78 thoughts on “Thoughts on the NBA Finals”

1. How can you pick Celtics? Kobe Bryant is the greatest player ever!

2. just kidding :-)

3. Funny how you don’t mention the #s Kobe put up in the playoffs thus far, his stats in the Phoenix series (I’d be curious to see his WP in that series), or that fact that he’s up for ring #5 while the Big 4 on the Celtics is going for #2. Do you ever consider that your disdain for Kobe Bryant is misplaced? Why do you root against him, against your statistical analysis? Surely you’ll see that you’re blinded when you turn off your rational thinking in place of your heart.

   You’re like John Hollinger, who by the way, just put his money on L.A., which may or may not be a curse. Maybe you’re the reverse curse to somehow balance John out. I hope so.

   I agree, I’m tired of Kobe being discussed as the greatest ever, because he’s not finished yet. Besides that, there’s no real way of saying who the greatest ever was or is because the competition has always been in flux.

   All of these talking heads on ESPN and SI do just that, talk, while the players DO. Kobe even says that. He just wants to win.

   Just once, I’d like to see you give Kobe his due. He’s not the one saying he’s the greatest ever; he’s trying to be the greatest ever. There’s a marked distinction. I respect the latter. I respect the guy that puts in the hard work. I respect the guy that says follow me, not by his words, but by his actions. I respect Kobe Bryant because he hits shots that no one else does, because he makes the incredible real.

   I respect #24. Maybe someday you will too.

4. Dante a true Kobefan, seeing disrespect where none exists since 1996.

   Also randomly humorous, read this while thinking about Kim Jong Il from Team America:

   Why do you root against him, against your statistical analysis? Surely you’ll see that you’re blinded when you turn off your rational thinking in place of your heart.

5. No one is saying Kobe’s not good. He has been very good. He’s just not the best ever nor is he likely to be. I don’t think he’s ever been the best in a single season. Rings aren’t a good way to judge. Otherwise let’s start talking about Robert Horry. 7 rings with 3 teams. Best Eva.

6. Point #2 was why I felt some cognitive dissonance when the Celtics offed the Cavaliers. Yes, I was happy my team won…on the other hand, I had to continue to listen to “LeBron can’t be the best player in the league, he’s never won a ring! Kobe has 4!!!!”

7. And this is so appropriate, I just have to recycle it:

   Kobefan: Kobe has 4 rings.
   Me: Yeah, but he was Robin every time.
   Kobefan: You’re crazy. Maybe with Shaq, but the last one was all him.
   Me: You mean the ‘KG was injured title’?
   Kobefan: …???@#$#%!!

8. If you rely on WP, Kobe isn’t even the best Laker of all time. To put things in perspective, Kobe has already played for 14 years and still needs to play 12 more years at his current pace to match what Magic accomplished in 13 years.

   On a side note, all of the Laker’s last second victories in the playoffs this year have come off of Kobe’s missed shots.

9. I am a huge Celtics fan but if we are going to get into it about Kobe I must say that if you ONLY read this blog, youd think Prof Berri had a major bone to pick.
   That being said, Mr. Berri has a legitimate gripe with those who say he is the greatest player in the league, or the greatest of all time: Wins Produced.
   If Mr. Berri is to stand by his statistics, he needs Kobe to fail, so that other naysayers exist. This worked really well when Kobe had a mediocre supporting cast in 05-07. But Kobe’s cast is strong, perhaps the best in the league surrounding a “superstar” (the generic term, not the ones defined in this blog) – but he appears to the media and most people watching to be the “best” player on that team/earth.
   To me, Kobe is an INCREDIBLE athlete and a great basketball player. He is a horrible teammate and a poor leader. I also think he has been overrated in the sensationalized media that we read about and see on our TV sets.
   I guess I am trying to take a middle of the road line with Kobe, which is hard to do.
   As far as the Finals go, my prediction is like Dave’s: Celtics in 6…why??? well….
   The Lakers will have an extremely difficult time containing Rondo. He will be a force on both ends of the floor. There will be points where he is completely dominating the game, and as LeBron experienced, #9 took over and looked like the best player on the court in that series. Kobe CANNOT deal with that. He will revert to selfish mode as he has done before, and forget about playing team basketball. He WANTS to Win. But he NEEDS to be the best player on the floor. This will be the demise of the Lakers. At least I hope.

10. Is anyone else bothered by how amorphous a term like ‘greatest’ actually is. Any mainstream definition of it is very unlikely to mirror what we would come up with on this blog.

    When considering from a WP perspective it is more precise to use the term ‘most productive’.

    If Kobe leads the Lakers to this title I don’t think I would have a problem with people calling him the greatest player in basketball right now. The terms are sufficiently dissimiliar to make that acceptable in my opinion.

    Of course I expect Boston to win this year so it’s really moot.

11. Jimbo,

    I don’t think it’s just Dberri who has a bone to pick with Kobe. No matter what metric you subscribe to, PER, WP, Adj+/- or even raw numbers, Kobe’s stats just don’t match up with those of the all time greats. I think this is why his fans bring up subjective measures of greatness such as number of rings, difficulty of his shots, his so-called unparalleled athleticism, etc. Kobe’s “greatness” is probably due more to being on the right team at the right time than being a spectacular individual player. Even if the Lakers win the championship this year, you could very easily make the case that Kobe has never been the best player on a Championship team.

