popular players in the league right now...they are not the best because people make endless comparison threads about those listed players...


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Aurelino said:


> The MVP voting isn't exactly a good basis for comparing players. Kobe has been in LA, playing for PJ and (played with) Shaq. That means more media attention and hype and more national TV games. All these factors influence the voting as well. Nash winning two in a row, does that make him better than Kobe?


Good points. As I said before, these distinctions aren't perfect but are the most reasonable distinctions available. 

And yes, btw, Nash's last two seasons have been at the very least comparable to Kobe's best of his career. Nash is a superb all around player, even if he is only a small, average defender, he does everything else well and efficiently. It's not like there's a huge gap between Kobe and Nash's impact on a team, even if I would still take Kobe over him if starting a franchise or attempting to win a particular type of playoff series. 



> Assists titles aree important, because they show that Kidd has been the unquestionably the best player at his position for several seasons. Kobe has not shown that.


I don't think there's any question that Kobe has been the best SG in the league since 2001. Best overall perimeter player was up for grabs between Kobe and Tmac for a little while, and between LeBron, Kobe, and Wade last season. Besides, there hasn't been much competition at PG until recently, and positional distinctions aren't really that important unless it's an absolutely devastated position like C.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Nikos said:


> Why wasn't it comparable to Magic's best? Unless of course Kobe's defense was clearly inferior to Magic's?


I suppose it's "comparable" in a general sense, but better? No, 85-89 Magic was the best player of all time next to 88-92 Jordan. Kobe will never be that good, and will never have half the intangibles Magic had. Kobe's defense was obviously better than Magic's was (even though Magic was a very smart team defender and got in the lanes well), but that doesn't make up for Magic's consistently superior use of the shot clock, his unmatched ability to put the ball in high percentage scoring positions for his teammates and himself, and just generally having a rippling effect on his teammates I've never seen before or since. Him and Larry Bird are the two smartest players of all time, something statistics can never properly gauge. Plus, Magic played with teammates that took more possessions away from Magic than Kobe's teammates have over his career, which reduces Magic's PER production.


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## KillWill (Jul 1, 2003)

EHL said:


> I suppose it's "comparable" in a general sense, but better? No, 85-89 Magic was the best player of all time next to 88-92 Jordan. Kobe will never be that good, and will never have half the intangibles Magic had. Kobe's defense was obviously better than Magic's was (even though Magic was a very smart team defender and got in the lanes well), but that doesn't make up for Magic's consistently superior use of the shot clock, his unmatched ability to put the ball in high percentage scoring positions for his teammates and himself, and just generally having a rippling effect on his teammates I've never seen before or since. Him and Larry Bird are the two smartest players of all time, something statistics can never properly gauge. Plus, Magic played with teammates that took more possessions away from Magic than Kobe's teammates have over his career, which reduces Magic's PER production.




Post of the Year.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

EHL said:


> Kobe's defense was obviously better than Magic's was (even though Magic was a very smart team defender and got in the lanes well), but that doesn't make up for Magic's consistently superior use of the shot clock, his unmatched ability to put the ball in high percentage scoring positions for his teammates and himself, and just generally having a rippling effect on his teammates I've never seen before or since. Him and Larry Bird are the two smartest players of all time, something statistics can never properly gauge. Plus, Magic played with teammates that took more possessions away from Magic than Kobe's teammates have over his career, which reduces Magic's PER production.


Magic and Bird may have indeed been some of the smartest franchise players ever, but what that really means is they were good passers, who produced very efficient and productive offense with very few mistakes. Their elite passing for their position is a big part of what helped them maximize their teamattes talents. 

However, I don't see why guys like Hakeem, Drob, Duncan, and Shaq aren't just as valuable or more valuable? Is it because Bird and Magic were a little better offensively in general and in the clutch being more versatile offensive playmakers? I think the elite BIGS defense and rebounding might outweigh Magic and Bird's offense. Duncan might not have been as good offensively, and Drob might have been a playoff underperformer -- but when a player produces more on both ends why can't they be compared to Magic and Bird? 

I think people give Bird and Magic too much credit in terms of how smart they are as being some intagible that makes then 'clearly' better than players like Shaq and Hakeem who actually overall superior players statistically and if you factor defense. True its tough to put a value on assists, but really what Magic was is a better scoring version of Stockton/Nash04-06. Yet most people will say Isiah was clearly better than both of them, because he stepped up in the playoffs, and could also pass reasonably well. Truth is Nash and Stockton were superior players statistically if you exclude playoffs. In other words, Isiah is given too much credit for his overall ability in an NBA season + Playoffs because he led his team offensively to a title. Same goes for Magic to some extent, but obviously Magic was clearly better than Isiah, Stockton, and Nash.

Bottom line is I think the perceived mystic qualities of Bird and Magic and other players are overstated. They may have been smart, pioneers, and the best players in their day. But at what point can someone other than Jordan be considered superior to them today? What if Larry and Magic were in the league today on some horrible teams? Would they get the same respect?

My opinion that intangibles IMO are mostly in terms of defense, hustle, quality of individual play relative to team context (calibur of teamattes relative to the league) etc...

I don't think Magic or Bird's assists were worth more than inferior overall players. I think guys like Wade, Bron, Kobe if they play like last year are easily comparable. Not neccesarily superior -- but if their stats/PER are a few points better than a prime Magic or Bird -- I have a hard time saying they are 'clearly' inferior. 

What if their were several Bird/Magic calibur players in the league scattered on 7 or 8 teams with different quality teamattes, and maybe a changing supporting cast every year -- do you think they would all be viewed as equals until they won a title?

I think if guys like Wade, Kobe, and Bron improve they can easily be mentioned in the same breath as Magic and Bird. Of course winning is one variable to factor when judging the quality of the player -- but it shouldn't be the 'be all, end all'. For example, why isn't Wade considered a next potential Bird/Magic? Because he didn't lead his team over another Hall of Fame led team like the Magic led Lakers and Bird led Celtics got a chance to do against each other?


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## KillWill (Jul 1, 2003)

have you ever really watched Magic play?


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

KillWill said:


> have you ever really watched Magic play?


Yes, he was extremely entertaining. A Top 3 player in the NBA for most of his career. I have about 5-6 classic games of his, and have seen 7 or 8 others within the last decade. He was basically a better scoring version of Nash/Stockton/Kidd -- who could also rebound better. Not stylistically similiar neccesarily, but in terms of how he impacted a game. Through pure efficient offense -- scoring and perfect passing almost. He was also a good team defender.

What do you want me to say? That he is clearly better than anyone not named Jordan, and will always be -- until someone like Lebron averages 36-6-6 and leads his team to the title over 65+ win teams with 2-3 HOFERS?


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## KillWill (Jul 1, 2003)

one word?

yes.

two words?

pretty please.


i would love to see lebron reach that level. he certainly has the potential. also i adore nash/kidd, but they are not on the level of stockton.


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## PauloCatarino (May 31, 2003)

Nikos said:


> Yes, he was extremely entertaining. A Top 3 player in the NBA for most of his career. I have about 5-6 classic games of his, and have seen 7 or 8 others within the last decade. He was basically a better scoring version of Nash/Stockton/Kidd -- who could also rebound better. Not stylistically similiar neccesarily, but in terms of how he impacted a game. Through pure efficient offense -- scoring and perfect passing almost. He was also a good team defender.
> 
> What do you want me to say? That he is clearly better than anyone not named Jordan, and will always be -- until someone like Lebron averages 36-6-6 and leads his team to the title over 65+ win teams with 2-3 HOFERS?


You may have seen them play.

But you sure don't understand who Magic Johnson amd Larry Bird were.

You were talking about assists, but that only shows a glimpse of what that duo could do on the floor. Magic was the floor general. EVERY Laker offensive possetion (sp?) got into Magic's hands. And sometimes he didn't score. and sometimes he didn't assis. But he directed the offense to a T. Guys like Worthy and Kareem were thinking "hey, if i get this position, Magic will find me. Then, it's 2 moves and a shot".

Larry was different. He wasn't appointed to create for others: his assists came unplanned, for he was the volume scorer for the team, and also the go-to guy. Still he mastered the TEAM concept, and the way he drived his teammates waws a beauty to see.

Saying Magic was Top-3 when he played (in his prime, at least), is blasphemy: the 2 top players were Larry or Magic, Magic or Larry. In their primes, noone came close.


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## AJC NYC (Aug 16, 2005)

Jkidd


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

There's some very strong evidence IMO that PER is affected by the quality of teammates. Bird and Magic played on teams far deeper in terms of quality then players in the 90's and now. I.e. Magic had to share the court with James Worthy, Kareem, and Byron Scott while David Robinson had to contest for points, rebounds, and the like with Sean Elliott, Avery Johnson, and Vinny Del *****. Who has the best chance so to speak to gain better stats? Clearly the player on the team with inferior talent. Plus assists are such a poor barometer of the impact of passing that players like Bird and Magic (particularly Magic and I think the majority of PG's) get shortchanged by PER.


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## TakUrBalzBakFrmUrWife (Nov 9, 2004)

HB said:


> Oh really, considering the only thing Kobe does better than Kidd is scoring thats a very debatable comment. The fact that Kidd is also an excellent teammate pretty much swings this arguement in favor, say what you want about Kobe, *but we all know he'd rather play one on five than defer to teammates*.


Thats not what tonights 7 assists indicate....


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> There's some very strong evidence IMO that PER is affected by the quality of teammates. Bird and Magic played on teams far deeper in terms of quality then players in the 90's and now. I.e. Magic had to share the court with James Worthy, Kareem, and Byron Scott while David Robinson had to contest for points, rebounds, and the like with Sean Elliott, Avery Johnson, and Vinny Del *****. Who has the best chance so to speak to gain better stats? Clearly the player on the team with inferior talent. Plus assists are such a poor barometer of the impact of passing that players like Bird and Magic (particularly Magic and I think the majority of PG's) get shortchanged by PER.


Your point about the value of assists is interesting and is something to think about. 

But why does this only apply to Magic and Bird? What about guys like Hakeem and Shaq who drew double teams and probably had more 'hockey assists' -- in other words the pass to that leads directly to the assist? Also what is it about Bird or Magic's assists that are more valuable then say Steve Nash of today? Why aren't Wade's or Lebron's assists just valuable for their teams as Birds were?

At one side people say that Magic and Bird's PERs would have been better with weaker quality teamattes. But why is this the case? Isn't it usually tougher to be efficient with less quality teamattes? Why is it assumed that these players would be statistically better -- yet many people wouldn't think twice to say that those who play with elite players like Nash, Duncan, and Dirk's numbers would automatically go down without those offensive anchors? Is it because people automatically assume elite players get better stats without quality support and second/third tier players would probably be less efficient and productive without a #1 option by their side? I think this is a tough question to answer, but I also don't think its fair to automatically assume Bird and Magic would get better stats with weaker teamattes (at least without giving up a good chunk of efficiency).


