There might never be another Kobe Bryant.
A ruthless scorer armed with a nearly limitless repertoire of weapons, the Los Angeles Lakers guard has become the closest thing to Michael Jordan we reasonably could have expected. If you're searching for Kobe's heir apparent in today's crop of young shooting guards, I offer two words:
Good luck.
Los Angeles Clippers fans might claim the shoe fits for Eric Gordon. He scored 22.3 points per game last season as a 22-year-old, but it's hard to imagine the undersized 2 creating enough off the dribble to become a scoring leader. Monta Ellis? He's already halfway through his NBA career, and it's not a good sign that the Golden State Warriors have been better off with him on the bench for three years running (seriously, flip through his plus-minus record). Kevin Martin? He's a little more than a year from his 30th birthday. Nick Young? I think you know where I'm going with this.
But if the shooting guard well is dry, is there anyone else worthy of becoming the next Kobe Bryant?
Please direct your attention to Kevin Durant. Really, we should think of Durant as a shooting guard stuck in a 6-foot-9 frame. He weighs in at about the same number as his 2-guard peers, and his job on the floor is unquestionably to shoot the rock. If we're looking for a player who shares Kobe's rare ability for scoring anywhere on the court, no one can bring it like Durant can. Consider the shot repertoires of these two scorers (provided by hoopdata.com):
As you can see, Durant can attack the rim, live in the midrange and rain from downtown. In fact, if we look at those three zones on the court, there's only one player under 25 who mirrors Kobe's favorite spots on the floor, and that's Durant.
And by some measures, Durant has a head start on catching Kobe despite the fact that Durant played ball as a Longhorn for a year. To see how extraordinary Durant's scoring chops are, consider the following: Durant already has tallied a mind-blowing 8,128 points in his NBA career. Kobe at this age? He stood at 6,178 points. In 20 more games. Durant also topped the 30-points-per-game barrier as a 21-year-old, beating Kobe to that threshold by three years.
Now, there are a few contributing variables that give Durant the edge on Kobe in the scoring column at this point in their careers. For one, Durant didn't have to earn his spot behind an All-Star such as Eddie Jones. Kobe spent his first two seasons coming off the bench behind Jones, who was playing in his prime before being traded to the Charlotte Hornets at the 1998-99 trade deadline. Durant has yet to come off the bench even once in his short career.
Furthermore, Durant didn't have to share the ball with a guy named Shaquille O'Neal. Although it's true that Russell Westbrook has become one of the biggest ball dominators in the game today, it hasn't always been that way. Westbrook came in a year after Durant, and the point guard waited until this past season to catapult into the league's top 10 in usage rate. Shaq, by comparison, ranked inside the top seven in usage rate in every season while wearing purple-and-gold except for his final season in Los Angeles. If Durant had to share the ball with, say, Blake Griffin, things might be different.
Nonetheless, as a pure scorer, Kobe has already passed the torch to Durant, who has led the league in scoring for two straight seasons. However, although Durant and Kobe share many similarities in where they get their points, they differ in how they get their points. Kobe creates most of his shots, whereas Durant needs some help from his teammates.
According to Hoopdata.com, Durant was assisted on 62.4 percent of his buckets last season compared with Kobe's rate of 37.4 percent. Durant's ability to create off the dribble is suppressed by his frail frame and spot-up shooting capabilities. Instead, he runs off of screens in the same vein as Reggie Miller and Ray Allen as opposed to isolating himself on the perimeter and taking his man off the dribble like Kobe.
But as scary as it sounds, Durant still is in his embryonic stages as an NBA player. He celebrated his 23rd birthday in September and has shown much better handle and confidence off the dribble in his exhibition tour this offseason. (Granted, these watered down all-star games encourage ankle-breaking jukes, not crisp pin-down). If Durant can develop his post-up game and attack with the ball, nothing will stop him from topping Kobe's 35.4 scoring average in 2005-06.
Defensively? Let's just say that Durant won't be sniffing the all-defense team anytime soon. But if we're ranking the best scorers of the new millennium, Durant likely will have the upper hand on Kobe when it's all said and done.
And it's true, you can't compare anyone to Kobe without mentioning his ring count -- he has five, in case you hadn't noticed. But let's also remember that Durant doesn't have the privilege of playing next to Dwight Howard in his prime.
Yet.
Tom Haberstroh covers the NBA for ESPN Insider and ESPN The Magazine. He is a member of ESPN.com's Heat Index and contributes to Insider's college basketball, college football and baseball coverage. He contributes to ESPN The Magazine and ESPNNewYork.com and previously worked as a consultant for ESPN Stats & Information and as an analyst for HoopData.com. You can find his ESPN archives here and follow him on Twitter here.