Comments on: Is Lamar Odom Better than Kobe Bryant?

By: 1+1=apple

1+1=apple — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:16:28 +0000

There is not a ‘basketball’ person who would entertain the ridiculous notion that Odom is even close to Kobe Bryant. Not even Lamar Odom himself, as evidenced by his own statements while with the Lakers. Since statistics themselves are emotionless and unbiased, the wrong conclusions must come in the interpretation of the numbers, and that falls squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Winston. I’m guessing Mr. Winston also came up with the stats Mark blogged about last All-Star Game - hillarious! In THAT one Bryant is ahead of Odom. It is no wonder Cuban keeps making silly personnel decisions when his stat-man comes up with conclusions like this.

By: Will

Will — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:49:28 +0000

Geez, it’s really not that hard. When Odom’s out, Bynum’s in and the Lakers end up trying to force him the ball to get him involved. This fails, they sub Odom in and find success (often with Kobe and Gasol accomplishing more). They wasted a good portion of the playoffs trying to kickstart Bynum.

By: justcurious

justcurious — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:59:44 +0000

When Kobe sits typically the opposing team’s best player sits as well - either this or their best defender. Secondarily, Odom and Gasol are usually in against the other team’s bench despite the fact these players are starters.

There’s nothing mysterious about the results. The Laker’s B team is genuinely better than the most other B teams.

The statistics really aren’t telling us that Odom is better than Kobe Bryant for the Lakers. They tell us plainly the Lakers are a deeper team than most.

It’s pretty evident watching tape of last season’s games.

By: The_real_Cstein

The_real_Cstein — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:37:08 +0000

Winston,

I am new to reading ur site but I have become a fan. I really appreciate the math behind the illusion much like yourself..

What I would be curious to see analyzed is how Kobe helped his team in 06′ when he was mr. ‘Do-it-all 81 pts’ compared to 09′ where he has become accustomed to deferring to his teammates..

My eyes tell me Kobe has been able to do more by doing less in the last season or so. If your #’s can prove the lakers are better with him off the court, then I think that could be the reason why. Because he is actually deferring for the greater good on a larger scale then min/min. When I watched finals, I know Kobe does not win without ariza 1, odom 2 and fisher 3.

I think what makes kobe great is seen when you change the analysis from a time scale with events in series for building a trend(a game of data) to the nature of a probabability for any given moment with the roll of a dice. What I want to say is in the game of bball it is much like the game of craps and for any given roll of the dice (or in bball, any decision to shoot) brings on it’s own fresh set of probabilities in that Cingular moment. Those Cingular moments, or roll of the die if you will, is where the Kobe probability is highest.

And I come back to what I learned from u winston. ‘If u only track the ball, u only track half the game.’.. But I also think if u only track the game trends, u will miss the beauty of the cingularity within the game. To solve this I think you could give weight to possessions as the game reaches it’s creshendo.

Good luck this tear with your work!
Go mavs!
Chris

By: Jin

Jin — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 10:55:36 +0000

take a step back and think, there is no way odom is better than kobe. You could infer from your data that the lakers play better with odom on and kobe off?? kobe is mostly off during trash time anyway so its very hard to measure his impact accurately

By: Vasilis

Vasilis — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:19:58 +0000

If your numbers really support that Odom is better than Bryant then
you seriously need to rethink the methodology or find a way to adjust
the numbers.. There is no way Odom is a better player than Bryant.
He is sneakily good yes and probably more important to the Lakers
than people think, but not the best player on that team by any means.
There is a reason why us Europeans (AND D’Antoni who you like) don’t
give so much importance to numbers and it’s results like this

By: peter

peter — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:25:16 +0000

Well, if you think about it, when Odom’s not in the game, Gasol is the PF and Bynum the Center.
When Kobe leaves the game, it’s Vujacic, who had a horrible year last year (39 FG %), that replaces him. So the disparity between Odom’s sub and Kobe’s sub could make a difference in the plus/minus stats that you have above.

By: wwinston

wwinston — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:32:32 +0000

we adjust for who they play against.

By: kb2000

kb2000 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:17:17 +0000

wwinston:

indeed it should make one “question the “conventional wisdom”.” however, it appears you are not advocating that Odom is actually better than Bryant, but very subtly implying that statistical measurements are not all they stacked up to be!

the irony of your writing and conclusions drawn from your numbers analysis is that numbers do not capture the whole picture!

By: wwinston

wwinston — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:52:48 +0000

we do all the things that you said to do. I just had to simplify it for the blog.