Last night Kobe missed more than he made and committed seven turnovers. And the Lakers also lost the game. But Kobe did score 33 points. So Chris Mannix – of CNNSI.com – wrote the following:
Stellar Bryant can’t rescue Lakers
Okay, I am going to avoid writing another lengthy post on Kobe. But feel free to write your own.
- DJ
P.S. Just to get you started… Kobe has shot below 40% from the field in Boston (yes he has taken 51 shots and only made 20).
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
If they win its all because of Kobe. If they lose Kobe did whatever he could but the rest of the guys aren’t at his level. What’s to argue? The Kobe Inquisition has no concept of logic. It can’t be argued with.
So looking back at TBall’s wonderful post there is something huge to note about Boston and LA compared to Orlando and Cleveland. All four teams are 60+ winners, but as opposed to Cleveland and Orlando we see that LA and Boston both have multiple players that earn 10+ wins.
Arturo made this point in a conversation we had and I am sure some point in the offseason it may make a wonderful post: In the playoffs having one player doing all the lifting is not a recipe for success! Kobe may believe he needs to “save” the Lakers. However, at least if you review the last several years of playoff data the winning teams have several options(meaning at least 2 players with 2+ wins and several more with 1.5+ wins)
A common trend whenever either team does bad is to point the finger at an individual player. Kobe needs to step up, Pierce needs to step up, etc. The truth is both of these teams are here because they have 4 players that can do heavy lifting. Let’s hope Kobe remembers that and also remember Bynum’s health definitely plays a factor. Also, as Tball pointed out, the stats show these teams as almost even so one bad game can really decide the series.
To be fair to Kobe though. He was 10-22 but 6 of the mades were 3-pointers so he was productive as a shooter.
However, he nullified that with the 7 turnovers, including a brutal one at the end where he dribbled right into a double-team, tried to shoot anyway and was swallowed up, then reluctantly bailed on the shot with a telegraphed jump pass that Rondo read from a mile away and put the game away with a fastbreak bunny. That play basically doomed the Lakers.
OK, I read the article. Pardon my french but that has to be the worst piece of shit I have read since I flipped through my doctoral thesis a few years ago.
This shit drives me crazy:
“Indeed, the Celtic made Bryant work. A cacophony of whistles prevented Boston from imposing their will physically on Bryant in the first three games but with the trio of Scott Foster, Eddie F. Rush and Greg Willard calling a looser contest, the Celtics were free to grind Bryant into the parquet. First, Ray Allen. Then, Tony Allen. Each defender Bryant faced felt comfortable planting arms, hands and elbows into his back and swiping at his shooting hand whenever Bryant rose up on the perimeter. When he attacked the rim, there were at least two defenders waiting to rudely greet him before he got there.”
Oh, so Kobe turned the ball over 7 times because the refs have a vendetta against him.
I don’t know Chris Mannix but he would be well-advised to see a proctologist real soon so he can get his head back.
Kobe Game 4 EFG = .591….I’m surprised to see you merely say “he missed more than he made” when you know it’s not that simple.
I think the Lakers will take that any day.
The 7 turnovers did hurt, however.
Anyone else watch the pre-game show last night?
Mark Jackson remarked that the Celtics had done a good job making Kobe a “volume shooter,” indicating that Kobe’s effectiveness is drastically limited when he plays that way.
I found myself nodding in agreement, at least haflway satisfied that something coming out of Mark Jackson’s mouth wasn’t total rubbish.
An odd night for me, nodding in agreement with Mark Jackson and rooting for the Celtics all in one night.
DJ, Kobe actually had a decent game by WP48 standards, didn’t he? It’s true that he wasn’t ‘stellar’ but he actually was pretty efficient shooting in game 4, because of all the 3s
Why can’t they just say “inefficient shooter” instead of “volume shooter”? The latter phrase doesn’t sound tremendously negative.
The attitude seems to be “well, Kobe is still going to get his points. He will just need more shots to do this.” Such an approach ignores the fact that more shots by Kobe means fewer shots by everyone else. In other words, field goal attempts in a game are finite. One player’s shots do come at the expense of his teammate’s shots.
I have about .142 for Kobe, which is good. My calculation could also be way off, so who knows.
On a side note, anyone else wonder how Mark Jackson is considered a candidate for so many head coaching jobs? If I were a GM there’s no way I’d hire him as my head coach. He has never impressed me with his analysis of basketball. Maybe there’s a reason he hasn’t been hired yet. He is funny though.
