You said: “chris you said that kobe doesnt get as many assists as mj will kobe is playing the triangle offense its not built around any player getting a lot of assists”

Michael Jordan played shooting guard for Phil Jackson and they ran the triangle offense so your argument makes no sense. The Bulls and Jordan invented the triangle offense as we see it in the NBA today.

“kobe is simply a better teammate”

Well that is something that is purely subjective, and Shaq would beg to differ with you. But there is no way to quantify this with stats or anything, so it is nothing more than conjecture and your conjecture is just as valid as mine.

“there was not any good defensive sg in the league with mj look at all the good sg kobe has to play against”

This statement again leads me to believe you were too young to watch basketball in the eighties and nineties. Joe Dumars was one of the greatest defensive shooting guards of All Time. He was so good that Jerry West, one of the greatest basketball minds in our time, said that Dumars was the best player on the Pistons, not Isiah Thomas. Here is an article about it: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-16-26/Joe-Dumars–Michael-Jordan-Unguardable-with-Current-NBA-Rules.html

There were other great defensive shooting guards at that time too. Alvin Robertson, Michael Cooper, Mitch Richmond, Rolando Blackman and Clyde Drexler come to mind.

“we can all agree mj had a better career so far”

Yes, all the evidence I presented points this out.

“but kobe is a more skilled player than mj”

*Sigh.

chris you said that kobe doesnt get as many assists as mj will kobe is playing the triangle offense its not built around any player getting a lot of assists

i do think stern rigged the defensive player of the year award

you are the one who based scoring on defense re read what you said

kobe had carried his team to the playoffs by himself with out a hall of famer twice MJ did it not twice not once but zero times….he needed pippen every time….and when Mj retired the bulls only lost 2 more games than they did the year mj played

look at the defenses this day and age and u need to realize that the celtics have a tough defense and it is tough to penetrate any defense the same way everyone use to

you wanna talk about off court drama well lets talk about when bill cartwright told mj if he made another funny joke about him then he would break mjs legs… kobe is simply a better teammate

there was not any good defensive sg in the league with mj look at all the good sg kobe has to play against

we can all agree mj had a better career so far but kobe is a more skilled player than mj

Scoring: You claim that zone defense was the difference. That’s fine, instead we can compare the two players by looking at how they compare to their peers. Thus, compared to his peers, Kobe Bryant was able to score more points per game for an entire season than anyone else in the league twice. Michael Jordan scored more points per game than anyone else nine times. So when measured against their peers Jordan wins out.

But it gets worse for Kobe in the playoffs. Three times in his career, Kobe has averaged less points per game in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. Jordan only did this twice, and the worst was a 1.4 point per game drop off. Bryant once dropped off almost eight points a game from the regular season to the playoffs.

But there was a VERY important rule change made when zone defense was allowed, and that is the establishment of the defensive three second rule. During Jordan’s era centers like Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, and Diekembe Mutomobo could all stand in the lane as long as they wanted in defense. When the NBA rule change came about they purposefully made it easier for people to drive by not allowing the centers to park themselves in the lane. This came about because David Stern appointed a rules committee headed by Jerry Colangelo who wanted to open up the lane to make scoring easier.

To illustrate the point even further. Since the new defensive 3 second rule has been instituted the league has seen a significant decrease in blocks by centers, since big men are no longer allowed to camp in the lane. Since the new rules in 2001 only once did the league leader in blocks achieve more than 300 in a season. From 1984-1998 during Jordan’s peak years, only twice did the league leader in blocks have less than 300. Just so we’re clear, blocks have significantly decreased because centers are not allowed to camp in the lane, there has been about a 15-20% reduction.

