David Friedman is On Point ... Again

The 90’s Bulls were like having Kobe and Lebron on the same team, plus having one of the best at their trade skill players for a supporting cast – like Rodman the one man rebounding machine. They were so much better than any of their competition it was sickening, and still almost lost to the Jazz.

I just wish he could let go of some of the anger in some of his posts. I think he lets his personal feelings or run ins with or about other writers and/or publications affect him too much. It inadvertently takes away from his point.

http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/2010/02/nba-truths.html

I always thought that when it comes to the topic of the Lakers, SS&R members should be required to read his posts – just for the sake of getting educated. If we can find a way to have his Laker/Kobe articles on the frontpage of the SS&R website (without the issue of copyright infringement of course). Besides, Josh also reads him a lot

But David Friedman just plain rubs me the wrong way.

And I feel like maybe it’s because he does play to my biases, my Lakers fandom, but when I read him I feel like I’m not really getting anything validated because his attention to evidence is selective in his pro-Kobe-ness. My impression from most things he writes about Kobe and the Lakers is, “Well, of course you conclude that—you went in looking for that!” And his interpretation of statistics is often suspect.

So, not my cup of tea in general. But I agree with his point that the cult of Jordan is also very selective in terms of the evidence in support of their icon.

My own feeling is that if you could take the 1991 Jordan and his 1991 skill set, and face him up against the 2009 Kobe and his 2009 skill set, Kobe would win that matchup. That’s probably a fairly unpopular stance outside Lakers circles. But I don’t think it’s all that unusual a position. It’s like saying that Liszt, say, played piano better in 1850 than Mozart did in 1780. Of course he did—Liszt had the benefit of playing music composed by Mozart (and Beethoven, and Chopin, and himself)! While Mozart couldn’t go forward in time and take advantage of all that happened in the next 70 years. Kobe himself has said that there is very little that is original in his game, that he incorporates the games of the masters.

Now, as to what would happen if you took Jordan and just moved him forward in time 15 years (or, conversely, took Kobe and moved him back 15 years)—that’s a very good question. I have no idea. My guess is that Jordan would win that matchup, but it’d be close. And the longer a series they played, the better a chance that Kobe would prevail. He strikes me as a pretty analytical guy when it comes to on-the-court stuff, although that could be simply a product of having a lot more stuff to analyze now than there was when Jordan was playing.