Robbie,
That is about what I have for Kobe’s estimated WP48. This is above average for a shooting guard. But below average for Kobe. And certainly below average for an elite NBA player. Not sure you can be thought of as “stellar” with such a mark.
robbie,
MJ is probably considered for many coaching jobs because of the respect NBA players have for him. Choosing a coach whom players will happily follow is probably more important (to many owners) than choosing a coach that knows “his X’s and O’s”.
I agree that Kobe was above average, because of the 3s. “Good” is not the same as “stellar”. If I were a Laker fan (I’m not), I’d much rather see Gasol get a lot of the shots that Kobe is taking.
Patrick,
I guess that is true. This is why I’m surprised at how much of a dark horse the Knicks seem to be now in the “Free Agent Sweepstakes.” I can’t imagine a more player friendly coach than Mike D’Antoni. Imagine LeBron in D’Antoni’s offense! Would be fun to watch.
And yeah Kobe was obviously good, not stellar. I’m just saying you have to pick your spots. I’m not sure that’s a battle I’d care to partake in.
Jackson was peculiar last night. At one point, he both praised and castigated Kobe in the same sentence and at the same time about his shot selection, noting he was good at making bad shots but questioning why he was taking them in the first place, when other, better options were still on the table.
What I think is at least part of the problem is that there must be an unwritten rule negotiated between the networks and the league office that certain individuals that represent the face of the league cannot be overty criticised or have their stature diminished in any way, lest they tarnish the “brand”. And let’s face it, Stern is all about “brand”. The dude could give two craps about whether any of rules and regs he institutes actually leads to a better product.
Shooting wise it was a good game for Bryant – 33 pts on about 27 possessions isn’t splendid but against Celtics I’d take it anytime.
But these 7 TOs – oh, brother…
When talking about Lakers MVP in these series I wonder how could anyone even think about not giving it to Gasol. His first two games were great. 3rd and 4th were weaker but still very good box score wise – and his defense is outstanding. I’ve read somewhere interesting bit of stats:
in first three games Lakers FG% on possessions when Gasol _touches_ the ball – about 55%. On possessions when he’s out of action – about 42%. Give him some respect, people, he’s one of the best PF/C in the league. I think I’d take him just after Howard – should NBA hold an open draft.
Dre,
I’m thinking that the ideal championship team has five 0.200 wp48 players and the worst has one 1.00 wp48 player and four 0.0 wp48 players. The team with five 200′s is the least affected by player performance variability and is less susceptible to the opponent team’s defensive strategies. It’d be interesting to see an analysis of how the distribution of wp48′s affects team performance, i.e. do distributions cause teams to systematically under or over perform expectations.
When determining how efficiently a player scores, shouldn’t we count TO’s as missed shots? Thinking about it some more, this actually would undervalue the TO since there’s no possibility of a rebound and if there’s a more efficient scorer for your team on the floor then you’ve cost your team even more points than usual. So by counting TO’s as missed shots one can say that the player’s effective scoring efficiency was at most this number.
The problem the media has is fitting events into pre-determined narratives. We all KNOW that Kobe is a certified GREAT player. The “best in the league” — even better than Lebron (gasp!). Gulp — he might even be better than Jordan. So, if Kobe scores a lot of points and his team loses, well…it can’t be HIS fault. He’s GRRRRREAT! He’s clutch. It has to be the supporting cast.
Dre,
Here’s something for the wish list. What about calculating offensive and defensive wp48? Where offensive stats are Pts, ORB, A, FGA, TO, FTA and defensive stats are DRB, BS, PF.
For this series PPS with and without TO’s:
Kobe’s 1.0 and 1.2
Gasol 1.4 and 1.7
I don’t think you can mix TO with shooting efficiency because TO are not a function of shooting as frequently as they are a function of passing. And then you have to start thinking about assists.
Kobe has taken 51 shots in Boston and only has 6 assists. Compare that to 42 shots in LA and 12 assists. When Kobe wants to win, he wants to bring home the win. I don’t know if it is an ego issue or a trust issue, but he is determined to be the one to take the shot. That seems to result in many low percentage opportunities.
At the same time, the Lakers succeed regardless of the things Kobe does that I don’t like. When he takes 25 shots or more, they are 5-1 in these playoffs. They are 8-2 in these playoffs when he has fewer than 6 assists. When he turns it over at least 4 times they are 6-3. They are 5-2 when he has fewer than 5 rebounds. They are 6-2 when he shoots below 45% from 3. If you do something wrong, there should be consequences. Tough to get a guy to change when their are no apparent negative consequences. And I don’t think Kobe is going to sit down for a point/counterpoint on the value of Wins Produced to find hidden consequences.
