Why teams today can't build without tanking(Suns case study)

Durins Baynes · Post #76 » by **Durins Baynes** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:13 am

When I say a player like Harden being available, I identify the attributes of Harden that make him so awesome an asset to acquire (this is all in my earlier post on the Rockets on page 1):
1) He was young
2) He was an obvious up and coming star
3) There was nothing wrong with him, the team wanted to keep him but couldn't (due to cap implications), and most importantly of all
4) He was on a new rookie deal. A new rookie deal means any team in the NBA can acquire this guy and he will be stuck with them for another 6 years. It didn't matter if you were the Bobcats or the Bucks- you trade for Harden, you're keeping him.

Your examples all fail, either because they aren't analogous to the above circumstances (especially #4), or because the team in question used a top 10 (usually much higher) lotto asset (of good value, not a washed up former #10 pick) to get the guy in the first place. Your argument is "you don't need to be bad to get Harden type players". That argument doesn't work if a) you got the player by trading a top 10 pick you were bad in order to get (my whole point), or b) the player can just run off in free agency in a few years at most. It also doesn't work if the guy is in his 30's and will only agree to go to a contender. What good does that do teams who are not already contenders?

Iggy was being traded because the 76ers didn't think he was the best or 2nd best player on a contender, and they were right. To this day Iggy has made one (dubious) all-star team, so to compare him to Harden is ridiculous.

KG was traded... at age 32, after the team who drafted him top 5 was able to hang on to him for 12 years. And even then, he was in a position to control his destiny. He originally refused to go to Boston, then they used the top 5 pick they had tanked for to get Ray Allen (to go along side Pierce, who was a top 10 pick they got while recovering from another huge tank job in 97), and KG then consented to be traded to the Celtics, one of the oldest and most storied franchises in the NBA. I don't see how teams who haven't been bad enough to get good top 10 picks like the Celtics are in a position to get KG, he wouldn't have gone to a treadmill team- that was what he was escaping. His situation was also partly a product of the old CBA, in terms of his contract, etc.

Ray Allen was 33 years old when the Celtics got him, and to do it? They needed a top 5 pick. Another fail of an example.

T-Mac forced his way out from Orlando, to a team of his choosing, and the team trading for him needed said top lotto assets to get him (which they'd bottomed out for). The reason he was able to leave Toronto was precisely because he was on a contract from the old CBA, which didn't bind him to them for 7-9 years like the current CBA does. Another fail.

Grant Hill likewise had an old CBA contract that let him escape after only 6 years, and the Magic also gave up Ben Wallace to get him. Nor did it work, the Magic never became a contender via their cap space plan, and since they tried it rules were tightened up a lot to stop them wining and dining players as much, getting them private jets, etc.

Jason Kidd's Nets weren't a contender. He was of course on the market, and he is a player of comparable quality to Harden. But he was acquired for a similarly talented player who had been drafted top 5 recently himself(acquired by the Nets for a #6 pick and an upcoming future all-star point guard), and only after he was arrested for domestic violence and the Suns felt they had to move him because of the community backlash. Hard to plan for that, and it fails as a counter example for the aforementioned reasons. It's not an example of how you can trade for a comparable player, if in order to get the player you had to get a top 10 pick to move in the first place. Kidd was also a free agent 2 seasons after being traded, so could have bailed had he liked. That he didn't was in no small part thanks to the presence on his team of other good players (who were top 10 picks, including #1 Martin who was an all-star at the time).

Shaq always controlled his destiny in terms of teams he went to, and also went for high value assets as part of trades. Only a handful of teams can trade for Shaq, and they have to already have the pieces to contend or he wouldn't do it, so that is an obvious fail. The guy even had a list when he forced his way off the Lakers, and threatened to have surgery and sit out the year if the wrong team traded for him (or gave up too much).

Iverson was available because of all the problems he caused as a player. He doesn't help you become a contender, as teams soon learnt. He was also old by the time he was on the market.

Brand was never on the market as a healthy star, so I have no idea why you invoke him as an example. Assumedly you mean when the Bulls traded him for a top pick, but that hardly works as an example. Another fail.

