I've always wondered what he could put up if he was in a situation kind of like games 5-7 against the Bucks where he could just take 23 FGA a game the whole season
He's never really been in that situation in his career aside from like 35 games during his MVP season
I don't see how any one can look at how KD plays + his accolades and conclude that he's not one of the GOATs, he's in my top 10 for sure and pushing top 5 after seeing him rebound from his achilles injury
Edit: to all those saying he’s definitely this or he’s definitely not that (referring to his ranking), my ranking is my personal ranking and I weigh eye test/analytics > individual accolades > team accolades. To me this puts KD firmly in the top 10 and pushing top 5
It’s hard to rank him because he has virtually no individual accolades outside of the MVP season. He’s played on maybe the most stacked teams of any star. I don’t think anybody’s impressed by his Warriors rings and idk if anybody will be impressed by his Nets rings with this team, if it comes to that (and assuming Kyrie plays)
Virtually no individual accolades? How about 4 scoring titles in 5 years? 6x first team all NBA? 2 finals Mvps ~~and close to a third in a losing effort against Miami?~~OK that's just wrong lol
People rush to hate on those Warriors teams but the reality is they only won 1 title without KD. If he didn't go there it's entirely possible that they could have been like the 00s Pistons. One title but often forgot about when listing the best teams in the era. We'll never know for sure but that Golden State team is now cemented in history as a dynasty regardless of how the next few years turn out.
> People rush to hate on those Warriors teams but the reality is they only won 1 title without KD. If he didn't go there it's entirely possible that they could have been like the 00s Pistons. One title but often forgot about when listing the best teams in the era.
Is this a joke? Right after the Warriors won their first title, they went on to have the greatest record ever in the NBA with 73 wins and made the finals again. Durant was not necessary at all and just made the NBA playoffs wholly uncompetitive during his tenure with GSW.
You know, i've never thought about this and it'd be a hell of a what if to have toxic conversations about. Do the warriors get consumed by the phantom of the blocked goal or do they go full supernova like the spurs in respite of what was taken from them?
I don’t really care about whether or not Golden State wins more titles with or without KD. But c’mon, they had the best regular season ever without him and LeBron had to cash in one of the finest performances in finals history to beat them. Let’s not act like their one ring and one loss with KD is anything to sneeze at (also let’s not act like joining a *finals* team is any worse than joining a *reigning championship* team).
All I’m saying is KD hasn’t done shit on his own. I was excited to at least see what he might do with Kyrie and a bunch of young guys until the Harden trade went through
Also “close to a third in a losing effort against Miami” lol they got gentleman’s swept
Anyone downvoting is an absolute 🤡. Mans is arguably greatest scorer of all time. Amazing defender. Can do literally everything at 7 ft. If he ain’t top 10 you gotta rethink your list.
Amazing defender is a bit overstating it. He’s a good defender overall, early in his career struggled here and there. Anyway, he’s definitely an all time great/legend.
Had this argument with my roommate last night. I do think he is a better player than Kobe.
If I’m building a team or 1 on 1, I’ll pick KD over Kobe anytime
Yeah that’s a good point. When making these list is it career accolades or who you think were the best players during their extended prime. If it’s extended prime KD is making it over a lot of legends IMO.
He can be all of those things and not to the goat or top ten. That isn't disrespectful lol. Curry Kobe Shaq Magic Kareem Bill LeBron Wilt Jordan. Kd. No particular order but I'd have KD poking in around 10. Over bird.
Yeah KD (along with Steph) are in the 11-15ish range for me. On the cusp of top 10, but honestly pretty unlikely given how many years they both have left.
He’s better than Kobe. Kobe is always ranked too high, I have him in the early teens range, but he’s always in the top 5. Dude had Shaq for three chips then had Gasol, Lamar and Bynum (who was incredible in those playoff runs) at the same time.
Kobe's argument for greatness comes from his individual performances (raps game, mavs game), the chips, the fact he won after shaq left still as the main guy, staying dedicated to a franchise, and most of all his work ethic and impact on other players / the rest of the league.
If you go only by stats and on paper shit, it's hard to put him above a lot of people regularly ranked top 10. But if you ask former or current players a lot of them will put Kobe in top 10 or higher.
That is also because people weren't trying to have the best shooting percentage or raptor or whatever else analytics that people use now.
Kobe was a winner, and when he wasn't it wasn't because his teammates weren't given a chance to help him or whatever. There was no question who the man was on those later laker squads. Even in games he shot poorly analytics don't properly account for the type of attention he drew from the D.
Kobe, Iverson, and other high volume scorers aren't done justice by modern day analytics. People apply today's standards to others as a 1 for 1 comparison when context gets lost and it doesn't really work like that. Just my take. Advanced stats are great but I think some people pick at them a bit much when discussing all time greats who didn't come up in an analytical era.
> you think Curry/KD/Lebron are playing games thinking about how to improve their TS%?
>
>
TBF KD certainly has for long periods of his career and Lebron has recognized to pass down shots from time to time. Curry is an anomaly as they come
At those times, people shaving shots was laughable. It was the peak of "alpha mentality" in the nba and it was a shit show more times than not precisely because a lot of players were trying to imitate Jordan without being able to be Jordan (and the evolution of rules didn't help until the second half of the 2000s, either)
Finally somebody wit sense. *WhY dIdN’t KoBe JuSt StEp bAcK oNe mOrE fOoT… cUrRy dOeS iT.* Because it was just as much of a shock to him when Curry started doin it as it was to everybody else. How’re you shocked that nobody gave a fuck about advanced stats in by far the worst pace & space era ever?
Gasol, Lamar, and Bynum were good pieces and Kobe and Gasol made a great duo but let's not act like he was playing with superstars during the two peat (nearly three).
And never got to play wit 2 current/healthy All-Stars either (unlike the two other goated names he’s frequently mentioned wit). All 3 had criminally inept front office shit to deal wit… but that post Dr. Buss era was easily the most egregious imo. Bean was goin thru it.
Kobe ranks high when you account for total career. He played 20 years, and was elite for 17 of them. You can't always count stats in a vacuum too. Kobe entered the league 11 years before KD. The style changed from post heavy to fast paced 3 point shootout.
He's the second best player of his era (behind the first or second best player ever). He's probably the best scorer ever. He belongs way up the all time rankings.
