Btw my thinking on the subject is this.
Jordan had the best peak performance and the longest.
Career wise, LeBron can still beat Jordan but imo not yet.

Kobe won 1 MVP; possibly in an career achievement type way. But I think Kobe was possibly the best player in the NBA during the Lakers' years were they were struggling.

Lakers were very good when they had Phil, Kobe, Pau, Bynum, Odom.

There were some weird years where Nash won B2B MVPs; Lebron was kind of young and Lakers were marginal for a few years where Kobe couldn't have won the MVP when he might have been the best player. in 2008, Lebron was arguably better but the Cavs were just an okay team at the time and you can't win MVP when your team is just okay although RWB is about to do it this year for the first time in a long time.

The finals thing is kind of mute because 4 times Kobe went to the finals with Shaq being the best player. The last 3, Kobe was good; although you could argue Pau was nearly as valuable especially in the finals. I know Kobe won both finals MVPs so he does have that but unlike most series where it unquestionably went to someone there were many questions during those series..

Kobe with his big 4 were definitely better than 1st run with the Cavs; I'm not sure how the Lakers would have fared against the Miami Big 3. If the Lakers would have stayed together, I think by the peak Miami years you could argue the Heat were better than the Lakers at their peak during the Lakers mini run, although I'm not sure the rest of the Heat were better than the rest of the Lakers sans Kobe.

Looking at some advanced stats:

PER:

MJ-27.91-1st (includes Washington years)
Lebron-27.61-2nd (includes younger years--he hasn't faded yet)
Kobe-22.9-24th (includes HS/fade years)

Single Season PER

MJ has 4 in Top 10-31.71, 31.63, 31.18, 31.14-7 in the top 50
Lebron has 2 and 4 in the top 13; 6 in the top 50
Kobe highest is 63rd-27.97

So peak MJ is slightly better than peak Lebron by PER; Kobe isn't that close when it comes to these alltime greats when it comes to career or peak PER.

PPG is a little closer for Kobe although this is where MJ edges Lebron and Kobe by a bunch; Career 30.12 for MJ, Lebron is at 27.13 and Kobe is at 24.99. Peak Kobe does have one in the top 10--35.4 (8th), Lebron's highest is 31.37 (35th), MJ has 2 in the top 10 (37.09/34.98).

MVPs-5 for MJ, 4 for Lebron, 1 for Kobe; Finals MVPs--which everyone loves 6 vs 3 vs 2.

WinShares/48-MJ is #1--.2505 vs .2389 for Lebron (6th) and Kobe is at .1705 (57th); Win Shares-Lebron is already 7th all time (205.4) vs MJ (214) vs Kobe (172).

TS%-Lebron 58.38% (46th all time) vs 56.86% (83rd all time) vs Kobe .5496 (204th)

So one of these things is not like the other. TS% is tough for non bigs to be at the top so all 3 are pretty damn good despite not being top 10 all time. Kobe does have the high ppg outlier season. Win Shares doesn't love Kobe.

Playoffs stats are nuts as well: 28.6 PER for MJ; 27.7 for Lebron (3rd)--Mikan slips in at 2nd; Kobe is 22.4. MJ is 1st in WS/48 in playoffs--.2553; Lebron .2406 (3rd); Kawhi is 4th (.2099) there is a big gap between top 3 and 4; Kobe is 55th (.1570).

BPM and VORP >>>> WS/48 and WS. PER is a garbage stat. BPM with some correction for where this may fall short (all-around defensive impact, coaching, fraudulent stat-whoring, i.e. Westbrook/Harden this year) with some calibration using actual RPM/RAPM where available is probably the best way to measure players historically.

LEbron is already number one in vorp all time. I'm not sure how far basketball-reference goes, but mj is second and Kobe is 16th. Bron is number one by far on basketball-reference's bpm stat 9.15 to mjs second 8.09 and Kobe 35th at 3.88. It tells almost the same story as the other stats. You can look at most of the advanced ones and almost all align with bron/mj at or near the top and Kobe lagging far behind.

kobe thing is a total derail. asking random sports fans who is better between kobe and lebron is probably the easiest way to figure out if they are totally braindead.

montrealcorp I don't think you followed the entire context of my comments wrt barkley.


it was like 1 night i heard him say lebron was "*maybe* the best player in the league" then a few nights later say emphatically that he's "the best player on the planet", and then a few nights later apparently say "kobe > lebron". i guess barkley just rolls with skip bayless level over-reactions to whatever the most recent game result was.