12. Only the hardest of hardcore Lakers fans will say Kobe is in the conversation for best of all time, and you’ll find barely anyone who’ll say Kobe’s the best in the league today (although many will say he’s top 3 or top 5).

    “Is anyone else bothered by how amorphous a term like ‘greatest’ actually is.”

    The public defines greatness as winning championships, hitting game winning shots, playing well under pressure, and making jaw-dropping plays. People are obsessed with winning, even if they don’t fully understand the underlying reasons for winning, so they gravitate to great players like Kobe. You can’t argue with them because, frankly, he’s won so much. Those championships end any argument against his greatness. And the more he gets, the more highly people will consider him.

    That’s why I’m rooting against LA. But I think they should win the series. Rondo’s worn down (hope the week off helps) and KG is looking pretty rough as of late.

13. Reluctant to dip my toe in the Kobe argument yet again, but what the hell.

    I’m thinking of Billy Beane, in ‘Moneyball,’ telling the author that all of the ‘scientific’ conclusions that guided his personnel moves were useless in the playoffs. Pitchers get hot, best-of-seven is too small a sample to be definitive, guys get lucky (or unlucky). He was able to construct a team that had enough production, day in and day out, to make the playoffs; what happened next was less subject to formula or prediction.

    Pretty obvious parallel, isn’t it? I will argue that a team composed entirely of players who post a WP48 of .150 for the season will win 57-66 games (if you dispute that, do yourself a favor and move on to the next comment). But will they win the NBA title? History says it is very unlikely. History suggests a team is better positioned to win it all with at least one player whose production is further above the average.

    WP says that player is NOT Kobe. You’re probably better off with James, or Paul, or Howard (or several others). This is not a theory; we KNOW Kobe cannot get you there by himself–we’ve seen that. When he’s the most productive guy you have, you either don’t make the playoffs, or you go out in Round 1.

    That said, Kobe IS in the finals, while the others I listed are at home; why? I’ll propose 3 reasons:

    1) Kobe has plenty of help. So much help, in fact, that there aren’t enough wins to go around; his whole frontcourt would put up even better individual numbers if there were fewer of them. Enough help, certainly, to get to big playoff games, where HIS particular skill set increases in value DRAMATICALLY. In a series with a relatively equal opponent, he has the potential to tip the balance (and, I might add, in a highly visible and theatrical way).

    2) James, Howard, and others do not have the same caliber of help. Howard had a WP48 ‘star’ LAST season, Nelson–but he was injured for the playoffs. LeBron had Moon this year–and a coach who could not tell which of his players was actually productive. Whether any of them have Kobe’s end-of-game resume is both debatable and irrelevant (more on that later).

    3) The best of Kobe’s talents–shot creation, clutch shooting, sense of moment, etc.–are at their most valuable after all the regular-season heavy lifting is done, when your team is playing a team that is just about as good. He is NOT the one getting the Lakers to the playoffs–but he might be the one who takes them to the championship, IF guys like Gasol, Odom, and Bynum do enough of the grunt work, IF Artest can prevent Pierce from being the difference for Boston, IF someone else can make an occasional shot, to keep them close enough so he has a chance to bring his arsenal to bear down the stretch.

    I’ll throw in a 4):

    4) If you had LeBron, Dwight, and CP3 on your team, you would win 70+ games, and you would probably breeze through the playoffs without often being tested–and you would be unlikely to miss a guy with the skill and the stones to take that cold-blooded 1.5-seconds-left shot; you wouldn’t need him.

    I’m on record as a Kobe fan (just not a lovestruck one); I’m a Laker fan since birth, and I’ve hated the Celtics since five years before that. I want very badly for this theory to be correct–so buyer beware. I can only hope that Kobe shows off what he does well–and makes big plays in crunch time to put his TEAM over the top.

    (Even if that gives the Kobephiles more ammunition. They won’t know how to aim it, but they’ll certainly make a lot of noise.)

14. This prediction would make a horoscope writer envious!

    Much like a well written horoscope entry, it allows for favorable retrospective interpretation.

    While it does lay out that the author is picking the Celtics in six in unambiguous terms, he also goes on to say that this a “Jeff Ma tribute” (admittedly, it is in a light-hearted fashion, but it’s still there nonetheless). He also says before that, that he is going against his usual model, which would have determined that the Lakers should win.

    So it’s written in such a way that whatever team wins, one can look back in say, “the doctor was right”! If the Celtics win, bravo! If the Lakers win, well, he was only doing it for Mr. Ma, against his better judgment, and the model was right all along.

15. Gil, get serious. Every person with half a brain understands that a playoff series while not being a tiny sample – surely isn’t a sufficient one.

    With that said, ANY prediction simply attempts to capture the expected value of the result – but there will be variance – no matter what in a best of 7 series.