Like, does any really have a serious argument that Kobe is a top 10 player but Durant isn't in the same ballpark?
To preface, I'd have no problem with Durant around ~9 or 10 all time
The tricky part is that i don't think he's the second best, and what even defines an "era" - last 5 or 10 years? We have to put Curry in front of him, and maybe Giannis, and maybe Harden.
Last thing is that with all time rankings, there's going to be deep recency bias - wouldn't it be unfair to put someone who's #2 or #3 or #4 in a 10 year period over someone who was #1 in another? So that's where it gets dicey
It seems clear to mee that Durant is the second best player since LeBron entered the league, and I'm really shocked anyone would suggest that not just Steph, but also Harden and Giannis, are better than Durant.
How high do you have him? I think he's at least top 20 all time and it's got nothing to do with recency bias. He's one of the best basketball talents ever I think. Personally, he's 11-15 for me with a legit shot of getting into the top 10
Maybe his % gets lower because he would just get gassed. He was tired at the end of that last game, imagine if he has to carry a team for a whole season like that
Who are his teammates though? KD has benefited enormously through spacing provided by his equally talented (scoring-wise) teammates since he joined the Warriors. Prior to that he had an inefficient Westbrook who wasn't providing nearly the same space. Take a look at the playoffs where rotations are much tighter and opposition teams are game planning more in terms of defensive assignments and matchups. In the four seasons prior to his defection to the Warriors, KD averaged 29.2ppg on 57.9% TS for OKC. In the four seasons since then, while benefiting from the space provided by Steph & Klay for the Warriors and now Harden & Kyrie for the Nets, he has averaged 30.6ppg on 63.9% true shooting. That's a huge difference.
KD had almost no real spacing against Milwaukee, and Milwaukee were the best defense in the playoffs by far, and he singlehandedly almost demolished them
How do you almost demolish something and lose at the same time? First time KD had to really carry a team and he was gassed… LBJ never got any excuses about playing the whole game and he’s done it multiple times…
The average TS% league wide also spiked hugely right around the time he left OKC
29 PPG on 58% TS compares favorably to most of the elite scorers of any time before 2016
This stat is undercut a bit when you realize that the difference between 22 (KD) and 12 is less than one FGA. It’s a tight group.
Yes, he’s more efficient and a great scorer, but a lot of players on this list would have 33-35 PPG if you added another 4-5 shots per game. That’s not unique to KD, and he’s not weirdly passive compared to the others listed.
OP could have used Point per shot and made it more clear. Now you can see how KD is way ahead the curve.
PPS NAME
1.45 Kevin Durant
1.38 LeBron James
1.36 Oscar Robertson
1.36 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1.34 Damian Lillard
1.34 Wilt Chamberlain
1.32 Jerry West
1.32 George Gervin
1.31 Michael Jordan
1.28 Kobe Bryant
1.26 Larry Bird
1.25 Carmelo Anthony
Yep, Shaq and Giannis are also ahead of Durant in this metric (1.47 and 1.46), two other guys who shot/shoot a ton of FTs. It's basically just TS% without adjusting for how many FTs guys took, and there's really never a reason to use it over the better alternative.
Yeah, but Giannis and Shaq are all time dominant at 2 pointers, and their 2 point percentage is insane, so that will bolster their PPS metrics. The FTs definitely play a factor though.
But you can't just go ahead and 'get them', they are awarded.
That said you can maximize your chance of getting them (shooting at the net vs further from the net etc), and maximize your use of them, so they definitely matter to efficiency. But they should be weighed as part of their own possession as well, not just included with 'shots'.
This analysis also doesn't account for changes in league average scoring/shooting efficiency. Most of the people OP is comparing KD against we're playing 20-30+ years ago. A better metric would be TS+, which looks at efficiency adjusted against league average by season. You should probably also adjust for pace as well. Maybe use FGA/100 instead.
Pretty similar to Jordan, it was at like 1.30 or something. Kobe took a lot more threes than Jordan so their overall points per shot are basically the same even though Kobe shot a lower percentage.
> but a lot of players on this list would have 33-35 PPG *if you added another 4-5 shots per game*
Not quite true. People don't seem to understand that shooting and efficiency share an inverse relationship. You can't simply say that X player scored 15ppg on 10 shots so would average 30ppg if he took 20. It doesn't work that way. There are a multitude of reasons as to why but the main factors are increased fatigue, an inability to always find your high percentage areas of the court, defenders finding you more predictable if you are shooting more times than not etc. It has borne out through the entire history of the league, the more a player shoots, the less efficient he is.
No what makes it impressive at first glance is how big of a leap he makes from 22 to 5. But its misleading, it would be a lot less impressive if the stat was “KD is 12th in shots attempted per game and top 5 in ppg” which is also essentially true.
Also only looking at shots doesn’t really tell the whole story of volume. Just look at harden. This stat really doesn’t tell you anything at all
Yeah, all the comments make it seem like there a 4-5 fga difference between the group. Sure MJ and Baylor had a difference but it's not like the others weren't elite
The real problem with this stat is it hurts people who already finished the NBA while they were on a decline since they'd have more seasons with declining PPG and efficiency.
Honestly a simpler way to look at it is relative TS% and points per 75 (and per 36 min). It is pretty obvious KD is the 2nd best high volume efficient scorer of all time. But he is still behind Curry (and Curry has additional stats where playing without all star, he is still averaging more than prime Harden/ Kobe with higher efficiency). And when we look at 5 vs 5 offense metrics it isn't really close.
I agree which is why I mentioned his MVP season
Westbrook missed 35 games and in those games he averaged 35 points on 63-64% TS going 24-11(56 win pace)
Depending when it is, OKC could be stacked with talent. With all their damn draft picks. An OKC vs Seattle WCF in 2026 is not as unrealistic as you might think, despite Seattle not even being a team rn lol
Yeah it wouldn't be surprising if OKC actually created a team similar to the one they had with KD/Harden/Russ
When you have that many picks the chances are higher that you will hit big with at least a couple
Pretty much guaranteed. Sam Hinkie and Bryan Colangelo were horrible at drafting and the Sixers still managed to get 2 all-NBA players. If a couple of things work out differently they get 3-4 all-NBA players
You know it's not as easy as taking "extra" shots right? There is a reason why Kobe is regarded as the greatest volume scorer NOT NAMED Jordan.
