Free Ballin’

I was just writing this into my post about the Freakonomics blog post, which lauds offensive rebounding, but I can’t write “Kobe” and “Jordan” in the same sentence (or even neighboring sentences) without…going on for a bit, so I figured I’d just post it separately.

…Perhaps my favorite example of stats requiring context addresses my biggest pet peeve: comparing Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan.

[Actually, my biggest pet peeve is probably people on the sidewalk who walk swiftly towards the subway station while talking on their cellphones and then suddenly stop at the top of the stairs to keep chatting while I try to avoid knocking them head over heels. The urge to just keep walking right through them got so strong I had to leave NYC.]

You could write a 500-page book entitled How Kobe Bryant isn’t the Heir to the Air, if you used a lot of adjectives, but for now let’s just consider one tiny and enormously significant factor: field goal %. Sure, he scores a lot of points, but Kobe’s lifetime FG% is .453. Michael Jordan’s FG% was .497 which, of course, also includes Jordan‘s decline. Through Jordan‘s age-29 season (Kobe just finished his) his FG% was .516. That is to say, there’s a huge efficiency disparity between Jordan and Bryant. In fact, in Jordan‘s final season, at age 39, he shot .445. And this wasn’t just a bucket here and there. He took over 18 shots a game that year. So as far as shooting efficiency, Kobe is more comparable to Jordan at 39 than Jordan in his prime.

If I were magically granted one wish that I could only use on something ridiculously stupid, I might consider adding a multiple choice question to the SATs:

Kobe Bryant is to Michael Jordan as:

1.) apples to oranges
2.) fish to birds
3.) hammers to nails
4.) Jellybean Joe Bryant to Kobe Bryant

I’m not suggesting that Kobe sired Jordan. Rather, one could make an argument that the gap between Kobe‘s NBA career and Jordan‘s is as wide as that of Kobe‘s with his father’s. Maybe instead of calling Kobe Black Mamba we could call him Kobe “Equidistant” Bryant.

What, you think that’s going absurdly over the top? That comparison is nuts? Moderation very much required? Eh, whatever. It’s my test and I don’t give partial credit.

If the collective sports media can try to brainwash basketball fans by comparing Kobe to Jordan and saying “Kobe is the best player in the world” over and over and over, disregarding numerous arguments to the contrary, I think using my magical wish to try and counter that is a perfectly jazzy thing to do.