Post#86 » by LakerFanMan » Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:15 pm
It's kind of hard to claim that you're being unbiased or that you don't have and agenda when you spend literally paragraphs comparing Kobe's help in the Lakers' losing years to Lebron's help. Or when you spend time talking about how kobe had his best scoring efforts came against bad teams. It's also very difficult to claim you're being unbiased when you use phrases like "jacked up" when you describe Kobe's shooting. It helps to use neutral words and phrases when you're speaking of something you claim to be unbiased about.
The "scoring against bad teams" and "having good teammates" arguments have been argued countless times in countless threads around here. If you want to hear counter-arguments are on those points, go read any one of the countless threads that have been made on the subjects. They've been argued to death around here, but it might be good for you to at least glance through them. Ill only say this, you're break downs of Kwame Brown and Smush Parker are, no offense, but a little funny. There is a reason why Smush parker was nothing before going to the Lakers and why he is out of the league now. There is also a reason why Kwame Brown doesn't play any more. They're bad ball players. They both have very low bball IQ's. I'm hoping that you did spend time watching them play and didn't just draw your conclusions from a few good games or series that you may have found stats from. You also fail to point out that they had the best seasons of their careers playing with Kobe.
As far as Caron and Odom, Caron was NOT an all star caliber player at that time in his career and Odom has never been an all star. Wade got to the playoffs with them, not only because he played really well, but mostly because the East was a joke for nearly a solid decade after MJ retired. There were several teams under .500 routinely making the playoffs in the east. In the west, teams had to be over .500 to even have a shot.
You also make the point that if MJ, Lebron, and other top scores had had less assists and took more shots they would have scored a lot more points, ala Kobe. That's assuming that their shooting percentages stayed the same, which they probably would not have. Most likely, their %'s would have regressed closer to their averages. It's almost like saying a player who puts up 20 points on 20 shots, while shooting way above his normal shooting percentage, will score 40 points on 40 shots. Basic statistics tell us that, mostly likely, wouldn't happen.
Your statistic seems well thought out and as close to unbiased as possible (all statistics have bias and flaws). However, you obviously have a bias as far as Kobe is concerned. I'm not knocking you, I'm just telling you what's obvious. There is nothing wrong with not liking a player or thinking a player is overrated. There are plenty I also feel that way about. What I'm getting at is this, just because you have a stat that is relatively unbiased, doesn't mean you are using that stat in an unbiased way. It happens all the time. Your statistic is good and relatively unbiased, but the conclusions you draw from it are obviously based on how you feel about Kobe, the Lakers, and/or Laker fans. Again, it's no knock on you, it's just something that's nearly impossible to avoid when you feel strongly about a subject.
Last time I checked he has as much rings as you and me in his 7 year career