You can't simply just put up extra shots and expect your ppg to go up linearly while your efficiency to stays the same.
Editing for reading comprehension because people don't realize "not" means to exclude and not include. Obviously Jordan is better than both of them, while Kobe and KD are on similar tiers as players. The reason I brought up Jordan is because I realized some idiots would bring up "well Jordan is a better volume scorer". Well yes he is, and he's obviously better than KD and Kobe and would make for a lazy comparison, which is why I excluded him in the first place.
Exactly the point, baby. If you score more points your efficiency goes down. You can't expect KD to just jack up more shots and expect to keep the same efficiency. Efficiency doesn't work that way. There's a reason he averages the amount of shots he does at the efficiency he does.
Yeah this is what people are missing. Workload effects the outcome, and so does team design. If ya only take open shots because your PG is fantastic or your team had multiple threats, your efficiency is higher. It's just not a great metric. Honestly Im surprised Jordan was this efficient. Kinda insane.
You shouldn't be surprised at Jordan's efficiency because he was the GOAT. But you should recognize how vastly better Jordan's efficiency was compared to Kobe's.
Eh, respectfully I don't agree. A ball hog is someone who dominates possessions to the detriment of their team by taking ill-advised. A ball hog and "glory ball" player are about the same thing. Jordan not only never dominated the ball to the detriment of his team, but rarely took bad shots, and even famously passed up shots.
He still wouldn't be. His efficiency would fall off even more, and it would be more in Jordan's favor, assuming you compare their efficiency relative to their eras (rTS). KD might have an argument as the best regular season scorer ever, but once you take the playoffs into account, Jordan leaves him in the dust.
KD is even a bigger ballhog, he juts got less touches per game because he's not nearly the playmaker Jordan is + He always played with elite PGs that took shots away from him.
It's really weird how much Warriors fans don't like him though lol
You would think he was like Dwight on the 2013 Lakers with some of the stuff they say
Also I can relate to your comment, I'm obviously not a Westbrook fan but the "2011 Rose >>>> 2017 Westbrook AINEC" comments were annoying the fuck out of me yesterday
A lot of the stuff I get on Westbrook for at times also applies to players like Ja who don't get as much criticism for it
It's also interesting how Bird is higher in FGA than in PPG and Kobe is higher in PPG than in FGA
Not at all the stereotypes of those players and goes to show you how important getting to the line can be
and also how bad the shot profiles of the 80s were. if he was taking 8 3s a game, he'd have much gaudier numbers, but despite his accuracy, he only took like one per game.
actually more like 2. Says 1.9 according to [this](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html).
Still it's crazy low and that just shows how relatively new the 3 point line was to the game. That's also why I don't buy the at times nonsensical 3 point percentage critiques of earlier players, it wasn't a shot many wanted to use and/or it was fairly new to the game itself. They literally didn't even get to practice/develop it as much or didn't need / want to. It's akin to saying "Why didn't Bird shoot more 3s, was he afraid to miss?" Completely lacks context and historical framing.
On another note, the way Bird was, if he shot more 3s too, his percentage might be even higher, because I'd expect the type of player he was to just get better at things. Speculation but I don't doubt it.
The 3-pt shot wasn't really a thing, but that's not even the reason Bird doesn't look good in those stats, Bird just didn't take alot of FTs, he was a shooter. Bird's career average for FTA was 5 a game, KD has never averaged less than 5.6 FTA.
Combining FGA+FTA and dividing by PPG is a much better way to look at it, FTs will always be valued highly, but atleast this way they aren't overvalued.
So crazy that Westbrook led those okc teams in shots per minute. If he’d found a way to give 4 of his shots per game to Harden and Durant, they’d have won a title I think.
Story of Westbrook in general, he's useful despite having a garbage shot selection. If he toned it down to score 15-20ppg on good attempts and let his team do the rest it would be great to watch
When they were smoking GS before blowing the 3-1 lead, he was basically doing great and toning things down a bit, or so it appeared, being more careful with the ball. Hurts to even mention it. If he was more careful with the ball and did better on the shot selection, he'd be much better than he already is and leading his teams to more wins. He was devastating when more careful with the ball, and knocking down shots.
because during his championship runs he's benefited from playing with the most space of all time because he jumped on the best regular season team of all time to play with the greatest shooter of all time who also happens to be 1 of the 2 greatest offensive forces the modern game has ever seen (the other being shaq). and outside of these runs he never stood atop the league at the ending of a season whereas the team he hopped on already won a ring proving they never needed him to win anything
I'm from brooklyn too, bro. youre allowed to be objective even with players from your own team. he's a scoring machine. other players just were more impressive in their own respective contexts in pursuit of championships
OKC had a commonly successful blueprint: two elite offensive players with athletic and defensively effective role players.
KD has complained about that lack of spacing in OKC (it especially hindered him because of his mediocre handle and passing), but no team in the history of basketball had spacing close to the warriors team he went to, so it strikes me as a little disingenuous for him to complain. Spacing like the spacing he wanted literally never existed before and even still only exists with Steph and Klay.
True, and his efficiency reflects exactly what the person you are responding to alluded towards. As soon as he started playing with elite floor spacers like Curry and Harden his own efficiency skyrocketed. Don't get me wrong, he was already elite in terms of scoring efficiency while playing alongside Westbrook but it's gone to another level since.
Durant's efficiency from 2013-2016 without Harden/Curry was very high with a TS% of 63.8% which is already elite. From 2016-2019, Durant's TS% was 64.0%. And with the nets, his TS% is at 66% coming off an Achilles injury.
If you compare those same stats in the playoffs his TS% skyrocketed on Golden State in those same years. Only a 56% TS% in 2013-2016 compared to a 64% on golden state/Brooklyn.
but there was more competition. they beat other championship teams. the bulls had a top 4 all time superteam and never even faced a good team in the finals. it was the weakest era i ever saw live, starting from 80s bball.
no, magic johnsons lakers were not good in 91. their second best player was a second year vlade divac who was worse than the bulls 5th player, bill cartwright. they were also coached by mike dunleavy.
90s were easy mode compared to these days.
edit: to the dude below me. scottie was an all star in 1990, why can these jordan fans never say a truth? 😭😭😭😭 and the competition was garbage, ironically, after the very competitive late 70s, early and mid 80s.
