Who was better... Barkley or Kobe?

[Round Mound]

Kobe is 3rd all time scoring, Barkley is 26th. Stop posting OP

So Malone > Jordan as a scorer since he is the 2nd accumulative total points?
So Allen Iverson > Kobe as scorer cause his PPG is higher?

Great scorers are the ones that are efficient per shot taken.

[ClipperRevival]

Not even a question, Kobe clearly.

People always talk about Chuck's advanced, offensive metrics. They also reference how little shots he took per game to score. Well, here's an idea, how about you up your shot attempts and do more to help your team?

Chuck never cracked 50 points in a regular season game. EVER. Doesn't that say it all?

[ClipperRevival]

As a matter of fact, in the 1,196 total games played (reg season & playoffs), good ole' Chuck cracked 50+ points once, in a playoff game.

You can't make this stuff up.

[SouBeachTalents]

Well, let's look at each players' playoffs numbers over their best 10 years. Because the playoffs is what counts right. For Barkley this is 1986-1995. For Kobe its 2001-2010. Coincidentally, both these spans are age 22 - 31.

Stat - Kobe / Barkley
PPG - 28.8 / 25.9
REB - 5.7 / 13.6
AST - 5.4 / 4.5
STL - 1.5 / 1.7
BLK - 0.6 / 1.0
TOV - 3.2 / 3.1
eFG% - 48.6% / 53.9%
PER - 23.5 / 25.2
WS/48 - .178 / .201

Barkley has the decisive advantage here.

Does he really though? The defensive stats are honestly irrelevant since nobody considers Barkley to be a better defender. And his literal fraction of an advantage in TO's is undone by his worse assist-TO ratio

[warriorfan]

Barkley was one of the worst defenders of all time. No exaggeration. PF is one of the most important positions defensively. It’s very hard to win with a power forward logging big minutes who is a defensive liability, no matter how good he is offensively.

[Round Mound]

Kobe has the longevity stats over Barkley but a Prime Peak & Healthy Barkley was way more dominant. Barkley was a lazy defender at times true but he wasn't as bad as some say especially in Phily. Barkley inside the 3-pointline was a much better scorer than Kobe. A 1990 Barkley was better than Kobe.

[AussieSteve]

Not even a question, Kobe clearly.

People always talk about Chuck's advanced, offensive metrics. They also reference how little shots he took per game to score. Well, here's an idea, how about you up your shot attempts and do more to help your team?

Chuck never cracked 50 points in a regular season game. EVER. Doesn't that say it all?

Chuck led offenses were #1 in the league 3 years in a row in Phoenix and #2 behind the lakers in back to back years at Philly. He led a team with rookie Hersey Hawkins and Mike Gminski as his 2nd and 3rd options to a better offense than every other team in the league except the Showtime lakers. I think he knew what he was doing.

And sure Barkley never cracked 50 in the RS, because he wasn't a ball hogging brick layer like Kobe. Im sure barkley couldn't care less about scoring 50. Kobe had whole months where he averaged 40+ right? Well where the hell are all his 40 & 50 point playoff games? Barkley scored >40 points more times in his 6 finals games than Kobe did in his 7 finals series!

You tell me who was the better big game scorer?

Kobe... 7 conference finals, 7 finals
Barkley... 2 conference finals, 1 final

Top 5 scores.

1. 45, Kobe, WCF
2. 44, Barkley, WCF (also 24 boards)
3. 43, Barkley, WCF (also a triple double)
4. 42, Barkley, Finals
5. 41, Kobe, WCF

Given just one fifth of the opportunities to score big on the biggest stage, Barkley still has three of the top four scores above.

[fourkicks44]

Where is the mutha f#ckin poll, Aussie Steve?

[MrFonzworth]

Kobe, all about the rangz mang

[NBAGOAT]

it's a shame impact stats really dont go back far enough for 90s guys. I like barkley a lot but it seems like his box score could overrate him some. He's no adrian dantley tbf who has similar effectiveness in the post who you can argue about being even a top 10 player even with incredible box score stats. Barkley's still one of the top guys after jordan. Still, his style especially in philly with the long back downs in the low post is super effective but can lead to some bad shots for teammates at the end of the shot clock.

Box score metrics love his defense especially bpm because of his rebounding but most people say he's a negative. Still an impact metric would be a nice baseline at least since it's really hard to gauge how bad to good someone is defensively.

Meanwhile for kobe, box score might underrate him some. Extremely high impact on offense from 06-08 with some of the most versatile scoring in nba history and some nice passing. Shot selection is his real flaw but hard to blame him too much for that in 06 and 07.

[ImKobe]

Not even a question, Kobe clearly.

People always talk about Chuck's advanced, offensive metrics. They also reference how little shots he took per game to score. Well, here's an idea, how about you up your shot attempts and do more to help your team?