Chris Paul was moved for top lotto assets. Another fail. He also was moved to LA, because teams knew he'd sign with a big market in his upcoming free agency (that was the only reason he was available on the trade market in the first place- also of no help to teams not already contenders, or not in LA/NY).

Pau Gasol was 28 when he was traded to LA, and his contract was coming up. A team trading for him would have had no security to prevent him leaving. Not much help to bad teams.

The only example that is kind of close is Vince Carter, and it's still not a very good one. He was 28 years old, a lot of the shine had come off him since the early Vinsanity days and he wasn't seen as being a star anymore. He hasn't made an all-nba team in 3 years, he'd had some down years, his flaws as a player were talked about a lot, and even then he basically forced his way off the Raptors and demanded a trade. If a bad team had traded for him you'd have to think he'd have left them. His contract had 3 years to go, so it's not all bad, but a lot of people at the time didn't think he was even worth the money NJ had to pay him to hang on to him. Here's a blog I googled for eg, which captures the sentiment of some fans at the time:
http://basketbawful.blogspot.com.au/200 ... arter.html
If it had been possible to acquire a young, healthy and full of promise Vince Carter on a rookie contract I think this would be an example. Acquiring 28 year old Vince is a different story.

mysticbb · Post #77 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:55 am

Well, the Celtics were able to get Garnett not on a rookie deal and still went on to win a title and made the finals another time. Steve Nash went on winning two MVPs after signing with the Suns as FA, and the making the Suns a contender in the process. The Nets made the finals twice after getting Kidd via trade (and yeah, according to your "definition" the Nets were a contender, because just one upset would have been necessary in order for them to win the title. ;)). No idea, but it doesn't sound like it would be a necessity to get such player on a rookie deal in order to become a contender. And that is the whole issue with your "heuristic reasoning", it leads you to flawed conclusions. :)

Btw, the rookie contract does not contain any kind of guarantee to keep a player for at least 6 years after he was traded. No idea how you come up with that idea, but if a player wants, he can leave earlier. Just play one season for the qualifying offer and the player is an unrestricted free agent.

Anyway, talented players are always on a short-supply, there will always be more teams than real franchise-changing players, no matter what. Getting such player in a draft is indeed more likely than getting him in another way, just that the time needed in order to get such player is not just one year being bad. As I pointed out a before, in order to get such player, a team needs to have the worst record in the league for 4 years in a row; and everytime a team gets such player in a shorter amount of time that is not based on skill but rather on luck.

To illustrate that further:
Before the Cavs got LeBron James, they missed the playoffs 5 times with a combined win% of 34%. And even after getting him, they missed the playoffs twice again.
The Thunder missed the playoffs 4 times in a row with a combined win% of 33%. And then the Thunder had the "luck" to actually miss out on the first pick in 2007, because they would have also taken Greg Oden instead of Durant otherwise.

The issue at hand is that a team, which wants to build through the draft, needs several years of being bad enough to get higher draft picks. That was the same before the 99er CBA. And no, it was not more likely to build a contender otherwise than it is today in reality.

And everything else is not related to tanking at all. Managing the assets well, draft better than average, sign the right FA and be lucky with health is also important to become a contender for all teams, which didn't choose to tank. It is so obvious, that a team needs those things besides the luck on the court in order to win a title or at least make it to the CF, that it shouldn't be needed to be spelled out. Well, if we put all things together, you should change the title of the thread to: a teams needs talented players in order to build a contender, which are usually top10 picks. Guess what? Everyone with a brain should agree to that. And as I showed such players can also end up on your team via trade or FA signing, the same as it was before 1999.

Sure, it sounds optimal, if a team is just bad for one season, traded for a couple of picks which turned out to get them above average players while their own pick got them THE difference maker á la James, O'Neal, etc. pp who stays on the team forever. And while the capspace is there, a bunch of really good players line up to want to sign with that team. But the unfortunate truth is that in reality there are 29 other teams wanting to sign those players, that not every desired player is available in that FA period, that a couple of other bad teams will have a similar chance to get that 1st pick, and those first round picks are in average just ending up being average or even below average players (especially those later). Which means, in reality the team will be bad next season as well, and again needs to get lucky to get those desired players in the draft while at the same time the window to use the capspace will get shorter ...
Well, and there is still a big difference between "tanking" and being not good enough to make the playoffs while getting lucky in the lottery or in the draft itself. Does "tanking" really give a team better odds to become a contender than just being in the draft lottery, because of bad luck with injuries or not having good enough players in the end? That's what you need to show here and you failed to do.