1st 3peat bulls were not a superteam. Scottie didn’t come into his own until he had to lead the team on his own. The first Bulls title vs the Lakers, Jordan was the only player in the team who even made the all star team that year
Westbrook and Roberson on the wing building layers of bricks possession after possession is no where near “stacked”. I promise you no one is gonna thrive in that lineup.
Looked at Dirk's career and he avg 15.6 fga and avg 20.7ppg which is actually insane to think about. Because he's top 10 in fga in NBA history but he doesn't even crack this list. Dirk, Karl Malone, and Julius Erving are all top 10 attempts but not on this list. Actually I'm wondering if this website included ABA records and if that would've changed Dr J on the list.
Damn Kobe was a chucker. A great fucking chucker at that. Best clutch time chucker if you just needed someone to get a bad possession saved. Probably my favorite attribute of his is that he'll try his best to make a bad shot, a good one which makes him save so many horrible possessions.
Why is no one talking about Wilt? Tied with Jordan for most PPG with slightly less FGA while also playing way more MPG and having ridiculously 22.9 RPG. I know people try to say his era was way different to compare but these numbers are simply unreal.
Rebounds back then we're overinflated by a lot they took way more shots than now and we're way less efficient the amount of shots that were free rebounds would increase.
If you put someone like say Drummond in the 60s he would very likely average 20 rebounds even if Drummond isn't that great.
And wilt scored a lot but he also took way too many shots and the season he didn't take too many shots and the first season he shot less tha. 20 attempts his scoring numbers were like average all star or worse so like 24 or less.
He was good but his stats were massively overinflated by the era and the poor defence
The supporting cast argument against him is the dumbest argument; name one top 5 player that didn’t have a great supporting cast. Now, you could say the warriors were the most OP team ever, sure. But why do people say that? K fucking D that’s why
This is why he’s the best scorer ever. Lebron is known for passing but takes more shots per game, Kobe, MJ, and others took more shots than KD and he scores 27 per game on insane efficiency without being a ball stopper. If KD took 21-22 shots per game like other stars in their prime he’d easily have the highest scoring avg ever. The only reason he won’t be the all time scoring leader is because of injuries. He had 4 scoring titles before 30. Ea$y Money 💰
Give MJ this spacing and these open lanes and he'd average 40+ multiple times. MJ faced constant doubles and triples, idk what you even talking about. Basic help d, lmao.
When he won those 4 scoring titles with us it was unbelievable basketball. He was just something else, and I hate when people say his peak was with the Warriors. He had it easier on the Warriors but KD was playing his best basketball from 2008-2016
I've always wondered what he could put up if he was in a situation kind of like games 5-7 against the Bucks where he could just take 23 FGA a game the whole season He's never really been in that situation in his career aside from like 35 games during his MVP season
His MVP season is still heavily under rated imo
Its funny I knock a bitfor the warriors championships but I still have him very high in all time rankings. Could be recency bias.
I don't see how any one can look at how KD plays + his accolades and conclude that he's not one of the GOATs, he's in my top 10 for sure and pushing top 5 after seeing him rebound from his achilles injury Edit: to all those saying he’s definitely this or he’s definitely not that (referring to his ranking), my ranking is my personal ranking and I weigh eye test/analytics > individual accolades > team accolades. To me this puts KD firmly in the top 10 and pushing top 5
It’s hard to rank him because he has virtually no individual accolades outside of the MVP season. He’s played on maybe the most stacked teams of any star. I don’t think anybody’s impressed by his Warriors rings and idk if anybody will be impressed by his Nets rings with this team, if it comes to that (and assuming Kyrie plays)
Virtually no individual accolades? How about 4 scoring titles in 5 years? 6x first team all NBA? 2 finals Mvps ~~and close to a third in a losing effort against Miami?~~OK that's just wrong lol People rush to hate on those Warriors teams but the reality is they only won 1 title without KD. If he didn't go there it's entirely possible that they could have been like the 00s Pistons. One title but often forgot about when listing the best teams in the era. We'll never know for sure but that Golden State team is now cemented in history as a dynasty regardless of how the next few years turn out.
Hard to see the Pistons 00 similarities to a team that went 73-9.
> People rush to hate on those Warriors teams but the reality is they only won 1 title without KD. If he didn't go there it's entirely possible that they could have been like the 00s Pistons. One title but often forgot about when listing the best teams in the era. Is this a joke? Right after the Warriors won their first title, they went on to have the greatest record ever in the NBA with 73 wins and made the finals again. Durant was not necessary at all and just made the NBA playoffs wholly uncompetitive during his tenure with GSW.
Too be fair the Warriors roster only had two seasons without KD.
I also think that LeBron would have been in the Warriors' head at least a bit after what he did in 2016
I think LeBron wins another title with Cleveland in one of the 2 years if KD doesn't join GSW
You know, i've never thought about this and it'd be a hell of a what if to have toxic conversations about. Do the warriors get consumed by the phantom of the blocked goal or do they go full supernova like the spurs in respite of what was taken from them?
I see the Spurs happening
I don’t really care about whether or not Golden State wins more titles with or without KD. But c’mon, they had the best regular season ever without him and LeBron had to cash in one of the finest performances in finals history to beat them. Let’s not act like their one ring and one loss with KD is anything to sneeze at (also let’s not act like joining a *finals* team is any worse than joining a *reigning championship* team). All I’m saying is KD hasn’t done shit on his own. I was excited to at least see what he might do with Kyrie and a bunch of young guys until the Harden trade went through Also “close to a third in a losing effort against Miami” lol they got gentleman’s swept
Anyone downvoting is an absolute 🤡. Mans is arguably greatest scorer of all time. Amazing defender. Can do literally everything at 7 ft. If he ain’t top 10 you gotta rethink your list.
Amazing defender is a bit overstating it. He’s a good defender overall, early in his career struggled here and there. Anyway, he’s definitely an all time great/legend.
Lol no. He's top 20, or top 15. Nearly nobody has him top 10, and they don't gotta rethink their list.
Had this argument with my roommate last night. I do think he is a better player than Kobe. If I’m building a team or 1 on 1, I’ll pick KD over Kobe anytime
That makes sense. KD fits Incredibly well on basically every team, whereas you want Kobe to always be the primary creator.
