Well the premise is false.. Kobe fans keep making up this nonsense like he played in the toughest era etc..no he did not. His best seasons came post hand checking rules changes (post 2004).
From basketball-reference – this is the scoring leaders in the 2005–2006 season, where Kobe had his best scoring season. Notice anything? 7 out of the top 10 scoring leaders in 2006 were guards. All of the top 10 were players known for their perimeter scoring.
That means, after hand checking rules changes, what happened was the refs didn’t know how to call fouls properly anymore and during the 2006 season you couldn’t touch guards anymore. That’s also why the pace of the game slowed down tremendously during that time is because now you watch a bunch of guards drive in, get fouled, and take free throws the whole game, which is basically what the 2006 Finals were. 2006 Finals was basically just Wade driving in and taking free throws the whole series.
So no Kobe did not play against tough defenses, he played in an era that favored guards and increasing scoring for guards.
Defense was weak during that era. Verticality rule was added in 2011 so at least now at least big men can do something in the interior.
Nowadays, the scoring is higher because the players are better shooters and taking more 3 pointers, and offenses play much faster now. There’s not much iso as before and more ball movement. That’s why you see so many more players getting triple doubles now. It’s not because the defenses in today’s era are worse, it’s because players now play less selfishly and are better shooters than before.
So to answer the question, in terms of total skillset, I’m not sure if they would match Kobe because they don’t need to play the same iso style he played so they don’t need the same skillset he had. But they have other skills like 3 point shooting that they are far better at than Kobe was (Kobe was only a 33% 3P% shooter which would be below average in today’s league). Also they are playing against better defenses than Kobe did.
I’m going with prime Jordan, because along with prime Wilt and prime Shaq, he was the most dominant scorer I’ve ever seen. Like.. there were defenses specifically meant to stop him like the Jordan Rules used by the Bad Boy Pistons. It didn’t matter. Jordan still sliced all these defenses like hot knife through butter.
Jordan was averaging 30+ PPG ^ against this.
And just look at the numbers. Jordan had to face the gamut of great perimeter defenders. Joe Dumars, Dennis Johnson, Maurice Cheeks, Sidney Moncrief, Mookie Blaylock, Alvin Robertson, Gary Payton, Vernon Maxwell, Gerald Wilkins, John Stockton, John Starks, Michael Cooper, it didn’t matter he averaged 30+ PPG head to head vs all of them.
Lebron is a different story. He’s certainly hard to stop on his own merits, but it’s more like trying to guard Karl Malone than it is trying to guard say.. KD. I’ve never seen any player totally lock Lebron down (and certainly not guys like Jason Kidd or JJ Barea like the haters all say they just happened to be part of the great zone defense the Mavs played on Bron). Andre Iguodala I would say did a pretty good job slowing Lebron down in the 2015 Finals dropping Lebron’s FG% down to 40% and Bruce Bowen’s defense on Lebron in the 2007 Finals dropped his FG% down to 36%. Certainly the 2011 Mavs zone defense contained Lebron well. There’s been a few other players like Kawhi or Tayshaun who might have bothered Lebron but didn’t really slow him down that much.
While Gary Payton did the best against Jordan in the 1996 Finals, I don’t really recall many other instances of Jordan truly being slowed down.
Overall, from what I’ve seen, although both players were hard to stop, prime Jordan was never really slowed down or contained whereas Lebron has been slowed down or limited a few times in his career. I’m giving it to Jordan.
His 12x All-Def selections would have you believe he was one of the greatest defenders ever. He wasn’t.
-Never led the league in Def BPM
-Never led the league in Def Rating
-Never locked or shut anyone down in the playoffs
-Outscored by everyone from Leandro Barbossa, Cliff Robinson, Jason Terry, Jalen Rose to Aaron Brooks, Ty Lawson, Rasheed Wallace in the playoffs
-Jeremy Lin, Gilbert Arenas, Stephon Marbury, Allan Houston all got their career highs on him
-Phil Jackson said he was an overrated defender in his book The Last Season
-Trevor Ariza and Ron Artest were better defenders on his own team
-He had duels with everyone from Iverson to Tmac to Melo to Ray Allen to Steve Nash. The reason he had all these duels was because he couldn’t shut anybody down.