So, and at the end of the day, the question for a GM is not just the future income, but also the current bills. And unless the owner is willing to sacrifice a couple of years with a loosing effort (with all the implication of that losing mentality) and lost money, the GM better build the best team possible in order to pay those bills and keep his job.

Durins Baynes · Post #78 » by **Durins Baynes** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 9:14 am

mysticbb wrote:Well, the Celtics were able to get Garnett not on a rookie deal and still went on to win a title and made the finals another time.

And as I've covered about half a dozen times on this thread, to get him they needed two great players on the team already, both a product of losing on purpose (intentionally in the Celtics case).

Steve Nash went on winning two MVPs after signing with the Suns as FA, and the making the Suns a contender in the process.

Nash is a player I have stood up for in numerous threads. He was a great player, borderline top 20 for sure, and peaked above Kobe. However, that said, his contending teams were dependant on 2 other top 10 lotto picks. In 2005 and 2007, the Suns 2 best years under Nash, he had Amare and Marion. In 2006 they were a dark horse contender with Marion and no Amare, but not really plausible title winners. With today's seeding system I don't think they'd have made the WCF's either. That isn't to take away from how good that season was, given what he had to work with, but those other 2 guys were a necessary (though not sufficient) component of the Suns contending. At the very least one of them was.

The circumstances in which Nash was obtained are also extremely rare. He's maybe the only guy who has been misused for his whole career, then turns around and plays like an MVP in his 30's by being made the focal point. A lot of stuff had to come together for that to happen:
a) He had to be misused most of his career,
b) a rich owner suddenly (and inexplicably) decides not to pay fair value to his all-star guard, and
c) Phoenix was helped by their previous association with Nash, who had lived there and loved the place.
They still only got him in his 30's though, and again this isn't helpful for teams without those core top 10 lotto guys (who turned into all-nba players) in place, because Nash will be too old by the time you get better (even if he's willing to sign with you).

The Nets made the finals twice after getting Kidd via trade (and yeah, according to your "definition" the Nets were a contender, because just one upset would have been necessary in order for them to win the title. ). No idea, but it doesn't sound like it would be a necessity to get such player on a rookie deal in order to become a contender. And that is the whole issue with your "heuristic reasoning", it leads you to flawed conclusions.

I specifically excluded the circumstance in which the whole conference sucked, such as from 00-03. The Nets were never a realistic chance to win either, no Eastern team those years was. Look at some of the win records v.s the West from the "contenders" in the East those years. It's utterly embarrassing. Most of the Eastern contenders from 00-03 would have been out in the first round in the West. Some wouldn't even have made the Western playoffs. Nothing about those Nets suggests they were really a top 5 team in the NBA those years, they just played in a time of horrible imbalance. All the other reasons Kidd doesn't work as an analogy also still hold true.

Btw, the rookie contract does not contain any kind of guarantee to keep a player for at least 6 years after he was traded. No idea how you come up with that idea, but if a player wants, he can leave earlier. Just play one season for the qualifying offer and the player is an unrestricted free agent.

Because no max players (or close to max player) has ever, ever done this. Because nobody does this. The guys who do this are people who guys won't overpay, and it never works out well for them (Jennings, Kandi, etc, all got less than they were originally offered).

Anyway, talented players are always on a short-supply, there will always be more teams than real franchise-changing players, no matter what. Getting such player in a draft is indeed more likely than getting him in another way, just that the time needed in order to get such player is not just one year being bad. As I pointed out a before, in order to get such player, a team needs to have the worst record in the league for 4 years in a row; and everytime a team gets such player in a shorter amount of time that is not based on skill but rather on luck.

At least now I know why you have been ducking my core argument. Because you actually agree with me, but don't want to admit as much.

So, and at the end of the day, the question for a GM is not just the future income, but also the current bills. And unless the owner is willing to sacrifice a couple of years with a loosing effort (with all the implication of that losing mentality) and lost money, the GM better build the best team possible in order to pay those bills and keep his job.