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## Finchstatic (Dec 24, 2004)

kobe can score 35+ points a game dish out 6+ assists and grab 8+ boards a game but still his team loses. Kidd can chuck up shots and miss alot of em but still his contribution to the team and playmaking will make his team win.

my point

kidd makes his team mates better even if he doesnt play good.. its just his prescence in the court that'll make the huge changes

while kobe

can get all those stat paddings and still LA loses. its sometimes better that he'd share some more possesions with lamar bcoz lamar is capable of 20/10/6 numbers

jst my opinion :banana:


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

ppl saying kobe hits big shots must have never seen kidd. before vince it was kidd taking and making the gamewinners. especially in the playoffs. and when had being labelled selfish ever stoppod kobe from shooting unless he was trying to prove a point??? remember the sacramento game? 

the simple fact that the lakers historically have a better winning percentage without kobe than the nets have without kidd speaks volumes. and if you cant win in the "weak east" who won two of the last 3 chips, you have problems. 

kidd improves chemistry, kobe disrupts it, and even according to his coach, ignores plays to do his own thing. kobe has a very low BB IQ, a very poor concept of teamwork, and a very selfish attitude that would sacrifice winning to prove a point (playoffs vs phoenix). he has lost many fans with that attitude. i never heard and kidd fans losing their respect for him.

yes kobe is a good scorer, but he isnt even the best in the league. this is the 1st year he won a scoring title, and thats only because he took more shots than anyone else. so as someone said, you can find scoring wings who are better than kobe in the NBA, you cant find another jason kidd.


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

EHL said:


> Good points. As I said before, these distinctions aren't perfect but are the most reasonable distinctions available.
> 
> And yes, btw, Nash's last two seasons have been at the very least comparable to Kobe's best of his career. Nash is a superb all around player, even if he is only a small, average defender, he does everything else well and efficiently. It's not like there's a huge gap between Kobe and Nash's impact on a team, *even if I would still take Kobe over him if starting a franchise or attempting to win a particular type of playoff series. *
> 
> ...


you mean like vs Utah, Minnesota 2004 (when he shot the airball to win the game and shaq had to grab it and dunk it to ice game), detroit in the finals (where he shot 36% and took damn near every shot while ignoring shaq who shot 60%), and phoenix? oh ok...sure.


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

uh ooh...i just realized that was EHL...im dead. i'm gonna be bombarded with useless points while his fellow fans agree with him.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

duncan2k5 said:


> ppl saying kobe hits big shots must have never seen kidd. before vince it was kidd taking and making the gamewinners. especially in the playoffs. and when had being labelled selfish ever stoppod kobe from shooting unless he was trying to prove a point??? remember the sacramento game?
> 
> the simple fact that the lakers historically have a better winning percentage without kobe than the nets have without kidd speaks volumes. and if you cant win in the "weak east" who won two of the last 3 chips, you have problems.
> 
> ...



You are ridiculous. I think at this point you would be honestly satisfied if Kobe or anyone on the Lakers ended up dying. You would probably be happy, as your hate for them and Kobe specifically runs way beyond anything healthy. I'm not going to go back and forth on every little point you tried to make. I figured you would choose Kidd, as I know damn well you wouldn't choose Kobe. You would probably rather start your franchise with Matt Bonner over Kobe, that's how bad you hate him.... Just because you hate him doesn't mean it should cloud your judgement..he shoots a lot yes, but he has a high basketball IQ as he has been the floor general on how to run the triangle for many years- not an easy thing to do...and what do you think of this year? He's not putting up 27 shots per game, so what is he doing wrong so far this year? There has to be something he's doing wrong doesn't there? So what scoring wings in the NBA are better than a healthy Kobe Bryant?


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## M.D.E (Feb 26, 2005)

Kidd


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## JerryWest (Jun 24, 2002)

Kidd is the most overrated player ever. He had great players around him and a horrible conference. Where did he ever lead dallas or the suns?

I laugh at you fools that brag about him leading the nets to finals. It doesn't mean anything b/c the eastern conference was so pathetic. The nets wouldn't even make it past the 1st round if they played in the West those years.

The Kings, Trailblazers, and Spurs were both significantly better then the nets and provided a much bigger challenge to the lakers.


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## DaBruins (Jul 30, 2003)

Finchstatic said:


> kobe can score 35+ points a game dish out 6+ assists and grab 8+ boards a game but still his team loses. Kidd can chuck up shots and miss alot of em but still his contribution to the team and playmaking will make his team win.
> 
> my point
> 
> ...


I'm pretty sure I can count the # of losses on 1 hand in games wheres Kobe got 35+, 8+, 6+


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## Drop_Dimes (Aug 27, 2005)

Im going to say kidd just because i harbor a pretty big bias because im a Nets fan. which is different/more respectable than being fanatical about one player, some of you kobe fans are creeping me out (and i have to assume others) with your undying love for this guy. I like vince and kidd and all, but not on the erie stalker status of you kobe fans, i guess i just dont understand dedicating yourselves to an athlete like that, weird.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

Drop_Dimes said:


> Im going to say kidd just because i harbor a pretty big bias because im a Nets fan. which is different/more respectable than being fanatical about one player, some of you kobe fans are creeping me out (and i have to assume others) with your undying love for this guy. I like vince and kidd and all, but not on the erie stalker status of you kobe fans, i guess i just dont understand dedicating yourselves to an athlete like that, weird.



I think part of the reason us 'kobe lovers' may creep you out is the fact that Kobe haters are so strong in their hate for Kobe.. sure there are some things people may not like about #24 but to hate him as much as some people do is ridiculous. So personally I try to defend him a little bit. In some cases it may come off as undying love, but I just hate when some people totally trash the guy because they don't like him personally. But I see what you mean, it probably looks a little weird.


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## Drewbs (Feb 16, 2004)

Finchstatic said:


> kobe can score 35+ points a game dish out 6+ assists and grab 8+ boards a game but still his team loses. Kidd can chuck up shots and miss alot of em but still his contribution to the team and playmaking will make his team win.
> 
> my point
> 
> ...


When has Lamar Odom ever shown that he is capable of averaging those types of numbers? 

Thats right he hasn't. Even as a number one option on the Heat, he couldn't put those up.


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## dboydbla (Nov 18, 2006)

As much as I am not a fan, I'd still have to go with Kobe in his prime.


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

beamer05 said:


> You are ridiculous. I think at this point you would be honestly satisfied if Kobe or anyone on the Lakers ended up dying. You would probably be happy, as your hate for them and Kobe specifically runs way beyond anything healthy. I'm not going to go back and forth on every little point you tried to make. I figured you would choose Kidd, as I know damn well you wouldn't choose Kobe. You would probably rather start your franchise with Matt Bonner over Kobe, that's how bad you hate him.... Just because you hate him doesn't mean it should cloud your judgement..he shoots a lot yes, but he has a high basketball IQ as he has been the floor general on how to run the triangle for many years- not an easy thing to do...and what do you think of this year? He's not putting up 27 shots per game, so what is he doing wrong so far this year? There has to be something he's doing wrong doesn't there? So what scoring wings in the NBA are better than a healthy Kobe Bryant?


well he is OBVIOUSLY doing something wrong if his laker teams have a better winning percentage without him. and shaq's greatness overshadowed kobe's bad basketball IQ. people with common sense would know if someone is hot, feed him the ball. kobe would shoot the team out of a game with his selfishness. bad bb IQ.


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

and to answer your last question, if you give any star scoring wing the number of shots kobe took last year, they would average just as many, or more points than kobe did. especially lebron, while still beating him out in assists and rebounds (t-mac, wade, and lebron). kobe is a chucker who happened to be on shaq's team. he is VERY overrated in every spect of his game


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

duncan2k5 said:


> well he is OBVIOUSLY doing something wrong if his laker teams have a better winning percentage without him. and shaq's greatness overshadowed kobe's bad basketball IQ. people with common sense would know if someone is hot, feed him the ball. kobe would shoot the team out of a game with his selfishness. bad bb IQ.



Lakers are 4-3 with Kobe this year, 2-1 without him.. I would hardly call that a drastic difference in when he plays- and if you are talking about the Shaq/Kobe era then that doesn't count at all, that L.A. team could win games if needed without Shaq or Kobe. All of those teams had a great mix of veterans and youth- they obviously needed both to succeed in the playoffs, but the regular season never really counted to those teams anyway. And I seem to remember Kobe and Shaq winning three titles together in 4 finals appearances. I would hardly call that Kobe not having a good basktball IQ since he was the best overall player on those teams. That finals against Detroit wasn't solely #24's fault either, the Pistons weren't going to lose that series. So I think you are wrong on all acounts, but that's my opinion. You will most likely come back with some sarcastic response that doesn't respond to the fact that Kobe/Shaq won three titles together on a team that didn't care much for the regular season. So that's OBVIOUSLY why Kobe sucks.


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## Finchstatic (Dec 24, 2004)

Drewbs said:


> When has Lamar Odom ever shown that he is capable of averaging those types of numbers?
> 
> Thats right he hasn't. Even as a number one option on the Heat, he couldn't put those up.


when kobe was out for the first games of the season? lamar was playing like one of the best players in the league. which some of the posters considered playing like an mvp candidate :cheers:


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Nikos said:


> Magic and Bird may have indeed been some of the smartest franchise players ever, but what that really means is they were good passers, who produced very efficient and productive offense with very few mistakes. Their elite passing for their position is a big part of what helped them maximize their teamattes talents.
> 
> However, I don't see why guys like Hakeem, Drob, Duncan, and Shaq aren't just as valuable or more valuable? Is it because Bird and Magic were a little better offensively in general and in the clutch being more versatile offensive playmakers? I think the elite BIGS defense and rebounding might outweigh Magic and Bird's offense. Duncan might not have been as good offensively, and Drob might have been a playoff underperformer -- but when a player produces more on both ends why can't they be compared to Magic and Bird?
> 
> ...


Assist numbers mean different things in different contexts. No two 10 apg players (like Kevin Johnson and Steve Nash, for example) are alike. That is, 10 apg for Nash, from what I've observed of him the last two years, has more impact than 10 apg seasons KJ was putting up. Nash got rid of the ball quicker and simply made better passes with fewer minutes and dribbles. KJ didn't do that as well as Nash, and Nash didn't do that as well as Magic. 

You want to say "Well, defense is what separates some great big men and some great players today and I don't think Magic/Bird's assists were worth more". But how is defense measured except by subjective analysis, much like assists meaning more/less in different context's? 

Take Bird for example, arguably the smartest player of all time. One of the greatest aspects of his game was knowing when and when not to handle the ball and in what situations he did or did not want to disrupt the flow of someone else's game. I didn't realize this until years later, but he did little things like that; fed the hot hand, rotated the ball around the perimeter because he had _total_ confidence in his teammates (and it showed) that they'd get him the ball back when it mattered; bit it to shoot or pass the rock. 