    Dberri (or anyone for that matter) can’t predict a coin flip. The Celtics or the Lakers winning this series would not “prove” or “debunk” Dberri’s model anyhow – nor will he claim so after the fact ,regardless of the outcome.
    The horoscope is in the eye of the beholder, i guess.
    People are always after the “juicy” stuff. Who will be the champion? is a perfect example ; so Prof. Berri offers his 2 cents, but in the grand scheme of things – it’s meaningless one way or the other, especially when we’re discussing a series in which every punditexpertfan would agree on one thing – it’s gonna be a close one.

    To Jim – Don’t you know that’s how Kobe breaks down the defense? it’s all the in the zen master’s master plan :) Just like he drew it on the board.

16. Kobe really draws parallels to a famous footballer/soccer player, Ronaldinho. There was a long period of time ( 5/6 years) where he was considered the best player in the world, the superstar, the number 1. But now, at what should be one of the strongest periods of his career, he doesn’t even represent his national team, or his club team half the time.

    Why is he similar? Kobe and Ronaldinho are great players. They have skills that nobody else can do. They can score sensational shots/goals more regularly than anybody else. But that is it, and that is their curse. Because they can make those shots they take them, even if they are ill-advised. Nobody would doubt Kobe is a great shooter, look at the other people who take crazy shots (Durant rookie season, Iverson, Melo etc.). He makes more of those shots than anybody, but if he made the right shots, in the right places at the right time I dread to think what his FG% would be. But he doesn’t. And that’s why is scoring, although it is plentiful doesn’t reward him because DWade, Ginobli, Nash take the right shots.

    Is he that clutch? Well I mean everybody remembers those “wonder” goals. The ones you talk about for weeks, but everybody forgets those Ron Artest ones, the ones that count the same still though. The reality is, if you scored better during the game there is a good chance you don’t need those buzzer beaters all the time (and frankly Kobe doesn’t make a significantly higher percentage of them), if you’ve done better during the game. That’s why Ronaldinho was shipped by Barcelona, and Barcelona got a better player in Messi who just scores the goals, even if they are gritty, because it doesn’t matter if you are in the locker-room after celebrating.

17. This forum is so redundant when it comes to Kobe Bryant, in so much, I wish Allen Iverson had won two championships and three MVPs strictly to wonder how much everyone here would exhausted themselves in explaining, to each other (i.e. people who understand and appreciate WP/48) about how incorrect the general perception about Iverson is.

    I was looking at Dre’s auto-numbers, and entering the finals, the Lakers will be employing one .300 player, and three .200 players, while the Celtics will be employing just one .200 player. With the Celtics’ recent dismantle of the East powerhouses, these numbers don’t really instill confidence in what I feel, but I hope the Lakers can win in six or seven. Personally, I don’t know if it’s about winning number 16, or beating the damn Celtics—but I want to attend another parade.

18. Alvy,

    The frequency of the rebuttals to the ridiculous overestimation of Kobe’s greatness are a direct result of the frequency of his greatness being mentioned and overestimated by the general media. Since you are a Lakers fan, perhaps you don’t realize how often this actually occurs or maybe it just doesn’t bother you as much as it bothers us non-Lakers fans.

    It just so happens that Kobe is a productive enough player that a team can still win a championship while giving him a max contract. Given this and the fact that he plays for the Lakers he’s going to be mentioned much more often than inferior, overrated players such as Melo and AI who do indeed get their share when they appear in the general conciousness.

19. Gil, since you’re on this thread, here’s a summary of your posts regarding wp48, minutes prediction models, and vegas/oddsmakers models:

    Models A, B, and C are less predictive (by some unspecified amount) than Model D at predicting Apples, therefore Model E isn’t of much use in predicting Oranges.

    Is this a fair summary?

20. Gil, people want to know the professors opinion, but he knows that the outcome of this series is a difficult one to predict. Given that he is most likely vague due to simple honesty than any potential future plausible deniability.

    Sure the professor has made substantitive predictions using his models in the past, but this is clearly not what he is doing in this case. I can see why you might percieve it how you have, but my feeling is that you may have misinterpreted this one.

    ilikeflowers, I am wondering what your definition of ‘greatness’ is, as I am sure it differs from that of those who are calling Kobe great.

21. alvy,
    The only problem with using Dre’s playoff numbers is that Lakers haven’t faced a defense ranked better than 9th in defensive effeciency. On the other hand the Celtics haven’t faced a defense ranked worse than 7th.

    I laugh at someone pointing out any form of analyzing Kobe Bryant as being redundant. Show me the people who aren’t being redundant when it comes to him.

    I have resorted to the one Kobe fan at a time method. Here is my latest telemarketer style crib sheet:

    Me: Kobe’s great not great like Jordan
    KF: Not yet(big smile like they know something noone else knows)
    Me: Jordan was 6/6 scoring titles in the season he won championships. Kobe is 0 for 4.
    KF: (smile gone nothing to say change of conversation)

    It’s simple and straight to the point.

22. Also, only two other players lead the league in scoring and won the championship in the same year.

    Kareem Abdul-Jabaar(71,72)
    Shaquille O’neal(00′)

23. The finals should be fun and it’s arguable whether we’ll be watching the best teams/players. Evaluating a player by the number of titles won is simplistic: Robert Horry won seven and Charles Barkley zero. Who was the better player? Ditto for team play; it’s treated like a zero sum game. Who’s to say Milwaukee didn’t have a successful season? This site’s recent post on ROV provided a different perspective. I’m glad someone mentioned Artest, we were inundated with images of his mug following a 2/7 shooting performance.

