Imagine Kobe Bryant at the height of his powers. Odds are, the play you're recalling features the Los Angeles Lakers' All-Star isolating against a helpless defender and beating him one-on-one for a score.
Since Michael Jordan retired, no player in the NBA has been a more prolific isolation scorer than Bryant. In the past 12 seasons, despite injuries that have limited him in recent years, Bryant has outscored the next-best scorer on isolation plays (LeBron James) by nearly a thousand points. Of the 81 points Bryant scored against the Toronto Raptors in January 2006, 31 came on isolations.
So it's only fitting that as Bryant's Hall of Fame career winds down, so, too, does an era seem to be ending in terms of the NBA's use of isolation plays.
Decade of declining isolations
A league that once loved isolation plays has used them far less in recent seasons.
During 2005-06, Bryant's best scoring campaign, Synergy charted 13.7 percent of all plays around the NBA being isolations that resulted in the ballhandler shooting, going to the free throw line or turning it over. So far this season, that rate has dwindled to 7.2 percent -- a decline of nearly half in the past decade.
The rate has dropped even faster the past four seasons. As recently as 2011-12, Synergy tracking recorded 10.5 percent of plays league-wide as isolations. The average 2011-12 NBA team would lead the league in isolation rate this season, just ahead of Bryant's Lakers (10.4 percent). No other team is finishing even 10 percent of its plays with isolations.
Much attention has been paid to the league moving away from post-ups, as Zach Lowe explored during the 2015 postseason. Intriguingly, the decline in plays marked isolations by Synergy is actually larger than the drop in post-ups.
Compare the distribution of the three most common plays -- isolations, pick-and-rolls and post-ups, this time including passes to other types of shots -- in 2005-06 alongside this season.
Instead of featuring their best scorers in one-on-one situations or in the post, as teams have embraced floor spacing, the 3-point shot and ball movement, those play calls have overwhelmingly turned into pick-and-rolls.
In particular, coaches point to the success of teams that favor passing-heavy offenses over those that rely on one-on-one basketball as the reason for the shift. The San Antonio Spurs -- who have used just 5.1 percent of their plays on isolations this season, the league's third-lowest rate -- get most of the credit, but they're not alone.
"Going back to Dallas' championship, Miami's championships, Golden State's championship, San Antonio's championship . . . all those teams really pass and move, so there's less stagnation," says Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts, an assistant on the Mavericks team that won the 2011 title. "I know people say it's a copycat league, but I know it's aesthetically more pleasing and I know as a coach to incorporate everybody and have everybody be involved is what you strive for. I think you have more coaches coaching that way.
"The last five years, the passing of the basketball has really been emphasized and successful. It's not just the San Antonio Spurs that are doing it. I think it's everybody that is doing it."
Kobe in a league of his own in isolation scoring
When it comes to scoring out of isolations, the data and the defenders agree: There's nobody better than Kobe.
Looking at Synergy data on isolation scoring dating back to 2004-05, Bryant stands alone. Not only are his 6,303 points on isolations the most of any player the past 11-plus seasons, Bryant also stands out in terms of the percentage of his points scored on isolations (a league-high 29.7 percent) ... and, yes, his efficiency.
Despite declining isolation performance since rupturing his Achilles in April 2013, Bryant has averaged .96 points per play on isolations since 2004-05, far better than the league average of .83 points per play. Among players who have scored at least 2,500 points on isolations, only Dirk Nowitzki (.99 points per play) has been more efficient when asked to iso.
Those numbers don't surprise retired wing Shane Battier, who guarded Bryant whenever his teams played the Lakers, including in the 2009 postseason.
"For me, he was the toughest guy in isolations that I had to guard," Battier said. "His weaknesses were relative and they were still pretty damn good."
Yet Battier cites something beyond Bryant's quickness, ballhandling and shooting ability in explaining the difficulty of the matchup -- the way the Lakers were able to set Bryant up within the triangle offense.
"Kobe was so effective because they ran the triangle really effectively and it was movement, movement, movement into an iso," Battier explained. "The spacing was good enough were Kobe would have space and obviously he's one of the best of all time."
Consider this play, where Bryant screens for teammate Pau Gasol, allowing him to catch the ball without pressure from Battier. He starts his drive close enough to the hoop to get in the paint with one dribble before pulling up and scoring.
The predictability of other isolation plays helps explain why Battier says he would rather defend against them "every day of the week" than chase around an active player like Manu Ginobili in the Spurs' more freewheeling offense. And that in turn helps explain the decline in isolations as teams trade in motion-based offenses like the triangle for ones built around spacing the floor.
Hope for the isolation?
Extrapolate the decline in isolations during the past decade and it's possible that they, like Bryant's career, could be in their final days.
As with post-ups, however, observers don't anticipate isolations dying out completely. There will always be a value to putting your best scorer in a situation that makes it difficult for opponents to bring help.
"All offenses since the beginning of team ultimately get guys in one-on-one situations," ESPN analyst Hubie Brown noted.
"Isos are one of those things that kind of put the defensive teams in a little bit of a quandary," Lakers coach Byron Scott said, "because they either let you go one-on-one or they double-team you and that gives somebody probably a pretty good look at an open shot because you're in rotation -- what we call a scramble situation.
"It just depends on the guys that you have doing it. Kobe's been doing that his whole career. He's had opportunities to do it his whole career. And when he's on, you've got a decision to make."
While there might not be another Bryant, there are certainly skilled isolation scorers in the league.
Aside from Bryant, Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks has been the most consistent isolation scorer in the past decade. Anthony has two of the top 10 seasons in points scored on isolations (2009-10 and 2010-11), the most by anyone besides Bryant (five). Gilbert Arenas, Allen Iverson and James round out the list.
Then there's Houston Rockets guard James Harden. Harden led the league in isolation scoring in 2014-15 and is tops again this season, which explains why the Rockets are second in isolation plays after the Lakers.
Along with teams like the L.A. Clippers (third in isolation rate), Cleveland Cavaliers (fifth), Raptors (seventh) and Oklahoma City Thunder (ninth), Houston has shown it's possible to build a successful offense on a regular diet of isolations. Not coincidentally, those teams feature All-Star guards capable of creating one-on-one.
For the rest of the league, however, isolating isn't an effective way to create good shots. So expect isolations to keep trending downward.
"There might be a player that comes along who can change the trend of the league," Battier said. "Let's say there's some freak who comes out who's a 7-foot-1 wing guy who just is stronger and more athletic than everybody else.
"It's not advantageous to put him in a pick-and-roll. It's advantageous to throw him the ball and say, 'Go to work,' because nobody can match up physically. But as shooting becomes the most important part of offense -- the ability to make a stand-still shot -- you'll continue to see pick-and-rolls to create 2-on-1 situations that lead to open shots."