Bad owners being bad is not a rebuttal to the question at hand, namely which method is better for building a contender. You agree it's mine. Good.

mysticbb · Post #79 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 9:30 am

It is really incredible. I wanted to see how far you can go with that, but I guess you can do that forever, finding a way to arbitrarily changing the story in such fashion in order to make it seem, as if it always would agree to your agenda. You can't even stay with your own definitions. If something disagrees, you just simply add another qualifier. That's like those people picking arbitrary boxscore values in order to show that player xy done something unique and by that trying to make that player look better.

To come back to the topic of this thread:

Is it necessary to tank in order to build a contender? A simple yes or no is sufficient. ;)

Durins Baynes · Post #80 » by **Durins Baynes** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 9:42 am

My narrative is consistent all the way through. Had you read the first page more closely, you'd see multiple references to virtually all of those examples you kept citing over and over (The Celtics I must have covered 5 times by now, or more, and James Harden and Dwight I explain over, and over, in multiple threads). To claim I'm changing my narrative is absurd, the criteria and narrative has been consistent.

In the post 99 CBA environment it is necessary in 90% of cases to be bad enough to get a top 10 pick (usually much worse than top 10, but top 10 bad is a bare minimum standard). There are a few cases where wacky stuff happened and it wasn't necessary, but it almost always is in today's CBA.

Post #81 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:49 pm

DBoys wrote:A "contender" is still undefined in this thesis, although it supposedly is the promised result of tanking. No way to examine whether that's true when we don't even know what it is.

You guys can keep going around the mulberry bush with your definitions of what is tanking, and how long a string can you tie between any two events. But what constitutes a contender should be easy -- you need one of the top 7 guys in the league.

Spoiler:

mysticbb · Post #82 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:03 pm

HartfordWhalers wrote:You guys can keep going around the mulberry bush with your definitions of what is tanking, and how long a string can you tie between any two events. But what constitutes a contender should be easy -- you need one of the top 7 guys in the league.

So, there are about 7 teams (excluding those, which might have two or more players within the top7 MVP vote getters) in each season which have to be considered "contenders"?

May it be also possible that you just figured out that individual awards have strong ties to the overall team success and are not necessarily a good metric to know how good a player was?

Post #83 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:15 pm

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:You guys can keep going around the mulberry bush with your definitions of what is tanking, and how long a string can you tie between any two events. But what constitutes a contender should be easy -- you need one of the top 7 guys in the league.

So, there are about 7 teams (excluding those, which might have two or more players within the top7 MVP vote getters) in each season which have to be considered "contenders"?

May it be also possible that you just figured out that individual awards have strong ties to the overall team success and are not necessarily a good metric to know how good a player was?

Sure, it is possible that Lebron, Kobe, Shaq, Wade, Duncan, Garnett are all just being boosted by their lesser teammates and not top players. But if the discussion is honestly going to get that dumb, I'm not interested in being a part of it.

mysticbb · Post #84 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:22 pm

HartfordWhalers wrote:But if the discussion is honestly going to get that dumb, I'm not interested in being a part of it.

Well, let just look through the years and we can stop at 2012, because according to your criteria the Magic were a contender. Howard finished 7th in the MVP voting as well as 3rd in DPOY voting. ;)

So, I'm asking you quite honestly: Do you actually really believe that you can assign teams to be contenders or not based on your criteria? Or may it be possible that some teams will wrongly assigned to that status and some others will miss out despite that fact that they were actually quite close to the title?

Post #85 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:33 pm

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:But if the discussion is honestly going to get that dumb, I'm not interested in being a part of it.

Well, let just look through the years and we can stop at 2012, because according to your criteria the Magic were a contender. Howard finished 7th in the MVP voting as well as 3rd in DPOY voting.

So, I'm asking you quite honestly: Do you actually really believe that you can assign teams to be contenders or not based on your criteria? Or may it be possible that some teams will wrongly assigned to that status and some others will miss out despite that fact that they were actually quite close to the title?

I think it is pretty clear you cannot win without a top 7 player. Cause it doesn't happen.