TRad,
at basketball-reference there was some post that suggest that for an incumbent player (a player who has the highest usg and is regarded as “leader” of the team) can really only lose the finals MVP if his teammate out-scores him, or in a decisive games have the other teammate out-performing the incumbent player.
I’d love to see Gasol win Finals MVP if the Lakers win, but with the way he plays (smart) and the way the Celtics guard him (only allow him to see stupid attempts), he isn’t scoring much.
Just to show how silly (not funny, but actually stupid) these recent posts have become:
wp/48 says LO is a top 15 talent in the NBA, but he hasn’t helped the Lakers much in the finals. In fact, while Lamar shot 5/10 in game three, Big Baby killed him with 18 pts on 10 shots. Two things are obvious, one, wp/48 isn’t good at anything, especially basketball, and Kobe needs MORE HELP!!!!11
I think it’s fitting to have a short and simplified comment to that of an equal post.
Numbers for Kobe in the Series:
Game Player +/- Est WP48 MP
1 Kobe Bryant 6 0.195 39
2 Kobe Bryant -9 0.033 34
3 Kobe Bryant 10 0.082 44
4 Kobe Bryant -8 0.087 43
Total -1 0.137579829 117
For the Series here’s the results so far:
Player Wins Min Est WP48 WP48 rank
Rajon Rondo 0.463 124 0.179 3
Pau Gasol 0.453 128 0.170 4
Kobe Bryant 0.335 117 0.138 6
Nate Robinson 0.204 25 0.391 2
Sasha Vujacic 0.131 16 0.393 1
Jordan Farmar 0.097 33 0.141 5
Kendrick Perkins 0.078 78 0.048 7
Paul Pierce 0.047 120 0.019 8
Glen Davis 0.000 61 0.000 9
Marquis Daniels -0.004 1 -0.182 19
Michael Finley -0.008 2 -0.182 18
Andrew Bynum -0.010 96 -0.005 10
Luke Walton -0.013 18 -0.034 11
Shannon Brown -0.052 48 -0.052 12
Shelden Williams -0.097 4 -1.165 22
Tony Allen -0.106 49 -0.104 15
Derek Fisher -0.120 104 -0.055 13
Kevin Garnett -0.124 91 -0.066 14
Rasheed Wallace -0.146 55 -0.127 17
Ron Artest -0.226 97 -0.112 16
Lamar Odom -0.315 64 -0.236 21
Ray Allen -0.430 113 -0.183 20
So 3rd best in win production and 6th best in WP48. He’s been good but not stellar (see Rondo and Gasol for stellar)
As for the Kobe post, I’m sure I can find a draft somewhere ;-)
My favorite “so bad they’re good” lines Mannix wrote in the article.
“with a cadre of Celtics fans hurling insults into his ears”
“there were at least two defenders waiting to rudely greet him before he got there.”
“Bryant has proven that on this stage, the impossible is very much possible.”
That being said, what is there to gain by continually pointing out that Kobe Bryant is overrated? I don’t think Mannix will read this article, and if he does, he’ll probably just keep writing trash with an eye towards expanding his readership as opposed to shedding light on what produces wins in basketball. That’s assuming he’s self serving and not just an idiot, which is a huge assumption.
I think the playoffs and the finals are producing much more interesting points of discussion that “Kobe Bryant is still overrated.”
TBall,
I’m always trying to come up with a simple measure of offensive effectiveness that’s easy for non-statheads to grasp. You’re right, once you add in TO’s you’ve started on the road to a different measure since you need to add in assists and then you might as well add in ORB’s which led to my wish list request for offensive wp48. Since all most people care about is points, another approach is to translate all of the offensive stats into points (might as well do the same for defense) based upon their likelihood of becoming points which sounds simple at first but then requires additional stats and effort (like giving partial credit for assisted shots to both players).
Maybe this is something I don’t understand fully as European basketball if played differently, but why are the 3 pointers and the long 2′s taken so often at the end of games. If I had to choose a player to shoot that final shot it would have to be a KG or the like in the low/high post. Maybe I’m missing something.
I think this phenomenon with Kobe has reached the point where it is mainly about conformity. The conventional wisdom has ‘established’ Kobe as the ‘air’ apparent and now writers are competing with each other over who can be the widest eyed sycophant.
From representative heuristic to collective heuristic. To me that about sums up Kobe’s popular perception.
Arturo,
Thank you for the numbers. Can I request that you explain the averaging process to get the series WP48 estimate? If I do a minute-weighted average of the individual games that you show above for Bryant, I don’t end up with the displayed number (I calculate 0.100 as the series average).