24. Marparker, have you tried mentioning the 4 titles, only one Finals M.V.P, compared to Jordan who was again 6/6?

    They don’t like that one bit :-)

    Thinking about it that is the biggest thing that grinds my gears about people who think Kobe is as good as Jordan was…they willfully diminish the dominance of turn-of-the-century Shaq.

25. ilikeflowers,

    Yeah, as a Lakers fan, I probably don’t notice it as much, or at least, figure those who say that stuff probably aren’t Lakers fan, but instead Kobe fans, so I don’t typically pay attention.

    But that’s it, I’m tired of talking about number 24.

26. One of the things that turns me off about many of the dialogues I engage in on the internet (on a variety of issues) is that it seems that almost every debate degenerates into a black and white exchange where both sides dig in and won’t budge.

    I think the world is often gray.

    I don’t feel particularly attached to Kobe Bryant because I’ve always hated the Lakers and will be rooting against them again this year.

    I think Kobe is clearly not as statistically productive as quite a few other elite SGs.

    However, I am willing to concede that he brings hard to measure things to the table that some of those ranked ahead of him do not.

    1. He can score with greater versatility than some of the higher rated SGs. That makes it harder for top notch defenders and excellent defensive teams to stop him even if they choose that game plan.

    2. He plays from the perimeter a little more than some of the other highly rated SGs. That tends to lower his TS%. But he is providing the outside shooting that SGs that go to basket more REQUIRE from teammates to be fully effective.

    3. Teams sometimes design entire defensive strategies around stopping him and allowing his teammates to beat them.

    4. IMO, it’s no accident that he has the ability to raise his game to a higher level under extreme pressure and win games. I’m not talking about clutch shooting stats that attempt to measure this in a very flawed way. I’m talking about the psychological make up of a human being that often separates otherwise similar players.

    5. He plays in an offensive scheme that tends to limit assists from guards relative to pick and roll and other schemes.

    All that said, I think it’s clear he’s not Jordan.

    To be honest, privately, I am sure he knows that too.

    But IMO he’s far from just an above average or very above average SG. He’s one of the best SGs ever.

27. _IMO, it’s no accident that he has the ability to raise his game to a higher level under extreme pressure and win games. _

    I don’t have any view as to whether this is the case, but under my view of NBA productivity, it seems quite possible. That is, Kobe does do some amazing looking things that other people don’t do. Of course, that leads him to take lots of shots that he shouldn’t take which he misses. If Kobe would stop taking stupid shots and pass instead, his team would benefit alot and his scoring numbers wouldn’t change significantly.

28. I was very wrong about the Celtics.

    I thought they were “done” and should probably be broken up and start rebuilding around Rondo.

    It was fairly clear that the early season Celtics were one of the best teams in the NBA (perhaps the best).

    However, when the injuries started to mount, Garnett failed to recover his best form from a couple of years ago, they started playing .500 ball etc….I thought there was little chance they could get healthy and turn it around this year.

    It’s one thing for a traditionally healthy 20+ year old to get injured and recover his best form later that season. It’s an entirely different thing for several 30+ year old players with a extreme mileage to turn it around.

    I think two things I didn’t consider probably contributed to that.

    1. Doc Rivers gave some key players less playing time in the second half of the season and more less surrendered home court in an effort to get the team healthy.

    2. There are a lot more days off between games in the playoffs. That allows older players to nurse their injuries and perform to their peak a higher percentage of the time during the playoffs than during the regular season.

29. I think the clutch/big shot argument has two components. The first is number of attempts and the second is after the fact after the fact contextualizing.

    In terms of attempts, let’s just consider Kobe a 40% shooter. Give him 5 last second shots and he should make 2. So if Kobe’s team can play 10-20 playoff games a year, and maybe 5 of them are close games and Kobe is the clutch player with ball then heck he gets 2 clutch shots yearly. Kobe’s been on good teams most of his career so give him 10 years of good teams and boom he has at least a top 10 list of “clutch” shots, whereas Garnett who has been deep in playoffs twice doesn’t.

    Also history helps define clutch. For example two of the most famous “clutch” Michael Jordan stories are “the shot” against Cleveland in 1989 and his 63 point game when Larry Bird called him god. What’s interesting about these stories is that both years he did not make it to the finals(in fact he lost his team lost his “god” game). So AFTER Michael Jordan won a bunch of titles we can comb his career and find “clutch” moments. Lebron has had similar moments as well, but I suspect until he wins a title he will still be called “not clutch”

30. Michael,

    I haven’t really thought much about my personal definition of ‘greatness’. But there’s a pretty good argument for Kobe being ‘great’ in that his wp48 for many years has been one of the top 3 at his position and his season total productivity ranking has been the highest for an SG during several of those seasons (giving him credit for durability and/or playing through injury). Also, if you consider standard deviations above the mean he comes out pretty well also. It’s just the best player in the league and/or of all time stuff that is far-fetched.