Are there examples of teams with top players that still weren't close? Obviously. They won't all be, but eliminating 3/4ths of the league as contenders is not bad for sharpening the discussion. You can pick to include fringe contenders and keep it where 6 or so teams have a shot, or tighten your standards to only teams that have great shots. Although then if there is a team that wins with a couple of upsets, suddenly you have the unfortunate result that a non contender won. I'm personally not all that bothered by that, outliers are a fact of life, but some people are.

mysticbb · Post #86 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:51 pm

HartfordWhalers wrote:I think it is pretty clear you cannot win without a top 7 player. Cause it doesn't happen.

To make myself a bit more clear: Top 7 MVP vote getters != top 7 players in the league! You may believe otherwise, but that doesn't make it true. To make that one rather obvious: Garnett was a top7 player in 2008, but not in 2007, 2006 and 2005? How likely is it that a player in the mid of his prime suddenly drops out of the top7 without being seriously injured, while he later enters that again?

And no, that does not mean that James or Duncan or whomever are not good players. Leave your strawman somewhere else, please. ;)

HartfordWhalers wrote:Are there examples of teams with top players that still weren't close? Obviously.

So, maybe that statement:

HartfordWhalers wrote:But what constitutes a contender should be easy -- you need one of the top 7 guys in the league.

isn't accurate overall?

Well, next time when you try to be smart, you may as well say: A contender has more good than bad players on the roster. That may as well be true.

Btw, I would use an indicator like SRS in order to assign a team to a contender-status. I bet that is more accurate than assuming that a team with a top7 player is a contender. Even though some fans may believe otherwise, but usually a team consists of more than 1 player. And matter of fact, the difference in performance level between the top level players is less than the differences between the respective supporting casts. Just something to think about ...

Post #87 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:17 pm

Or maybe needing something (a necessary condition for it) doesn't guarantee something (a sufficient condition for it)? I thought I had explained that already clearly:

HartfordWhalers wrote:
mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:But if the discussion is honestly going to get that dumb, I'm not interested in being a part of it.

Well, let just look through the years and we can stop at 2012, because according to your criteria the Magic were a contender. Howard finished 7th in the MVP voting as well as 3rd in DPOY voting.

So, I'm asking you quite honestly: Do you actually really believe that you can assign teams to be contenders or not based on your criteria? Or may it be possible that some teams will wrongly assigned to that status and some others will miss out despite that fact that they were actually quite close to the title?

I think it is pretty clear you cannot win without a top 7 player. Cause it doesn't happen.

Are there examples of teams with top players that still weren't close? Obviously. They won't all be, but eliminating 3/4ths of the league as contenders is not bad for sharpening the discussion. You can pick to include fringe contenders and keep it where 6 or so teams have a shot, or tighten your standards to only teams that have great shots. Although then if there is a team that wins with a couple of upsets, suddenly you have the unfortunate result that a non contender won. I'm personally not all that bothered by that, outliers are a fact of life, but some people are.

The rest of your post is nothing but building off your faulty argument from before (somehow these really aren't good players was your straw man not mine), that the top players in the league are somehow too hard to identify. I'm happy to debate the best method for identifying the top players and if we should look at Garnett being 1st and 2nd team ALL NBA alternating back and forth, or if we should use MVP, or if you want to use something different. Doesn't really change the facts of the argument, just the unit of measurement.

It is a deep ocean when measured in feet or meters, and you need one of the top guys in the league to win a ring.

mysticbb · Post #88 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:36 pm

HartfordWhalers wrote:Or maybe needing something (a necessary condition for it) doesn't guarantee something (a sufficient condition for it)?

Great, that is my point. :)

HartfordWhalers wrote:The rest of your post is nothing but building off your faulty argument from before (somehow these really aren't good players was your straw man not mine), that the top players in the league are somehow too hard to identify.

Not one of my posts says anything even remotely close to that. Just out of curiousity: Do you actually really believe that I would have written something like that or are you just intellectual dishonest?

HartfordWhalers wrote:It is a deep ocean when measured in feet or meters, and you need one of the top guys in the league to win a ring.

Does "having a top guy in the league" on the roster define a contender? Which means, we are back to the beginning ...

Post #89 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:52 pm

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:Or maybe needing something (a necessary condition for it) doesn't guarantee something (a sufficient condition for it)?

Great, that is my point.

