In their primes: KG or Kobe?

[sofutomygaha]

I love KG, but this is an easy call.

Sadly this is how most on here feel.

I doubt that, but I do think it's a very polarizing question.

[sofutomygaha]

Looking at offensive stats, Kobe posted merely solid efficiency on a ton of volume. Look at career PER: 23.2 and 22.8 for Kobe and KG respectively. In contrast a truly game-changing offensive player is Lebron, whose career PER is 27.7 (!!). The difference isn't due to Lebron being still in his prime; he has been more efficient his whole career than Kobe was even at his peak.

That is to say, Kobe was a great offensive player, but not a LBJ or MJ-level offensive dynamo. KG was also a great offensive player, and he changed the power forward position with his shooting, but he was never as much of a volume scorer as Kobe. 

Defensively, on the other hand, is where you see a BIG difference. Bryant actually has a negative defensive BPM for his career, which probably undersells him a bit, but the fact is that he is hardly a dominant force on this end. KG on the other hand, well, we've all watched him play: no stats needed. We're talking about the difference between a roughly average defender and perhaps the GOAT.

I'll take KG.

With you 100% until that GOAT part. Certainly one of the greats, but is he really in the conversation for greatest?

GOAT in terms of defense. I'm still not on board 110% with it but I think you could make a pretty strong argument for Garnett's place in someone's top whatever defenders of all time list.

Everyone likes a good list-- so who's on it... let's see. Certainly Russell, Hakeem, Duncan, Rodman, Wallace among bigs. Mutombo, Mourning, Robinson, maybe. Garnett fits in with those guys for sure. Among wings, Pippen, Bowen, and Jordan stand way out, but I'm not sure who else is on that list because wing defense is so different between eras (I might make the argument that most of the best all-time wing defenders are playing right now). At the point, the candidates are probably Kidd, Payton, and Robertson.

Comparing apples to apples, I wouldn't seriously entertain the idea that Garnett surpassed Hakeem or Russell, so the GOAT thing is a non-starter. I can certainly see him making your top-10 list, though.

[knuckleballer]

I love KG, but this is an easy call.

Sadly this is how most on here feel.

Everyone here loves KG.  He did win us a championship and is one of the best players of his generation.  And Kobe may be a jerk, but that didn't prevent him from winning 5 championships.  He was the most dominant scorer in the league for a long time while also be named all NBA defense 9 times.  I certainly like KG better, but Kobe is ahead of KG in my mind.  When there's two minutes to go in a close game, who would you rather have had in their prime?

[Donoghus]

It still seems to be a swingman's league.  Gonna have to go with Kobe here as much as it pains me.

[TheFlex]

Garnett. One of the five most dominant players ever based on his '03-04 season.

[D.o.s.]

Looking at offensive stats, Kobe posted merely solid efficiency on a ton of volume. Look at career PER: 23.2 and 22.8 for Kobe and KG respectively. In contrast a truly game-changing offensive player is Lebron, whose career PER is 27.7 (!!). The difference isn't due to Lebron being still in his prime; he has been more efficient his whole career than Kobe was even at his peak.

That is to say, Kobe was a great offensive player, but not a LBJ or MJ-level offensive dynamo. KG was also a great offensive player, and he changed the power forward position with his shooting, but he was never as much of a volume scorer as Kobe. 

Defensively, on the other hand, is where you see a BIG difference. Bryant actually has a negative defensive BPM for his career, which probably undersells him a bit, but the fact is that he is hardly a dominant force on this end. KG on the other hand, well, we've all watched him play: no stats needed. We're talking about the difference between a roughly average defender and perhaps the GOAT.

I'll take KG.

With you 100% until that GOAT part. Certainly one of the greats, but is he really in the conversation for greatest?

GOAT in terms of defense. I'm still not on board 110% with it but I think you could make a pretty strong argument for Garnett's place in someone's top whatever defenders of all time list.