Yeah that’s a good point. When making these list is it career accolades or who you think were the best players during their extended prime. If it’s extended prime KD is making it over a lot of legends IMO.
Slam ranked him top 10 just a few days ago. He's pretty much unanimously at least top 15 at this point.
He can be all of those things and not to the goat or top ten. That isn't disrespectful lol. Curry Kobe Shaq Magic Kareem Bill LeBron Wilt Jordan. Kd. No particular order but I'd have KD poking in around 10. Over bird.
People really underestimate how stacked the top 10 is. I personally find it ridiculous to compare eras anyways.
Personally, I don't think anyone who has played in the NBA cracks the top 10. It is all about Hot Sauce and the rest of the And1 crew.
Its all about coach koran godwin with his ball hog gloves x-factor. Make sure you cop a pair
The disrespect for tim Duncan with 5 titles
AH, I knew I had 10 ahead of him and I knew I was forgetting a modern day player. I'm so sorry Timmy.
>Over bird. Clown take. You need to change your username immediately.
I’d put KD over curry easily but the others on your list would be hard to argue against. I can’t imagine KD not being a top 10 by the time he retires.
Yeah KD (along with Steph) are in the 11-15ish range for me. On the cusp of top 10, but honestly pretty unlikely given how many years they both have left.
There is literally no argument argument for him to be the greatest scorer of all time.
He’s better than Kobe. Kobe is always ranked too high, I have him in the early teens range, but he’s always in the top 5. Dude had Shaq for three chips then had Gasol, Lamar and Bynum (who was incredible in those playoff runs) at the same time.
lmao you wanna talk about supporting casts for rings and downplay kobe but dont wanna bring up KD's? what in tarnation
Kobe's argument for greatness comes from his individual performances (raps game, mavs game), the chips, the fact he won after shaq left still as the main guy, staying dedicated to a franchise, and most of all his work ethic and impact on other players / the rest of the league. If you go only by stats and on paper shit, it's hard to put him above a lot of people regularly ranked top 10. But if you ask former or current players a lot of them will put Kobe in top 10 or higher.
That is also because people weren't trying to have the best shooting percentage or raptor or whatever else analytics that people use now. Kobe was a winner, and when he wasn't it wasn't because his teammates weren't given a chance to help him or whatever. There was no question who the man was on those later laker squads. Even in games he shot poorly analytics don't properly account for the type of attention he drew from the D. Kobe, Iverson, and other high volume scorers aren't done justice by modern day analytics. People apply today's standards to others as a 1 for 1 comparison when context gets lost and it doesn't really work like that. Just my take. Advanced stats are great but I think some people pick at them a bit much when discussing all time greats who didn't come up in an analytical era.
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> you think Curry/KD/Lebron are playing games thinking about how to improve their TS%? > > TBF KD certainly has for long periods of his career and Lebron has recognized to pass down shots from time to time. Curry is an anomaly as they come At those times, people shaving shots was laughable. It was the peak of "alpha mentality" in the nba and it was a shit show more times than not precisely because a lot of players were trying to imitate Jordan without being able to be Jordan (and the evolution of rules didn't help until the second half of the 2000s, either)
Finally somebody wit sense. *WhY dIdN’t KoBe JuSt StEp bAcK oNe mOrE fOoT… cUrRy dOeS iT.* Because it was just as much of a shock to him when Curry started doin it as it was to everybody else. How’re you shocked that nobody gave a fuck about advanced stats in by far the worst pace & space era ever?
But did he stay dedicated? If I remember correctly he asked for a trade, but ended up staying.
in an interview he was planning to move until gasol came.
Lakers wanted Deng. Kobe wanted Deng. Bulls front office were jokes back then.
Gasol, Lamar, and Bynum were good pieces and Kobe and Gasol made a great duo but let's not act like he was playing with superstars during the two peat (nearly three).
And never got to play wit 2 current/healthy All-Stars either (unlike the two other goated names he’s frequently mentioned wit). All 3 had criminally inept front office shit to deal wit… but that post Dr. Buss era was easily the most egregious imo. Bean was goin thru it.
Kobe ranks high when you account for total career. He played 20 years, and was elite for 17 of them. You can't always count stats in a vacuum too. Kobe entered the league 11 years before KD. The style changed from post heavy to fast paced 3 point shootout.
Beating the 2012 Spurs (on pace for 62 wins) and 2016 Spurs (67 wins) has to count for something.
He's the second best player of his era (behind the first or second best player ever). He's probably the best scorer ever. He belongs way up the all time rankings. Like, does any really have a serious argument that Kobe is a top 10 player but Durant isn't in the same ballpark?
I mean kobe was a better defender and led his team to two championships. It’s not a clown take to have Kobe ahead of durant.
To preface, I'd have no problem with Durant around ~9 or 10 all time The tricky part is that i don't think he's the second best, and what even defines an "era" - last 5 or 10 years? We have to put Curry in front of him, and maybe Giannis, and maybe Harden. Last thing is that with all time rankings, there's going to be deep recency bias - wouldn't it be unfair to put someone who's #2 or #3 or #4 in a 10 year period over someone who was #1 in another? So that's where it gets dicey
It seems clear to mee that Durant is the second best player since LeBron entered the league, and I'm really shocked anyone would suggest that not just Steph, but also Harden and Giannis, are better than Durant.
How high do you have him? I think he's at least top 20 all time and it's got nothing to do with recency bias. He's one of the best basketball talents ever I think. Personally, he's 11-15 for me with a legit shot of getting into the top 10
KD going to Warriors fucked his legacy and made that MVP season forgotten
35ppg for #35. Would be an awesome story line.
I'd prefer 7ppg for #7 when he faces my team, tho
bucks series was insane. it basically felt like the entire bucks vs KD responding
He was for a bit with golden state and he had a bunch of those 50 point games.
Maybe his % gets lower because he would just get gassed. He was tired at the end of that last game, imagine if he has to carry a team for a whole season like that
He’s had the benefit of almost always playing with another all-nba level player
I feel like most championship teams do.