HartfordWhalers wrote:The rest of your post is nothing but building off your faulty argument from before (somehow these really aren't good players was your straw man not mine), that the top players in the league are somehow too hard to identify.

Not one of my posts says anything even remotely close to that. Just out of curiousity: Do you actually really believe that I would have written something like that or are you just intellectual dishonest?

HartfordWhalers wrote:It is a deep ocean when measured in feet or meters, and you need one of the top guys in the league to win a ring.

Does "having a top guy in the league" on the roster define a contender? Which means, we are back to the beginning ...

Nice try but no.

Basically all you are doing is trying to argue that if we use a net that captures 100 of 100 contenders but also 20 non contenders its unsuitable as a net. Seems absurd to me. But again, if you prefer a net that doesn't let in one fake contender a year but only captures 90/100 contenders and lets an upset winner out, it is easy to do just that again using the top players in the league.

A top player is a clear necessary condition, with just how tight a definition of a top player determining the size of your net.

Post #90 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:52 pm

mysticbb wrote:Btw, I would use an indicator like SRS in order to assign a team to a contender-status. I bet that is more accurate than assuming that a team with a top7 player is a contender. Even though some fans may believe otherwise, but usually a team consists of more than 1 player. And matter of fact, the difference in performance level between the top level players is less than the differences between the respective supporting casts. Just something to think about ...

Teams without an All NBA first teamer (5 or less teams) that have won a championship over the last 20 years:
Dallas '11 (2nd teamer)
Det '04 (2nd teamer)
Hou 95' (3rd, wow)

Teams without a top 5 SRS that have won a championship over the last 20 years:
Dallas '11 (8th)
Miami '06 (6th)
Det '04 (6th)
Hou '95 (11th, wow)
Hou '94 (6th)

I'm not sure SRS really does better at all. What it does a great job at is identifying the favorite of the contenders (8 of 20 are 1st in SRS).

But using SRS begs the questions, what gets a good SRS?

I think it is pretty instructive that something as simple as having the top player at his position gets you there as well, and then lets people debate how do you get an All NBA 1st teamer (or top 7 mvp guy, or ...).

Again, I don't mind outliers so my preference is all nba 1st team, noting that each exception had a guy who won dpoty within a year providing some clear guideline for the type of exception to the rule that works.

Post #91 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:11 pm

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:The rest of your post is nothing but building off your faulty argument from before (somehow these really aren't good players was your straw man not mine), that the top players in the league are somehow too hard to identify.

Not one of my posts says anything even remotely close to that. Just out of curiousity: Do you actually really believe that I would have written something like that or are you just intellectual dishonest?

To be clear, here is your post:

mysticbb wrote:May it be also possible that you just figured out that individual awards have strong ties to the overall team success and are not necessarily a good metric to know how good a player was?

So, you are suggesting that individual awards are not accurate for it. And yet you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty?

mysticbb · Post #92 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:13 pm

HartfordWhalers wrote:Basically all you are doing is trying to argue that if we use a net that captures 100 of 100 contenders but also 20 non contenders its unsuitable as a net. Seems absurd to me.

Well, if something is supposed to be "easy", I can assume that the presented DEFINITION is at least sufficient. But maybe you aren't quite aware of what definition even means? ;)

HartfordWhalers wrote:A top player is a clear necessary condition, with just how tight a definition of a top player determining the size of your net.

Having good players on the team is a clear necessary condition, with just how tight a definition of a good player determining the size of your net.

What you haven't grasp yet, is the fact that you, instead of defining a term, just changed the issue. And yeah, it is rather easy to change the issue, but not really helpful for a good discussion about the topic at hand.

Btw, arbritarily picking the top5 in SRS as the only possible contenders is weird. Why not top10? Maybe there are 10 contenders in the league? Or maybe the amount of contenders changes from year to year? Or maybe a better team has some injury problems and missing players, which causes them to have an actual lower SRS than with those players? Or they traded later for a player in that season? In that case the SRS of the team with those said "good players" may as well be the better way to judge a team? Just to make it clear: The Mavericks with Nowitzki playing in 2011 had a top5 SRS, the Heat in 2006 with Wade and O'Neal playing had a top5 SRS, the Pistons after getting Rasheed Wallace had a top5 SRS. Maybe it is actually better to really evaluate a team and how good it plays than just simply using the season SRS?

mysticbb · Post #93 » by **mysticbb** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:17 pm

HartfordWhalers wrote:
mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:The rest of your post is nothing but building off your faulty argument from before (somehow these really aren't good players was your straw man not mine), that the top players in the league are somehow too hard to identify.