Fake edit:
Just checking numbers before I hit submit, I think that potentially the game 4 minutes are not added into the denominator. The total minutes played for Bryant should be 160 rather than 117.
I don’t think the anti-Kobe posts are redundant. The Kobe Inquisition loves to shout people down. If the Lakers lose this will be the record that some of us were not drinking the kool-aid
DKH,
I’m calculating as follows:
Win Score = PTS + REB + STL + ½*BLK + ½*AST – TO – ½*PF – FGA – ½*FTA
PosAdjust from Dre’s database for the playoffs (AdjP48-Wp48. I know it’s an aproximation but it’s good enough for govt. work))
PosAdj
C:100% 0.287
PF:100% 0.284
PG:100% 0.144
SF:100% 0.175
SG:100% 0.157
PAWS/min: WinScore/MP- Pos.Adj
Est WP48: 0.1+Paws/min*1.614
This is the estimate that we used for the clutch numbers and for the finals numbers I’ve posted in the comments.
DKH,
You were right. I had a weird pivot table error (the minutes imported fro ESPN as text).
Player Wins Min Est WP48 WP48 rank
Rajon Rondo 0.463 155 0.144 3
Pau Gasol 0.453 172 0.126 4
Kobe Bryant 0.335 160 0.101 6
Nate Robinson 0.204 42 0.233 2
Sasha Vujacic 0.131 23 0.274 1
Jordan Farmar 0.097 44 0.106 5
Kendrick Perkins 0.078 103 0.036 7
Paul Pierce 0.047 156 0.014 8
Glen Davis 0.000 83 0.000 9
Marquis Daniels -0.004 1 -0.182 21
Michael Finley -0.008 2 -0.182 20
Andrew Bynum -0.010 108 -0.005 10
Luke Walton -0.013 18 -0.034 11
Shannon Brown -0.052 59 -0.042 12
Shelden Williams -0.097 4 -1.165 22
Tony Allen -0.106 67 -0.076 15
Derek Fisher -0.120 135 -0.043 13
Kevin Garnett -0.124 118 -0.051 14
Rasheed Wallace -0.146 77 -0.091 17
Ron Artest -0.226 139 -0.078 16
Lamar Odom -0.315 103 -0.147 19
Ray Allen -0.430 154 -0.134 18
and your numbers were right (awesome job). King of the lab goes to you today.
The Kobe Inquisition? This is more like a witch hunt. “Burn him! He’s overrated!”
So I just tried to publish my finals table, let’s see if it worked.
http://tinyurl.com/2010nbafinal
Let me know if it works.
Thanks for the note and explanation Arturo. The table works. Amazing how terrible Ray Allen has been, and also the variability of his performance. WP48 of -0.364, 0.267, -0.539, and 0.002 over the four games. The really negative ones must be due to Kobe; the positive one is definitely Derek Fisher’s fault. ;)
Also the number of players who are negative maybe explains why this series has been so boring to me (as a non-fan of either team).
DKH,
This series has been very exciting to me. I think the more I have gotten into trying to predict what will happen each season and the more I have delved into player evaluation the more exciting the seasons have become. So while, this series has featured below average play its been exciting for me because of its seeming unpredictability.
I also enjoy watching people eat their words
Kobe’s ubiquitousness is the result of marketing, pure and simple. He doesn’t appear to seek out or welcome the attention. To those of us who go beyond being a casual fan, he’s just another player. We are in the middle of a finals series and the talking heads need something to talk about. Unfortunately, they’ve become shills and rarely contribute anything constructive or enlightening. They’ve even gotten to Hubie Brown! The people that run the league are turning the game into McBasketball and trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And we fall right in step when Kobe dominates these posts. There are better things to discuss. Sorry for yet another rant.
I think todd2 brings up a good point. As Dr. Berri has pointed out, teams in LA and NY tend to receive a lot of media attention compared to other big markets. I do think Kobe and Pierce are both attention hogs, but people tend not to notice Pierce’s antics as often just because he’s in Boston.
Arturo:
The problem I have w/ your numbers is that the wins don’t sum anywhere close to 4, which I think they would since there have been 4 wins in the series. Why do you think that is?
todd2,
** “Kobe’s ubiquitousness is the result of marketing, pure and simple. He doesn’t appear to seek out or welcome the attention.”**
This is one subject that I know pretty well that is one of the least true statements I’ve ever seen written. He now doesn’t seek out the attention. I don’t know how closely you followed basketball before 2004. He was forced to change alot around that time.
reservoirgod,
We wondered why the 1 game totals didnt add up to 1 and -1. The explanation was that a team that played well enough in 1 game to accumulate 1 win would be expected to win 82 games over the course of a season.
