Inside Blitz: Kobe's Place in NBA History

With the sad news that Kobe Bryant’s season ended prematurely due to a torn rotator cuff, everyone’s trying to put his sterling 19-year career in perspective. It’s the second straight season-ending injury he’s suffered, and Kobe’s played just 41 of the Lakers’ last 117 games

More Articles About Kobe Bryant:

On my Yahoo Sports Radio show Sunday, I tried to peg Kobe’s spot among the all-time greats, and settled upon 8th, but that’s excluding LeBron James, who is only 30. A few listeners asked me afterward if I’d put LeBron’s career so far against Kobe’s (either at Kobe at 30, or Kobe right now) and the answer was yes. So I’d peg Kobe Bryant as the 9th greatest player in basketball history.

[Jordan, Magic, Bird, Russell, Chamberlain, Jabbar and Duncan were the top seven, though not in that order.]

The most interesting responses came in regard to my comments on Larry Bird vs. Kobe (hour three here). It’s impossible/silly to try and compare players from different eras, and these two don’t even play the same position!

Both were lethal scorers, legendary trash talkers, and while Bird made those around him better, Kobe was an elite defender for much of his career. Back injuries limited Bird’s career to 13 seasons, but he wasn’t nearly the same player in the last four. How’s this for a stat: Kobe Bryant started 200 playoff games (8,641 minutes) and Bird started just 95 (6,886 minutes).

As always, so many “Ifs” – Bird’s back, Len Bias, Reggie Lewis; for Kobe, if he and Shaq got along, if Colorado didn’t happen – dot this subjective debate. Kobe had a longer career, but barely edges him on the scorecard (both were MVP of the Finals twice, and Bird won three league MVP awards to Kobe’s one). Kobe won five titles, Bird three.

It’s close. How close? Here’s a graphic that probably ends with Kobe behind by one, unless the Lakers make the playoffs next year:

Are a lot of 30-somethings perhaps caught up in the Larry Legend 80’s memories that only seem to improve with time? And, perhaps, is there a backlash toward Kobe because of the way he drove loveable Shaq out of LA and allegedly raped a woman in Eagle, Colorado?

Consider this stat on Bird, and how much the game has changed in less than 30 years: in 1986, the best year of his career (League MVP, Finals MVP, averaged 25.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, 6.8 assists and shot 49/42/89), he made 23 three-pointers in the postseason (18 games). In the 2013 playoffs, when Danny Green blew up against the Heat, he made 55 three-pointers in 21 games.

INTERNAL STRIFE AT SPORTS ILLUSTRATED?

So what the hell is going on at Sports Illustrated? In a stunner last week, SI laid off all six of its staff photographers, and quietly parted ways with two senior writers, Brian Cazeneuve (Olympics) and Thomas Lake (features, longform). Layoffs are always difficult, but four weeks into the year, they’re a brutal way to start 2015.

It’s been a rough six years for the one-time Sports Bible, dating back to the layoffs in 2008 and 2012. This isn’t really anything new to legacy media – layoffs have been gutting the industry for the better part of a decade.

Inside Blitz spoke with several current Sports Illustrated staffers and the consensus was this: “morale is low” and fingers kept getting pointed at Paul Fichtenbaum, who took over the Magazine in 2012. The current picture being painted there is not a rosy one, especially after Fichtenbaum named himself the boss of SI.com after interviewing several internal candidates.

While SI obviously has plenty of talented writers regularly churning out fantastic journalism, the issue seems to be leadership and direction. “There’s no confidence in Paul right now,” another SI staffer said.

RATINGZ

For the eight of you who are ratings obsessed – reminder: TV ratings have an embarrassingly outdated model, so take them extremely lightly – here’s one via Sports TV Ratings:

On Martin Luther King Day, NBA ratings were solid, even for the 2:30 pm game between the Hawks and Pistons on ESPN (830k viewers). ESPN tweaked its afternoon lineup – putting the Grantland basketball show on after the game, and bumping Around the Horn and PTI to ESPN2.

With the NBA lead-in, the Simmons show pulled in a solid 516k viewers (0.2 rating). But it seems lots of people still followed ATH to ESPN2 (597k viewers, 0.3 rating) and PTI as well (731k viewers, 0.3 rating).

ODDS & ENDS

Tough week at the Palm Beach Post – the paper let go its sports editor and also longtime columnist, Greg Stoda … RIP former Star-Ledger NFL columnist Paul Needell … ever wonder how difficult the transition is from print to broadcast? Matt Ginella, who went from Golf Digest and Golf World to the Golf Channel, has the answer for you … the future of magazine Modern Farmer is in doubt! … what’s it like to watch NFL film with Cris Collinsworth ahead of him calling the Super Bowl? … very cool read on Pro Football Focus, the stat-driven website … powerful lede here: Man who could win $1 million in fantasy baseball game has to settle for $27k after a water pipe burst and an MLB game was postponed … coming to every media outlet sooner rather than later: Conde Nast ‘branded content shop’ to be powered by editors.