Before the defensive three seconds rule it was common for the league leader in rebounds to grab more than 1200 in a season, in fact Rodman did it three times himself. No one has grabbed 1200 boards since the new rule. The defensive three seconds rule gets big men out of the lane and does the opposite of what you claim zone defense in the NBA does and the numbers bear that out. Now, if the NBA allowed a true zone, like what we see in college, without a defensive three seconds rule, then what you say about zones would likely be correct. A traditional 2-3 zone does do all the things you claim, too bad no NBA team consistently runs such a zone because the rules won’t allow it. So when you said: “rebounding-i will once again bring up zone d…..with zone d u have ur big men clogging up the center so how could kobe avg as much as mj did against man on man”, the stats completely contradict you.

When it comes to steals, let’s say that you are right and that the change in hand checking rules makes it impossible for Bryant to get the number of steals Jordan had, then let’s compare them to their peers. Three times Jordan was able to get more steals than anyone else in the league. The number of times Bryant led the league in steals? Zero. So, when compared to his peers, Jordan was better than everyone else three times in his career when it came to steals.

You said: “jordans is plain out fashion and we gotta wait to see if kobes shoes sore to the same height as michael jordans shoes”

OK, let me say that I know way more about basketball shoes than anyone ever should. I am just going to list a few of the technical innovations that Air Jordans brought to basketball shoes just to prove how wrong you are about them only being about style:

(The Roman numeral refers to the particular Jordan model)
First Bball shoe with lace locks- V
First Bball show with pull tabs on the heel- III
First asymmetrical shoe upper to provide support only where needed- V
First shoe with anti-inversion straps- VIII
First shoe with quick lace system- IX
First shoe with hidden quick lace system- XVI
First shoe to use Carbon fiber- XI
First shoe to use techflex- XIX

I could go on but you get the point. I had a relative who worked for Nike so I know Nike shoes inside and out. Your assertion that the shoes are only for style is just plain wrong, sorry.

You said: “4.turnovers- plain and simple which one had to play against harder defense”

This statement leads me to believe you were too young to have seen the Pistons play in the late eighties. The 1989-90 Pistons are regarded as one of the greatest defensive teams of all time. Also the Celtics with Bird, McHale and Parrish were among the best defensive teams to ever play, and Jordan dropped 63 points on that team in the playoff.

How many times has anyone has more than 300 blocks during Bryant’s career? Once. How many times during Jordan’s? 12. You even asserted that there were more steals during Jordan’s time than there are today. So if you are more likely to have your shot blocked, and more likely to have your ball stolen, then Jordan seems like the one who was facing the tougher defense. But in the end you just made a subjective statement that you BELIEVE defense is better today than it was in Jordan’s time, that is just opinion.

I am old enough that I actually saw the Pistons and Celtics play in the eighties, not just on TV but live in Madison Square Garden. I have literally been to hundreds of live games over the years and I can say that the defense is not any better now than it was back then, nor would I argue that it is any worse. Professionals play good defense, period.

Regarding off the court drama. Sure we all know that Jordan gambles too much. But not once did Jordan have to hold a public press conference to deal with the issue because it got out of hand. Kobe did need several press conferences to deal with his off court drama. Also, Jordan was a tough teammate, you are right. But anyone who has coached basketball knows that fights happen, that is how practice is. Steve Kerr thinks the world of Michael, and joked with him at a press conference after they won a championship:

”Phil told Michael, ‘I want you to take the last shot.’ And Michael said, ‘I don’t feel real comfortable in these situations, so maybe we ought to go in another direction,’ ” Kerr said as Jordan, one of basketball’s clutch performers, laughed hysterically.

”And then Scottie came in and said, ‘Michael said in his commercial that he’s been asked to do this 26 times and failed, so why don’t we go to Steve?’ So I thought to myself, ‘Well, I guess I’ve got to bail Michael out again. But I’ve been carrying him all year, so what’s one more time?’

”Anyway, the shot went in. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

You will never hear Kerr say a bad thing about Michael in the media. Did it once get heated during a practice? Sure. But that in no way makes Jordan an inferior player to Bryant.