In comparison to Magic and Bird, Kobe's is practically and endless stream of needless dribbles and inefficient clock management. In comparison to today's players, especially guys like Nash but even LeBron and Wade to a degree, Kobe doesn't quite use the clock as well as they do (whether to score or pass). But the gap with Bird and Magic is comparable. And while Bird never played on a team that wasn't stacked, so I can't say for sure how he'd have done with a thin supporting cast, I can say that Magic with certainly not a stacked squad (Worthy, Scott, rookie Divac) were able to win 58 games and go to the NBA Finals. 

Really it comes down to opinion, and it's certainly not opinion that Magic was one of the greatest passers/team players of all time, and that that fact is sizable and important, even when compared to great defensive big men.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

duncan2k5 said:


> uh ooh...i just realized that was EHL...im dead. i'm gonna be bombarded with useless points while his fellow fans agree with him.


Come on, you don't actually think anyone here reads your post for their basketball _content_, do you? :no:


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Finchstatic said:


> when kobe was out for the first games of the season? lamar was playing like one of the best players in the league. which some of the posters considered playing like an mvp candidate :cheers:


Yes, Lamar dominated for 2 games without Kobe. Crazy! All the other games he played without Kobe the last two years; 18 ppg on 43% shooting, worse record without Bryant in the lineup the last two years. Facts are crazy too!


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

EHL said:


> Come on, you don't actually think anyone here reads your post for their basketball _content_, do you? :no:



Ouch.. pwned!


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Nikos, as one example of PER not being an exact gauge of impact when it comes to incredible intangibles such as those possessed by Bird and Magic, take a look at Dirk last season. His PER was 28.1, higher than any PER prime Magic Johnson or Larry Bird _ever_ had in their careers. Now, are you telling me 06 Nowitzki is better than a prime Magic and Bird? His defense certainly wasn't better, his shooting and scoring weren't better than Bird and his passing certainly was NOT better than Magic's. Does he possess some other intangibles that they didn't have? No, quite obviously not. Doesn't mean Dirk isn't a great player, just really not all that close to Magic or Bird.

And I'm not overstating my case, either. Magic and Bird would be the two best players in the NBA today, even better than they were in the 80's when superior medicine, coaching, and various other types of basketball strategy weren't in use.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

EHL said:


> his shooting and scoring weren't better than Bird


I tend to disagree. Dirk's passing was not as good as Bird's, but an argument could definitely be made that Nowitzki is as good or better than Bird as a scorer. He's one of the most uniquely-talented scorers ever and has an even more unstoppable shot than Bird, as virtually no one who can check him at the perimeter has the reach to challenge his shot.

I don't think Magic and Bird would be clearly the best players today. James is putting up pretty legendary performance lately and last year Kobe matched him. Also, it remains to be seen how good Yao actually is...at the level he's played so far, he's been as good as nearly any center ever.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

I don't think Magic and Bird would be clearly the best players either but I'm pretty confident that Bird is at VERY least as good a player as Dirk so I take the fact that Dirk had a higher PER last year then Bird had with a grain of salt. The 80's teams in general had more talnet per team which made high individual PERs harder to get.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> The 80's teams in general had more talnet per team which made high individual PERs harder to get.


I don't think that's true at this point. 20 more years of population growth and an influx of international players has expanded the talent pool a great deal to counter the expansion of the league.

It may be true that the best teams had more collected talent, but Dirk last year played on perhaps the most talented team in the league and the most talented team he's ever played on and posted his best PER.


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

I think great passers are better offensive players than their PERs suggest. For every pass they make that is recorded as an assist, they make several other good passes for which they get get no credit.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Minstrel said:


> I don't think that's true at this point. 20 more years of population growth and an influx of international players has expanded the talent pool a great deal to counter the expansion of the league.
> 
> It may be true that the best teams had more collected talent, but Dirk last year played on perhaps the most talented team in the league and the most talented team he's ever played on and posted his best PER.


 And they were beaten by a Miami which charitably is shall we say one of the weakest champions we've had in the while. I do agree that a talent is much closer to the 80's now but Dallas was top heavy in perimeter talent w/o interior talent. In additioneven though they may be as talented as any team in the leauge they still aren't close to as talented as some of the Boston teams were. Plus, PER doesn't do a great job of measuring passing because it's based on assists which inherently aren't great.


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

beamer05 said:


> Lakers are 4-3 with Kobe this year, 2-1 without him.. I would hardly call that a drastic difference in when he plays- and if you are talking about the Shaq/Kobe era then that doesn't count at all, that L.A. team could win games if needed without Shaq or Kobe. All of those teams had a great mix of veterans and youth- they obviously needed both to succeed in the playoffs, but the regular season never really counted to those teams anyway. And I seem to remember Kobe and Shaq winning three titles together in 4 finals appearances. I would hardly call that Kobe not having a good basktball IQ since he was the best overall player on those teams. That finals against Detroit wasn't solely #24's fault either, the Pistons weren't going to lose that series. So I think you are wrong on all acounts, but that's my opinion. You will most likely come back with some sarcastic response that doesn't respond to the fact that Kobe/Shaq won three titles together on a team that didn't care much for the regular season. So that's OBVIOUSLY why Kobe sucks.


the point remains, laker teams play better without him. even after shaq left, the lakers have a better win/loss percentage without him. i iven recall 2005 when they were winning games when he was injured, and had a chance to make the playoffs. when he came back the lost 19 of their last 20 games...some "superstar." truly great players dont mess up chemistry...they create it. look at the spurs. if duncan gets injured, that's a lottery team. same thing with the cavs and lebron. lakers seem better off without kobe BASED ON WIN/LOSS %. so u say it was a veteran team that could win without one of it's stars? so why did they still have a better win percentage with that alone than with kobe alone? matter of fact, they had a LOSING percentage when shaq was out and kobe was in. 

and the reason lakers won was because of shaq. thats why he won finals MVP. when shaq gets the ball in the finals, they win, when kobe shoots the most shots in the finals, 2004 is what happens. and you are sadly mistaken if you think being the "best overall player" on a laker team means having a good basketball IQ. i know many good players with bad IQ. kobe is one. and kobe may have been the best overall (versatile), but shaq was the best player on those teams.


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Minstrel said:


> I tend to disagree. Dirk's passing was not as good as Bird's, but an argument could definitely be made that Nowitzki is as good or better than Bird as a scorer. He's one of the most uniquely-talented scorers ever and has an even more unstoppable shot than Bird, as virtually no one who can check him at the perimeter has the reach to challenge his shot.
> 
> I don't think Magic and Bird would be clearly the best players today. James is putting up pretty legendary performance lately and last year Kobe matched him. Also, it remains to be seen how good Yao actually is...at the level he's played so far, he's been as good as nearly any center ever.


I dunno, Bird had some pretty damn impressive scoring seasons; in fact, three seasons of 28-30 ppg on 52-53% FGP AND 40%-43% 3-point shooting. And those were on stacked teams, more stacked with scorers than the Mavs; who have been stacked for a few years now, but obviously not the caliber of the teammates Bird had in the 80's. Though I will concede that the faster pace does make up for some of that. But you'll have to concede that Bird's numbers are quite clearly superior as a scorer.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

EHL said:


> I dunno, Bird had some pretty damn impressive scoring seasons; in fact, three seasons of 28-30 ppg on 52-53% FGP AND 40%-43% 3-point shooting.


Shooting percentages aren't era-adjusted, though. Defensive schemes are more sophisticated and defense is played more intensely today than in the 1980s. Bird definitely was more _consistently_ a better scorer than Dirk has been so far, but if we consider only Dirk's last couple of seasons or so as his "current ability," one could make the argument that he's currently on par with Bird or better.



> And those were on stacked teams, more stacked with scorers than the Mavs; who have been stacked for a few years now, but obviously not the caliber of the teammates Bird had in the 80's.


Responding to both you and Pioneer10 on this issue, is the question really how _good_ his teammates are/were? It seems to me the question is how much those teammates took the ball and shot attempts away. Even if Dirk's teammates missed their shots more than Bird's teammates, that's still an opportunity cost for Dirk, reducing his chances to record a top PER.

Eyeballing the numbers, in Bird's best scoring years, he was taking 20-22 field goal attempts a game. By contrast, the last two seasons Dirk has taken 18.5 -19.5 field goal attempts a game. Fairly close, but Nowitzki definitely hasn't been getting more opportunities. Also, looking at Usage Rate (pace-adjusted statistic that estimates the number of possessions a player uses per 40 minutes), Bird was pretty consistently between 28 and 30, while Dirk has been below 28 each of the last two seasons.

So, I don't think the data shows that Bird was being held back by teammates. If he was, the greater pace more than made up for it.


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## bballlife (Oct 5, 2003)

Some good points being made here, but I think Bird is the better player between him and Dirk. Bird had a unique fire/intensity about his game, where he knew what his team needed to win, and was willing to do anything to accomplish that. 


Hypothetically, you replace Dirk with Bird in the finals, and I have zero doubt that the Mavs win the championship. No way in hell Larry Bird disappears for stretches in the finals, passing up open 3's to hit the mediocre shooter in the corner, or let Jerry Stackhouse pull his one-on-one crap.


Stats out the window, Bird was on a different level.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

I don't follow this logic of usage rate and FGA as it still doesn't take into account what PER is made up of. PER also takes into accounts other stats then scoring.

Bird has a assist ration that is twice that of Dirk and a TOR that is only 2 higher. There TS% are similar (take away Bird's years after his back injury his was actually higher then Dirk's so far). In addition there rebound rate's are similar. I think this pretty clearly shows the flaws of PER as they are equal in scoring and rebounding when looking at them separately yet Bird has a huge advantage in passing. 

Frankly I'm not sure how one can question that the Celtics on general during Bird's prime years were unquestionably better then the Mavs. The Mavs are very talented but all there talent is in there perimeter players. One problem is Bird played with two outstanding interior players in McHale and Parrish who caused the Celtics to score much more efficiently then the Mavericks. This has a duel effect to decrease PER (one Bird doesn't get enough credit for scoring off passing as assists are terrible passing measure and less rebounds for Bird). Pace wouldn't benefit Bird either in terms of PER as it's pace adjusted


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> I don't follow this logic of usage rate and FGA as it still doesn't take into account what PER is made up of. PER also takes into accounts other stats then scoring.


If you look at my original post, I was only speaking of scoring.



> Frankly I'm not sure how one can question that the Celtics on general during Bird's prime years were unquestionably better then the Mavs.


I didn't question that. I said it's not terribly relevant; the key issue is how many chances each player's teammates take away from them. Perhaps Dirk's teammates missed many more of the shots they took because they were worse...it doesn't matter, those are still shots Dirk didn't get to take.

If Bird really was held back by his teammates, it should show up in fewer FGA or lower Usage Rate. Considering Bird averaged _more_ shots and _more_ possessions used than Dirk, I can't agree that Bird had fewer opportunities than Dirk, better teammates or not.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Minstrel said:


> If you look at my original post, I was only speaking of scoring.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> it doesn't matter, those are still shots Dirk didn't get to take.