Everyone likes a good list-- so who's on it... let's see. Certainly Russell, Hakeem, Duncan, Rodman, Wallace among bigs. Mutombo, Mourning, Robinson, maybe. Garnett fits in with those guys for sure. Among wings, Pippen, Bowen, and Jordan stand way out, but I'm not sure who else is on that list because wing defense is so different between eras (I might make the argument that most of the best all-time wing defenders are playing right now). At the point, the candidates are probably Kidd, Payton, and Robertson.

Comparing apples to apples, I wouldn't seriously entertain the idea that Garnett surpassed Hakeem or Russell, so the GOAT thing is a non-starter. I can certainly see him making your top-10 list, though.

I'd agree with this -- one of the best, probably not the best, certainly head and shoulders above average (which is a charitable assessment of Kobe's defense).

[sofutomygaha]

When there's two minutes to go in a close game, who would you rather have had in their prime?

That's a hard question for me. With two minutes to go in a close game, I *think* that the referees are less likely to call fouls, which removes a big piece of Kobe's edge. We know that Kobe has a lot of late-game heroics on his resume, but I'm sympathetic to the school of thought that this has more to do with Kobe's volume and propensity to attempt shots with a highlight-reel degree of difficulty than with how much he improved his team's chances of winning games.

Garnett in his prime (and always) played team basketball. In the last two minutes of the game, he's going to set a harder screen than anybody. He's going to work harder to get and maintain possessions than anybody. When the other team gets the ball, he's going to do more to stop them from scoring than anybody. He won't need help from the referees, and he won't p--- away my chances playing hero ball.

[incoherent]

Kobe in his absolute PRIME scores 82 points a night.

Kobe by a mile.

[Celtics4ever]

Kobe is a better scorer and could take over games, KG is a more productive in terms of overall stats.

[moiso]

Kobe in his absolute PRIME scores 82 points a night.

Kobe by a mile.

There is a difference between "scores" 82 points a night and "once scored" 82 points in a night.  And there have been plenty of scrubs who have 50pt games on their resume, so I don't agree with that logic.

I like KG as a teammate and the backbone of a defense, etc.  But all those prime years when at crunch time KG would look frantically for Szczerbiak or someone else to take the clutch shots might make me go with Kobe.

[wdleehi]

KG.  It is just so hard to find star level big men, and KG was a top three big man of his era.  (Along with Duncan and Shaq)

[MBunge]

Looking at offensive stats, Kobe posted merely solid efficiency on a ton of volume. Look at career PER: 23.2 and 22.8 for Kobe and KG respectively. In contrast a truly game-changing offensive player is Lebron, whose career PER is 27.7 (!!). The difference isn't due to Lebron being still in his prime; he has been more efficient his whole career than Kobe was even at his peak.

That is to say, Kobe was a great offensive player, but not a LBJ or MJ-level offensive dynamo. KG was also a great offensive player, and he changed the power forward position with his shooting, but he was never as much of a volume scorer as Kobe. 

Defensively, on the other hand, is where you see a BIG difference. Bryant actually has a negative defensive BPM for his career, which probably undersells him a bit, but the fact is that he is hardly a dominant force on this end. KG on the other hand, well, we've all watched him play: no stats needed. We're talking about the difference between a roughly average defender and perhaps the GOAT.

I'll take KG.

It's somewhat fitting that the Lakers have both the most overrated all-time great (Kobe) and probably the most underrated all-time great (Kareem).

Mike

[MBunge]

And Kobe may be a jerk, but that didn't prevent him from winning 5 championships. 

Kobe won 3 titles with Shaq and 2 with Bynum, Pau and Odom.  Shaq is, of course, Shaq and anyone who watched that Laker could knew that it was Bynum, Pau and Odom who made that team special.

Mike

[max215]

I'll take KG.

[Boris Badenov]

I hate Kobe, I love KG, and I'd take Kobe.

It's like Ainge says, the hardest thing to find is a guy who can score 15 of his team's last 20 in game 7 of the Finals.