^ Seriously? Nash a guy who averages 14 PPG is dueling with Kobe supposedly an ‘elite’ defender? See, if Kobe was actually elite, these duels wouldn’t be happening. Did you ever see Michael Jordan having duels with anybody? No? Well that’s because he was shutting them down.
This is the list of Non Hall of Famers that outscored Kobe in the playoffs. Just non hall of famers. I’m not including guys like Melo, KG, Iverson, Duncan, Tmac etc nor his teammates Shaq or Gasol. Tell me how many guys outscored MJ in the playoffs? let alone non hall of famers?
Anybody who really digs into the footage and stats can tell.. he was a very overrated defender. Maybe a solid defender from 1999–2003 but then a very mediocre and inconsistent defender from that time on. I would argue even Eddie Jones was a more consistent defender than Kobe was.
1950: George Mikan 1951: George Mikan (2) 1952: George Mikan (3) 1953: George Mikan (4) 1954: George Mikan (5) 1955: Dolph Schayes 1956: Maurice Stokes 1957: Maurice Stokes (2) 1958: Bill Russell 1959: Bill Russell (2) 1960: Bill Russell (3) 1961: Bill Russell (4) 1962: Bill Russell (5) 1963: Bill Russell (6) 1964: Bill Russell (7) 1965: Bill Russell (8) 1966: Bill Russell (9) 1967: Bill Russell (10) 1968: Wilt Chamberlain, Mel Daniels (ABA) 1969: Bill Russell (11), Trooper Washington (ABA) 1970: Willis Reed, Spencer Haywood (ABA) 1971: Elvin Hayes, Gerald Govan (ABA) 1972: Wilt Chamberlain (2), Artis Gilmore (ABA) 1973: Dave Cowens, Artis Gilmore (ABA) (2) 1974: Elvin Hayes (2), Artis Gilmore (ABA) (3) 1975: Elvin Hayes (3), Artis Gilmore (ABA) (4) 1976: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Julius Erving (ABA) 1977: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (2) 1978: Truck Robinson 1979: Jack Sikma 1980: Larry Bird 1981: Larry Bird (2) 1982: Jack Sikma (2)
So.. going by DWS, these would be the DPOY winners per year. BIll Russell would have a whopping 11 DPOYs to match his 11 rings. George Mikan would have 5 DPOYs, Artis Gilmore would have 4 DPOYs. Elvin Hayes would have 3 DPOYs. Maurice Stokes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Jack Sikma and Larry Bird would all have 2 DPOYs. Interesting right?
Kobe fools casuals into thinking he’s a great defender because he has 12x All-Def selections. In his early years, especially 1999–2003 he was a very solid defender but after that, he started slacking off on defense. A lot of these All-Def selections were not deserved, and based on his reputation.
In fact, Phil Jackson even says in his book The Last Season, that Kobe was an overrated defender and shouldn’t have gotten those All-Def selections. That’s his own coach!
In 2005, Shaq is no longer on the Lakers and the Lakers drop to the bottom in defensive rating with Kobe being the main star on the team. If he was a great defender why did this happen?
Here’s Kobe basically just standing around letting guys get to the basket…
So yeah there’s TONS of evidence of Kobe not being able to lockdown his defensive assignments. Kobe fans always say he’s a lockdown defender and I haven’t seen it. Every guy that matches up with him gets their career average or better on him. Heck 4 guys I mentioned got their career HIGHS on him. Chauncey Billups and Paul Pierce won Finals MVP being guarded by him. So how’s he an elite defender?
Meanwhile for Lebron, he has actually locked down players at every position
In his prime Lebron guarded every position and locked guys down from Paul Pierce to Paul George.