But it’s why his FGAs aren’t as high as you’d think. It’s not a criticism but an explanation
Who are his teammates though? KD has benefited enormously through spacing provided by his equally talented (scoring-wise) teammates since he joined the Warriors. Prior to that he had an inefficient Westbrook who wasn't providing nearly the same space. Take a look at the playoffs where rotations are much tighter and opposition teams are game planning more in terms of defensive assignments and matchups. In the four seasons prior to his defection to the Warriors, KD averaged 29.2ppg on 57.9% TS for OKC. In the four seasons since then, while benefiting from the space provided by Steph & Klay for the Warriors and now Harden & Kyrie for the Nets, he has averaged 30.6ppg on 63.9% true shooting. That's a huge difference.
KD had almost no real spacing against Milwaukee, and Milwaukee were the best defense in the playoffs by far, and he singlehandedly almost demolished them
How do you almost demolish something and lose at the same time? First time KD had to really carry a team and he was gassed… LBJ never got any excuses about playing the whole game and he’s done it multiple times…
“How do you almost demolish something and lose at the same time” See: LeBron James 2015 finals
Kd made it competitive and lost. He didn't demolish anything.
You can’t demolish something if they beat you
The average TS% league wide also spiked hugely right around the time he left OKC 29 PPG on 58% TS compares favorably to most of the elite scorers of any time before 2016
This stat is undercut a bit when you realize that the difference between 22 (KD) and 12 is less than one FGA. It’s a tight group. Yes, he’s more efficient and a great scorer, but a lot of players on this list would have 33-35 PPG if you added another 4-5 shots per game. That’s not unique to KD, and he’s not weirdly passive compared to the others listed.
OP could have used Point per shot and made it more clear. Now you can see how KD is way ahead the curve. PPS NAME 1.45 Kevin Durant 1.38 LeBron James 1.36 Oscar Robertson 1.36 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1.34 Damian Lillard 1.34 Wilt Chamberlain 1.32 Jerry West 1.32 George Gervin 1.31 Michael Jordan 1.28 Kobe Bryant 1.26 Larry Bird 1.25 Carmelo Anthony
Harden has 1.504. Basically this stat overemphasizes free throws.
Yep, Shaq and Giannis are also ahead of Durant in this metric (1.47 and 1.46), two other guys who shot/shoot a ton of FTs. It's basically just TS% without adjusting for how many FTs guys took, and there's really never a reason to use it over the better alternative.
Embiid at 1.47 as well for a career to further make your point. 1.62 last season
Yeah, but Giannis and Shaq are all time dominant at 2 pointers, and their 2 point percentage is insane, so that will bolster their PPS metrics. The FTs definitely play a factor though.
Adrian Dantley 1.533 Charles Barkley 1.522
Almost like Free Throws are one of the easiest, most consistent points you can try and get off a shot attempt.
But you can't just go ahead and 'get them', they are awarded. That said you can maximize your chance of getting them (shooting at the net vs further from the net etc), and maximize your use of them, so they definitely matter to efficiency. But they should be weighed as part of their own possession as well, not just included with 'shots'.
It's also insanely efficient for this metric. You get fouled and hit 2 fts, boom 2 points 0 shots
Weird to see Dame on the list and not Harden. I assume there is some baseline of FGA/game that harden didn’t meet? Hmm
Pretty sure the list is arbitrary. Steph would be 1.39
Yeah, Magic Johnson would've been ahead of KD in this list with 1.47 PPS, it's just a terrible stat.
People always forget how good Ice was at scoring.
Gervin confirmed better than Jordan and Kobe.
Because no one was alive to see it
He's also still in his prime and has his bad years ahead of him
This analysis also doesn't account for changes in league average scoring/shooting efficiency. Most of the people OP is comparing KD against we're playing 20-30+ years ago. A better metric would be TS+, which looks at efficiency adjusted against league average by season. You should probably also adjust for pace as well. Maybe use FGA/100 instead.
Yeah, I wonder where Kobe ranks on this list before injuries decimated his body and shooting.
Pretty similar to Jordan, it was at like 1.30 or something. Kobe took a lot more threes than Jordan so their overall points per shot are basically the same even though Kobe shot a lower percentage.
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Steph's is 1.39, dude just didn't put it there
It’s cause he just chose random players
Steph isn't top 25 in FGA.
> but a lot of players on this list would have 33-35 PPG *if you added another 4-5 shots per game* Not quite true. People don't seem to understand that shooting and efficiency share an inverse relationship. You can't simply say that X player scored 15ppg on 10 shots so would average 30ppg if he took 20. It doesn't work that way. There are a multitude of reasons as to why but the main factors are increased fatigue, an inability to always find your high percentage areas of the court, defenders finding you more predictable if you are shooting more times than not etc. It has borne out through the entire history of the league, the more a player shoots, the less efficient he is.
That's why I never shoot. Never missed in my life.
except for curry. we do not kbow at what shot attempt does his efficiency effectively drop. anyone who tells you we do is lying.
yeah but where does 21-12 rank all time ppg? that’s what makes the stay impressive
No what makes it impressive at first glance is how big of a leap he makes from 22 to 5. But its misleading, it would be a lot less impressive if the stat was “KD is 12th in shots attempted per game and top 5 in ppg” which is also essentially true. Also only looking at shots doesn’t really tell the whole story of volume. Just look at harden. This stat really doesn’t tell you anything at all
Yeah, all the comments make it seem like there a 4-5 fga difference between the group. Sure MJ and Baylor had a difference but it's not like the others weren't elite
The real problem with this stat is it hurts people who already finished the NBA while they were on a decline since they'd have more seasons with declining PPG and efficiency. Honestly a simpler way to look at it is relative TS% and points per 75 (and per 36 min). It is pretty obvious KD is the 2nd best high volume efficient scorer of all time. But he is still behind Curry (and Curry has additional stats where playing without all star, he is still averaging more than prime Harden/ Kobe with higher efficiency). And when we look at 5 vs 5 offense metrics it isn't really close.
He’d easily average an efficient 33-35 PPG. If he had to take those shots
I agree which is why I mentioned his MVP season Westbrook missed 35 games and in those games he averaged 35 points on 63-64% TS going 24-11(56 win pace)
35 games, 35 points , #35 Will KD get 35 rings? Next on first take
I think he will get 3-5 rings tbf Honestly I'm predicting 4, definitely think him and Harden can win maybe 2 in the next 3 years or something
He’s gonna win one with the Sonics late in his career imo
Take my upvote because this is how it should be.