I don't see how that is the be all and all it terms of pertaining to PER as I don't see much other statiscal evidence to say Dirk is better to Bird. PER is the only thing that I can see that really sticks out in favor of Dirk. Even if Dirk didn't get to take those shots, he could have still used those misses to rebound (He after played with teammates who didn't rebound the ball well at all giving him the oppurtinuty to collect more boards). In addition when evaluting who the better player is it is not who averaged more shots and who used more possesions (whatever that means): it's whether PER is correct in indicating that Dirk last year had a better year then Bird EVER had. I don't see it particularly when taking a look at the stats separately. Bird scored just as efficiently, had a similar rebound rate yet blows Dirk out of the water in terms of assist ratio with only a slight bit of increase in TO ratio.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

duncan2k5 said:


> the point remains, laker teams play better without him. even after shaq left, the lakers have a better win/loss percentage without him. i iven recall 2005 when they were winning games when he was injured, and had a chance to make the playoffs. when he came back the lost 19 of their last 20 games...some "superstar." truly great players dont mess up chemistry...they create it. look at the spurs. if duncan gets injured, that's a lottery team. same thing with the cavs and lebron. lakers seem better off without kobe BASED ON WIN/LOSS %. so u say it was a veteran team that could win without one of it's stars? so why did they still have a better win percentage with that alone than with kobe alone? matter of fact, they had a LOSING percentage when shaq was out and kobe was in.
> 
> and the reason lakers won was because of shaq. thats why he won finals MVP. when shaq gets the ball in the finals, they win, when kobe shoots the most shots in the finals, 2004 is what happens. and you are sadly mistaken if you think being the "best overall player" on a laker team means having a good basketball IQ. *i know many good players with bad IQ*. kobe is one. and kobe may have been the best overall (versatile), but shaq was the best player on those teams.


OK, you are not in the NBA nor am I.. no one posting on this site has ever been in the NBA [I don't think, I haven't been posting here that long]. Now, what makes you think that YOU, me or anyone else is really qualified to determine what exactly good or bad basketball IQ really is? Sure, you may watch a lot of basketball games, as do I, but that doesn't mean you know what the perfect player or basketball IQ is. Why don't you go ahead and explain to me, in detail if you wish, what good basketball IQ is. Because you don't know exactly what it is- you've never played at that level. So when someone looks dumb to you out there while you're sitting on your couch does that really mean they have bad basketball IQ? So, what other players that are good have bad basketball IQ? You said you could name many, so go ahead. I don't think you even know what IQ stands for although you will probably google it or something to find out... and stop riding Shaq's nuts so much, I'm quite sure that you absolutely hated him when he was in L.A. considering you hate the Lakers so bad. So don't use him like that. What must drive you crazy is that despite everything- Kobe, bad bball IQ, the Lakers whole team, your team losing to the Lakers- the Lakers have the exact same amount of titles as the Spurs do in the last 8 years, or that Shaq has one more than your boy Duncan [don't even talk about Shaq riding D. Wade to that title because, according to you when Shaq gets the ball in the finals they win.. well he didn't get the ball too much in the past finals]. You just can't accept the fact that the ****ing Spurs aren't the greatest thing ever in basketball, or that you don't know everything about basketball.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> I don't see how that is the be all and all it terms of pertaining to PER as I don't see much other statiscal evidence to say Dirk is better to Bird. PER is the only thing that I can see that really sticks out in favor of Dirk. Even if Dirk didn't get to take those shots, he could have still used those misses to rebound (He after played with teammates who didn't rebound the ball well at all giving him the oppurtinuty to collect more boards). In addition when evaluting who the better player is it is not who averaged more shots and who used more possesions (whatever that means): it's whether PER is correct in indicating that Dirk last year had a better year then Bird EVER had. I don't see it particularly when taking a look at the stats separately. Bird scored just as efficiently, had a similar rebound rate yet blows Dirk out of the water in terms of assist ratio with only a slight bit of increase in TO ratio.


None of this actually relates to what I was arguing, though, which is scoring ability. I explicitly pointed that out in my last post.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

> EHL said:
> 
> 
> > Assist numbers mean different things in different contexts. No two 10 apg players (like Kevin Johnson and Steve Nash, for example) are alike. That is, 10 apg for Nash, from what I've observed of him the last two years, has more impact than 10 apg seasons KJ was putting up. Nash got rid of the ball quicker and simply made better passes with fewer minutes and dribbles. KJ didn't do that as well as Nash, and Nash didn't do that as well as Magic.
> ...


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## Sir Patchwork (Jan 12, 2005)

Kidd is really overrated in my book just because so much of his effectiveness is in the open court, and great teams take that away from him come playoff time. That's why he can make deep playoff runs but his teams have always come up real short against the great teams. 

Kobe on the other hand can transform his game any way you want. 2nd option to Shaquille, running the point guard in the triangle, leading three title teams in assists, scoring more points per game in a season than anyone in 20 years, playing with the ball, playing off the ball, half court offense, open court, doesn't matter. Kobe is going to be an absolute handful no matter what. 

Defensively it's a toss-up, but I have reservations about players who are only average in a halfcourt offense. You need halfcourt offense in the playoffs because great teams always get back on defense.


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## Aurelino (Jul 25, 2003)

Sir Patchwork said:


> but I have reservations about players who are only average in a halfcourt offense. You need halfcourt offense in the playoffs because great teams always get back on defense.


Kidd is exceptional in the open court but far from average in the half court. In fact, his excellence on the break has meant that his halfcourt skills have never been utilized properly. If you have seen Kidd this year, he's still averaging around 9 apg but unlike most previous years, the majority of his assists this year have been in the half court-- driving and dishing out to the perimeter, running pick and rolls, posting up smaller guards, and running other half-court sets for the Nets. He's also been taking it to the basket more this year. The presence of Vince Carter, who is not a good transition player, has brought that change in the team's offensive philosophy.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

Yeah, while I definitely choose Kobe in this comparison, I think Kidd is massively underrated in the half-court. He's not as amazing in the half-court as in transition, but he's still an elite play-maker in half-court sets. His ability to post up and back down defenders made his half-court effectiveness even greater. He could force his defender into the paint for a chance to score near the hoop or force help defense to come over and then make a pass to create for someone else.


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## jayk009 (Aug 6, 2003)

Some things I think of when I hear Kobe.

O, I heard he scored 81 points in a game!
Hes the youngest to score 17,000 points!
He scores over 30 points per game!
Did u see that left handed 3 point score?



Some Things I think of when I hear Kidd

O, he just got another triple double!
He, by himself, without a guy named shaq led his team to the finals, TWICE!
Kidd won the ROY, but he SHARED it, along with Grant Hill.
Boy, does Kidd liek to SHARE, unlike some other nba players. He would rather Pass, then score!


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

Pioneer10 said:


> it's whether PER is correct in indicating that Dirk last year had a better year then Bird EVER had. I don't see it particularly when taking a look at the stats separately. Bird scored just as efficiently, had a similar rebound rate yet blows Dirk out of the water in terms of assist ratio with only a slight bit of increase in TO ratio.


Is that all there is to PER, though? I mean, I've compared the stats of players of different eras before by looking at different components, like pts per 40, RbR, ToR, AsR, TS%, etc., and come away not understanding how one could have a higher PER than the other. So I assumed that there's more to the formula.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Hakeem said:


> Is that all there is to PER, though? I mean, I've compared the stats of players of different eras before by looking at different components, like pts per 40, RbR, ToR, AsR, TS%, etc., and come away not understanding how one could have a higher PER than the other. So I assumed that there's more to the formula.


 Yeah I'm a bit baffled. I think from looking at the formula it really punishes TO while knocking down assists (It times assists by 2/3rds)

http://basketball-reference.com/about/per.html


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

one stat i keep wanting to see is ts% or ppfga on potential assists. this, i think, would give a better understanding of how effective a player is at creating easy opportunities. and it will give a better understanding of turnover rates (or at least give better context).


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Nikos said:


> Your point about the value of assists is interesting and is something to think about.
> 
> But why does this only apply to Magic and Bird? What about guys like Hakeem and Shaq who drew double teams and probably had more 'hockey assists' -- in other words the pass to that leads directly to the assist? Also what is it about Bird or Magic's assists that are more valuable then say Steve Nash of today? Why aren't Wade's or Lebron's assists just valuable for their teams as Birds were?
> 
> At one side people say that Magic and Bird's PERs would have been better with weaker quality teamattes. But why is this the case? Isn't it usually tougher to be efficient with less quality teamattes? Why is it assumed that these players would be statistically better -- yet many people wouldn't think twice to say that those who play with elite players like Nash, Duncan, and Dirk's numbers would automatically go down without those offensive anchors? Is it because people automatically assume elite players get better stats without quality support and second/third tier players would probably be less efficient and productive without a #1 option by their side? I think this is a tough question to answer, but I also don't think its fair to automatically assume Bird and Magic would get better stats with weaker teamattes (at least without giving up a good chunk of efficiency).


Who said anything about a quality of assist? I said assists don't accurately reflect the effect of passing ability on two different things. For example, how many times does a player makes a great pass and gets no credit for it because the player gets fouled? Those points were directly caused by the pass but aren't reflected statiscally. I just don't find much evidence at all that our present statistics account well for passing, so a player whose game revolves around passing more then another won't have that impact accurately represented.

You're second point is also completely untrue: look at how many second bananas when taking out factors such as prime years (i.e. Pippen) had there best PER years w/o there star players. Again PER tries to measure efficiency but is not he be all and end all. In fact my first paragraph is explicitly part of the second argument. Since passing is only poorly reflected by assists it makes sense then that a player with better teammates (who take away rebounds and the like) doesn't have his contribution in terms of playmaking accurately stated. Note that NO PG has ever had a PER above 28 while every other position I've seen has had at least two players


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## duncan2k5 (Feb 27, 2005)

beamer05 said:


> OK, you are not in the NBA nor am I.. no one posting on this site has ever been in the NBA [I don't think, I haven't been posting here that long]. Now, what makes you think that YOU, me or anyone else is really qualified to determine what exactly good or bad basketball IQ really is? Sure, you may watch a lot of basketball games, as do I, but that doesn't mean you know what the perfect player or basketball IQ is. Why don't you go ahead and explain to me, in detail if you wish, what good basketball IQ is. Because you don't know exactly what it is- you've never played at that level. So when someone looks dumb to you out there while you're sitting on your couch does that really mean they have bad basketball IQ? So, what other players that are good have bad basketball IQ? You said you could name many, so go ahead. I don't think you even know what IQ stands for although you will probably google it or something to find out... and stop riding Shaq's nuts so much, I'm quite sure that you absolutely hated him when he was in L.A. considering you hate the Lakers so bad. So don't use him like that. What must drive you crazy is that despite everything- Kobe, bad bball IQ, the Lakers whole team, your team losing to the Lakers- the Lakers have the exact same amount of titles as the Spurs do in the last 8 years, or that Shaq has one more than your boy Duncan [don't even talk about Shaq riding D. Wade to that title because, according to you when Shaq gets the ball in the finals they win.. well he didn't get the ball too much in the past finals]. You just can't accept the fact that the ****ing Spurs aren't the greatest thing ever in basketball, or that you don't know everything about basketball.


but you claim i dont know what good/bad BB IQ is, so i cant comment on it...YOU DONT EITHER...yet you claimes kobe has high basketball IQ before i even said anything about it. so your post is very contradictory. good players with bad bbIQ?

the knicks
kobe
gilbert arenas

i dont care if shaq has one more than duncan. i like shaq. and yes he rode dwade because wade is better than him now. when shaq was in his prime, and you gave him teh ball in teh finals he scored. no the psurs arent the greatest thing ever in basketball. and no i dont know everyhting about basketball


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## Unique (Apr 13, 2005)

Kobe sure gets you guys going =/


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## JT (Mar 1, 2004)

> Take Bird for example, arguably the smartest player of all time. One of the greatest aspects of his game was knowing when and when not to handle the ball and in what situations he did or did not want to disrupt the flow of someone else's game. I didn't realize this until years later, but he did little things like that; fed the hot hand, rotated the ball around the perimeter because he had _total_ confidence in his teammates (and it showed) that they'd get him the ball back when it mattered; bit it to shoot or pass the rock.