But finally for me to solidify my point and show that Jordan was above and beyond anyone else in the league we can look at some advanced statistics. If you are truly interested you can look up the formulas used to derive these statistics. There is a great book called “Basketball on Paper” that will explain win shares. Player efficiency is a measurement of players based on a complicated formula developed by John Hollinger. Winshares is a very complicated equation that incorporates almost all facets of the game.

The number of times Jordan led the league in winshares: 9 Bryant:0
The Number of times Jordan led the league in player efficiency: 7 Bryant:0

(*Note: Lebron led the league in win shares and efficiency last year, so keep your eye on him. He may be on his way to de-throning Jordan, who knows.)

You said: ” yea mj had more mvps but didnt david stern hand them to him like it was candy”

As I said in my earlier comment. The MVP is voted on by 125 people, David Stern does not have a vote, he just announces the results. Are you implying that the voting is rigged by Stern? I love conspiracy theories, please share any if you have one!

You also said: “and the reason he got a defensive player of the year award”

Again, that award is voted on by over 100 people. Are you saying Stern rigged the process?

Since your email address contains Kobe’s nickname I am assuming you are a Kobe fan. I was a Knicks fan in the eighties and nineties so I have every reason in the world to hate on Jordan. But as a basketball fan I can see that when it comes down to a sound, non-biased analysis, Jordan is just better.

P.S. The only reason I only have one list posted is that I have not finished any others yet, so no Kiya is not holding back. ;)

As you can see from my earlier response I am usually very thorough in my responses, but this takes time so my apologies for not being as detailed as I would like to be so I am going to focus on the more quantitative rather than qualitative aspects. I will just point out a few quick things you said and respond:

“9. Kobe is a better rebounder for his size…MJ is obviously more athletic and he should be getting significantly more rebounds than kobe, also driving to the rim all the time gives him a larger opportunity at offensive rebounds”

For the record Kobe and MJ are both listed at 6′6″ and MJ is listed at 216 lbs, vs. Kobe listed 205 lbs., so they are almost the exact same size. Jordan, at age 39, when he was much slower and less athletic than his younger days, was able to grab 6.1 rebounds a game, compared to Bryant’s 5.2 last year.

You said: “7. I have researched this whole field goal % dilemma, and i did the math, and i kobe only took as many 3’s as MJ did then he would have almost the exact same field goal %…”

Well if you took Kobe’s amazing season where he scored 81 points in a game is 05-06 Kobe shot 1655 two pointers, and made 798 of them which puts his two point field goal percentage at 48%. If you look at Bryant’s best shooting year in his career, 01-02, he shot 49% from 2 point range (716-1465).

The only times Jordan shot less than 48% from the field (including threes) was the second year he was in the league when he injured his foot and only played 18 games. The year he came back to the Bulls after his first retirement and only played 17 games. His last year with the Bulls and the two years with Washington.

If you did the math, show your work, because I did the math and Jordan was more efficient according to the stats.

You also said:

“Marcus Camby led the league in blocks, does that make him a better defender than Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan?”

Well Camby did win the Defensive Player of the Year award in 2007, so according to the voters for that award, yes it does make him a better defender than those guys, at least for that year. If only Camby could have stayed healthy he would have been regarded much higher in this respect, but since Garnett and Duncan have stayed relatively healthy, people regard them higher than Camby as well they should.

Then you said: “Most blocks don’t even come from one-on-one defense so why would Jordan putting his hands up have anything to do with blocks…blocks typically come from weak-side defense if you knew anything about basketball you would know that.”

I’m sorry I should have mentioned that I learned the key to blocking shots from Red Auerbach and Bill Russell years ago at basketball camp as a kid. We watched a video of Russell showing how to block shots one on one. Maybe they don’t know a thing about basketball, but I think they do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTzaVKdvs7E

As a varsity high school basketball coach I used this method to teach more effective defense, but perhaps I was wrong.

