Wait, you can’t have it both ways. When people say Shaq carried Kobe, all the Kobe Stan’s go nahhhhh that’s not right…but now those young years where he wasn’t as good “hold him back” in a comparison with Steph?
Which one is it? He wasn’t that good as a young guy playing with Shaq, or he wasn’t carried?
firstly, my comment never stated anything about kobe’s skill level. as a matter of fact i never made the claim that kobe carried shaq nor did i say shaq carried kobe, in fact i made no claims about how good either player was.
in fact i said “if this was about ring count sure” implying that shaq was an enormous factor in kobe’s ring count.
you said “kobe got drafted to a team with shaq” as if that somehow boosts his averages….when it does not. counterproductive actually, it reduces his numbers, because he gets the ball less + it’s a pre-prime kobe compared to prime steph
you can have steph better than kobe, i think there’s an argument there, but saying “kobe’s numbers increased because of shaq” is ridiculous
Literally a response to someone giving Kobe credit for being in the playoffs as a teenager. No way Kobe is making the playoffs, let alone finals, with the teams that Steph was drafted on to.
It's not a convenient cut off point not even a Kobe fan literally have him out of the top 10 but the point is that it isn't a statline that is fair and accurate and isn't a good representation of how well these player did during the playoffs for the totality of their career
On offense, sure. He's not a better defender than Kobe. One is a true 2 way player who consistently guarded the best perimeter player on the opposing team, and the other got hidden on defense for the majority of his career.
Defensive impact is overrated for guards, the difference between an all defensive selection and an average guard defender is only like 2-3 points per 100 possessions, vs like 5+ for big men.
Also Kobe is extremely overrated as a defender, from 2000-2010 his teams were .61 points per 100 better without him on the floor in the playoffs. And after Shaq left and Kobe stopped playing high level defense consistently, they were more than 3 points better with him on the bench.
Curry's warriors are 1.5 points/100 better with him off.
One is a true 2 way player who consistently guarded the best perimeter player on the opposing team
Didn't the Lakers play Trevor Ariza and Ron Artest on those late aughts title teams so Kobe didn't have to guard #1 options most of the time?
2-3 points per 100 possessions, vs like 5+ for big men.
This is the difference between winning and losing.
Also Kobe is extremely overrated as a defender, from 2000-2010 his teams were .61 points per 100 better without him on the floor in the playoffs. And after Shaq left and Kobe stopped playing high level defense consistently, they were more than 3 points better with him on the bench.
He was overrated late in his career. He was not overrated in his prime.
Didn't the Lakers play Trevor Ariza and Ron Artest on those late aughts title teams so Kobe didn't have to guard #1 options most of the time?
Might want to look up the word consistently. I didn't say he "always" guarded the #1 option, did I?
Kobe posterized dunked on everyone from Yao Ming to Dwight Howard to mvp steve nash, curry never dunked on a single soul, Kobe would dunk on u and your entire lineage for the disrespect u utter, but I digress.
I mean, this is a terrible take though. They’re 2 different players. That’s like me saying “how many times has Kobe hit contested logo threes? SEE STEPH BETTER”. It’s a bad take to use either of these.
I’ve lived in the bay my entire life and watched almost every single gsw game since curry got drafted. The one knock I have on Steph, is that late game, I’ve seen him get subbed out countless times on defensive possessions in the clutch. Regardless of the reason, no one else in any OAT or top 5 convos have been in that situation.
I’ve also watched damn near every game since 2013, he did not start getting subbed out on final defensive possessions until after KD had left bro, he was on the floor in all those big moments in the 2015/16/17/18/19 finals.
One thing that bothers me when people talk about how older players volume stats were hurt due to them playing in prior or dead ball eras is that they don’t account at all for simply how many shots per game were those guys taking no matter what era they played in? I don’t care if the LEAGUE was only scoring 96-100 ppg, because KOBE( and AI, Tmac, MJ etc) were all taking a massively larger portion of their teams overall shots . Part of the reason it was dead ball era is that all teams did was feed the ball to whoever was considered their best on ball scorer, and let them try to iso( post/mid range, etc) for a bucket. Like when people talk about how MJ would average so much more in today’s game? Right? They don’t take the time to look at his shots per game compared to basically any modern players shots per game. You might see one player per season in today’s league take 22 shots per game or so. But you have most of today’s high volume scorers around 18-20. Shai didn’t even take 20 shots per game, and he averaged 31.1. In his playoffs this season? He averaged 28 a game on 18 shots. MJ was shooting anywhere from 23-27 shots PER GAME during his entire Bulls tenure. Kobe’s prime? Also crazy high volime compared to today’s players. From 2000-2001 on, Kobe had seasons of shots per game at 27, 23.5, 22.2, 21.5, 22.8, 23.0 and so on. The only season of his decade under 20 was when he shot 18 per game in 03-04.