This is one of the best posts I've read in quite awhile. Fascinating viewpoint that I've held for some time now. Isn't it amazing that as your basketball knowledge goes up, so does your appreciation of these players and their skills? For instance, on one level of the game you could hate a player on face value alone. But as your IQ goes up...you begin to notice what he is really doing out there...and suddenly the hate is gone. WIth the Larry Bird thing, a layman could easily see him passing from time to time, and shooting from time to time, and thats it! But the details...these are the things that make the game.


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## King Sancho Fantastic (Jul 19, 2005)

sherako said:


> This is one of the best posts I've read in quite awhile. Fascinating viewpoint that I've held for some time now. Isn't it amazing that as your basketball knowledge goes up, so does your appreciation of these players and their skills? For instance, on one level of the game you could hate a player on face value alone. But as your IQ goes up...you begin to notice what he is really doing out there...and suddenly the hate is gone. WIth the Larry Bird thing, a layman could easily see him passing from time to time, and shooting from time to time, and thats it! But the details...these are the things that make the game.


well stated. Repped.


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## beamer05 (Feb 24, 2006)

duncan2k5 said:


> but you claim i dont know what good/bad BB IQ is, so i cant comment on it...*YOU DONT EITHER...yet you claimes kobe has high basketball IQ before i even said anything about it.* so your post is very contradictory. good players with bad bbIQ?
> 
> the knicks
> kobe
> ...



You mentioned that Kobe had bad basketball IQ a couple pages back and I called you on it.. what I said was that he does because he has helped lead three teams to championships. Shaq was the most important pieces to those championships, yes, but Kobe was the leader and floor general. So, how can one have low basketball IQ when he was won as much as Kobe has- while being a very important factor. So my posts aren't contradictory in that I didn't claim to know NBA players who have bad IQ. You are the one who claimed to know that type of thing, and have yet to even back it up with any real 'proof.' You still haven't even told me what IQ stands for or what a smart basketball player is, since you claim to know which players are and aren't smart. It just so happens the one player you hate the most supposedly has low IQ, what a coincidence.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Hakeem said:


> Is that all there is to PER, though? I mean, I've compared the stats of players of different eras before by looking at different components, like pts per 40, RbR, ToR, AsR, TS%, etc., and come away not understanding how one could have a higher PER than the other. So I assumed that there's more to the formula.


Because your not considering *proportion* of player stats with team stats. Bird scored like 30 of his teams 115, Dirk scored like 26 of his teams 100ppg (not a real example, but something like this). Also you have to consider *League Offensive Rating* as a function of these stats.


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

Nikos said:


> Because your not considering *proportion* of player stats with team stats. Bird scored like 30 of his teams 115, Dirk scored like 26 of his teams 100ppg (not a real example, but something like this).


I didn't know that was relevant.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

> Pioneer10 said:
> 
> 
> > Who said anything about a quality of assist? I said assists don't accurately reflect the effect of passing ability on two different things. For example, how many times does a player makes a great pass and gets no credit for it because the player gets fouled? Those points were directly caused by the pass but aren't reflected statiscally. I just don't find much evidence at all that our present statistics account well for passing, so a player whose game revolves around passing more then another won't have that impact accurately represented.
> ...


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Hakeem said:


> I didn't know that was relevant.


PER is inherently a derivative stat, not just an efficiency + raw production stat.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Nikos said:


> > As long as you apply this to all players then I agree. But I am going with the value of an assist that PER uses for now. The pass that leads to FT's could apply to many other players/guards as well. It could even be highly proportional to APG, who knows? Not really fair to assume Magic and Bird did it more than the average player who gets similiar APG totals today (not saying you assume this neccesarily, but others might).
> >
> > Again, this is something to consider, and I wish it were tracked along with hockey assists. But even with this in mind I still think elite BIGS are more valuable than Magic or Bird.
> 
> ...


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

Nikos said:


> PER is inherently a derivative stat, not just an efficiency + raw production stat.


So players are directly penalized for having teammates who score a lot?


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Hakeem said:


> So players are directly penalized for having teammates who score a lot?


No, the players who carry the load for their teams are credited.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> The problem is the PER formula uses only assists and adds it. It doesn't matter if points of FT's from assists is proportional and highly correlated (which I suspect it is): it's simply not added to the formula and is lost. I'm not assuming anything with Bird for example: his assist ratio is a ridiculously *double *that of Dirk and his other stats are strikingly similar but his best PER season ever is a whole 1-2 points lower.


Your right, he was a much better passer than Dirk. This we already know -- everyone does actually. But Bird wasn't really the better scorer in his era according to PER. Dirk was more efficient and productive in his era over the course of an 82 games season. 



> You believe BIGS are more valuable then Bird or Magic but I don't think there is much evidence to back it up although it's a bit of a group think in terms of the NBA. If you look through past NBA champions you need both in general an elite big and elite perimeter player. The instances where there was only a dominant big appears to be matched by the time a team with only a dominant perimeter player won. The only thing in favor of the BIG is that there are only two spots to get that dominant player (C and PF) versus 3 (SG,SF, PG) for the perimeter


I don't really look at this way in terms of position needs etc.... I just think that big men like Drob, Shaq and Hakeem are a little more valuable to teams. I am not really sure by how much, but right now I think they all were slightly superior players. 



> The first option increase in PER (taking away age effects) is surprisingly robust.


We really don't know either way. Tough to tell exactly. I tend to see more posters thinking that second stars PERs would dip a little bit with more responsbility. It sort of makes sense, but that could just be a bias towards that particular player, depending on the poster.



> How is it reasonably proportional from position to position? You have certain positions (i.e. PG or those players given that responsibility) whose prime responsibility is to pass and to do it well. For example rebound rate is a good stat IMO but rebound rate is clearly more important to certain positions. If it was inaccurate, it would be less relevant to guards in that case as well. Assists are not an accurate measure of passing and applies to all players whose games rely upon it. It applies for example to John Stockton and Nash as well for example. Just becuase Magic and Bird put up high PER doesn't mean that they wouldn't be higher as well. Again look at Bird: his numbers are on par in terms TS%,RbR and dominants assist ratio yet still has lower PER. Doesn't make a lot of sense.


I wasn't clear with my last post. When I said proportional position to position -- I mean that when you compare players at the same position I am willing to bet that their FT assists/FG Assists were probably proportional. At least as far as comparing outside players with outside players -- and inside players vs inside players. Maybe it even applies overall. But even that is a big deal because if these type of assists happen a lot, then the assist is undervalued -- and even moreso in regards to your argument if certain players like Bird or Magic havea higher proportion of FT assists then the average player. Your opinion has merit for sure, and I have thought about it myself before this thread. But right now I still stand by my opinion, that FT assists/FG assists are proportional, and don't really happen often enough to make a HUGE difference when considering a derivative stat like PER. 

As far as Bird having the lower PER, what are you trying to say? That PER doesn't mean much because it invalidates the generally high opinion about Bird? Because 'you just know that Bird is head and shoulders above Dirk..." He doesn't have a much higher PER than Dirk because he wasn't as good of a scorer in his respective era. Dirk was better and more efficient in that facet of the game, in his own time. Dirk playing poorly in the finals and not being near Birds career value yet shouldn't even really matter. For one season Dirk was comparable to Larry Bird in his peak.

Personally I would take Bird because of his versatility (passing and help defense intangibles) but I think they are of a similiar tier and value in their peak seasons. I am not ready to say Larry Bird was head and shoulders better than Dirk. Bird was better, but I think he was because he was simply more versatile. And I am not neccesarily of the opinion that if you replaced Dirk with Bird that they would have beaten Miami.


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

Nikos said:


> No, the players who carry the load for their teams are credited.


So if the Mavs had scored 10 ppg more last season with no change in pace or in Dirk's numbers, his PER would have been lower?


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Nikos said:


> Your right, he was a much better passer than Dirk. This we already know -- everyone does actually. But Bird wasn't really the better scorer in his era according to PER. Dirk was more efficient and productive in his era over the course of an 82 games season.


How was Dirk more efficient and productive? There TS% is essentially the same and Bird's is higher taking away the years after his back injury?




> I don't really look at this way in terms of position needs etc.... I just think that big men like Drob, Shaq and Hakeem are a little more valuable to teams. I am not really sure by how much, but right now I think they all were slightly superior players.


Pure opinion. 




> We really don't know either way. Tough to tell exactly. I tend to see more posters thinking that second stars PERs would dip a little bit with more responsbility. It sort of makes sense, but that could just be a bias towards that particular player, depending on the poster.


Pippen's number increased without Jordan. Dirk's increaased w/o Nash. Look at VC's numbers when RJ goes down. I ran through this with Hakeem once. I was able to find far more players whose numbers increased when they got more responisbility. Teammate quality definitely affects PER




> I wasn't clear with my last post. When I said proportional position to position -- I mean that when you compare players at the same position I am willing to bet that their FT assists/FG Assists were probably proportional. At least as far as comparing outside players with outside players -- and inside players vs inside players. Maybe it even applies overall. But even that is a big deal because if these type of assists happen a lot, then the assist is undervalued -- and even moreso in regards to your argument if certain players like Bird or Magic havea higher proportion of FT assists then the average player. Your opinion has merit for sure, and I have thought about it myself before this thread. But right now I still stand by my opinion, that FT assists/FG assists are proportional, and don't really happen often enough to make a HUGE difference when considering a derivative stat like PER.


It's not just FT assists. It's assist that leads to 3 pointer that another point not taken into account. In addition the pass before the pass is often just as important in many cases. Or the fact a guy like Zydrunas will screw Lebron about 2-3 assists a game because he'll bungle the initial shot but be set up well enough that he will have a tap in. Assists simply suck as a stat. Again the PER formula doesn't even credit one assist as 2 points w/o the above consideration.



