Who would you choose: Kobe or LeBron?
By John Hollinger

As great individual matchups go, this one's a doozy.

Thursday night features the season's first meeting between two of the NBA's top three scorers, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Both are dynamic wing players who seem capable of doing virtually anything on the right night. Both also have the baggage of being hailed as the Next Jordan, and the burden of carrying undermanned supporting casts (although in James' case, it's a more recent development, since the injury to Larry Hughes).

Yes, a nitpicker could point out that they won't be guarding each other much -- expect Ira Newble to be checking Bryant most of the evening while Lamar Odom and Devean George take turns against James -- but it still promises to be one of the year's most entertaining matchups.

And leading into it, one has to ponder a simple question: Who's better?

I don't mean better in the sense of career accomplishments (edge: Kobe) or what they accomplished at the same age (edge: LeBron). I'm talking about who is better right now. If you had to win a game tomorrow, which player would you choose first, Kobe or James?

To help us decide, I thought I'd break things down into the different phases of the game and see where that leads us.

Rebounding: This is the easiest one to decide, so let's start here. James has rebounded 9.2 percent of missed shots this season; Bryant has collected 8.4 percent. Although the advantage isn't large, consider that James was ahead of Bryant in his first two years, too. It's an open-and-shut case. Edge: LeBron.

Defense: Having survived the easiest measurable, let's move on to the toughest. Although we have some tools available to us for measuring defense, there aren't any hard-and-fast methods available for measuring defense as there are in other aspects of the game. However, a few metrics provide us with some solid clues to use in building on our subjective observations.

Subjectively, Bryant appears to be the better defender. He has been named first-team All-Defense twice, and although those selections were more the result of some well-timed performances on national TV than a consistent yearlong effort, the truth is that Bryant does expend more energy on defense than many other superstars.

James has his strong points, too. It's easy to forget how huge he is, which makes posting him up a virtual impossibility. He's also great at playing passing lanes and darting in for a steal.

However, as Tracy McGrady showed in the Rockets' win in Cleveland two weeks ago, James's lateral movement can be sluggish, and his help-side defense is also nothing to write home about.

Those qualities show up when we look at two measures: how each player's opponents fare individually and the overall success of his team.

First, the teams. It's hard to argue that there's a substantial difference in defensive talent between the Cavs and Lakers -- both have relatively soft big men and one star on the wings -- yet the Lakers rank seventh overall in the NBA in Defensive Efficiency while the Cavs are 11th. Considering that each plays such a huge chunk of his team's minutes, this points right back to Bryant's and James' individual efforts.

Additionally, let's look at opponent performance. According to the folks at 82games.com, Bryant's opposite number has posted a Player Efficiency Rating of 12.7 over the course of the season, well below the league average of 15.0. In James' case, however, his opponents have posted a PER of 14.3 -- still not great, but much better than Bryant's foes have fared.

The only advantage for James is comparing their teams' on-court vs. off-court defensive performance. In other words, the difference between the Cavs with James and the Cavs without him has been much greater than for the Lakers and Bryant. But this is a small, unreliable sample because the two players are so rarely off the court. That's especially true in Bryant's case because the bulk of his off-court time came during a two-game suspension. Since both games came against offensively challenged Utah, it makes the Lakers' defense without Bryant seem much better than it really is.

So, Bryant still has the advantage. Edge: Kobe.

Passing: Based on reputation, you would think this would be James in a runaway. In reality, it's not quite so one-sided. Although it has been disappointing that James has looked for the pass much less this year than he had in his first two seasons, he still registers an assist on 16.7 percent of the possessions he uses. That won't remind anybody of Steve Nash, but it does rank James in the upper tier of small forwards.

The same can't be said for Bryant. His rate of 11.3 percent ranks 40th among the 51 shooting guards in the rankings table, right behind such luminaries Salim Stoudamire and Keith Bogans.

However, this season has been a major departure for him. The past three seasons, Bryant's Assist Ratio hovered around 17 percent, which would rank him even with James. So one can argue that extenuating circumstances -- i.e., the lack of teammates worth passing to -- have dampened Bryant's passing skill.

Additionally, compiling assists is only one part of passing. The other is avoiding a pass to the other team, and Bryant has fared better in this area than James. Bryant turns the ball over on 7.6 percent of his possessions this year, a truly outstanding rate for somebody who dominates the ball so much. James, meanwhile, is at 9.3 percent -- still above average, but not quite in Bryant's league.

However, since the assessment of each player's passing is so intertwined with his team's need for him to score, I'm going to table this discussion until we get to shooting/scoring below. In a minute, you'll see why. Edge: Even.

Locker room: Neither guy is known for being touchy-feely with his teammates, but until James gets a dominant center traded, this area has to be considered a big edge for him.

Bryant feuded with Shaq, of course, and more recently there's the rumor of a fracas between him and Odom after a loss to Washington. Yes, teammates don't necessarily have to like each other to win games -- Bryant and Shaq won three rings, remember -- but Bryant is widely perceived as the catalyst for his team's 2004 Finals implosion and subsequent demolition.