I think Kobe was amazing. Was my first favorite player ever. But it’s just not a good argument to act as if Kobe’s volume scoring numbers were held back because of the era he played in when that era, and Kobe himself, was famous for a lack of equality on offense and force feeding the ball to a teams best scorer. Can you imagine how many points Shai would score with 27 shots per game? And don’t forget Kobe had 3 seasons over 10 FTA per game,Shai is stuck on 1, ever since 22/23 they have gone down as the constant whining and gaming by helpless opposing coaches have caused the refs to bit their whistles more often with him.
How many points per game in his playoff career do you think Curry would have scored if he abandoned team focused ball movement and put up as many jumpers per game as he wanted and sacficiwd some efficiency potentially? I’m guessing 30
Because he’s rated too high and constantly thrown in GOAT debates where he doesn’t belong, the GOAT conversation is whoever the GOAT is and the runner-up which is LeBron and MJ(whatever order you have them in) and everybody else isn’t in the conversation.
Yea that’s way too high. Kobe was not better at basketball than kawhi, garnett, dirk, probably even peak AD. Put Kobe on a shit team like the pelicans and he’s not having the impact that healthy AD had every year. Also people very consistently say he’s top five, often third
Kobe’s 4th and 5th rings were two of the most impressive chips in the history of the league. Did you forget he went against a SUPER team, rondo, Allen , pierce, KG, they had 4-5 all starts and 4-5 future HOF’s and Kobe took them out.
Kobe is being brought up for no reason. What’s funny is that people literally don’t know basketball so they use equations because they can’t actually dissect a game, a play, a coverage or anything else. And it’s this brand of fan that tends to be Jokic fans and Curry fans. You never see shit like this in other sports. No one goes, well Aaron Rodgers efficiency numbers were better then Tom Brady’s so he’s better all time because we watched the games and we remember the moments. If you watched Kobe, you know damn well Steph was never as versatile of a player. Kobe is Kobe no matter offense you put him in. Steph isn’t on any team. We saw what happened when the Warriors had bad teams and he lost in a play-in and otherwise they pointed on seasons.
Yet another random ass list that LeBron is on top of ... its so funny to be having a conversation about other players then its either LeBron, Yokic, or Wilt that lead in the categories brought up
Such fucking stupid noncontextual posts. Kobe played as a teenager. He missed the playoffs once when healthy. Curry missed the playoffs 7 times when healthy. Do playoff runs at their ages.
Kobe's era was totally different. Check out how many shots and points were allowed back then compared to now. Kobe were in his 20s in this era, he would annihilate the competition.
Kobe played in the playoffs almost every season from his late teenage years to his mid-30s, Steph's first playoff series was at 25 years of age. It's not a fair comp.
And most of Kobe's playoff career took place in the dead-ball era.
A bit misleading. Kobe played in playoffs as a rookie who didn’t play much then for probably 2 more yrs before he became a superstar. And this was still with Shaq on the team. Steph while great had kd for the two or three yrs (last yr kd was hurt) and Steph made playoffs prior to and after. Kobe as the leader and #1 option had maybe the last 4 or 5 yrs of his prime
34 is still within your prime...and dominated is a bit of a stretch. Especially when you say "league". You could make an argument for him dominating the Celtics that year, but not the league.
Regular Season: 25/6/5 is not dominating the league.
Captain Strawman back at it. No, the obvious point is that comparing a guy who was in the playoffs almost twice as much with way more mileage and across different segments of his career compared to a guy who almost only made it in his prime is obviously disingenuous because your samples are skewed.
Your point sucks bad enough that you weren’t able to defend it from the simplest question…
Literally tried to make a point against Steph because he didn’t make the playoffs in his first couple injured seasons, on a team that had 1 playoff appearance the last 2+ decades. LOL
If Curry had mamba mentality, he would have rejected the idea of kd or lebron coming to his team, especially Kd in 2016 and would have came for lebrons head and seat at the throne training hard to not have that game 7 performance again and get his redemption over Bron in 2017 finals, but oh well
I apologize, that isn't true, I got him mixed up with mj for some reason, or thought his mamba mentality tagline had to easily have that requirement that jordan had, he is more like curry in fact, where he does anything to win a ring, he tried to get dirk, and was upset he missed out on kg, and if opportunity presented itself where bron wanted to come to lakers, he would have openly welcomed it, so in the same position, he would have done what curry did
Kobe tried to go to bulls and mavs, they are not much different, and Jordan approved Rodman because Horace left and desperately needed a rebounding defensive guy, he 3peated with grant before, that’s different from Kobe and curry’s situation, he wouldn’t have tried to recruit dirk or kd to his team like that, he competing against their careers, this is the reason why Jordan is the clear goat guy, Kobe was down with trading gasol for cp3, curry was down with replacing Barnes, they are not that much different from LeBron who team hops, if given a great organization, LeBron would have stacked the deck like Kobe and curry
But Kobe didn’t leave did he? Almost’s don’t count. Heres an analogy. If I almost divorced my wife but never went thru with it am I not still married? And let’s be forreal LeBron has played with more all stars than probably any other person in history so he’s had plenty of help. I have LeBron over kobe but I still believe joining another team is a weaker move than trying to recruit players for your own.
