Kobe Bryant and Career Scoring

[Latrinsorm]

As you may have heard, Kobe passed Oscar Robertson for 9th in career regular season points scored yesterday. Phil Jackson was asked who of the remaining people who scored more Kobe was most interested in passing and responded immediately with Jordan (currently 3rd). I was a little surprised by how far back he still is from Jordan (5572 points), and I wondered: how likely is it for Kobe to catch him?

Kobe has currently played 38590 regular season minutes. The only player I can find who went that many minutes without seeing a dramatic decline in scoring was Karl Malone. From this it would appear that 1) Karl Malone's durability and longevity is just preposterous and 2) playing with an all-time great point guard is really helpful for enhancing longevity (see also Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem). Obviously Kobe doesn't apply to part 2 and I would guess that he doesn't apply to part 1 either. He's only had 4 seasons in his career with 80 or more games, Karl Malone had 17 total and 13 in a row (and it probably would have been 18 in a row if not for the strike).

So it seems the most reasonable prediction is for Kobe's stats to continue declining. (For instance, this season marks his lowest minutes per game since he began starting in his third year, and it's not close.) Let's suppose he finishes this year at his 25 points per game clip and hits his average of 75 games played per season, giving him another 950 and closing the gap to 4622 points. That would definitely take him more than two more seasons to catch at this stage of his career, and two seasons would put him at around 44000 (regular season) minutes played. The only guards to play more than 44000 minutes are Stockton, Reggie Miller, Gary Payton, and Jason Kidd, and Kobe has already played more playoff minutes than any of them.

With all that in mind, it's hard to see Kobe catching Jordan at his current rate of decline. The only ways I can see him pulling it off are if there is a prolonged work stoppage which he is able to somehow parley into greater health, or if he is psychologically capable of taking a back seat to an emerging talent the way Kareem did. Anything can happen in the draft, but I really don't see any creative talent on the current Lakers roster that could be his poor man's Magic, even if it was possible for him to put his ego aside and limp around scoring 15 points a game for the next six years.

[Soulpieced]

Kobe's knee is going to fail him before he can get to the scoring title. He may catch Jordan, but not Kareem or Karl.

[Androidpk]

Kobe is going to rape another girl before he can get to the scoring title.

[LMingrone]

I see Kobe being like Favre...Meaning I doubt he'll give up before he beats Jordan's records. At 15 Kobe was talking about being better than Jordan. Will he do it? I doubt it, but he'll break his body before he stops chasing Jordan.

[Ardwen]

Kobe is at the point his knee has basically no cartilege left behind the cap, he just has played way to many minutes at this point in his carreer to catch Kareem, he wants to play though, so if some medical miracle is possible I'd bet on it happening with Kobe

[Rimalon]

Kobe will catch MJ, fo sho.

Like Pokemon, LeBron will catch them all.

[Paradii]

I see Kobe being like Favre...Meaning I doubt he'll give up before he beats Jordan's records. At 15 Kobe was talking about being better than Jordan. Will he do it? I doubt it, but he'll break his body before he stops chasing Jordan.

At 15, I was talking about being better than Jordan. So, I don't see why that would matter.

[Latrinsorm]

At 15, I was talking about being better than Jordan. So, I don't see why that would matter.Kobe's actually in position to (at least in his mind) bring that talk to fruition, though. If he wants it badly enough, some team in the NBA will keep him under contract until he's 40 and he will absolutely catch Jordan. I think his place in history is too important to him to spend more than a year or two as a bum, so he won't.

He needs more than 10,000 points to catch Malone, let alone Kareem. He has absolutely 0% chance of doing that, and I don't think he cares to. Nobody ever looks at Kobe and says "Pretty good, but you're no Karl Malone."

[Soulpieced]

Nobody ever looks at Kobe and says "Pretty good, but you're no Karl Malone."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYvi5AJJ1nU&feature=youtube_gdata

[Rimalon]

Latrin, can you run the numbers for LeBron?

I'm curious as to the pace he'd have to sustain for X amount of years. I thought I read somewhere that he was ahead of the pace necessary... but I'm unsure.

Do the maff plz.

[Latrinsorm]

The thing with LeBron is he's in a dramatically different situation now, both from where he was before and from any other team in NBA history except maybe the West/Baylor Lakers. It's exciting but hard to spin forward with any confidence - it's really easy to see him scoring 30 points a game for a season again, and it's really easy to see him scoring 20 if he decides to go after the assist leader or triple double.

He's around 25 ppg this season, so let's just grab that and see where that goes. We'll give him the same 38.5k minute limit we're giving Kobe. At that rate, he gets to about 26k points before he starts to fall apart, or right about where Kobe is now. The same analysis applies, so I wouldn't expect him to catch Jordan. At the same time, he is playing with an elite talent that can create in Wade (at least for now). How will that factor in?

The other thing that makes me nervous guessing about LeBron reaching a raw total goal like this is that he plays a ton of minutes. He's played 25074 minutes so far, the next closest since he's been in the NBA is Joe Johnson at 21623. He's got to slow down eventually... I guess? I kind of want to see it first. Kobe's already going down the tubes, it's just a question of mapping the decline. LeBron, who knows.

[Latrinsorm]

One more thing I meant to put in there: you probably saw a points by age thing that said LeBron was ahead. His scoring average per game is already well below Jordan's, and I don't see any way he'll catch up. In terms of points by games or minutes, he's way behind.

[Rimalon]

Thanks!

What about Durant?

Get back to work, it's a basketball partay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owS6zNqLe1g

Realistically only Bron Bron, Kobe, and Durant have a shot at making the top of the list, I would think. Durant missed one year due to school, but hell, Jordan missed how many?

One would also think that barring any serious injury, the smooth shooting touch from the SF position (from the field AND, more importantly, the foul line) makes Durant an interesting comparison...

FT% (Career):

Durant: .882
Kobe: .838
MJ: .835
Bron: .744

He doesn't go as hard to the hoop as Bron does... so no punishment there, and he won't have creaky guard legs like Kobe and MJ.

HMMMMMMMMM.

[Latrinsorm]

Before this year, I wouldn't have put any ceiling on Durant's career scoring numbers. It's really troubling how he's regressed, though. He's relying a lot more on and shooting much worse from three. This happens to elite players all the time, obviously, but to me one of the best parts of his game looking forward was his balance and efficiency from everywhere on the floor. As you pointed out, he's the first elite scorer in years to be a killer at the line, since Larry Bird really. Last year he had the sixth most made free throws in a season of all time - this year he'll probably finish a pedestrian 47th, barely 6th highest of any season of every active player (and this is a huge step down?!?!).

It could be that this year is just a fluke. Maybe he got tired out carrying America to a world championship, maybe next year Russell Westbrook will back off a little (as he ought to). Who knows. The thing with all these forecasts is that unless someone starts knocking out 30+ points per game seasons with regularity, no one is going to end up with Jordan's 30 points per game career average, which means that the only way to catch him for total points scored (let alone the two ahead of him) is to play longer, and the guy played for 41k minutes (in what I think is fair to describe as the strangest career pattern of all time). Even assuming no catastrophic injuries, 41k minutes is a lot for a primary scorer. I wouldn't be surprised if none the guys we're talking about made it that far.

I think Durant is the only guy out there right now who has a reasonable shot at 30+ points per game seasons, but that shot seemed a lot more reasonable before this year than now. Like I said, if this year is a fluke and he scores 35 a game over the next 6 seasons, it's a different conversation.