What would 2005-2006 Kobe average today with that same squad?

[MoneyTron]

I totally agree with 25-26 shots for 2006-style Kobe in today's game. Let's say they're split between 10 3pt and 15 2pt. Add in around 8 fta.

2006 Kobe shot 48% from 2pt. Let's bump that up to 50% (a # he only reached once in his entire career). 50% on 15 fga is 15ppg.
2006 Kobe shot 34.7% from 3pt. Let's bump up to 35% (a # he only reached twice his entire career). 35% on 10 3pta is 10.5ppg.
2006 Kobe shot 85.0% from ft. That's one of the top marks of his career, we'll leave it there. 85% on 8 fta is 6.8ppg.

Total that's....wait for it.....32.3ppg in the current era. Which I think is realistic considering he would be very unlikely to get 27 shots and 10 fts a game in this era.

I'm literally the first person in the thread to calculate that out, even though I've challenged people to do it 5-6 times. They're not coming up with realistic numbers based on actual figures, they're just telling us how they "feel" Kobe would score.

Almost every star perimeter player from the early 2010's has had their shooting percentages increase significantly from all ranges through today. Whether that be Steph, KD, Harden, etc. The only season we saw him play in a more wide open system was '13 and he was nowhere close to his prime at that point.

So trying to port over Kobe's shooting percentages based on a time with a much more tightly spaced court and lower pace is an inexact science.
My numbers look like:

16 2PT FGA at 52% - 16.4ppg
11 3 3PT FGA at 37% - 12.2ppg
9 FTA at 85% - 7.7ppg

36.3ppg



And I'm being conservative on the FTAs. An '06 Kobe pushing himself 100% is no doubt racking up FTAs by the boatload.

An '03 Kobe with good knees is turning this league upside down.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Almost every star perimeter player from the early 2010's has had their shooting percentages increase significantly from all ranges through today. Whether that be Steph, KD, Harden, etc. The only season we saw him play in a more wide open system was '13 and he was nowhere close to his prime at that point.

So trying to port over Kobe's shooting percentages based on a time with a much more tightly spaced court and lower pace is an inexact science.
My numbers look like:

16 2PT FGA at 52% - 16.4ppg
11 3 3PT FGA at 37% - 12.2ppg
9 FTA at 85% - 7.7ppg

36.3ppg



And I'm being conservative on the FTAs. An '06 Kobe pushing himself 100% is no doubt racking up FTAs by the boatload.

You have him taking 27 shots with 11 threes. No one in the NBA is shooting even 23 fga this year, and only Steph is averaging 11 3pta. I just don't think there's any chance of Kobe putting up that many shots considering the reduced minutes he'd play in this era, just like literally everyone else.

But I'm fine with your estimate as an extreme upper bound.

 

[MoneyTron]

You have him taking 27 shots with 11 threes. No one in the NBA is shooting even 23 fga this year, and only Steph is averaging 11 3pta. I just don't think there's any chance of Kobe putting up that many shots considering the reduced minutes he'd play in this era, just like literally everyone else.

But I'm fine with your estimate as an extreme upper bound.

I don't think it's extreme at all. No one in the NBA is taking 23FGA because all of the great scorers are on decent teams outside of Steph. 2006 Kobe running solo on a team like the Kings is putting up major FGA numbers.

Like I said, if Harden is putting up 25FGA in 2019, no reason Kobe isn't doing the same or more especially considering their playing styles.

 

[Cyber]

Probably 37-38 ppg (only because he's not getting anywhere near 40 mpg today, he'd get 40 easy if he did though), probably only needs 27 shots which he did attempt to get 35.4 in that era. It's night and day how spacing was then to now, he's not attempting anywhere near 48% of his shots from 16-22ft like he did then. 2p% is much higher nowadays and I know based off spending way way waaay too much of my free time watching both periods (and earlier periods) that it's gotten much easier to take to the rim today. Today's NBA doesn't impress me anywhere near as much as earlier periods for that and other reasons not relevant to this topic


While I'm at it, 06 Lakers had a top 3-4 offense that year with him and a bottom 3 offense all-time without him, and it didn't matter who surrounded him they were a great offense with him and beyond abysmal without him, that's a massive swing for a guy who by my own tracking (10 game sample) handled the ball roughly 4ish minutes and had 72 touches which pale in comparison to stars today especially when adjusting for minutes (incomplete sample but it matches other triangle era games I've tracked). Insane, they had no choice but to have their best defenders when he sat (I'm pretty sure a broadcast went over this) which unfortunately really skewers how good he was on defense that year

 

[steph_harden]

You have him taking 27 shots with 11 threes. No one in the NBA is shooting even 23 fga this year, and only Steph is averaging 11 3pta. I just don't think there's any chance of Kobe putting up that many shots considering the reduced minutes he'd play in this era, just like literally everyone else.

But I'm fine with your estimate as an extreme upper bound.

Kobe was the goat gunner tho breh. Nobody in the league right now is like him...he wouldn’t care...no doubt he’s getting 27 shots up

 

[Wacky D]

stop besides shaq harden has had better teamates

harden played against better teams.

besides, i'll take pau gasol over all of harden's teammates not named durant.