31. Dre,

    One of the points I was trying to make is that IMHO sometimes you have to go “beyond” the current available statistical attempts to measure things.

    I’ll try to give a few concise examples related to clutch shooting and separating winners from losers, but it goes way beyond what I can summarize here.

    1. If it’s a tight game and the next possession is deemed critical, some players will defer to a teammate even when they have an open look.
    They simply lack the “heart” to take the shot and you can more or less see the fear in their eyes, actions, and attitude etc…

    That doesn’t count against them statistically, but it’s a huge flaw that impacts other players on the team negatively because the team still has to create and get off another high quality shot.

    At the same time, there are players that welcome that role and don’t fear it. Sometimes they miss because they are human or everyone on the court knew they were going to get the ball and geared up to stop them, but they don’t “dog it”.

    2. IMO, the definition of “clutch” isn’t so neat that you can plug some numbers into a formula and measure it.

    Sometimes a clutch shot occurs in the first half with 8 minutes left on the clock because it breaks the momentum of the other team.

    Sometimes it’s a series of possessions involving extraordinary hustle, individual defense, and several shots etc.. that breaks a game open or keeps it within reach.

    At the same time, some of the shots that are considered “clutch” statistically are basically irrelevant.

    I’m sure it’s possible to measure these things properly, but at this point I don’t believe it’s being done well.

32. speaking about kobe, these days, remembers me this famous scene from a monthy pyton film

    dr berri, you have been found guilty by the elders of the staple center of uttering the name of our lord :-)

33. IS,

    Your first point is certainly valid, since there are definitely people who perform worse/differently when the pressure is on.

    Regarding your second point however, by ‘going beyond’ you are simply talking about eyeball models (which in most cases are predictably and unpredictable biased and subject to small sample size issues). Even assuming that said model is good at measuring ‘momentum’ breaking/establishing made clutch shots, is it equally as good at measuring ‘momentum’ breaking/establishing missed clutch shots? And if one shoots many more missed clutch shots than made are they still a clutch shooter?

34. IS,
    So a good quote I have heard about assigning credit is “This airplane is powered by this giant rubberband, also four jet engines”. (This was original used to compare the Matrix premise of humans and fusion powering machines)

    So intangible stats vs. box score analysis. Dr. Berri has shown a good model using stats that has a 0.94 correlation. Does it explain everything? No, of course not.

    Now I love Sports Center and highlight films too. However your “beyond the numbers point” is really hard to deal with as by your own volition:
    1) The timing of the plays are extremely variable (end of the game winner, half time momentum shifter).
    2) The success of the plays are variable (The player may or may not succeed, but they try)
    3) The type of play is hard to measure (may be clutch shot, may be a set of hustle plays)
    4) It isn’t so neat you can plug it into a formula.

    I am little confused that after stating those as premise you finish with
    “I’m sure it’s possible to measure these things properly, but at this point I don’t believe it’s being done well.”

    Really I think the issue here is that problem is really not defined to be answered. Of course it does allow for a ton of debate (Prince’s block was a bigger clutch play than Jordan’s game winner). And frankly as a sports fan I enjoy that type of debate. But as a stats guy that certainly isn’t a model I would even pursue attempting to make.

35. I think a big reason for the apparent lack of parity in the NBA is the impact of “Star Power”. A guy like Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, etc… can play 40+ minutes per game of the possible 48 minutes (excl overtime). The NBA star is on the court over 83% of the time. Contrast this to football where Tom Brady can only play half the game (the offensive half), or baseball where pitchers play less than half the game (they don’t bat for the most part and typically don’t go 9 innings) and position players are impacting the game as one of only 9 hitters are not involved in the field every inning either, or finally hockey in which players (excluding the goalie) play both sides but typically only play 25 minutes of the possible 60 and goalies (which play the full 60) only play defense.
    The NBA is the only sport where a star plays both offense and defense every possession and plays over 80% of the total time and is one of only 5 guys on his team. This impact means that having an all-time great player on your team will likely lead to championships because that player can impact the game more than in any other sport.

36. “and you’ll find barely anyone who’ll say Kobe’s the best in the league today”

    What??????? At least somebody says it on ESPN every night. Every time Jamal Mashburn is on, I’m afraid he’s going to ejaculate all over the camera lens when Kobe’s name is mentioned.

    Speaking of mashburn, is there anyone who’s a worse prognosticator? Okay, maybe Screamin” A Smith was worse (pickiing Denver to all the way a couplef years ago was his piece de resistance) but Mashburn is com-pletely clueless. he says the most lamebrain things. No wonder he never came close to his potential. The frinngin’ guy has spent his entire life in basketball and seemingly has not learned a thing.

37. Kevin,

    I haven’t actually watched a ton of Mashburn but I’d venture to say Jalen Rose is probably just as bad. Doug Gottlieb doesn’t talk a lot about the NBA but when he is talking about the NBA draft or college basketball I don’t think anyone can be more wrong as consistently as he is. He didn’t have DeJuan Blair in his top 30 draft prospects last year, as well as several other completely incorrect thoughts.