“2. Dunking and shoes are completely irrelevant to the whole article…what does dunking and shoes have to do with a player being better than one another”

Jordan’s shoes were revolutionary, so much so that the NBA had to change their rules to accommodate for them. I think we would be amiss if we did not acknowledge the contribution this made to basketball culture. Almost all of the most popular shoes in the NBA today would have violated the old dress code rules but the Air Jordan changed that. But don’t worry I actually have a pair of Adidas Kobe 2s in my closet. People love those shoes when I wear them, too bad Adidas did not do better with that Kobe contract.

And finally you said: “yea mj had more mvps but didnt david stern hand them to him like it was candy”

The MVP is voted on by 125 people, David Stern does not have a vote, he just announces the results. Are you implying that the voting is rigged by Stern? I love conspiracy theories, please share any if you have one!

Since you are such a Kobe fan I will tell you some things that Kobe does better than Jordan:

Three pointers- Kobe is on another level as far as three point shooting goes, he makes Jordan look average in this department. Kobe gets great elevation on his threes and makes them look effortless. The only time Jordan even came close to shooting threes like Bryant was in the 1992 NBA finals against the Blazers and Jordan was so shocked he did the famous turn and shoulder shrug to the scorers table. Bryant shoots like that every night from three point land.

Baseline Fadeaway- Bryant’s baseline fadeaway jumper is much better than Jordan’s was. Bryant gets more elevation and fades back further making at an impossible shot to block or even effectively contest. It is so effective teams try and find long defenders like a Bruce Bowen or Shane Battier just to give their teams a fighting chance.

Languages- Kobe Bryant is legitimately bilingual. He speaks very decent Italian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L6nVq2jspU

Nicknames- Kobe Bryant did something I never heard Jordan successfully do, he gave himself a nickname. The black mamba is what he chose. Jordan never gave himself I nickname that I can recall, so Bryant has him beat in this respect.

Hair- Jordan started to go bald by his third or fourth year in the league. It worked out well, he just went with the bald look and the shape of his head is so famous he used it on his cologne line. But Bryant has nice thick hair, something Jordan can’t claim. I once heard Jordan and Barkley argue over who went bald first, it was funny.

I like the fact that someone with the nick name kar33m24 and an email with mamba in it (an obvious allusion to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who wore 33 for the Lakers and reference to Kobe’s jersey number 24 and Kobe’s nickname the black mamba) accused me of being the biased one here. That made me smile. Take note: I was never a Bulls fan, but you were much smarter than myself in being a Lakers fan. I am tragically a Knicks fan, yeah sucks to be me.

Please keep reading my lists on here and feel free to respond anytime.

9. Kobe is a better rebounder for his size…MJ is obviously more athletic and he should be getting significantly more rebounds than kobe, also driving to the rim all the time gives him a larger opportunity at offensive rebounds

8. MJ had more steals because he was allowed to hand-check…in the 90’s there are season where 6 players averaged 2 steals a game in one season…since 1999, when zone defense was put in, only 6 players in total have avg. 2 steals a game…doesn’t that say anything?

7. I have researched this whole field goal % dilemma, and i did the math, and i kobe only took as many 3’s as MJ did then he would have almost the exact same field goal %…you can do the math and find out. Also, ever since zone defense has been plugged in, the whole nba’s fg% has decreased significantly, and it has become much slower paced and much harder to score…hand-checking is no obstacle compared to playing against a tough zone defense

6. i don’t even need a paragraph. MJ handled the ball practically 90% of the time, while kobe actually lets the offense run through somebody besides himself

5. Blocks do not make a player a better defender at the slightest. Marcus Camby led the league in blocks, does that make him a better defender than Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan? Most blocks don’t even come from one-on-one defense so why would Jordan putting his hands up have anything to do with blocks…blocks typically come from weak-side defense if you knew anything about basketball you would know that.