> As far as Bird having the lower PER, what are you trying to say? That PER doesn't mean much because it invalidates the generally high opinion about Bird? Because 'you just know that Bird is head and shoulders above Dirk..." He doesn't have a much higher PER than Dirk because he wasn't as good of a scorer in his respective era. Dirk was better and more efficient in that facet of the game, in his own time. Dirk playing poorly in the finals and not being near Birds career value yet shouldn't even really matter. For one season Dirk was comparable to Larry Bird in his peak.



Personally I would take Bird because of his versatility (passing and help defense intangibles) but I think they are of a similiar tier and value in their peak seasons. I am not ready to say Larry Bird was head and shoulders better than Dirk. Bird was better, but I think he was because he was simply more versatile. And I am not neccesarily of the opinion that if you replaced Dirk with Bird that they would have beaten Miami.[/QUOTE]

What does Dirk playing in the Finals have anything with what I said? You're adding a straw man here. You keep on throwing out that Dirk is more efficient at scoring when TS% which is the best and pure measure of scoring efficiency doesn't say so. There rebound rate is also equal. I just see this as a case where PER seems to be telling a picture which doesn't make sense. Bird was a far better playmaker and it's not shown at all. Dirk by PER had a better season then ANY season Bird had


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## Cap (Nov 5, 2003)

Nikos said:


> > I consider Hakeem Olajuwon, Ewing, David Robinson as the anchors of their defense. Their shot blocking and even their steals reflect their ability to alter shots. And considering big men tend to influence the most shots and the majority of a teams defensive rebounding they clearly can be anchors for a team defense. That to me gives value not completely reflected in PER even more so than assists might be. But then again that is my opinion, much like you have your own opinion. My opinion in this case is that Hakeem and Drob in their primes were slightly undervalued by PER because they were their teams respective defensive AND offensive anchors. You can have a successful offense and defense with them as your anchor. I personally think they have an edge on prime Bird and Magic. Probably not huge, but at least a slight edge because of their defense.
> 
> 
> It depends what you value more; elite defense or elite playmaking skills. Hard to choose when no one has been able to replicate Magic's playmaking, but quite a few centers have been able to replicate each other's defensive impact. But this is a subjective measurement to say the last.
> ...


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

EHL said:


> Nikos said:
> 
> 
> > I don't really think 43 wins and a first round exit is really even close to a 58 win season and 3 wins short of a title. It's not like great players magically turn a 10 win team into a 60 win team. No player has ever done that by themselves.
> ...


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## Hakeem (Aug 12, 2004)

Pioneer10 said:


> Pippen's number increased without Jordan. Dirk's increaased w/o Nash. Look at VC's numbers when RJ goes down. I ran through this with Hakeem once. I was able to find far more players whose numbers increased when they got more responisbility. Teammate quality definitely affects PER


Just to clarify (in case it needs clarification) -- my point then was that a first option who remains the clear-cut first option when his supporting cast improves will probably see a rise in PER, assuming he is the exact player he was before. Not so sure with perimeter players. But very likely the case with big men. IMO.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Hakeem said:


> So if the Mavs had scored 10 ppg more last season with no change in pace or in Dirk's numbers, his PER would have been lower?


Exactly. The less Dirk scores relative to his team (pace/mpg held constant) the smaller the PER.


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

dirk was 27th in ts% last year. bird was 14th in '88. dirk wasn't more efficient for his era. pace adjusted their scoring is almost identical. 

and here's what hakeem's getting at - to the extent you could argue that bird helps his teammates score at a better clip, it actually hurts him from a PER standpoint. it actually offsets somewhat his assist rate.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

> Pure opinion.


Exactly. We both have our own opinions. As *EHL* said, different value systems. I tend to value the big men who does it elite on both ends over an elite playmaker who quite possibly could be underrated by PER in terms of playmaking value and ability. 





> Pippen's number increased without Jordan. Dirk's increaased w/o Nash. Look at VC's numbers when RJ goes down. I ran through this with Hakeem once. I was able to find far more players whose numbers increased when they got more responisbility. Teammate quality definitely affects PER.


Right, but different players have different skill curves. Some players can handle the extra possessions/Usage Rate, some can't. Do you think Josh Howard, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion could improve offensively without Dirk, Duncan, and Nash? I know Marions PER was similiar in years past but he did play with Marbury and Jason Kidd who helped him offensively. Would you say they might improve their PER without their superstar teamattes? Its a difficult question to answer until you actually see it happen. Several people thought the Bulls would fare much worse without MJ, but Pippen and Grant played better without him for that one season. It can go both ways for players. Some get better, some might stay the same, some get worse. 






> It's not just FT assists. It's assist that leads to 3 pointer that another point not taken into account. In addition the pass before the pass is often just as important in many cases. Or the fact a guy like Zydrunas will screw Lebron about 2-3 assists a game because he'll bungle the initial shot but be set up well enough that he will have a tap in. Assists simply suck as a stat. Again the PER formula doesn't even credit one assist as 2 points w/o the above consideration.


I agree with this, and I like to check these stats on 82 games.com a lot for curiosity. But the assist that leads to the three happen for all playmakers is what I am saying. Assists may not be accurate, but why isn't this taken into consideration when comparing other players not including Magic? Why are you assuming Magic is severely undervalued in PER and not any other guard today? Why is Bird really a better playmaker then Dwayne Wade? I know you didn't even argue this point -- but like I said before I just get the sense that many make these kind of arguments for only players like Magic and Bird -- and less so for the guards of today who they might not be fans of. 

Bottom line, assists are tough to value -- but that doesn't mean that only elite passers get the shaft. All guards and good passers probably do in general as well. 




> What does Dirk playing in the Finals have anything with what I said? You're adding a straw man here. You keep on throwing out that Dirk is more efficient at scoring when TS% which is the best and pure measure of scoring efficiency doesn't say so. There rebound rate is also equal. I just see this as a case where PER seems to be telling a picture which doesn't make sense. Bird was a far better playmaker and it's not shown at all. Dirk by PER had a better season then ANY season Bird had.


Wasn't trying to add a straw man. Someone mentioned earlier if you replace Dirk with Bird they would easily win the title. So I stated my disagreement on that opinion. It just seems that people automatically would give Bird the benefit of the doubt even if his stats were inferior. 

In this case Bird and Dirk are about equal in the eyes of PER. This is because Dirk was the superior scorer if you factor PACE, Efficiency relative to the league, production within the team. PER is a derivative stat. Meaning you have to factor that Bird's teams were scoring near 114ppg, and Dirks were scoring 99ppg. Dirk is the better scorer because he was more efficient relative to his team and league in his specific playing season. For example in Birds prime year the league offensive rating was 108, the NBA in 2006 the offensive rating was 106.2 -- that also factors into the equation. That small difference, plus the fact that Dirk scored a greater percentage of his teams points means he was the better scorer. PER in this case is not wrong because it invalidates your opinion that Bird was a least equal scorer to Dirk. You have some valid points about the value of assists -- but your not understanding why their PER's are relatively close despite Birds vast superiority in passing. Dirk was also less turnover prone. Those small things add up in the PER equation. You might not agree with it, but I am just pointing out why their PER is basically identical in their primes. Undervaluing Bird's assists could be a huge reason his PER is lower than Dirk's. And that idea has merit -- but you would have to prove that assists are much more valuable then PER claims they are. 

Another *potential weakness* in the value of assists is that PER gives credit to a player who has a nice ratio of APG/ Team APG. So naturally Bird gets less credit over Dirk in assists as far as PER goes because Bird's team was full of excellent passers like DJ and Ainge who racked up tons of assists. Bird got 20% of his team assists, Dirk got 17%. 

Sounds unfair because Dirk's team ran a lot of ISO and wasn't a good passing team. But in this case fairly or unfairly Dirk gets credit for being able to score and be a good passer on a team that is elite offensively. It means Dirk shouldered a lot more of the team offensive load then meets the eye. I am not saying I agree with it but it is what it is. Just trying to explain why their PER is very close.


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

pace adjusted their scoring was almost the same.

bird's relative rank in ts% was higher than dirk's, even adjusting for expansion.

their rebound rates were about the same (although bird's coming primarily from the 3 place his rebound rate as being more valuable)

bird was a better passer, by alot.

defensively, at least for bird by '88, close (bird early in his career was significantly better than dirk).

it all adds up to bird being the better player. pretty obviously, imo. no disrespect to the dirkster.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Nikos said:


> Exactly. We both have our own opinions. As *EHL* said, different value systems. I tend to value the big men who does it elite on both ends over an elite playmaker who quite possibly could be underrated by PER in terms of playmaking value and ability.


And this still has nothing to do with the +/-'s of PER



> Right, but different players have different skill curves. Some players can handle the extra possessions/Usage Rate, some can't. Do you think Josh Howard, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion could improve offensively without Dirk, Duncan, and Nash? I know Marions PER was similiar in years past but he did play with Marbury and Jason Kidd who helped him offensively. Would you say they might improve their PER without their superstar teamattes? Its a difficult question to answer until you actually see it happen. Several people thought the Bulls would fare much worse without MJ, but Pippen and Grant played better without him for that one season. It can go both ways for players. Some get better, some might stay the same, some get worse.


Like I said some people who smoke live till there 80 w/o lung disease and cancer and has nothing to do with happens to the majority of smoker. In general, PER goes down with better teammates. In fact it is inherent in you're argument that PER is a derivative stat: better teammates the less certain players are given credit for playmaking as I pointed already







> I agree with this, and I like to check these stats on 82 games.com a lot for curiosity. But the assist that leads to the three happen for all playmakers is what I am saying. Assists may not be accurate, but why isn't this taken into consideration when comparing other players not including Magic? Why are you assuming Magic is severely undervalued in PER and not any other guard today? Why is Bird really a better playmaker then Dwayne Wade? I know you didn't even argue this point -- but like I said before I just get the sense that many make these kind of arguments for only players like Magic and Bird -- and less so for the guards of today who they might not be fans of.
> 
> Bottom line, assists are tough to value -- but that doesn't mean that only elite passers get the shaft. All guards and good passers probably do in general as well.


I'm not sure what you're arguing is here as I've already said this applies to all players whose numbers in terms of stats depend on passing/playmaking. It also DOES mean they get a shaft IF they depend on playmaking. Since you have an overall statistic that purports to judge by adding positive and negatives on a per possesion basis and you have one that does a poor job you can't compare head to head.

Say you have player A who scores 30 points efficiently but hypothetically gets no assists (say M. Redd) then you have player B who scores 15 points efficiently and dishes out 7 assists while not turning it over more then player A (say John Stockton). Player A will be considered more valuable because those 7 assists don't take inot FT's after assists (And1's, stratight FT's), 3 pointers off assists, etc. The more assists are important to that player the bigger statiscal inaccuracy from a quantitive measure there will be. That's why Bird and Magic are included because there assist numbers are huge





> Wasn't trying to add a straw man. Someone mentioned earlier if you replace Dirk with Bird they would easily win the title. So I stated my disagreement on that opinion. It just seems that people automatically would give Bird the benefit of the doubt even if his *stats were inferior*.


The best individuals stats which really accurately affect what there supposed to are rebound rate and TS%. In both Bird is not inferior.



