Their games are vastly different, their public personas even more so. But Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan share some uncanny similarities.
Both own five championship rings.
Both have led an iconic NBA franchise for nearly two decades.
Both need three hands to tally their All-NBA first-, second- and third-team honors.
Duncan and Bryant are, quite simply, the greatest players of their generation -- the era that followed on the heels of Michael Jordan's heyday. They are the Spurs' yin, the Lakers' yang, of NBA excellence.
As Bryant nears the end of his 20-year career and Duncan finds himself just four months from his 40th birthday, we have the opportunity to look back and marvel -- and to compare and contrast two of the greatest players ever.
Which superstar is greater? It's a long-standing debate among NBA aficionados, and both players inspire legions of passionate supporters. So let's analyze the work of these two legends in an attempt to help resolve the debate.
Our tools today are real plus-minus and other metrics that help us make an apples-to-apples comparison between one of the greatest backcourt players and one of the greatest frontcourt players ever.
First, a few basics, the tale of the tape:
Offense: Advantage, Kobe
Every NBA fan knows Kobe Bryant as an offensive juggernaut. He has put up 32,703 points over the course of his storied career, far more than any other active player. And he ranks third all-time in total scoring, trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone.
And despite carrying an outsized share of the Lakers' offensive load for two decades, Kobe somehow managed to remain efficient on offense for the large majority of his career. His career true shooting percentage (adjusted for free throws and 3-pointers) is well above league average.
Several times he has led the league in usage rate, and at one point (the 2005-06 season) he accounted for nearly 40 percent of all Lakers possessions. His high assist rate also has frequently ranked Bryant among the NBA's top distributors as a wing player.
Of course, Tim Duncan has been an elite offensive player in his own right. He now ranks 17th on the NBA's all-time scoring list, on pace to pass legends like John Havlicek, George Gervin, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson and Hakeem Olajuwon before the season ends.
Duncan also has the exact same career true shooting percentage (55.1) as Bryant. But his much lower usage rate -- Timmy's 27.2 to Kobe's 31.8 -- suggests a smaller offensive footprint for the Spurs' big man.
Predictive real plus-minus (RPM) -- which measures each player's impact on his team's efficiency using mathematical modeling to adjust for the effects of teammates and opponents -- illustrates the degree to which Bryant has consistently outplayed Duncan offensively.
As shown in the chart below, Kobe logged the higher offensive RPM for 15 consecutive seasons from 1999-2000 through 2014-15. Over that span, Kobe boasts a huge lead in the metric, with an average of 5.2 to Duncan's 1.8.
Defense: Advantage, Timmy
He may not be flashy about it, but Tim Duncan is an insanely gifted defender. How good? At age 39, he leads the NBA in defensive RPM at 6.2. He has ranked among the league's leaders in the metric for every single one of the past 17 seasons.
And it's not just about the obvious stuff -- the blocks, the defensive boards, the altered shots in the paint. It's Duncan's off-the-charts basketball IQ, his cagey anticipation, textbook rotations, tireless effort and quiet leadership every second he's on the court. Let's compare Duncan's and Bryant's DRPM impact:
Even though Kobe has somehow earned more career All-Defensive honors than Duncan (nine to eight, if you're keeping score at home), Bryant's true defensive impact pales in comparison.
To put it bluntly, Kobe's defense is highly overrated. According to DRPM, he hasn't had a large positive impact on defense in a single one of the past 15 seasons. He actually has been among the league's poorest defensive wings for five years running.
So how can we account for his reputation as an elite defender and the All-NBA defensive honors?
It's certainly not about eye-popping box score stats, as Kobe has posted pedestrian career averages in steals (1.2 per game), blocks (0.5) and defensive rebounds (4.1).
No, Kobe's rep for stellar defense looks like a classic artifact of the focusing illusion. That's the tendency in human judgment to place far too much weight on a single, easily observed attribute. In Bryant's case, we recall the highlight plays and occasional flashes of Jordan-esque "lockdown" defense and tend to conclude that a player who can make such plays is a plus defender.
It's a convincing illusion, but the numbers don't lie. His mediocre defensive RPM shows that Kobe has simply not been a great defender on a consistent basis.
The decision: Duncan over Kobe
So, as we might have predicted even without the aid of advanced metrics, Kobe has been consistently superior on offense, while Duncan has had a huge upper hand on the defensive end.
Should we just declare these two legends equally great and call it a day?
Actually, no.
One of the most compelling features of RPM is the metric's ability to compare the relative impact of each player's offensive and defensive contributions. And that's important, because even though offense is usually what grabs our attention, defensive play is every bit as vital to team success -- as coaches never tire of reminding us.
For many, Kobe's offensive skill at his peak was so head-turning that nothing else really matters; they care a lot more about that than the quiet efficiency of Duncan. Kobe's 81-point game, his dunks and his beautiful jumper are what many will remember from this era.
On the other hand, some fans appreciate Duncan's team approach and find Kobe's shoot-first style grating.
For RPM, however, style points don't count. RPM estimates exactly how much you helped your team win.
The following chart shows Duncan's overall dominance.
With the exception of two seasons (2005-06 and 2007-08) at the peak of Kobe's prime, Duncan has had the higher RPM value -- the greater positive impact on the game -- in each of their other seasons.
For most of those seasons, it hasn't even been that close. Since 1999, Duncan has had an average RPM of 6.97 to Kobe's 3.75, a decisive edge to Duncan.
That's not to diminish Kobe's greatness. He's securely in the pantheon of NBA greats, and he always will be. Bryant has dazzled us with the dynamic brilliance of his play for 20 seasons and earned the gratitude and admiration of fans the world over.
Tim Duncan has rarely dazzled -- not to the casual fan, at least -- but his imprint on the game is no less epic. In fact, he's quite simply the best player of his generation.