James is still adjusting to the leadership role his talent demands he take, as one might expect from a kid who just sipped his first legal drink a few weeks ago, but he wins this one by default. Edge: LeBron

Shooting/Scoring: OK, now for the big kahuna. All this other stuff is great, but when it gets down to it, the bulk of both players' value is in their scoring line. Each averages more than 30 points a game and is the focal point of the game plan for both his team and the opponent every night.

This is especially true in Bryant's case because he has fewer weapons to assist him than James does. Although one might argue it's partly a mess of Bryant's own making -- certainly Odom has been underused, for instance -- the triumvirate of Kwame Brown, Chris Mihm and Smush Parker isn't sending shivers down opponents' spines.

James, on the other hand, has a much better cast to work with. Even with high-scoring guard Hughes on the sidelines, James has an All-Star post man in Zydrunas Ilgauskas and solid producers like Drew Gooden and Donyell Marshall for support.

The players' different realities show up in their stats. As I discussed recently, Bryant is using a bigger chunk of his team's possessions than any other player in history. After a brief letup at the start of December, he has redoubled his efforts, and his five straight 40-point nights haven't given him much incentive to stop.

However, this also subjects him to a swarm of double-teams and rotating defenders, which suppresses his shooting percentage. Bryant's 44.3 percent shooting mark is nothing to write home about, and it's a direct result of all this attention. Even in his recent scoring streak, he has shot below 45 percent in four of the five games.

James, on the other hand, doesn't have to dominate the ball as much. His Usage Rate, which measures how many possessions a player uses per 40 minutes, is the fifth-highest in the league, but still well beneath that of Bryant. However, he's still creating a ton of shots, and his shots are of a much higher quality. James is shooting 50.1 percent from the field, an amazing mark for a perimeter player who shoots more than 20 times a game. Additionally, James has been much better at getting to the line. The two players average nearly the same number of free-throw attempts per game (10.6 for Bryant, 9.9 for James), even though Bryant takes far more field-goal shots (27.1 to 21.6).

So which is more valuable -- taking a ton of shots on a bad team or fewer shots on a good one? How can we possibly adjust for the difference in their offensive situations?

One way is to bring passing back into the equation. Remember above when I said I'd table the discussion and reintroduce it? Here's why.

As many of you know, my Player Efficiency Rating tool rates a player's statistical production. But what we also can do with PER is subdivide it into different components of the game. In this case, we can throw out all the categories that aren't relevant to the current offensive discussion -- rebounds, blocks, steals and fouls, for instance -- and just focus on the scoring, passing and turnover categories. That way, we should get a clear look at whose performance has been better in the offensive realm. That should help adjust for the difference between their two situations.

Once we do that, the difference between the two is microscopic. James's "sub-PER" for offense is 23.81, while Bryant's is 23.44. Considering that a margin that small easily could shift to Bryant's favor in the course of one night, it hardly seems fair to base our decision on it.

But life isn't fair. As I said, we have to choose right now. And based on the available evidence, James wins. Edge: LeBron, by a margin thinner than Mischa Barton before breakfast.

Overall: So, looking at the advantages above, pretty much every category came down to a razor-thin margin. Nonetheless, one was a draw and three of the other four landed on the same side of the fence, and that seems to be telling. James is a better rebounder, scorer and teammate, and Bryant's only edge is in defense. If my life depended on winning one game, I'd be happy to have either of these two on my side. But right now, I'd pick LeBron.

give me Kobe in a big game... he's got that killer instinct... i'm not sure Lebron's developed that just yet, but he's still got some more years to grow even more as a superstar player, which is pretty damn scary.

in the longrun, i'd rather have Lebron, but right now, i still have to give the nod to Kobe.

Kobe is obviously the better player right now, there is no question at all about that. In 2 or 3 seasons I don't think we'll be able to say that though. Lebron has the potential to be MUCH better, if you cvan imagine that.

Lebron is a bad defender though, thats the biggest thing about him now. His man-to-man defense is below average.

Lebron is a Kobe type right now, the difference is that I expect Lebron will learn to make his team mates better and enjoy doing so. I expect Lebron to become more like Magic Johnson. Kobe is just about Kobe. The Lakers would be a better team if Kobe could use his brain more than his jumpshot, he could average a triple double most nights if he wanted to. Either he doesn't realize that or he doesn't care!! To answer the original question.....Lebron!!

Posted by JesseDark:

I'll take Lebron everytime. Kobe shows to much disdain for his teamates while Lebron tries to make his better.

I'm with you Jesse Dark......Kobe is just out for self. Kobe wants to win don't get me wrong....but he wants to try to score 100pts and kiss some babies after the game.

Lebron just scores when he can but he is always looking for his teamates. Lebron takes great shots. His teamates are never standing around bored cuz they know that ball will be flying their way at any time. Lebron hasn't made the playoffs yet and the dude just turned 21 I believe. What will we say when the kid is 26?

All I just wanna see Lebron when he takes his game to another level. Did you here me?!?!?!?! What happens when Lebron takes his game to the next level??!!?!?!?

Kobe. He shoots better and that matters in the last two minutes of games.