> In this case Bird and Dirk are about equal in the eyes of PER.


No, by PER Dirk had a BETTER season then any Bird had.



> This is because Dirk was the superior scorer if you factor PACE, Efficiency relative to the league, production within the team. PER is a derivative stat. Meaning you have to factor that Bird's teams were scoring near 114ppg, and Dirks were scoring 99ppg. Dirk is the better scorer because he was more efficient relative to his team and league in his specific playing season. For example in Birds prime year the league offensive rating was 108, the NBA in 2006 the offensive rating was 106.2 -- that also factors into the equation. That small difference, plus the fact that Dirk scored a greater percentage of his teams points means he was the better scorer. PER in this case is not wrong because it invalidates your opinion that Bird was a least equal scorer to Dirk. You have some valid points about the value of assists -- but your not understanding why their PER's are relatively close despite Birds vast superiority in passing. Dirk was also less turnover prone. Those small things add up in the PER equation. You might not agree with it, but I am just pointing out why their PER is basically identical in their primes. Undervaluing Bird's assists could be a huge reason his PER is lower than Dirk's. And that idea has merit -- but you would have to prove that assists are much more valuable then PER claims they are.


I've already shown that assists don't take into account points. PER considers a Tor of 2 higher more valuable then an assist ration that is DOUBLE that of Dirk. It's a flaw of PER

see kflo's post for more of the stats. Even when pace adjusted it seems PER simply is wrong in overvaluing Dirk



> Another *potential weakness* in the value of assists is that PER gives credit to a player who has a nice ratio of APG/ Team APG. So naturally Bird gets less credit over Dirk in assists as far as PER goes because Bird's team was full of excellent passers like DJ and Ainge who racked up tons of assists. Bird got 20% of his team assists, Dirk got 17%.


So good teammates result in player's PER going down and it failes to measure the impact of that player accurately. We would then be forced to go to a win share argument.



> Sounds unfair because Dirk's team ran a lot of ISO and wasn't a good passing team. But in this case fairly or unfairly Dirk gets credit for being able to score and be a good passer on a team that is elite offensively. It means Dirk shouldered a lot more of the team offensive load then meets the eye. I am not saying I agree with it but it is what it is. Just trying to explain why their PER is very close.



PER is simply wrong in this case and shows why no one statistic (at least yet available) can be always accurate. This is coming from a person who likes PER and does consider it the best individual metric to efficiently look at when comparing player to player. However it does have big holes.


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> In general, PER goes down with better teammates.


Why?






> No, by PER Dirk had a BETTER season then any Bird had.


Their prime seasons are basically the same as far as PER goes, at least they are very close. 




> I've already shown that assists don't take into account points. PER considers a Tor of 2 higher more valuable then an assist ration that is DOUBLE that of Dirk. It's a flaw of PER


Are you sure it is a flaw? PER shows that Dirk's offense is slightly more productive than Larry Bird's was. The Turnover Ratio isn't the whole deal -- as I said Dirk had 17% of the teams assisted baskets. Larry had about 21% of his teams assisted baskets. Dirk was a slightly superior scorer in his respective era. If you account for league Offensive Rating, then Dirk gets another slight edge. So in reality Dirk has a slight offensive edge, despite Bird have a noticable passing edge. 

PER just shows that Bird's passing as a function of his offensive production was inflated relative to Dirk's because he played on a team that had elite passing. Therefore Bird wasn't exactly the only great passer on the team (Ainge and DJ were also way above average). In a way it sort of makes sense if you look at assists as being part of a players *offensive production*, and not only as an entity by itself. It makes sense to take into account player over team production. If your teamattes generate a high amount of assists, you aren't as offensively as dominant as your stats might look in comparison to players of today who play in slower systems.

Bird is easily the better passer, and Dirk is the superior Offensive player in his own era, on his own particular team. But the edge so is slight its tough to make a conclusive case for either easily being the better offensive player. Bird certainly was more versatile, but I am not so sure he was hands down a superior player in that specific year.



> see kflo's post for more of the stats. Even when pace adjusted it seems PER simply is wrong in overvaluing Dirk


Why is it wrong? Because it doesn't give Bird enough credit for his superiority in passing? 



> So good teammates result in player's PER going down and it failes to measure the impact of that player accurately. We would then be forced to go to a win share argument.


Win Share Per Minute / 82 Games is not too different from what PER is. Only downside is that it can overcredit players who gather defensive stats on an excellent defensive team, but the player is not really an excellent defensive player. Similiar with PER. But Win Share/MPG scaled to 82 games is not a bad stat actually. At least when comparing to PER. I bet they are highly correlated. 

Bird's passing as it relates to PER is not a huge of an edge as saying 6.1 - 2.8, because Dirk's team had like 60% of the assists as the Celtics of 1988 did. Teams today don't rack up as many assists -- granted the Celtics were one of the best passing teams of all time -- but still, it is a bit more difficult to rack up assists today considering there is more isolation and probably more attention to team defense. Either way, Dallas was not a good passing team -- yet Dirk was able to generate 2.8apg and be an elite scorer on a team that wasn't good at setting each other up for easy scores (at least in the passing/ball movement sense). Dirk was the anchor of a team that played a lot of ISO and Pick and Roll. 






> PER is simply wrong in this case and shows why no one statistic (at least yet available) can be always accurate. This is coming from a person who likes PER and does consider it the best individual metric to efficiently look at when comparing player to player. However it does have big holes.


I would say the biggest hole is defense. It doesn't give enough value to great defensive players most likely. as we discussed it may underrate passers or intagible kind of guys who might be better playmakers than PER gives credit for. But to me I think defense is the biggest hole.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Nikos said:


> Why?


Umm, you just said yourself that it measures how much a player contributes. Better teammates would conversely mean that a great player on a worse team would contribute more.




> Their prime seasons are basically the same as far as PER goes, at least they are very close.


How does that change the fact that Dirk's PER was 28.4 last year and the highest Bird EVER had was 27.8?





> Are you sure it is a flaw? PER shows that Dirk's offense is slightly more productive than Larry Bird's was. The Turnover Ratio isn't the whole deal -- as I said Dirk had 17% of the teams assisted baskets. Larry had about 21% of his teams assisted baskets. Dirk was a slightly superior scorer in his respective era. If you account for league Offensive Rating, then Dirk gets another slight edge. So in reality Dirk has a slight offensive edge, despite Bird have a noticable passing edge.


To be frank who care what % of there basket were assisted or that Dirk compare more favorably in his era to other players? It's about how much a player himself has an impact. You're making an assumption that assisted baskets somehow means that Dirk is some how a better scorer when it could simply mean that Bird was better at moving w/o the ball (From observation of both I would say that Bird did move better w/o the ball). Again by TS% they were both equal: it's the best stat available.



> PER just shows that Bird's passing as a function of his offensive production was inflated relative to Dirk's because he played on a team that had elite passing. Therefore Bird wasn't exactly the only great passer on the team (Ainge and DJ were also way above average). In a way it sort of makes sense if you look at assists as being part of a players *offensive production*, and not only as an entity by itself. It makes sense to take into account player over team production. If your teamattes generate a high amount of assists, you aren't as offensively as dominant as your stats might look in comparison to players of today who play in slower systems.
> 
> Bird is easily the better passer, and Dirk is the superior Offensive player in his own era, on his own particular team. But the edge so is slight its tough to make a conclusive case for either easily being the better offensive player. Bird certainly was more versatile, but I am not so sure he was hands down a superior player in that specific year.


You're basing on the percentage of how many points a player score for his own team: again Bird is negatively affected by having better teammates and being a better passer. 





> Why is it wrong? Because it doesn't give Bird enough credit for his superiority in passing?


Yep




> Win Share Per Minute / 82 Games is not too different from what PER is. Only downside is that it can overcredit players who gather defensive stats on an excellent defensive team, but the player is not really an excellent defensive player. Similiar with PER. But Win Share/MPG scaled to 82 games is not a bad stat actually. At least when comparing to PER. I bet they are highly correlated.
> 
> Bird's passing as it relates to PER is not a huge of an edge as saying 6.1 - 2.8, because Dirk's team had like 60% of the assists as the Celtics of 1988 did. Teams today don't rack up as many assists -- granted the Celtics were one of the best passing teams of all time -- but still, it is a bit more difficult to rack up assists today considering there is more isolation and probably more attention to team defense. Either way, Dallas was not a good passing team -- yet Dirk was able to generate 2.8apg and be an elite scorer on a team that wasn't good at setting each other up for easy scores (at least in the passing/ball movement sense). Dirk was the anchor of a team that played a lot of ISO and Pick and Roll.


Pick and Rolls give you plenty of oppurtunities to pass and iso's as well. You get doubled you pass the ball. I don't think you've made a strong case for being a better offensive player other then that on his own team he scored a greater percentage of points. Which to me doesn't mean a whole lot since both Dirk and Bird scored just as effiecently. In fact, the iso and pick and roll argument doesn't hold water when looking at another very good player with great vision: Lebron. Same type of offense and worse teammates then Dirk yet he racked up an assist ratio higher then Dirk. Just because he had 60% of his team's assist doesn't mean that his passing was equivalant to Bird or that Bird wouldn't do significantly better in getting other players involved



> I would say the biggest hole is defense. It doesn't give enough value to great defensive players most likely. as we discussed it may underrate passers or intagible kind of guys who might be better playmakers than PER gives credit for. But to me I think defense is the biggest hole.


Sure, but number 2 of any basketball statistic is passing


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## Nikos (Jun 5, 2002)

Pioneer10 said:


> Umm, you just said yourself that it measures how much a player contributes. Better teammates would conversely mean that a great player on a worse team would contribute more.


It does measure how a player contributes. I never said conclusively that better or worse teamattes will alter a players PER (all other things constant). My guess is that more players wouldn't be as efficient if the #1 option simply left the team. But there are certain players who can handle this situation and even improve.




> How does that change the fact that Dirk's PER was 28.4 last year and the highest Bird EVER had was 27.8?


All I am saying is that their prime PERs are extremely close that is all. I am not trying to change any facts or even argue what you said. I consider their PER's very close.







> To be frank who care what % of there basket were assisted or that Dirk compare more favorably in his era to other players? It's about how much a player himself has an impact. You're making an assumption that assisted baskets somehow means that Dirk is some how a better scorer when it could simply mean that Bird was better at moving w/o the ball (From observation of both I would say that Bird did move better w/o the ball). Again by TS% they were both equal: it's the best stat available.


Well if you simply don't care, there really is no argument. I merely am saying it makes sense that you proportion a players APG to team APG because assists from an individual usually indicate excellent offensive ability. Dallas as a team wasn't elite passing the ball, they were actually one of the lowest assist teams in the league. So Dirk's 2.8apg is more impressive than say if Bird got 3.0 apg in his own era, hypothetically speaking (and if the Celtics were still an elite passing team with Bird getting 3apg). 