3 is ridiculous. That's like saying I'm smarter than Newton because I know E=mc^2. LeBron didn't come up with the idea of shooting threes himself, he was just lucky enough to exist after someone else worked it out. I think the implied question IS the coaching one. We're comparing them in the metrics that they actually deserve credit for.

Unfortunately there is no stat for "would get punked by Jonas jerebko" but if there was LeBron could check that one off.

LOL kOBE.

Gerb ILL try harder bro.

Kobe will go down as the most overrated athlete in history.

I think one of the posters summed it up best. Jordan had the best peak but Lebron will have the best career.

Great post.

An overlooked piece of the narrative is how lucky it is that it fits into something human brains love for whatever reason - "3", two three-peats. People don't quite feel the same about Duncan's 5 even compared to Kobe, I'd bet largely because they're all split up. MJ could have won 6 all broken up from the late '80s to the late '90s and it would not be as impactful. Manu/Parker/Duncan would be a huge thing in the public consciousness had they won 3 straight.

And of course, there's the free pass for 1995.

3-0 + 3-0 = 6-0!

[+2-0 = 8-0!]

GOAT

Him and Derek Jeter are like the exact same guy in 2 different sports. Both good for a long time. Both hall of famers. Both lauded like they are inner circle all time greats which they aren't. For mostly similar reasons. Both played entire career for one team, the highest profile team in the league. Both had a 3 peat early in their career, then won 2 more titles later.

Wow this is good.

The thing is players probably have a different definition of what Great means compared to a fan. I can totally see how, as a player to another player, as one man to another, they would laud Kobe as an All-time Great. They probably value longetivity and consistency (as having a killer drive in such a pressure-cooker over an extended amount of time AND winning) is a much more admirable personality trait than "who goes #1 in a fantasy draft".

Aka we fans are on the outside judging by paper stats and 2k logic, players in the field recognize the human achievement behind careers.

In that world, one-team guys like Kobe Duncan Dirk really mean more, give more points to Greatness, than actual bucket points. Not to say the rings argument is invalid. These players wouldn't be who they are without rings (see: john Stockton) but I think success (in the overall sense) might be a better metric than rings. As in CP3 is still an all time great, even without a ring. He just never had the right team. Imagine him replacing Curry or even Lebron. Those aren't bad teams... and we should judge a player accordingly.

I disagree with the negativity about Kobe and the Jeter analogy. People have fond memories of Jeter because he performed well in the world series and was on winning teams. Kobe is easily top five all time at his position and is probably #2.

But hes not near lebron.

Interesting. Kobe is the second best shooting guard. I didn't realize that position was not as impactful in the NBA. I mean Kobe is barely in the top 20 and he's the second best at his position.

Isn't pretty much every position other than maybe point guard and center (and even then sometimes) pretty much arbitrary?

I mean, what's the difference between the position Kobe plays and the one Lebron plays? Or Jordan for that matter? I don't really see a difference other than the label. As far as I'm concerned they all play the same position. Lebron is more of a passer than the other 2, but any of them can be called a shooting guard, point guard, or small forward, I don't see how it matters. They all handle the ball a lot, shoot a lot, drive, get fouled, are about 6'6", etc.

Positions in basketball are very unclear in many cases. John Stockton/Steve Nash was definitely a point guard, and Shaq/Hakeem was definitely a center, but I don't see any meaningful positional difference amongst Lebron/Jordan/Kobe.

Yea this is a bit of a semantic argument. I see what you mean.

Personally I don't think its like saying you're smarter than Newton because you know E = mc^2. I think its like saying that if you conduct an experiment that takes into account E = mc^2, while Newton did a similar experiment but he didn't at all account for this, then your scientific experiment is better than Newton's(assuming all else being equal). Thats all I'm saying. I'm comparing Michael Jordan's actual real life performance(which contained a ton of long 2s) to Lebron's actual real life performance(which exhibits a clear understanding of optimal shot selection).

"deserve credit for" is a weird debate. Does MJ deserve credit for being born tall and athletic any more than Bron deserves credit for being born in an era in which his coaches helped him optimize his shot selection?






agree with all of this

Yeah, can't blame MJ for not taking 3s. At the time players would have been benched for throwing up a bunch of 3s. Long rebounds were tough to defend as it led to fast breaks etc. Teams have morphed a lot more to be better in transition (defensively). Teams have learned to handle it better.

The game is always evolving. Should LeBron get blamed because in 10 years from now teams are doing something completely different? Of course not.