38. For example – Gottlieb…

    http://romalley.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/why-is-doug-gottlieb-considered-an-expert/

39. Rose is second on my list, Rob, a very close second. I almost mentioned him too but decided not to, lest I lapse into a full-tilt rant. But, if you can believe it, Mashburn is even worse.

    The guy who’s really, really good is Legler. He should be a coach.

40. That list is pretty batshit, Rob. Jonny Flynn 9th? You have to be shitting me. He was like the 6th best point guard.

41. Jalen Rose makes me feel embarrassed that I am from Michigan. He’s worse than Monster Mash by far.

42. Some of the greatest basketball players make pretty inept decisions, or say unusual things when regarding basketball talent or predictions (for instance, Larry Bird and the Pacers, and Jordan and the Wizards), but I think all of their actions, along with Jalen Rose’s “analyst” goes back to the Isiah Thomas story: They are simply saying or doing what is believed to be right in NBA culture.

    On another note, why is clutch defined purely on FG? What about TO? Holding on the rock in “critical” possessions seem just has valid as making “the shot.”

43. One last thing about Kobe.

    The TV “pundits” all but anointed Kobe “the best player besides Jordan in the last 30 years”, based on the observation he pulled some shots out of his ass in the closing minutes of game 6. Lost in all the drooling was the performance by Pierce the day before. Let me post the 2 lines together, for full effect:

    Kobe: 37/6/2, .480/.375/.909
    Pierce: 31/13/6, .600/.800/.900

    And Pierce did that against a superior defensive team while Kobe did his while shooting over Steve Nash and Channing Fry. And no, Kobe didn’t have 8 blocked shots.

    Now, I’m a Celtics fan and I’m as prone to homerism as the next guy but you would have to be out of your fucking mind to choose the former over the latter. And yet, that’s exactly what nearly everyone in the media did. Instead of saying about Kobe “Wow. These are really bad shots by Kobe. Why are the Lakers taking such poor shots at such a crucial juncture and why isn’t Kobe finding the open man?”, they were saying “Wow, Kobe is the greatest shotmaker of all time!”.

    Whatever. Pierce will kick his ass again and everyone will start to whine that it’s so unfair to Kobe that the Lakers don’t provide more help.

44. Kob might be the greatest shot maker of all time. I don’t think that can be argued. The sheer balls on the guy should be in the hall of fame by itself. That being said by sheer balls Donald Trump should be the richest man in the world. Instead he spends alot of time explaining how the guys who measure wealth are wrong for not having him on the list of richest guys in the world. At least that’s how it was 10 years ago when I paid attention to that stuff.

45. kevin – no, they haven’t. I dunno who you’re watching. The consensus is that he’s a top player in the league – the player you’d want taking the final shot in the game – but not the overall best player. In his MVP season, yes, several pundits proclaimed him to be the best player in the league and the world (Mark Jackson), but he’s hardly seen that way by the majority of sports writers nowadays. Nor is he seen that way by most basketball fans. I skim a lot of basketball blogs and messageboards, and he’s rarely considered the best.

46. Tindall,
    I am not sure who you are watching. I have seen multiple pundits argue in the past few days that Kobe is in the conversation with Jordan. They all insist Jordan is better. But the difference — according to these pundits –is small. The data, though, strongly suggests the difference between Jordan and Kobe is quite large.

47. Tindall,

    I really don’t know who you are watching. This entire post season everyone has called Kobe Bryant the best player in the NBA. Even Bill Simmons, who is usually one of the saner ESPN commentators said this, ” By any calculation, he passes Oscar and Jerry and becomes the third-best guard ever (trailing only Jordan and Magic,” if the Lakers win this series. And that was just going on the site today.

48. I think you guys should let it go. You seem to be taking this Kobe thing quite personally. Maybe you should accept that sometimes the world sees things differently than an individual does.

    Maybe find some players to root _for_ rather than rooting _against_. Anti-rooting is never good for the soul.

49. Radio show I listened to(John Thompson Show) now considered it a mute point that Kobe is the best player in the NBA. This after Lebron’s last 2 “no-shows” in the post season(wp48 of .35 and .538) clearly illustrated that point. I am left only to scream at my radio and then come to wages of wins where I can read some sane thoughts.

    This blog is like therapy.

50. First there was Kobe’s super ‘shot-making’ ability.

    Then there was his incredible ‘will’.

    Now, according to Jerry West: Kobe “seems to will the ball in the basket.”

    See that was our problem all along, we never statistically considered the fact that Kobe Bryant was the God of Basketball.

    It’s amazing how what starts as a literary flourish ( such as descriptions of Kobe’s amazing ‘will’) becomes disseminated into the minds of those exposed to it. Then, unexamined, it becomes a popular myth that takes on a life of it’s own, to the extent that a man who by all accounts should be a very knowledgable observer starts ascribing supernatural powers to the subject of the myth!

    Sometimes I swear sports are like anthropology 101.

51. I pay more attention to the games themselves and the box scores than pundits, to the point where I’ll even turn the sound off during games. At some level they’re all shills for the game, pushing paper or airtime. Pre-game shows and half-time shows are a complete waste of time and I can’t help but think at times that the talking heads deliberately say controversial things to start arguments and boost ratings. Literary flourish, indeed! We have washed up and wanna be athletes posing as poets and philosophers. Let’s just toss it up and forget everything else!