Chuck never cracked 50 points in a regular season game. EVER. Doesn't that say it all?

Not only that, but his efficiency often dropped in the Playoffs (not counting early exit runs). He was almost always a 60%TS or higher scorer in his seasons but then you look at his efficiency dropping all the way to 55%TS in '93 during his MVP year in the POs, he only had one 60+%TS Playoff run (10+ games played minimum) and that was his 2nd year when he took 15 shots a game.

You can give me his best Playoff run and it doesn't stack up to Kobe's 30/6/6 on 57%TS average in his 3 straight Finals runs from 08-10.

Kobe was simply more complete on both ends and did everything to help his teams win and had that competitive mindset while Chuck was golfing with MJ and laughing it up with him on the court as his team was losing in the Finals.

You could argue that Chuck is worse than Kobe at every single facet of the game outside of rebounding. Give peak Kobe the '93 Suns and HCA against Jordan and there's no question that Kobe's team destroys the Bulls.

[NBAGOAT]

Not only that, but his efficiency often dropped in the Playoffs (not counting early exit runs). He was almost always a 60%TS or higher scorer in his seasons but then you look at his efficiency dropping all the way to 55%TS in '93 during his MVP year in the POs, he only had one 60+%TS Playoff run (10+ games played minimum) and that was his 2nd year when he took 15 shots a game.

You can give me his best Playoff run and it doesn't stack up to Kobe's 30/6/6 on 57%TS average in his 3 straight Finals runs from 08-10.

Kobe was simply more complete on both ends and did everything to help his teams win and had that competitive mindset while Chuck was golfing with MJ and laughing it up with him on the court as his team was losing in the Finals.

You could argue that Chuck is worse than Kobe at every single facet of the game outside of rebounding. Give peak Kobe the '93 Suns and HCA against Jordan and there's no question that Kobe's team destroys the Bulls.

the 10 games minimum ofc skews it badly for barkley. Lot of his prime years are 1st round exits. He has 7 total, 2 at the beginning of his career and 3 past prime. Only one of those regular seasons above 60TS%. His rs and ps efficiency those runs.

RS PS
85: 59.9TS% 58.2TS%
86: 61.9TS% 63.1TS%
90: 66.1TS% 58.9TS%
93: 59.6TS% 55.2TS%
94: 56.3TS% 57.5TS%
95: 57.2TS% 58.0TS%
97: 58.1TS% 55.7TS%

so essentially only one of these years is a significant dropoff, solid over 7 playoff runs for an elite player. If you just do whole career, drops from 61.2 to 58.4 so more than kobe but this isnt a consistent playoff underperformer.

The point about barkley being worse at every part of the game besides rebounding is just exaggeration lol. Barkley is an all time great interior scorer and I would even pick his post scoring over kobe.

[tanibanana]

Better is not equal to Greater..

Barkley is slightly better player than Kobe.
Kobe is extremely greater player than Barkley.

The argument is like;
Paul Pierce is greater, but Grant Hill is better.
LaMarcus Aldridge is greater, but Blake Griffin is better.
Somewhat in this type of argument, this is due to their overall career.

[Kblaze8855]

Barkley was one of the worst defenders of all time. No exaggeration.

Its a massive massive exaggeration.

He was too capable physically and too great a defensive rebounder to even be close to the other lazy defenders who didnt have the ability to play it or the rebounding.


Charles Barkley wasnt an active defender. There are non active defenders who dont even have the potential to be good defender and did nothing on that end to remember. Charles made amazing defensive plays on a regular basis. He had game winning blocks, drew charges with the game on the line, ran down guards for chasedowns, guarded centers and wings if he had to and grabbed every rebound to prevent second chance points. Charles was out there throwing Hakeem dunks and picking the pockets of point guards.

A guy like Sam Cassell was capable of almost none of that. A lot of guys arent.

[Phoenix]

the 10 games minimum ofc skews it badly for barkley. Lot of his prime years are 1st round exits. He has 7 total, 2 at the beginning of his career and 3 past prime. Only one of those regular seasons above 60TS%. His rs and ps efficiency those runs.

RS PS
85: 59.9TS% 58.2TS%
86: 61.9TS% 63.1TS%
90: 66.1TS% 58.9TS%
93: 59.6TS% 55.2TS%
94: 56.3TS% 57.5TS%
95: 57.2TS% 58.0TS%
97: 58.1TS% 55.7TS%

so essentially only one of these years is a significant dropoff, solid over 7 playoff runs for an elite player. If you just do whole career, drops from 61.2 to 58.4 so more than kobe but this isnt a consistent playoff underperformer.

The point about barkley being worse at every part of the game besides rebounding is just exaggeration lol. Barkley is an all time great interior scorer and I would even pick his post scoring over kobe.

That isn't even a point to be argued.