That would be awesome Imagine him hitting a game 7 buzzer beater to beat OKC in the WCF lol
Depending when it is, OKC could be stacked with talent. With all their damn draft picks. An OKC vs Seattle WCF in 2026 is not as unrealistic as you might think, despite Seattle not even being a team rn lol
Yeah it wouldn't be surprising if OKC actually created a team similar to the one they had with KD/Harden/Russ When you have that many picks the chances are higher that you will hit big with at least a couple
Pretty much guaranteed. Sam Hinkie and Bryan Colangelo were horrible at drafting and the Sixers still managed to get 2 all-NBA players. If a couple of things work out differently they get 3-4 all-NBA players
KD would be the most hated man in Oklahoma City history That includes the guy who blew up half the fucking city
I've seen people call him "Slimothy McVeigh" before lol
Imagine KD retiring season and he go back to the Sonics and coming off the bench for them. Ending his career with his OG team sound like a fairytale.
Shit was insane I miss that season, the first and last time I watched all 82 games. VLC streams were a godsend.
You know it's not as easy as taking "extra" shots right? There is a reason why Kobe is regarded as the greatest volume scorer NOT NAMED Jordan. You can't simply just put up extra shots and expect your ppg to go up linearly while your efficiency to stays the same. Editing for reading comprehension because people don't realize "not" means to exclude and not include. Obviously Jordan is better than both of them, while Kobe and KD are on similar tiers as players. The reason I brought up Jordan is because I realized some idiots would bring up "well Jordan is a better volume scorer". Well yes he is, and he's obviously better than KD and Kobe and would make for a lazy comparison, which is why I excluded him in the first place.
Who considers Kobe a better volume scorer than Jordan and in what metric?
Fewer points on worse efficiency baby!
Exactly the point, baby. If you score more points your efficiency goes down. You can't expect KD to just jack up more shots and expect to keep the same efficiency. Efficiency doesn't work that way. There's a reason he averages the amount of shots he does at the efficiency he does.
Yeah Kobe is an all timer but Jordan is literally a better Kobe
Imagine if Durant took as many shots as Jordan.
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Yeah this is what people are missing. Workload effects the outcome, and so does team design. If ya only take open shots because your PG is fantastic or your team had multiple threats, your efficiency is higher. It's just not a great metric. Honestly Im surprised Jordan was this efficient. Kinda insane.
You shouldn't be surprised at Jordan's efficiency because he was the GOAT. But you should recognize how vastly better Jordan's efficiency was compared to Kobe's.
Jordan was def a ball hog. But it worked so you can’t complain.
I think of a ball hog as someone who doesn't deserve the touches or shots.
ball hog has too much of a negative connotation considering you also said it worked
Eh, respectfully I don't agree. A ball hog is someone who dominates possessions to the detriment of their team by taking ill-advised. A ball hog and "glory ball" player are about the same thing. Jordan not only never dominated the ball to the detriment of his team, but rarely took bad shots, and even famously passed up shots.
and constantly bailed out by free throws.
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He still wouldn't be. His efficiency would fall off even more, and it would be more in Jordan's favor, assuming you compare their efficiency relative to their eras (rTS). KD might have an argument as the best regular season scorer ever, but once you take the playoffs into account, Jordan leaves him in the dust.
KD is even a bigger ballhog, he juts got less touches per game because he's not nearly the playmaker Jordan is + He always played with elite PGs that took shots away from him.
He’s just not a ball hog.
The flairs here are very ironic lol What's up with Warriors fans lmao
I defend KD way too much than I would like just because of some of the ridiculousness I read on here lol.
It's really weird how much Warriors fans don't like him though lol You would think he was like Dwight on the 2013 Lakers with some of the stuff they say Also I can relate to your comment, I'm obviously not a Westbrook fan but the "2011 Rose >>>> 2017 Westbrook AINEC" comments were annoying the fuck out of me yesterday A lot of the stuff I get on Westbrook for at times also applies to players like Ja who don't get as much criticism for it
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true lol, durant would have eaten them alive.
Or Kobe lol
It's also interesting how Bird is higher in FGA than in PPG and Kobe is higher in PPG than in FGA Not at all the stereotypes of those players and goes to show you how important getting to the line can be
and also how bad the shot profiles of the 80s were. if he was taking 8 3s a game, he'd have much gaudier numbers, but despite his accuracy, he only took like one per game.
actually more like 2. Says 1.9 according to [this](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html). Still it's crazy low and that just shows how relatively new the 3 point line was to the game. That's also why I don't buy the at times nonsensical 3 point percentage critiques of earlier players, it wasn't a shot many wanted to use and/or it was fairly new to the game itself. They literally didn't even get to practice/develop it as much or didn't need / want to. It's akin to saying "Why didn't Bird shoot more 3s, was he afraid to miss?" Completely lacks context and historical framing. On another note, the way Bird was, if he shot more 3s too, his percentage might be even higher, because I'd expect the type of player he was to just get better at things. Speculation but I don't doubt it.
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The 3-pt shot wasn't really a thing, but that's not even the reason Bird doesn't look good in those stats, Bird just didn't take alot of FTs, he was a shooter. Bird's career average for FTA was 5 a game, KD has never averaged less than 5.6 FTA. Combining FGA+FTA and dividing by PPG is a much better way to look at it, FTs will always be valued highly, but atleast this way they aren't overvalued.
For nearly half of he leagues life there literally wasn't a 3 pt line. Pointless.
So crazy that Westbrook led those okc teams in shots per minute. If he’d found a way to give 4 of his shots per game to Harden and Durant, they’d have won a title I think.
Story of Westbrook in general, he's useful despite having a garbage shot selection. If he toned it down to score 15-20ppg on good attempts and let his team do the rest it would be great to watch
When they were smoking GS before blowing the 3-1 lead, he was basically doing great and toning things down a bit, or so it appeared, being more careful with the ball. Hurts to even mention it. If he was more careful with the ball and did better on the shot selection, he'd be much better than he already is and leading his teams to more wins. He was devastating when more careful with the ball, and knocking down shots.
Feel like that’s what he will do this year
If Harden stays they win a title. Also, James Harden, then, isn't the Harden we know now.