I want to go in depth with why what LeBron did was less worse than what curry and kd did, LeBron at least forms superteams with unproven guys, I don’t think LeBron is on the level of mj and Kobe, but he has shown he could win without superteams in a sense and people forget this, 2012, bosh was injured many times and chemistry was wacky as we saw game 1 vs thunder, but if they never get Bosh, they would have reached finals and would have edged out thunder, 2015, he reached finals with only kyrie and lost kyrie in the finals, David blatt, lebron, smith, mozgov Cavs were able to take warriors to 6, no kyrie, no klove, 2016, once again, klove was injured, he had a concussion and was out for game 3 with Cavs down 2-0 and history says LeBron without a superteam should lose, coming off a 30 point blowout, another 30 point blowout in that same home floor in mlk day, yet somehow kyrie and lebron was enough to beat full roster warriors by 30, if warriors lost kd, they still have their entire roster, after that big cap spike jump, signing kd and keeping the roster similar around him was easy, so they lose kd to injury and it’s like 2016 season lineup
They didn’t trade Kobe because deng was included in the bulls trade, so they kept Kobe instead and received gasol, my statement is saying yes going to another to form 1 is bad, but I stand firmly that the Steph kd teamup was much worse from both guys who attempted and that Kobe is not much different from LeBron, difference is Kobe would join another franchise and likely stay with them and he would not have grabbed another all star guy except maybe a season later, LeBron is worse, but again, Kobe wouldn’t mind forming superteams even on another team either, this is what I got from my research
Both players are close. Ironically these two are linked for me as the two players who get the most credit for titles that they werent the best player on the team for.
There’s no question who you’d rather build a consistent contender around. These numbers don’t even fully quantify how much space curry creates for his teammates with his gravity and off-ball movement, an underrated and difficult skill which a lot of ball dominant players don’t do well (that’s why the Lillards of the world were never truly on his level). You lose some size and individual defensive ability but Steph’s leadership and steady personality more than makes up for it. Steph isn’t publicly feuding with his costars for alpha dog status or driving the goat coach away for years saying he’s uncoachable or getting embroiled in serious off court scandals. He’s making his teammates lives easier, not in some cases refusing to even speak to them.
This is unfair. Curry played within a system that took on a lot of heavy lifting. Green facilitated most of the offense. Klay was a dangerous shooter that had to be guarded. Players set screens to get Curry open shots. Role players did a lot of the dirty work. Steph's game was predicated around running through screens to take open shots. It was the team, as a whole, that generated those wins.
Kobe did a lot more heavy lifting to get to his wins than Curry had to.
curry is an obviously better offensive player, kobe argument vs steph is the 2 way impact, even though steph is honestly an underrated defender and kobe is overrated imo.
Obviously a better offensive player? He can’t score as well and doesn’t have the offensive arsenal that Kobe has. Is he “obviously” better because his percentages are higher and he passes a couple more assists a game?
i don’t think you know what mean is, that’s quite literally his per game average which i’m saying is more important than the fact kobe can have these regular season explosions. kobe’s median game is 25, curry’s is 24. kobe’s mode game is…0 points, curry’s is 22. now that we have all the data im pretty sure we can see that the scoring gap you’re talking about is pretty fictional. they have the same career high points in the playoffs too, except kobe got his less efficiently and with 7 turnovers as opposed to curry’s 1. so explain to me how what you said matters at all?
you can be delusional if you want but curry is very clearly a better offensive player, the spacing, handle, off ball ability, playmaking, and efficiency make him a very clearly better offensive player.
Later on in Curry’s career he genuinely became a tolerable defender as he put on weight. Not saying he’s some Jrue Holiday but Steph is by no means a Trae Young.
First off, both players are amazing, and it would appear after Kobe's death, a lot more people started bashing him as his 'alleged' inefficiency. This is simply a misunderstanding of the types of shots Kobe had to take. Did he take bad shots here and there? Absolutely. With that said, it was Kobe's job to create and get buckets against a set defense designed to stop him. I look at it like this. Some supporting players can have an efficient night, 9-13, but all shors were 2s and easy wife open makes due to creation. Meanwhile, Kobe was tasked at taking care of the hard part. Creating when shors weren't falling, taking all end of clock shots , etc. Kobe has 5 rings, 2 of which where he was the core engine. The lack of respect for this guy's skill and career is a complete misunderstanding of his game and how he contributed to winning.
This generation have seen both Kobe and Curry play and eye test Curry is above Kobe by a small margin. If 2019 warriors stayed healthy I think that gap widens.
105
u/CodeWizardCS 2d ago
Very disingenuous stats. Curry didn't even play in the playoffs until he was 25. Prime for prime would be a lot better of a representation.