Kobe Bryant, MVP?

Posted on by

The ever insightful Bill Simmons of ESPN.com has announced his choice for NBA MVP.  Generally what Simmons says is golden, but choosing Kobe Bryant as MVP is but one more example of an NBA analyst focusing on totals rather than efficiency.  Clearly Kobe heads to the top of the class because of his scoring totals.  Averaging 35 points per game is an accomplishment few in NBA history has achieved.  Yet Kobe’s scoring output, relative to his MVP peers, is actually below par.  To see this, one must focus on efficiency.  In the Wages of Wins we detail how one can measure a player’s Wins Produced, or how many wins a player produces per season.  And as our Chapter Six sample will indicate (when we post this soon), our metric – based on measures of efficiency — is quite accurate.  But one can make the argument against Bryant’s candidacy without referencing wins production.  Consider how many points Bryant scores per field goal attempt. If we subtract free throws made from Bryant’s point total, and divide by field goal attempts, we see that on average each field goal attempt Bryant takes generates 0.98 points.  Simmons named seven additional MVP candidates in his column – LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki,  Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Chauncey Billups. Of this list of players, only Paul scored fewer points per field goal attempt (through games on April 13).  Yes, the player known for scoring is one of the least efficient scorers, at least when we restrict our comparison to those players Simmons considers for MVP.  One should add that the average NBA player has a point per field goal attempt of 0.98 this year, so Bryant is about at the NBA average.  Relative to the players named by Simmons, though, he is not the best scorer.  And since it is his scoring ability that clearly motivates the choice Simmons makes, choosing Byrant as MVP on this record is difficult to defend.  One last note… although Simmons listed eight players, I believe he missed on the player who led the NBA in Wins Produced this season.   More on that when the season finally ends.-DJ

8 thoughts on “Kobe Bryant, MVP?”

  1. Why do you remove free throws from your shooting calculation? Bryant’s ability to draw fouls enables him to shoot a lot of free throws, gets the other team in foul trouble and gets the Lakers in the bonus earlier, providing additional free throw attempts for his scoring challenged teammates. If Bryant is inefficient, one would assume that his scoring is counterproductive to winning. Yet, as I point out in my article about Bryant’s 40-point games this year (http://www.probasketballnews.com/friedman_0314.html), the Lakers have a better winning percentage–for his career and for this season–when Bryant scores 40-plus points than when he doesn’t. Kobe’s shooting percentage is driven down by what I call “hand grenade” shots–he gets the ball a lot of times with the shot clock winding down and has to launch a shot to beat the shot clock. Also, your analysis fails to take into account his abilities as a defensive player relative to the other MVP candidates and does not look at the open opportunities that Kobe’s teammates get because teams are forced to double team Kobe.

    –David Friedman
    http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/

  2. Hey Stupid, the reason that they take out free throws is because on a fouled shot, unless it is made, they don’t count it as a shot taken, therefore you take it out because it has no relevance on his points per shot attempt. You can’t calculate it unless you knew how many times he got an “and 1″ when he was fouled.

  3. Adjusted field goal percentage takes free
    throws into account (calculated by subtracting free throws made from points scored, dividing that number by field goals attempted and then dividing again by two).
    As I said in my original comment, drawing fouls
    puts the other team in foul trouble and your
    team in the bonus. Those things are both
    very important and must be included in any
    consideration of a players’ offensive
    efficiency. There is a lot more to it than just
    counting up missed field goal attempts.

    By the way, name calling is only considered to st
    strengthen the validity of one’s argument in
    grade school. Adults debate by citing facts.
    Maybe a fan board that extols the virtues of
    your favorite player might better suit you.

  4. first i would like to point out that free throws is a major part of scoring and kobe is probably the best on that list.

    but mostly i would just like to point out that you are adjusting the statistics in favor of the other players

    kobe’s teammates cannot put up numbers like the other players mentioned so kobe has to take more shots, any player’s shot percentage will suffer when forced to take more shots in order to win games

    lastly i would like to point out that kobe is a much better defender than any of the players listed, making the all defensive first team 5 years and 2nd team 2 years, and i dont believe any of the other players have ever made either team and definately cant touch kobe on the defensive end of the court

  6. are the lakers more effective with kobe scoring a lot or when he shares the ball more? i think that’s where the discussion should go. his stats don’t mean anything if it doesn’t lead to wins for his teams, right?

  7. Hey James, in actuality you know nothing about basketball.
    Would you rather someone hit 46% of their jump shots or take the ball to the rim and make 85% of their free throws. If you’re talking about efficiency, free throws are one of the most efficient ways to score and should obviously be accounted for. Kobe was the MVP that year and wins produced is also skewed because of his teammates abilities

Leave a Reply