Not one of my posts says anything even remotely close to that. Just out of curiousity: Do you actually really believe that I would have written something like that or are you just intellectual dishonest?

To be clear, here is your post:

mysticbb wrote:May it be also possible that you just figured out that individual awards have strong ties to the overall team success and are not necessarily a good metric to know how good a player was?

So, you are suggesting that individual awards are not accurate for it. And yet you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty?

how good != not good

The term "how good" explicitly asked for a quantification. That's what I "suggested", that getting votes for individual awards is not "necessarily" a sign that someone is better than someone else who didn't get those votes.

And yeah, I just figured out that you really believed it. Thanks.

Post #94 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:46 pm

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:Basically all you are doing is trying to argue that if we use a net that captures 100 of 100 contenders but also 20 non contenders its unsuitable as a net. Seems absurd to me.

Well, if something is supposed to be "easy", I can assume that the presented DEFINITION is at least sufficient. But maybe you aren't quite aware of what definition even means?

How cute. The second time you have no real argument so you resort to a personal attack.

Again, the argument that is plainly supported by the history is you ned a top player to be a contender. If there is one team with a top player that is not close to winning it all in a given year, that doesn't change the argument that you need one -- which you clearly do.

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:A top player is a clear necessary condition, with just how tight a definition of a top player determining the size of your net.

Having good players on the team is a clear necessary condition, with just how tight a definition of a good player determining the size of your net.

What you haven't grasp yet, is the fact that you, instead of defining a term, just changed the issue. And yeah, it is rather easy to change the issue, but not really helpful for a good discussion about the topic at hand.

Btw, arbritarily picking the top5 in SRS as the only possible contenders is weird. Why not top10? Maybe there are 10 contenders in the league? Or maybe the amount of contenders changes from year to year? Or maybe a better team has some injury problems and missing players, which causes them to have an actual lower SRS than with those players? Or they traded later for a player in that season? In that case the SRS of the team with those said "good players" may as well be the better way to judge a team? Just to make it clear: The Mavericks with Nowitzki playing in 2011 had a top5 SRS, the Heat in 2006 with Wade and O'Neal playing had a top5 SRS, the Pistons after getting Rasheed Wallace had a top5 SRS. Maybe it is actually better to really evaluate a team and how good it plays than just simply using the season SRS?

Wait, is that top 5 compared to other teams with only their best players on the court also? Obviously if not that would be intellectually dishonest. And more importantly, why are you picking Wade and ONeil, Dirk, and Wallace? What about the rest of the whole team that you were talking about? and don;t those players rest at all, thus making the whole team data relevant? It starts to look like you need one of those top players, and SRS is actually worse than the mere presence of one (so that bet still looks lost by you).

Post #95 » by **HartfordWhalers** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:55 pm

mysticbb wrote:
HartfordWhalers wrote:
mysticbb wrote:
Not one of my posts says anything even remotely close to that. Just out of curiousity: Do you actually really believe that I would have written something like that or are you just intellectual dishonest?

To be clear, here is your post:

mysticbb wrote:May it be also possible that you just figured out that individual awards have strong ties to the overall team success and are not necessarily a good metric to know how good a player was?

So, you are suggesting that individual awards are not accurate for it. And yet you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty?

how good != not good

The term "how good" explicitly asked for a quantification. That's what I "suggested", that getting votes for individual awards is not "necessarily" a sign that someone is better than someone else who didn't get those votes.

And yeah, I just figured out that you really believed it. Thanks.

My argument was clear, without a top player you are not a contender. You can highlighting your use of the qualification 'how' but it doesn't change the argument you made, that something like mvp votes wasn't identifying these players from those that aren't these players. If you want to retract that argument, feel free to as gracefully as above.

If you want to keep arguing it, then you are either left saying that the top players cannot be identified or you need to put forward a different methodology. As already noted, All NBA teams are similar and result in the same result.