Karl Malone Took Only 10 More FGA than Kobe Bryant in his Career but Scored 3285 More Points

Karl Malone scored 36,928 points on 26,210 field-goal attempts (51.6% FG).

Kobe Bryant scored 33,643 points on 26,200 field-goal attempts (44.7% FG).

Kobe Bryant’s career field-goal percentage (44.7%) is currently the lowest among the NBA’s all-time top-10 scorers (tied with Carmelo Anthony).

However, James Harden (43.9% career FG) needs just 602 points next season to claim that honor.

Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/alltime-leaders

50 comments

  2. Kobe’s career TS% was also above league average on a much higher volume and is tied with Tim Duncan.

    FG% is a bad metric. I thought we knew this. 

  3. Malone is an all time great of course but I’d imagine his assisted fg% would dwarf Kobe’s

  6. 52.6% TS in the playoffs is nasty work

    from 57.7% to 52.6%, that’s gotta be the biggest drop for any superstar, that’s even bigger than Embiid

  8. To be fair to Harden his career efg% is higher than both of theirs

    Kobe’s isn’t even above 50%

  9. If you think Kobe was bad, check out the rest of the league… Kobe’s TS% was consistently over the league average by 2-4 percentage points despite his volume.

  22. Harden is way more efficient than Kobe. His FG% is lower because a much larger percentage of his field goal attempts are 3s.

    Harden is averaging 1.49 points per field goal attempt.

    Lebron = 1.38

    KAJ = 1.36

    Malone = 1.41

    Kobe = 1.29

    MJ = 1.32

  24. Karl Malone is a very bad person. He was also very difficult to stop on the basketball court. A lot of the time your best option was to foul.

  25. Kobe teammates would pass him the ball with 3 seconds left on the shot clock and he would have to jack up a contested 3. 

  30. I know this is implicitly a “Kobe was so inefficient” post and most (including me) dislike Malone for valid reasons but it’s crazy how underrated he has become. Malone is one of the very best—very, very best—scorers to ever play (and he was a good defender for most of his career—dirty, but good—so he’s not like a Harden or Melo).

  31. One of the reasons why Jordan is revered as highly as he is, because of his FG% at the guard position during a time when bigs ruled the court. Why Tim Duncan was so good, and many others. High-percentage shot attempts.

  33. Let’s look at the TS% of the 3 best shooting guards in NBA history (in my opinion) :

    Comparing him to his contemporaries:

    Jordan: 56.9% TS 
    Kobe: 55.0% TS 
    Wade: 55.4% TS

    Now, only one of them has ever been called an inefficient shot chucker, but we see that he’s close to all three.

    Now compare that to Tim Duncan, who is considered by most to be the best Power Forward of all time:

    Duncan: 55.1% TS
     Malone: 57.7% TS 
    Dirk: 57.7% TS

    The gap between Duncan and his positional contemporaries is larger than Kobe is with his positional contemporaries. But only one of them is criticized for being inefficient. Kobe has been criticized before for never having a season with a 60% TS. Keep in mind, Wade has never had one either.

    Tim Duncan has never had one, but Dirk and Malone each have several. One of them is an outlier in efficiency and the other is the model of consistency and fundamentals.

    The only reason Kobe is considered inefficient while Wade or Duncan aren’t is because Kobe never shot over 50% from the field for a season.

    List of people with a similar career TS% as Kobe who I’ve never seen called inefficient chuckers:

    Jerry West, 55% TS (same as Kobe)

    Hakeem Olajuwon, 55.3% TS

    Tim Duncan, 55.1% TS

    Dwyane Wade, 55.4% TS

    Kevin Garnett, 54.6% TS

    To conclude, there is a massive exaggeration regarding Kobe’s efficiency.

    He wasn’t a beacon of efficiency but considering his volume, quality of defensive opponents and longevity, calling him inefficient is just a lie.

  35. Karl also had over 3k more free throws. Those are shot attempts that are taken away from ol’ Karl

  37. The Karl Malone part feels irrelevant, you’d expect an all-time big man to shoot more efficiently than an all-time guard, even more so if the big man played their whole career with someone like Stockton.

  40. damn, i coulda sworn karl scored 13 more. guess we should google karl malone 13 to find out!

  45. Anyone who watched Kobe played knows he never gave a shit about stats. Give him the ball with 0.3sec on the shot clock, he’d heave it full court. Why? Fuck the stats, that’s why. The only stat he cared about was 5 rings.

  46. Yes, being built like a tank, playing with an all-time great point guard and coach and being durable enough to consistently compete into your late 30s will do that to you

  49. One also got a kid pregnant while the other was only accused of SA. They’re not the same buddy.

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