TS% is an excellent stat, but your also ignoring that Dirk played in a league where the offensive rating was slightly lower. This and the team APG proportions are little things that add up in the PER equation. I understand you don't agree with them or care much about them. I am just telling you why Dirk's PER is as high as it is. True I may be defending's Dirk offensive value, but I am just trying to point out why the +3.1apg edge Bird has on Dirk is not as big as it looks due to team APG context.





> You're basing on the percentage of how many points a player score for his own team: again Bird is negatively affected by having better teammates and being a better passer.


If his teamattes can generate a high amount of assists, they are likely helping the teams offense. The Celtics of 88 were the best offensive team in their respective league. So were the Mavs despite not having many good passers or a good passing team at all. For Dirk to generate 2.8apg on a poor passing team that ran tons of ISOs and Pick and Rolls shows that Dirk is still passing well. True not as well as Bird, but not so much worse as the 6.1 vs 2.8 apg indicate. Again I am considering this from an offensive standpoint, not just passing. Dirk being able to score more efficiently and generate a good amount of assists on a team that doesn't generate many is a good thing. 

If the 88 Celtics are able to pass at a high level, that means Bird doesn't have to be the only playmaker. The team has one maybe two other excellent passers for their respective positions. Don't you think the offensive benefited from having a good passer, and sometimes great passer at every position even excluding Bird? Ainge was an awesome passer, DJ was good, Parish was good, McHale was good. With all of these good passers, you would think their offense would have been a lot better than the Mavericks of 06. Truth is they were better, but not by a lot. They were about 7 points per 100 possesions better than the average in 1988, the Mavs by contrast were about 6 points per possesions better than the average offensive team in 2006. Keep in mind these are BOTH by far elite offenses. Anything above 3 pp/100 is pretty much way above average for a team in a certain league. Check *Basketball-Reference.com* for these Offensive and Defensive Stats. (Of course injuries can affect these so don't take them completely seriously if there are any serious injuries to teams in a desired season.)

Bottom line is Bird isn't really being penalized. If he were to play today on an excellent passing team with modern day Pace his assists would likely be lower than 6apg. I could be wrong, but you can't really say that Bird gets discredited, because you could just as easily say Dirk gets discredited for having teamattes who aren't good passers and still is able to be an offensive anchor for an elite offensive team (the best in the league in 2006 actually).



> Pick and Rolls give you plenty of oppurtunities to pass and iso's as well. You get doubled you pass the ball. *I don't think you've made a strong case for being a better offensive player other then that on his own team he scored a greater percentage of points.* Which to me doesn't mean a whole lot since both Dirk and Bird scored just as effiecently. In fact, the iso and pick and roll argument doesn't hold water when looking at another very good player with great vision: Lebron. Same type of offense and worse teammates then Dirk yet he racked up an assist ratio higher then Dirk. Just because he had 60% of his team's assist doesn't mean that his passing was equivalant to Bird or that Bird wouldn't do significantly better in getting other players involved


So why are you basically dismissing it completely? Are assists helpful in getting wins? Then why didn't Birds identical scoring, passing, and excellent support help his team get more wins in many of his prime seasons? If Dirk can anchor an offensive heavy team to 60 wins without good passing, or other great playmakers, what does that say about him? Well it says nothing if you inherently beleive Bird is a way better player -- there really is no other argument other than saying the competetion in Bird's day was better. And since I don't really beleive in that neccesarily, we will always be in disagreement.

My guess is Bird would do a little worse than 6apg today in a great passing offense. How much? Who knows? He still is clearly a better passer then Dirk regardless. But not really a better offensive player (by much at least). If I had to guess I would say Bird would be doing today what Bron does IMO. He probably could generate a high amount of assists if he had less playmakers, but might be a weaker scorer? Just a guess. It all depends upon his teamattes and structure. I still think he would be as good as anyone in the last season (05-06) if we go by his prime.


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

bird's scoring and apg would arguably be higher today - he'd be a bigger part of the offense, and have the ball in his hands more. his relative league rank in scoring and apg and ts% were all higher than dirk's (and scoring pace adjusted was the same), and there's no reason to expect that that wouldn't be the case today. the disparity in passing was enormous - they were in completely different leagues - bird among the best passers EVER - at any position. dirk an average passer. dallas being a low apg team is in part because the ball goes through dirk alot, and he's not a great passer. to suggest it's a notch in his favor is dubious.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Nikos said:


> It does measure how a player contributes. I never said conclusively that better or worse teamattes will alter a players PER (all other things constant). My guess is that more players wouldn't be as efficient if the #1 option simply left the team. But there are certain players who can handle this situation and even improve.


You just said as a derivative PER it matter what percentage of a team's production a player produces. The better teammates means it is less likely then that a player will dominant that teams production. Particularly since we're not talking about mediocre players but HOF calibre players who are capable of increasing there production. We're not really talking about Dirk vs Adrian Griffin



> All I am saying is that their prime PERs are extremely close that is all. I am not trying to change any facts or even argue what you said. I consider their PER's very close.


By PER alone Dirk last year was better then Bird ever was. I don't agree with it




> Well if you simply don't care, there really is no argument. I merely am saying it makes sense that you proportion a players APG to team APG because assists from an individual usually indicate excellent offensive ability. Dallas as a team wasn't elite passing the ball, they were actually one of the lowest assist teams in the league. So Dirk's 2.8apg is more impressive than say if Bird got 3.0 apg in his own era, hypothetically speaking (and if the Celtics were still an elite passing team with Bird getting 3apg).
> 
> TS% is an excellent stat, but your also ignoring that Dirk played in a league where the offensive rating was slightly lower. This and the team APG proportions are little things that add up in the PER equation. I understand you don't agree with them or care much about them. I am just telling you why Dirk's PER is as high as it is. True I may be defending's Dirk offensive value, but I am just trying to point out why the +3.1apg edge Bird has on Dirk is not as big as it looks due to team APG context.


Again the point is assists are NOT a good guage and just an approximation and just because a player has a higher proportion of a poor stat doesn't mean thus it has higher impact. This whole paragraph doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you have a mediocre passer on a poor passing team then by PER he would be considered to have a greater impact then a player with great passer on a reasonably good passing team. The converse is that it's a bad assumption that the same mediocre passer would hold a similar percentage of assists when playing on a team of good passers. 




> If his teamattes can generate a high amount of assists, they are likely helping the teams offense. The Celtics of 88 were the best offensive team in their respective league. So were the Mavs despite not having many good passers or a good passing team at all. For Dirk to generate 2.8apg on a poor passing team that ran tons of ISOs and Pick and Rolls shows that Dirk is still passing well. True not as well as Bird, but not so much worse as the 6.1 vs 2.8 apg indicate. Again I am considering this from an offensive standpoint, not just passing. Dirk being able to score more efficiently and generate a good amount of assists on a team that doesn't generate many is a good thing.


TS% again, Dirk was *not *a more efficient scorer he just scored a greater percentage of his teams point. I'm looking at the various league and Boston/Dallas offensive ratings and the differences are neglible at best. kflo already pointed that in terms of TS% ranking they are the same as well



> If the 88 Celtics are able to pass at a high level, that means Bird doesn't have to be the only playmaker. The team has one maybe two other excellent passers for their respective positions. Don't you think the offensive benefited from having a good passer, and sometimes great passer at every position even excluding Bird? Ainge was an awesome passer, DJ was good, Parish was good, McHale was good. With all of these good passers, you would think their offense would have been a lot better than the Mavericks of 06. Truth is they were better, but not by a lot. They were about 7 points per 100 possesions better than the average in 1988, the Mavs by contrast were about 6 points per possesions better than the average offensive team in 2006. Keep in mind these are BOTH by far elite offenses. Anything above 3 pp/100 is pretty much way above average for a team in a certain league. Check *Basketball-Reference.com* for these Offensive and Defensive Stats. (Of course injuries can affect these so don't take them completely seriously if there are any serious injuries to teams in a desired season.)
> 
> Bottom line is Bird isn't really being penalized. If he were to play today on an excellent passing team with modern day Pace his assists would likely be lower than 6apg. I could be wrong, but you can't really say that Bird gets discredited, because you could just as easily say Dirk gets discredited for having teamattes who aren't good passers and still is able to be an offensive anchor for an elite offensive team (the best in the league in 2006 actually).


But the point is that Bird's team DID score more points then Dallas YET Bird's PER is reduced with him having the same TS% and rebound ratio? Hmm could it be that Bird's passing (along with his teammates) played a role in this that is not credited, particularly it was Bird who was the focal point of the offense. And Dirk can NOT get discredited because PER more places a huge emphasis on the percentage of teams points the individual scores. No one is making an argument that Dirk wasn't a great offensive player but the argument is that Bird's impact isn't. Particularly since according to PER he only had one season above 27. So for the majority of seasons per PER Dirk last year was not just equal to Bird but significanlty better then the majority of prime Bird years.




> So why are you basically dismissing it completely? Are assists helpful in getting wins? Then why didn't Birds identical scoring, passing, and excellent support help his team get more wins in many of his prime seasons? If Dirk can anchor an offensive heavy team to 60 wins without good passing, or other great playmakers, what does that say about him? Well it says nothing if you inherently beleive Bird is a way better player -- there really is no other argument other than saying the competetion in Bird's day was better. And since I don't really beleive in that neccesarily, we will always be in disagreement.


On the other hand Bird's team finished with above 60 wins 6 times (including twice with 63 and one with 67). His team did win more games and his team finished 1st in there conference 7 times (best league record overall 5 times). Last year Dallas finished second (third overall). Bird's team DID do better and for example on the 67 win team Bird had a measly PER of 25.7.



> My guess is Bird would do a little worse than 6apg today in a great passing offense. How much? Who knows? He still is clearly a better passer then Dirk regardless. But not really a better offensive player (by much at least). If I had to guess I would say Bird would be doing today what Bron does IMO. He probably could generate a high amount of assists if he had less playmakers, but might be a weaker scorer? Just a guess. It all depends upon his teamattes and structure. I still think he would be as good as anyone in the last season (05-06) if we go by his prime.


IMO put Bird on Dallas, Dallas would be a better team by at least a few wins. Same efficient scorer, same rebounder, better passer. I think it's best to agree to disagree at this time: to summarize you believe that Dirk's offensive efficiency and the fact his percentages of his varios teams outputs are high make him equal to that of Bird. I think when looking at individual stats Bird is as good as Dirk in scoring and rebounding and his passing separates him slightly but still significantly above Dirk despite Dirk's higher PER


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## kflo (Jun 28, 2002)

bird was the better rebounder. his reb rate was the same as dirks when he primarily played the 3. when he played more 4, his reb rate was higher. his reb rate dropped as mchale played more minutes.


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## dwade3 (Sep 12, 2005)

Kidd, just like steve kerr says in NBA Live 06, "hes made a lot of people in this league a lot of money, just by playing beside him" i mean come on, keith van horn, richard jefferson, kenyon martin......not superstars, but they all got superstar salaries becoz they just hit shots that kidd provided them....Vince Carter is gonna get a max contract this year playing alongside Kidd. Nenad Krstic is gonna get an upgraded contract....


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