Kobe Vs. Duncan

On April 4th, we learned that Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and the late Kobe Bryant had officially been inducted into the basketball hall of fame. The three have combined for 11 championships and an abundance of accolades. They have played for historic franchises and have represented the NBA in such class. This week a lot of people have been discussing which player had the better career. Notably, on ESPN’s first take Stephen A. Smith declared Tim Duncan the greatest power forward to ever play, and the best of the 2020 Hall of Fame class. Here is the clip: https://twitter.com/TheNBACentral/status/1247203429056942089

This got my attention. I am a huge Kobe Bryant fan and watched him since I was kid. Every week I would look to see who the Lakers were playing and would sneak downstairs to catch the 10:30 p.m. tip-off. It was difficult, obviously he played most games on the west coast. My fandom grew to me studying his moves and reading about his work ethic. One of the reasons I played basketball was because of Kobe Bryant. What has me so interested in this Hall of Fame class is, I remember the two Celtics-Lakers Finals in 2008 and 2010. They were my two favorite teams to watch. Garnett on the Celtics was the enforcer defensively, along with Rondo, Allen and Pierce leading offensively. Anyway, back to Kobe and Duncan. I am picking Kobe Bryant, and yes, I am a little bias. But I am going to get into the statistics and back myself up. I have the ultimate respect for Tim Duncan and what he accomplished and this is a very close call for me. Usually I don’t engage in basketball debates because they are so difficult to compare players. What fascinates me about this comparison is how similar the numbers and accolades are between the two. This is also almost impossible to compare them because they both play different positions, so lets try to dive into the impact they had on the game. I also want to touch on the team and coaches they have had and how much help one another played with. They also came in and left the league around the same time. So, without further a due lets get into it.

Kobe Bryant came into the league in 1997 and retired in 2016. Tim Duncan came into the league in 1998 and retired in 2016.

• They both have 5 championships.
• Kobe has two Finals MVP’s and Duncan has 3.
• Kobe has made 18 All Star Games, Duncan only 15.
• Kobe has one MVP while Duncan has two.
• They both are tied in All NBA Teams.
• Defensively, Bryant has 9 NBA First Team All Defense, Duncan has 8.
• All NBA First team Bryant has 11, Duncan has 10.
• Bryant has lead the league in scoring twice while Duncan has never.

Career Regular Season Stats per game:

Finally, lets look at percentages and Best Season:

In the playoffs, Duncan has 18 appearances while Kobe has 15. Let’s look at the numbers:

The numbers are courtesy of basketballforever.com!

Lastly, lets look at season by season numbers:

These numbers are very similar, but overall I would give the edge to Kobe Bryant. Late in Tim Duncan’s career his number slip while Kobe keeps them relatively above 25 ppg. until 2013 when he was injured. This is still very difficult to pick which one was better. But, I have seen people in the past week give Duncan the edge because of his accolades. Surprisingly to them, Kobe edges Duncan in many of these categories. I also want to specifically look at who both played with now.

We all know Kobe was blessed to play with a dominant presence like Shaq and Pau Gasol. Duncan was fortunate enough to play with David Robinson, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobli and Kawhi Leonard. I don’t believe we need to go into who had more talent around them during there championship seasons. Obviously management did a great job surrounding them with talent. They also played under two of the best coaches ever in Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. Many also say Andrew Bynum was such a dominant big man in championship seasons for the Lakers. He was not the best center in the league until after. In the western conference playoff series in 2010 he didn’t score above 10 points in one game . I do want to look at Kobe’s three years he had during his prime after Shaq left and before Gasol arrived. He was playing with Smush Parker, Sasha Vujacic, Lamar Odom, Luke Walton and Kwame Brown. It feels like these three years were wasted. He was averaging over 30 points. Duncan had a long career and his sidekick, Tony Parker was with him and played over 60 games every season except one. Manu Ginobli also stayed relatively healthy, playing in the majority of every season.

Random Stat: Kobe Bryant has eliminated more 50 win teams from the playoffs than any other player. He is 25-10 against these teams and Duncan is 18-10.

My point is Kobe is better for several reasons. Overall, he is one of the most skilled guards the game has ever seen. While there accolades match up evenly, Kobe’s ahead in almost every major statistical category. To add to this, Kobe never had a great player in his three year peak, playing alongside atrocious teammates. Finally, Duncan was saved by Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker in the later years of his career. He was commendable, but he wasn’t the best player on his team. Kobe’s last few years they were in rebuild while Duncan had an emerging star in Leonard. They also surrounded him with extremely sound players like Gary Neal, Danny Green, Boris Diaw, Patty Mills and more. I feel people tend to rush to put Duncan into their all time great conversation recently over Bryant because of the sustained success he had. Was it really impacted by Tim Duncan though? He was averaging little over 15 points in the years they ended up playing the Heat. He is the best power forward to probably ever play, I agree. But that does not mean he is better than Kobe Bryant. Am I bias still? Please comment below or on twitter to share your thoughts!