Free Ballin’

Regarding the article I linked to in the previous post.  Michael Lewis doles out lots of really worthwhile information, in this article (and Moneyball) but when he goes off on his own to make statements, he frequently falls flat.  After discussing how tricky it is to properly valuate players, and how Daryl Morey thinks the guy who invented box scores “should be shot”, Lewis write that Kobe Bryant “is better at pretty much everything than everyone else.”  This statement is blatantly untrue.  He’s clearly not the best shooter, passer, etc..  Rather, he is “good” to “very good” at most things.  The only skills he has that are on the level of “great”, in my estimation, is his ability to get to the hoop, his ability to get a clean shot off, and (when really working at it) staying in front of his man, on defense.

He reminds me of what Bill James wrote about prime-of-career Pedro Martinez: there were guys who had better fastballs, better curveballs, better changeups, but no one threw such an assortment of top notch pitches, could throw them with such control, and from so many arm angles.  Now peak-of-career Pedro is the best pitcher ever, and Kobe is certainly not top ten all-time in basketball.  I may have been kidding when I wrote that Bryant’s abilities are closer to his father’s than Michael Jordan’s (yes, I was kidding) but the storyline of Kobe as Best Player on the Planet garbage annoys me.  Sure, he’s a Hall of Famer, but I can think of three players who are certainly better than Kobe: LeBron, Duncan, and Chris Paul.  It’s quite something to be the fourth best player in the NBA, but he’s not the best, and in an article about careful thinking, I wish Lewis would consider his big statements more carefully.