** “Kobe’s ubiquitousness is the result of marketing, pure and simple. He doesn’t appear to seek out or welcome the attention.”**
“This is one subject that I know pretty well.”
LOL why?
Reservoirgod,
Couple of Points on that:
1. I’m using Winscore to approximate WP48. If I line up the approximation against actual numbers for the season I see variation at about +/- 10%
2. I’m not working out the team offensive or defensive adjustments. Remember WP48 is typically calculated over large sample sizes so game to game adjustments by opponents and pace are minimized.
3. Marparker’s point on wins combined with opponent adjustments. Both these teams are very good so wp48 does not compare to an 82 season.
alvy,
In the late 90s Kobe was a joke for trying to be everything he wasn’t. The guy was one of the most exciting players in the NBA and couldn’t sell a sneaker. Back then I was a staunch Kobe defender while the majority of those I argued with hated him(funny how times have changed). He wanted the attention but wasn’t a good enough salesman for anyone to back him. I’m pretty sure this is documented somewhere in the internets.
marparker:
I don’t think the 1 game totals should add up to zero, they should add up to 1 and so the 4 game totals should add up to four.
Arturo:
Thanks for the explanation.
reservoirgod,
They shouldn’t. Arturo says so in his explanation.
“Both these teams are very good so wp48 does not compare to an 82 season.”-Arturo
Marparker – LMAO
And once gagain, Kobe decides to be the entire offense, makes some spactacular shots while completley ignoring everyone else, the Lakers fall hopelessly behind…and Mark Jackson practically spooges all over the mike praisiing Kobe for his basketball ability.
I’m sorry but, as a basketball purist, I find this disgusting. Kope is a aestetic affront to everything I believe in.
The terrible part of Kobe’s game 5 performance is now everyone will talk about how Kobe’s teammates are not up to snuff.
Another thing. I s anyone else besides me just a little tired fo phil Jackson’s act and his revisionist worldview?
Just to set the record straint= Phil sucked as a player. Steve Kubersil used to kick hi ass. His game was incredibly ugly. He has no foot quickness at all and his gangly physique did not play well in the NBA. when he was given a startinng slot, him team tanked.So when he says “We used to have the Celtics number”, I guess he means “We got lucky that Havlicek dislocated his shoulder. They came back in “74 abd kicked our ass in 5″
I missed the joke I guess.
The joke is that I should probably wait until I’m sober to submit comments. The number of misspellings in that comment boggle the mind.
“The terrible part of Kobe’s game 5 performance is now everyone will talk about how Kobe’s teammates are not up to snuff.”
Classic. Your wish is J.A. Adande’s command:
“Bryant Can’t Do It Alone-” http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2010/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=bryantgame5-100614
Especially delicious is the justaposition of these 2 comments:
1. “…It made perfect sense, since it was only Kobe out there on the court. At one point Kobe Bryant had scored half of the Lakers’ points: 29 of 58. He finished with 38 in the Lakers’ 92-86 loss. Bryant also led them with four assists and had the team’s lone blocked shot.”
2. “Odom said: “When Kobe gets hot like that, he gets hot like that. You can’t deny it. We just need to get stops as a team.”
And this is when Odom returned to the curious place he visited after Game 4, when he said the Lakers’ primary problem, the issue responsible for both their offensive and defensive shortcomings, is the lack of ball movement. ”
Adande is obviously so obtuse that he can’t seem to fathom these two observations might be connected in some way.
And finally, from Adande:
“So the Celtics’ offense allowed them to play better defense than the Lakers? That’s a head-scratcher. It’s indicative of a disconnect. If the Lakers have different concepts of the problem they won’t be able to find a solution. ”
It’s more like the Laker offense allowed the Celtics to play better defense, J.A. Are you that big a mooncalf, you can’t pconceptualize the lack of ball movement occurs because Kobe only likes to score off the dribble, and he likes to score all the time? And that, when he does that, it makes it easy for the Celtics to play defense, because they don’t have to expend energy chasing the ball from one side of the floor to the other and back again?
Are you rreally that effin’ stupid, J.A.? Please don’t tell me that.
The new trend I see in defending Kobe, or explaining his greatness is the fact that he “creates shots”. Yes, other players shoot and miss, but when Kobe shoots and misses, he is unique in creating shots for others. That is his greatness apparently. I wish I knew how to miss and create shots like Kobe. Also the other defense is that Kobe faces tough defenses, unlike other teams, he alone is facing the uber-tough defensive teams in the NBA.