And unlike Kobe, who got absolutely clamped down by Tayshaun Prince in the 2004 Finals (22 PPG on 38%) and Tony Allen in the 2008 Finals (25 PPG on 40%) and old Jason Kidd in 2011 (22 PPG), Lebron never got locked down by anybody. People who say that Terry and Barea supposedly ‘limited’ Lebron can never show me the footage. Lebron shot 48% in the 2011 Finals, so I don’t know who was locking him down. Kawhi won Finals MVP for supposedly ‘locking down’ Lebron in the 2014 Finals but Lebron still averaged 28 PPG on 57% that series. Iggy won Finals MVP for supposedly ‘locking down’ Lebron in the 2015 Finals but Lebron still averaged 35 PPG that Finals. So nobody could lock down Lebron, while Kobe has definitely been locked down before.
^ even an older 35 year old Lebron played great lockdown defense on Jamal Murray, a player who had frustrated Kawhi and PG (both considered great defenders) in the previous round in the 2020 playoffs.
So yeah, it’s totally a myth that Kobe was a great defender. People just look at Kobe’s 12x All-Def and Lebron’s 6x All-Def and think oh Kobe’s a better defender. They don’t look at what actually happened in games and whether or not Kobe deserved those All Def selections.
Kobe’s defense, much like his offense (his ‘scoring explosions’ in the regular season didn’t translate to the playoffs where his high was only 50pts and he rarely had 40+ pt games) and his clutch ability (22 PPG in elimination games, 40% shooting in the Finals, 7/28 on go ahead buckets in the last 24s of playoff games), and the overall player himself, is overrated.
You see NBA stats inherently capture mostly the offensive side of things. The points, the rebounds, the assists. Even when steals and blocks were added, they only account for a bit of what goes into the defensive aspect.
There’s no stats that will tell you how great a player is at defending another player. The closest way is to look at their head to head matchups, see if they’re guarding each other, then look at the opposing team’s FG% and turnovers but even that’s incomplete.
Imagine if you’re Dennis Rodman. Yes he was probably the greatest rebounder ever for his size, but he doesn’t really have many steals or blocks. If you just look at his stats, you have no idea how good he was at defending someone. How many points did he prevent that player from scoring, how many times did he intimidate the other player and force them to pass to a teammate to prevent a good look? How many times did he help on defense or lock down an opposing player or just generally make things difficult for them? You have no idea if you just look at his stats.
^ This man could score 0 points in a game and still impact the game in a massive way.
Similarly I can say the same for a lot of other great defenders too
^ Bill Russell. 11 championships, and not a single block was ever recorded from him due to blocks not being tracked back then.
^ Nate ‘the Great’ Thurmond. The best way to think about him is basically Bill Russell without the rings. Tremendous defender.
^ Did a video in my VS youtube series about this guy. Dave Debusschere. Just like Russell and Thurmond, he wasn’t a good shooter but boy did he have the hustle and defensive intangibles.
^ Wes Unseld. Looking at only his stats you would think he’s not that impressive but his intangibles were off the charts, he led his Bullets to 4 Finals in the 1970s and won Finals MVP averaging only 9 PPG. So there’s something he was doing that wasn’t showing up on the stat sheet that helped his teams win.
^ Dikembe Mutombo. If you just look at his points, you wouldn’t think he’s that great. His defensive impact was intangible.
^ Ben Wallace. How much intangibles do you have to have to be a Hall of Famer despite only averaging 6 PPG? ALOT.
^ the underrated Bobby Jones. His 12 PPG and 6 RPG doesn’t say a lot, but Bobby’s impact on the court goes way beyond that. He just did whatever it took to win, especially on the defensive end. He didn’t care about his stats.
^ Draymond Green. He averages a triple single, sure. But without him the Warriors completely break down. He’s the heart and soul of the team and averages less than 10 PPG.
Edit: Some people mentioned Wilt’s defense. I don’t put Wilt on here because obviously Wilt does show up on the stat sheet, just not his defensive side. But you could make the same argument for literally any old school defender cause they didn’t track ANY defensive metrics back then. So Walt Frazier, Gus Johnson, John Havlicek, KC Jones and Slater Martin should all be considered when talking about the defensive aspect but I didn’t necessarily call them out because at least their offensive impact shows up on the stat sheet. For Bill Russell he’s not really an offensive player which is why I had to list how great of a defender he was.