Mike's points are valid - even a Kobe-lover would concede that - and they got me to wondering: How does Bryant stack up on a year-to-year basis with some of the other top scorers in NBA history?
Bryant is currently 30 years old, so, to be fair, we should only count stats for players in the same time frame. Shown below is a chart listing what I believe to be the top nine scorers at age 30, plus two youngsters who merit mentioning:
A few quick notes to take away from this graphic:
1. Michael Jordan gave Bryant a three season head start, took off two seasons (one for injury, one for baseball), and still ranks within a half-season of scoring of Kobe. Amazing.
2. Wilt Chamberlain gave Bryant a five-year head start, and managed to catch Bryant by age 30. And that's in spite of having a tired groin.
3. As far as I can tell, only one player has outscored Bryant through age 25. That player? Tracy McGrady.
4. Both LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony are ahead of Bryant at their respective ages, Melo by a small margin and LBJ by a significant one (12,993 to 10,658, a difference of 21%).
If you found that first graphic a little too cluttered, you might want to view this one instead, which just includes the three greatest scorers in league history to date: Bryant, Jordan and Chamberlain. Yes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone are 1-2 in scoring, but they never dominated the league to the extent those aforementioned gentlemen did.
What's most interesting to me is that from ages 26 to 29, the three were almost identical in career scoring. Were it not for MJ's decision to give up basketball, that might have continued for the rest of their careers.
Worth pointing out that Bryant's 'three season head start' over Jordan consisted of a strike-shortened season and two years as a developmental backup playing about 20 mpg.
ReplyDeleteSince he became a regular, Bryant has had four seasons interrupted by injury where he missed a total of 63 games - or one less than Jordan missed in his injury season.
In other words, not really that amazing that Jordan is within a half-season of Bryant's scoring total.
Not saying one is better than the other, just thought some context would be appropriate. Personally, I think Gerald Paddio was better than both these jokers.
The old colorado flop artist will never be Jordan and will be demolished by Lebron in the end. I am no fan of any of these guys. But the he is just the filler between the two great ones, Lebron and Jordan.
ReplyDelete.
I hated watching Kobe continually draw fouls and end the game with 16 free throw attempts and play tough defense all game and have 1 foul at the games end.
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He is the king of drawing the all star whistles. I may be mistaken but Im sure it was not that way with Jordan, at least not that extreme. I was 16 during the 96 finals and never remember complaining about the bulls getting all of the calls.