4. Zone defense…nuff said

3. MJ had so much off-court drama is unbelievable…you fail to mention how he punched steve kerr in the face during practice, bill cartwright threatened to break MJ’s legs if he continued mocking him…not only that MJ “retired” because of his gambling addiction that seems to never get mentions, also he was a terrible family man, and don’t forget how doug collins suddenly gets fired after telling MJ that he should pass more…his off-court drama was just as bad as kobe, but people hide all the facts

2. Dunking and shoes are completely irrelevant to the whole article…what does dunking and shoes have to do with a player being better than one another

1. Stats mean nothing when you play in a watered-down era…the 90’s have to be the worst decade for shooting guards in history…also the NBA was in a huge decline after Kareem retired in 89, Bird retired, and Magic developed HIV…they lost all of their superstars so they were losing ratings, and losing money rapidly, so they hyped up MJ at every possible chance they had…i think its odd that MJ won a DPOY award, while Pippen never won a single one…and everybody who knows anything knows that Scottie Pippen was a better defender than Jordan was…also who was MJ’s competition for those MVP’s? he had none, and MJ did not deserve all 6 of those finals MVP’s he only deserved 4…in 1996 nba finals MJ shot 41% for the series and won Finals MVP…dont you think that’s a little biased on the NBA’s part? then in the 98 finals against the Jazz jordan shot 42.7% for the series and only 4 rebounds and 2.3 assists a game, yet he won Finals MVP, isn’t that a little suspicious? The NBA let Jordan get away with murder in the post season also, isn’t it funny how one of his most famous shots of all time was a push off foul?

-Your whole argument is baloney and biased…now im not saying kobe is the greatest of all time, it’s too early in his career to call him anything, but he certainly is much more skilled than Jordan.

10. scoring- i am pretty sure it would be easier to score in a mans face(like kobe has many times) than to score against the zone that has 2.3.or even the whole team coming at you….and isnt it weird jordan scored career high 69 in overtime….also 64 in overtime….also 63 in double overtime….and 61 in overtime……4 of his only 5 60 point games came in over time when kobe did 81 in one game and if im sure kobe has 5 60 point games

9.rebounding-i will once again bring up zone d…..with zone d u have ur big men clogging up the center so how could kobe avg as much as mj did against man on man

8.steals- how would it be possible for kobe to get as many steals he cant hand check and mj is allowed to…..if u look more ppl in the 80’s to 90’s era had more players who had 200 steals in a season….and the era tiday only has 2 or 3….stop contradicting urself

7. field goal per.- kobe has taken way more jumpshots than mj….because when it comes to man on man it is easier to get to the basket like mj did

6.assists- it is harder to pass into a zone defense….and if mj is avg 32 and 6 assits….welll doesnt that make him a ballhog at what point was his team touching the ball

5.blocks- once again playing zone d leaves kobe in the front court away from where all the blocks come from.

4.turnovers- plain and simple which one had to play against harder defense

3.off court drama- kobe had his share yes…but didnt mj punch his teammates during practice…and his teammates werent to fond of him either dont take my word for it if u see any of his player plz ask them and what about the whole thing about jordan gambling

2. dunking and shoes- like i said earlier it is easier to drive to the hoop when u have man on man d….like kobe when he was in his early playing days he played against man on man and if im sure he did a lot of dunking early in his career….also kobe has his share of shoes but kobes shoes focus more on enhancing his and others games….jordans is plain out fashion and we gotta wait to see if kobes shoes sore to the same height as michael jordans shoes

1.hardware- yea mj had more mvps but didnt david stern hand them to him like it was candy….let me tell u something of y mj got all the glory for his mvps and finals mvps….when mj entered the league kareem abdul jabbar, magic,and larry bird were leaving so the league was going bankrupt so david stern needed someone who can bring it back and make the nba look amazing….and thats the reasons for all those free throws and all those mvps…and the reason he got a defensive player of the year award and socttie pippen who i am sure is a better defensive player didnt get one at all

so chris plz email me at muslim2mamba@yahoo.com so we can have a lil chat of why mj is in the running to be one of the most overrated players in nba history