Brandon (old or new) is NOT Kobe (old or new) w/Poll

by lee3022 on Nov 9, 2009 12:38 PM PST

The idea is being floated about that Brandon's play is like Kobe's ball-dominant play before the L*kers acquired Pau Gasol. It does not feel right. I wanted to examine this premise with data to see what validity this idea might have and this is what I discovered.

I compared Kobe and the L*kers from 2006-2007 to Brandon and the Trail Blazers from 2008-2009. I used the most recent complete year for Brandon against the most recent year for Kobe prior to the acquisaiton of Pau Gasol. By most accounts that acquisiton and perhaps the USA Basketball team experience for Kobe changed his style to being unselfish. In 2006-2007 Kobe played 3140 minutes. In 2008-2009 Brandon played 2903 minutes or 92% of Kobe's minutes. We will adjust raw numbers when head-to-head comparisons are made to equalize.

Since we are talking about unselfish, I started with assists. Kobe had 413 assists to Brandon's 400. With equal minutes Brandon gets 435, advantage to Brandon. Kobe had 22% of the L*kers assists while Brandon had 24% of Blazer assists. So far so good.

How about FGAs? Kobe had 1757 while Brandon had 1318. Again, equalizing for minutes, Brandon would get 1433 or just 82% of Kobe's attempts. So what about usage (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor).

USAGE
	Kobe	Brandon
2009-2010	37.50%	27.20%
2008-2009	32.20%	27.40%
2007-2008	31.40%	24.90%
2006-2007	33.50%	23.00%
2005-2006	38.70%	n/a

Brandon's usage was significantly lower than Kobe's indicating Kobe's ball-dominance. Also note that the new Brandon and the old Brandon are nearly exactly the same, last year to the short period of this year.And Kobe's usage is even higher this year than last or in 2006-2007. This is likely higher this year with Kobe adjusting to the injury to Pau. But last year was nearly even with the old Kobe in 2006-2007.

I then calculated assists per shot attempts (FGA + 0.4*FTA). Kobe was 20% against Brandon's 26%. These shot attempts were 27% of L*kers' total attempts for Kobe and 21% of Blazers' for Brandon.

It would appear that Brandon's 2008-2009 sharing of the scoring and assisting teammates is significantly different than Kobe's for 2006-2007.

Finally out of curiosity I ran the same numbers for Kobe in 2008-2009 to see if the new Kobe was indeed significantly different than the old Kobe in 2006-2007. I was mildly surprised to find that they are not:

	2006-07	2008-09
Kobe Assists	413	399
Laker Assists	1908	1850
Laker Assists	22%	22%
Kobe FGA	1757	1712
Kobe AST/Shot Atmp	20.0%	20.6%

So it appears that the old Kobe is about the same as the new Kobe. His team is winning more games in 2008-2009, perhaps because they have more effieient scorers playing with Kobe in 2008-2009, but the inclination to share with teammates for Kobe has not changed.

It also appears that the new or old Brandon is not similar to new or old Kobe. While both are relied upon by their teams to score, the approach and results for the two players appear to be markedly different.

What do you take from these numbers? Is it helpful to bring statistical measurements into this discussion? Can you add additional light to this idea?

Poll

Brandon Roy is NOT Kobe Bryant ball-dominant?

Brandon is just like Kobe was before Pau arrived

4 votes

Brandon is a little like Kobe in style but not results

19 votes

Brandon has never been and never will be like Kobe's ball-dominance

54 votes

Comparing statistical measurements is wasting your time

7 votes

Other (feel free to expand below)

5 votes

89 votes | Poll has closed

Tweet Comment 8 comments | 1 recs |

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Comments

It's baseless to believe BRoy is selfish. Yes he has put the team on his back and carried them, but did you see the

smile on his face. As his team moved and scored at will last night? Yes there will be games where he will need to carry the team, again. But hopefully few and far between. In no way does or did BRoy ever go out for stats unlike Kobe.

by prof.mike on Nov 9, 2009 12:56 PM PST reply actions 1 recs

Brandon is a 6'6" Allen Iverson (in his prime). I'm only half-joking, there are some similarities.

Scores in bunches, often in isolation
Can take over the game in crunch time
But at times doesn’t really involve his teammates enough/makes things easier for them. They just stand around and watch.
Looks like he tries on defense in spurts, but actually achieves very little (AI was a master at gambling for steals and crashing into picks hard so he looked like he was doing something, but all in all needed better defenders besides him)
Hits the deck frequently with his drives, unsure how long he can take that pounding on his body

But slowly things happen that they cannot help and the Blazers Fellowship of the Ring begins to break apart

by Norsktroll on Nov 9, 2009 12:59 PM PST reply actions

One of the biggest knocks on AI, even in his prime, was that he isn't an efficient scorer.

Roy will probably never be accused of that.

"Ain't nothin' in this world for free."

by Arby on Nov 9, 2009 1:06 PM PST up reply actions

Brandon is the 6'6" Z-bo

That last bullet point excluded

"And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make." -The Beatles

by 92wastheyear on Nov 9, 2009 1:14 PM PST up reply actions

exactly

probably my favorite thing about the last two games has been watching Brandon make an effort on the defensive end.

"The only 'Advanced Metric' that matters is what you see with your eyes." -Timbo, Nov., 2009.

by Blazin' on Nov 10, 2009 1:45 AM PST up reply actions

I think its fair to call Roy similar to Kobe with worse defense

but you are 100% correct to point out that Roy never came close to dominating the ball as much as pre-Pau Kobe.

by jksnake99 on Nov 9, 2009 1:30 PM PST reply actions

It is true that Brandon and Knobe are not exactly, "comparable,"

because besides being a jerk, Knobe is a much better defender and a much more skilled all around offensive player with a higher BBIQ. In short, he is an evil genius. A teammate might feel like it is six one way and half a dozen the other though because they both have a way of dominating the ball.

Also, Brandon seems to need his teammates to get out of his way more than Knobe does. Knobe just fires it up no matter where his teammates are, which is no burden on them other than the fact that they are not getting to shoot. Brandon on the other hand, needs his teammates to move out of the way in an orderly fashion, which requires them to be more disciplined while they are also not getting to touch the ball or shoot.

The best players only try to, "do it all," themselves when it is a playoff necessity or, on occasion, to put on a show. Other than that, the game is easy for them, and they are just having fun and getting a workout in. There is no need to belabor the point!

by KINGofMACct on Nov 9, 2009 3:56 PM PST reply actions