52. “Kob might be the greatest shot maker of all time.”

    I’ll take Bird, West and Jordan over Kobe, thank you.

    And that’s just for starters.

53. Too much equivocation. And I think Ma’s point is a worthy one.

    It isn’t about creating a model that can be replicated. Rather, it is about determining to what extent an “expert” can use disciplined “intuition” as part of their decision making process.

    As the poker player suggests, subconscious cues may actually serve as valuable data points in certain situations.

54. “As the poker player suggests, subconscious cues may actually serve as valuable data points in certain situations.”

    A subconscious cue is not a datapoint. A datapoint is something tangible, something that can shown to others to be examined and discussed. A subconscious cue is something that is not only intangible, the owner of it is mostly unaware he possesses it in the first place.

    Going with gut instinct to make a necessary decision is fine if you are completely lacking in objective data. But that is almost never the case and it is always well-advised to learn the pertinent facts and consider the best available information before proceeding.

55. If Kobe wins, 5th greatest player ever? 1) Russell 2) Jordan 3/4) Magic/Kareem (interchangeable) 5) Kobe? (is it heresy to put him above Bird?)
    3:15

    Coach Thorpe: Russell is not close in my book. Jordan, Magic, Bird, Kareem, ?. I don’t think Kobe is in that 5th spot. Yet. But give it time.

    - On ESPN daily dime today. So that’s Thorpe and Simmons now. Just gimme a checklist. By the end of the series I’ll have every ESPN “expert” quoted basking in Kobe’s greatness.

56. I think players with dynamic offensive games, especially in clutch moments at the end of games are the best players(MJ and Kobe) but also players with that ruthless competitiveness (Mj, Kobe, Magic, Bird) that allows them to make plays at the end of games that impact the outcome. Yes I am one who doesn’t seem that in Lebron and hurts him in becoming a legend. i think you have to put Kobe in the top 5?

    J. A. Adande: If he isn’t in he’s knocking on the door. The problem is it’s too tough to knock someone out. Maybe Bird.

    Adande, Thorpe, Simmons. Check, check, check.

57. Marparker:
    The arrogance of the advanced stat community at its finest. Have you ever stopped to consider that it’s not EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that’s wrong? That it’s actually you guys who circlejerk each other with your made up stats and invented ways to evaluate a dynamic game?

    Why is there such strict confidence that these metrics that occasionally spout out pure nonsense somehow are more accurate than what your own two eyes see? I will never understand the basketball stat geek community, but then again I don’t have my head jammed up my own rear end.

58. Thomas, you’re being stupid. You and the rest of the world use stats as well, just silly ones: number of championships, points per game, number of people who agree with me, etc… etc… Then there’s the eyeball-based small-sample biased this-way-and-that model coupled with a likely limited intellect that you mention.

59. Feels like these Kobe vs the “all time greats”comparisons,( especially jordan8, seem to lessen the achievements of those players vastly.
    It gets considerably easier to be compared to one of the greats the more often and earlier the comparison game starts.
    Sooner or later there’ll be rookies challenging for the goat or “all time team”title.
    *sigh*

60. Regarding the 5 best of all time:

    Why the fuck does everyone leave out wilt chamberlain??? He’s number one on my list. Broke all the records, and had numerous rules CREATED on his behalf (e.g., offensive goaltending, free throw shooting)

61. Btw, I realize we’ll never know Wilt’s actual WP and WP48, but I bet the numbers are through the roof. Like .500+, 40 Wins Produced+ in his first 5 seasons.

62. James, I remember reading in one of the books (either WoW or SoW, not sure which) that if Wilt were as good as WP predicted, his teammates would have had to combine for negative wins. So it’s hard to say how good he is really given the different nature of the game in the 60s.

63. Fourty wins produced?
    How many teams did they have at that time ?

64. “So as I watch the final moments of the Cavaliers-Celtics game (damn Cavaliers)… ” I love the prof’s model and think it’s the best thing going, but it’s not the be-all and end-all (yet). Maybe there are some as-yet-to -be determined variables that can eventually be included, or we just resign ourselves to the fact that whenever humans are involved there will always be some degree of unpredictability. The Cavs were better than the Magic last year according to the prof’s model. After their series we learn that the Magic had a 40% chance of winning the series. That’s a lot of wiggle room, and it gives the naysayers and the intangibles crowd an opportunity to weigh in. Weighing in BTW, isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s not a polemic and it’s intended to improve our understanding of the game… ;-)

65. Thomas,
    Us “stat-geeks” would have never allowed the 04′ olympic team to be put together. Watching that tragedy was my moment when I had to start looking into the game quantitatively. I had to find out who the people were that saw that coming.

    On to another point of contention,
    Can we stop with the discussions that rank player greatness by who takes the last shot. How many guys above 6’6 are routinely asked to take those shots? I can only think of one guy big guy who is in the discussion of all-time great big shot takers(Bird). Do you have to be a guard to be great?

66. Marc,

    They had fewer teams, but played just as many games.