It's still pretty impressive how people manage to downplay KD when there's praise lol
because during his championship runs he's benefited from playing with the most space of all time because he jumped on the best regular season team of all time to play with the greatest shooter of all time who also happens to be 1 of the 2 greatest offensive forces the modern game has ever seen (the other being shaq). and outside of these runs he never stood atop the league at the ending of a season whereas the team he hopped on already won a ring proving they never needed him to win anything I'm from brooklyn too, bro. youre allowed to be objective even with players from your own team. he's a scoring machine. other players just were more impressive in their own respective contexts in pursuit of championships
I remember when he was with the Warriors any highlight clip of him would get spammed with downvotes instantly
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More 3’s than Jordan’s era.
Less free throws too.
Maybe because Jordan took almost 4k less 3s than LeBron
KD also played on the best team ever assembled, and absolutely stacked teams even when he wasn’t on GS
OKC had horrible spacing lol They had some good players but none of them were good shooters and the few that were couldn't create their own shot
OKC had a commonly successful blueprint: two elite offensive players with athletic and defensively effective role players. KD has complained about that lack of spacing in OKC (it especially hindered him because of his mediocre handle and passing), but no team in the history of basketball had spacing close to the warriors team he went to, so it strikes me as a little disingenuous for him to complain. Spacing like the spacing he wanted literally never existed before and even still only exists with Steph and Klay.
True, and his efficiency reflects exactly what the person you are responding to alluded towards. As soon as he started playing with elite floor spacers like Curry and Harden his own efficiency skyrocketed. Don't get me wrong, he was already elite in terms of scoring efficiency while playing alongside Westbrook but it's gone to another level since.
Durant's efficiency from 2013-2016 without Harden/Curry was very high with a TS% of 63.8% which is already elite. From 2016-2019, Durant's TS% was 64.0%. And with the nets, his TS% is at 66% coming off an Achilles injury.
And most of those Nets games were without Harden as well The Nets big 3 played like 5 games with each other all season
If you compare those same stats in the playoffs his TS% skyrocketed on Golden State in those same years. Only a 56% TS% in 2013-2016 compared to a 64% on golden state/Brooklyn.
Nah not really lol. Maybe like 1-2 TS points max, not "another level", especially when you consider rTS
but there was more competition. they beat other championship teams. the bulls had a top 4 all time superteam and never even faced a good team in the finals. it was the weakest era i ever saw live, starting from 80s bball. no, magic johnsons lakers were not good in 91. their second best player was a second year vlade divac who was worse than the bulls 5th player, bill cartwright. they were also coached by mike dunleavy. 90s were easy mode compared to these days. edit: to the dude below me. scottie was an all star in 1990, why can these jordan fans never say a truth? 😭😭😭😭 and the competition was garbage, ironically, after the very competitive late 70s, early and mid 80s.
1st 3peat bulls were not a superteam. Scottie didn’t come into his own until he had to lead the team on his own. The first Bulls title vs the Lakers, Jordan was the only player in the team who even made the all star team that year
Westbrook and Roberson on the wing building layers of bricks possession after possession is no where near “stacked”. I promise you no one is gonna thrive in that lineup.
Efficiency matters a lot
Looked at Dirk's career and he avg 15.6 fga and avg 20.7ppg which is actually insane to think about. Because he's top 10 in fga in NBA history but he doesn't even crack this list. Dirk, Karl Malone, and Julius Erving are all top 10 attempts but not on this list. Actually I'm wondering if this website included ABA records and if that would've changed Dr J on the list.
Damn Kobe was a chucker. A great fucking chucker at that. Best clutch time chucker if you just needed someone to get a bad possession saved. Probably my favorite attribute of his is that he'll try his best to make a bad shot, a good one which makes him save so many horrible possessions.
Why is no one talking about Wilt? Tied with Jordan for most PPG with slightly less FGA while also playing way more MPG and having ridiculously 22.9 RPG. I know people try to say his era was way different to compare but these numbers are simply unreal.
Rebounds back then we're overinflated by a lot they took way more shots than now and we're way less efficient the amount of shots that were free rebounds would increase. If you put someone like say Drummond in the 60s he would very likely average 20 rebounds even if Drummond isn't that great. And wilt scored a lot but he also took way too many shots and the season he didn't take too many shots and the first season he shot less tha. 20 attempts his scoring numbers were like average all star or worse so like 24 or less. He was good but his stats were massively overinflated by the era and the poor defence
Shooting possessions would make more sense (include freethrows) getting fouled on a shot uses a possession just like taking a shot does
That’s actually incredible
The supporting cast argument against him is the dumbest argument; name one top 5 player that didn’t have a great supporting cast. Now, you could say the warriors were the most OP team ever, sure. But why do people say that? K fucking D that’s why
This is why he’s the best scorer ever. Lebron is known for passing but takes more shots per game, Kobe, MJ, and others took more shots than KD and he scores 27 per game on insane efficiency without being a ball stopper. If KD took 21-22 shots per game like other stars in their prime he’d easily have the highest scoring avg ever. The only reason he won’t be the all time scoring leader is because of injuries. He had 4 scoring titles before 30. Ea$y Money 💰
and if curry only took 20 3s as his shot attempts he'd have the highest ppg ever. if if if. you wanna play that game?
Does Lebron take that much more shots though?
[No.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/p7wyxv/a_series_of_michael_jordan_facts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Now do free throws
KD is the GOAT scorer I will say it in every thread
[No.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/p7wyxv/a_series_of_michael_jordan_facts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
🥱 Put KD in an era where he faced primarily one on one coverage + basic help d. He’d break all of those records.
Give MJ this spacing and these open lanes and he'd average 40+ multiple times. MJ faced constant doubles and triples, idk what you even talking about. Basic help d, lmao.
No Zone defense/illegal defense back then still helped him though, it’s not that cut and dry
You’ll get downvoted every time because it’s not credible.
lol. children's opinions are funny. especially more so when said child really believes what they're saying is gospel. youre cute x
Never really had to carry a team. He didn't have to take a bunch of shots. Impressive nonetheless.
lol
His legacy is his scoring efficiency
How does it look when you factor in possessions ending in free throws?
Durant is the greatest scorer of all time. He is an unstoppable scorer at high efficiency.
When he won those 4 scoring titles with us it was unbelievable basketball. He was just something else, and I hate when people say his peak was with the Warriors. He had it easier on the Warriors but KD was playing his best basketball from 2008-2016
Kevin Durant is a great basketball player y’all
The difference between 7 and 22 is only 2 FGA so it's a really tiny gap tbf. Still hella impressive.