Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Tim Duncan are the three best players of this generation (we can count Shaq as part of the previous generation). All three have accomplished enough in their illustrious careers to be considered Top 10 players of all time. Fans constantly debate with each other about who the best player out of the three are. I decided to compare them based on how they've performed in the playoffs, against the best competition, by looking at their on/off court plus-minus impact stats. The advantage plus-minus stats have over box score based metrics (e.g. PER, Win Shares) is that they technically account for everything a player did on the court.

In order to come up with an offensive on/off impact score I combined the following:

1) Team's change in eFG%
2) Team's change in ORTG (offensive rating)
3) Team's change in TOV%

Furthermore, in order to come up with a defensive on/off impact score I combined the following:

1) Opponent's change in eFG%
2) Opponent's change in ORTG (offensive rating)
3) Opponent's change in TOV%
4) Team's change in STL%
5) Team's change in BLK%
6) Opponent's change in TRB%

Here are the results ranked by combined net impact:

The table shows Kobe is the best overall player by this criterion. Each have played thousands of minutes in the playoffs so sample size is not necessarily a concern. Kobe has the largest offensive impact and Duncan, not surprisingly, has the biggest defensive impact.