67. “Btw, I realize we’ll never know Wilt’s actual WP and WP48, but I bet the numbers are through the roof. ”

    Umm, you might want to check those FT%’s first before you jump to conclusions there, James. There’s a reason why Wilt’s team seemed to lose so many crucial games.

68. “That it’s actually you guys who circlejerk each other with your made up stats and invented ways to evaluate a dynamic game? ”

    Made up? The raw numbers are drawn directly from the boxscores.

    if Kobe were so good, the Lakers would have remained competitive when Shaq left. But they didn’t. They completely cratered. That’s a fact, man.

69. Makes sense :-)

70. Kevin, do you really think Wilt’s poor FT% is going to even out the fact that he grabbed over 25 rebounds per 48 minutes every year in his prime and scored over 40 points per 48 minutes, while shooting well over 50%? Obviously we don’t know for sure how many blocks he got, but I don’t think people would be surprised if he was averaging 6-8 per game. Dwight Howard posts similarly low FT%, yet he is at the top of WP every year. And Wilt grabbed twice as many rebounds as him.

71. Against Phoenix, Kobe made a shot with Frye coming over to help. The camera showed the Phoenix crowd, with amazed expressions. Smiles, even.

    Compared to the bloody losses to SA recently, this is amazing. There is an aspect of morale to this, that the crowd ‘knew’ Kobe wouldn’t let the Lakers lose.

    Now, we know the Lakers don’t win without Gasol. But Bird doesn’t win without McHale. The closest I’ve seen to the Phoenix crowd was when Bird made a shot and the opposing bench went wild. And if just a couple of players on the floor for the other team start to feel the same way, the metric which can be counted is W/L.

    Some players respond in kind. Steve Nash was able to. But that’s rare air.

72. re Wilt’s Rebounds,
    Just looking at 1959, 7 guys in that season avg’d more rebounds than Dwight Howard(13.2) who lead the NBA this year. The league only had 8 teams which by my crude calculation means that would be like 28 guys averaging 13 reb per game.

    Also in 1959 the average team took 8151 fg attempts and grabbed 5500 rebounds. That is a ton more fg attempts and also a completely different ratio than what we saw from the league this year(6700 fg attemps/3400 rebounds).

    In 1959 the avg team had 700 more rebounds than missed shots. In 2010 the average team had 200 more rebounds than missed shots. In 1959 the average team had 700 missed free throw. Today that number is 500.

    I suspect the value of a rebound has changed dramatically. I also suspect that more than one rebound could be collected between missed shots somehow back then.

    All that being said Wilt is probably criminally underrated. Poor guy finally got some teammates at age 34.

73. “Kevin, do you really think Wilt’s poor FT% is going to even out the fact that he grabbed over 25 rebounds per 48 minutes every year in his prime and scored over 40 points per 48 minutes, while shooting well over 50%? ”

    Is any one here old enough to have seen Wilt play? I am.

    Wilt was an odd dude in many cases. He is all about numbers. His numbers and his alone. Not anybody else’s. When he said he banged 30,000 women, what do you think was going through his mind there? I mean, do the math on that. He said that when he was around 50, so if we assume he became sexually active at, say, 15, then that means he would have had to pop nearly a 1000 women a year, year after year. That’s almost 3 a day.

    He said he could bench press something like 550 pounds when he was in college. That’s absurd. His arms were far too long and he was far too skinny to bench press anything close to that. But he was “Wilt” so everybody just took his word for it.

    Wilt wasn’t interested in being a basketball player. He was more interested in being a force of nature. So every team he was on had to be all about him. While such an arrangement was great for his stats, it sucked for their chances of winning anything. The only two times he won, his team was so absurdly superior, they couldn’t have lost. And notably, they both occurred after he decided to ratchet down his shot attempts and play a more balanced game.

    Wilt was a tremendous rebounder but it should be noted that, per minute, Russell was a better one, despite being 5 inches shorter. This difference grows when you look at playoff statistics.

    He also never fouled out. Not once. It became a point of pride with him, not ever following out. I’m sorry but if play 1000 games and you never foul out, you just aren’t trying hard enough.

    His FT% was a real problem because he was so central to his team’s offense. All the other team had to do down the stretch is get some bum off the bench to hack him (while everyone else got a nice rest when they didn’t have the ball and saved themselves for offense), wait for the inevitable misses, and work their patterns on offense. Since Wilt couldn’t defend on the exterior, it wasn’t all that hard to do that.so, while his Ft% didn’t nullify all his other strengths, it did mitigate greatly his impact in big games.

    I also disagree that he is underrated. He won 4 MVP awards. It was his misfortune that, for a good part of his career, he was competing with Russell for those awards and Russell was a better player. Russell COULD defend quite effectively on the exterior, didn’t need the ball to be productive and didn’t inhibit the productivity of his teammates, a common complaint about Wilt at the time.

74. I’m watching this game and it’s painfully obvious how superior a player Rondo is over Kobe. Kobe can’t do a thing with him.

75. Pingback: The Celtics Challenge « The Wages of Wins Journal

76. Is this thread closed?

77. Didn’t he Berri pick the lakers last year? I think that proves he doesn’t have anything against Bryant.

78. by last year I mean 2008-2009, not the season that ended a few months ago.