The Lakers' DRtg was better when Kobe was on the court because he played way more in the first half of the season (when no team knew how to score and when the Lakers were trying) than the second half of the season (when teams remembered how to score and when the Lakers had given up on defense). If you want to use Defensive plus or minus, Pau has far more impressive numbers and you just called him "dead-weight" so I'm not sure what direction you're even going in this argument.
Also, a lot of teams have their best wing defender defend the best wing scorer on the other team and that leads to good defense at both positions since the bad defender (Kobe) gets to defend the bum who doesn't produce while the good defender (Artest) gets to the good players and thus production is lower for that player as well.
Regardless of this, Kobe takes a ton of plays off on defense and plays with a mostly abominable effort level on defense so him talking about the effort Melo has on defense is fairly hilarious.
Also, Melo's team is better on defense than Kobe's and a lot of his teammates could be called dead weight on defense and the Knicks were good at defending wings last year so I guess he's as good or better than Kobe going by some of these strands of logic.
Melo's team had Chandler, the DPOY. And Shump. And melo played a lot of PF. Knicks had some dead weight, but not nearly the same.
I like your rationalization, though. Kobe played more earlier and thus the numbers are inflated. What about the fact that through the first 30-40 games of last year or so they were top 8 in D before they tired out?
You're someone who always points to stats. Now go find me some that validates the claim that Kobe plays "no defense."
Should also be noted Lakers were the #1 defense in the clutch last season.
Kobe never guarded Brandon Roy when he played. The same way Brandon Roy never guarded the opposing team's best guard -- it was either Batum or Wallace or Mathews.
Ditto for Kevin Durant (Sefalosha, Harden), Wade (Lebron, Battier), Deng guarding the best opposing player on the Bulls, Shawn Marion for Dallas, Tony Allen for Memphis, etc.
Yeah, Ron guards the better offensive player. Still, Kobe doesn't play "no defense," ala Melo. He is lazy at times, but is still decent compared to most wing players in this league.
he is nowhere near all NBA D anymore, no one is arguing that. But he's not Monta Ellis or near it.