Which Kobe was the better baller: No. 8 or No. 24?
— -- No. 8 or No. 24?
With the end coming for Kobe Bryant, the question of exactly which number to retire has become a matter of debate for a celebrated franchise that has already hung up nine player jerseys.
The Los Angeles Lakers could head off any debate about which of the two numbers Bryant wore during his legendary career should hang in the rafters by retiring both, something GM Mitch Kupchak told season-ticket holders on Sunday was a possibility.
But if it's only one, which one should it be? The question of No. 8 vs. No. 24 is a fascinating one because of the way it splits Kobe's 20 NBA seasons in half.
So, with the help of advanced statistics, let's consider the tale of the tape on Kobe No. 8 and Kobe No. 24.
The jersey change
Bryant entered the league wearing the No. 8. While this has occasionally been credited to former Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni, who wore No. 8 as a legendary import in the Italian League while Bryant was growing up in Italy, Kobe himself has never used this explanation. Instead, he apparently came up with No. 8 because it represented the sum of the numbers on his jersey at the adidas ABCD camp for prep stars (143).
As No. 8, Bryant won his first three championships alongside Shaquille O'Neal. Some of his greatest individual exploits also came wearing his original jersey, including his 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors in January 2006. Still, by that season -- which ended in a loss in the first round of the playoffs to D'Antoni's Phoenix Suns -- Bryant desired a new start.
In April 2006, ESPN's Darren Rovell reported that Bryant would wear No. 24 -- which he wore early in his prep career before shifting to No. 33, his father Joe's number -- the following season. And it was as No. 24 that Bryant led the Lakers back to three consecutive NBA Finals, winning a pair of championships.
Ultimately, despite the injuries that have limited him the past three seasons, Bryant has the chance to finish with remarkably similar counting stats wearing both jerseys.
Splitting Bryant's career leaves two 10-season spans that both merit jersey retirement in their own right. He would rank 88th in NBA history in scoring as No. 8, behind Bob Cousy, and just outside the top 100 (No. 103, between Juwan Howard and Zach Randolph) as No. 24. But if you could only have one of the careers, which would it be?
The case for 24: superior scoring
That Bryant has been more prolific as No. 24 shouldn't be particularly surprising. Although his greatest scoring season came in 2005-06 -- his last season as No. 8 -- for most of the first half of his career, he shared the ball with O'Neal. And during his first two seasons out of high school, Bryant also was behind older players such as Nick Van Exel and Eddie Jones in the Lakers' pecking order.
What is notable is Bryant's ability to maintain his efficiency as a go-to guy. Despite increasing his usage rate from 30.7 percent of the Lakers' plays as No. 8 to 33.0 percent as No. 24, Bryant has virtually identical true shooting percentages either way (.552 during the first half of his career, and .550 during the second half).
As his athleticism waned, much like Michael Jordan's did, Kobe was able to compensate by honing his midrange game. He famously worked with Hakeem Olajuwon to develop his post-up skills and incorporated shots from other players, such as Dirk Nowitzki's one-legged fadeaway.
Thanks to the effort, Bryant has shot 45.7 percent on shots taken from between 3 and 16 feet while wearing No. 24, according to Basketball-Reference.com. While detailed play-by-play data isn't available for Bryant's whole career, he shot 42.2 percent on such shots between 2000-01 and 2005-06 while wearing No. 8. So even though Bryant got fewer high-percentage looks at the hoop during the second half of his career, his overall 2-point percentage actually improved from 47.7 percent to 48.3 percent.
The case for 8: better defense, durability
While Kobe worked as hard as possible to overcome the effects of aging, he couldn't completely defy them. That was more evident at the defensive end than on offense. The younger, more athletic Bryant racked up blocks nearly twice as often (1.2 percent of opponents' 2-point attempts as compared to 0.7 percent) and created more steals (2.2 percent of opponents' plays as compared to 1.9 percent).
While Bryant remained a fixture on the NBA All-Defensive Team through 2011-12, when he was 33, such selections reflected his reputation more than his true accomplishments as a defender. The older Kobe was better freelancing as a help defender off a poor shooter like Rajon Rondo than locking up an elite wing scorer.
More than anything else, though, the difference between No. 8 and No. 24 was durability. Bryant missed 81 games total during his first 10 regular seasons, only slightly more than he missed in 2013-14 alone (76) between coming back from a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in April 2013 and a lateral tibial plateau fracture that occurred six games into his return. So far, Bryant has missed 156 games and counting during the second half of his career.
The injuries have also meant Bryant has averaged 29.6 minutes per game while wearing No. 24, as compared to the 32.0 he averaged as No. 8, despite coming off the bench his first two NBA seasons.
The verdict: No. 8 outshines No. 24
Let's take a look at Kobe's value as measured by my wins above replacement player (WARP) metric season-by-season over the course of his career.
With a few exceptions, Bryant's career follows a relatively typical trajectory: improving performance early in his career, a peak from ages 24 through 29 and gradual decline after that (accelerated in his case by the Achilles injury, suffered late in a bounce-back season).
To answer the question of which Kobe was best, it makes more sense to rank each jersey number in WARP from best to worst and compare those ratings.
Now the young Bryant's edge becomes clear. Not only did two of his three best seasons in terms of WARP come wearing the No. 8, Bryant was far better at the beginning of his career than post-Achilles injury.
It's understandable that Kobe might have fonder memories of his days wearing No. 24. The second half of Bryant's career yielded more individual honors, including his only regular-season MVP trophy and both of Finals MVP awards.
With the benefit of hindsight, however, we can see that Bryant was probably more deserving of the MVP award while wearing No. 8 in 2005-06 than while wearing No. 24 in 2007-08, when he actually got the hardware.
Also, three of Kobe's five rings, which support his claim to basketball immortality, were won while wearing No. 8. Yes, Bryant got second billing behind O'Neal during the Lakers' three-peat, but those teams would not have won championships and joined the greatest teams in NBA history without Kobe's crucial contributions. Those years in No. 8 were the foundation of Bryant's reputation as a player who could win championships.
The Lakers may choose to pay homage to Bryant by retiring No. 24, or by retiring both numbers. But if they could choose only one Bryant to play for them, they should choose No. 8.
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