Wilt 67, KAJ 72, MJ 91, Shaq 00, LBJ 13?

[Gregoire]

You have the choice to draft one of these 5 players for a one year deal, just 1 year. Who do you draft? And rank them please.

1967 Wilt Chamberlain
24.1 PPG . 24.2 RPG . 7.8 APG . 68 FG% . 26.5 PER

1972 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
34.8 PPG . 16.6 RPG . 4.6 APG . 57 FG% . 29.9 PER

1991 Michael Jordan
31.5 PPG . 6 RPG . 5.5 APG . 54 FG% . 2.7 SPG . 31.6 PER

2000 Shaquille O'Neal
29.7 PPG . 13.6 RPG . 3.8 APG . 57 FG% . 3 BPG . 30.6 PER

2013 current Lebron James
26.8 PPG 8.0 RPG 7.3 APG .565 FG% 31.6 PER

[ceiling raiser]

You have the choice to draft one of these 5 players for a one year deal, just 1 year. Who do you draft? And rank them please.

1967 Wilt Chamberlain
24.1 PPG . 24.2 RPG . 7.8 APG . 68 FG% . 26.5 PER

1972 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
34.8 PPG . 16.6 RPG . 4.6 APG . 57 FG% . 29.9 PER

1991 Michael Jordan
31.5 PPG . 6 RPG . 5.5 APG . 54 FG% . 2.7 SPG . 31.6 PER

2000 Shaquille O'Neal
29.7 PPG . 13.6 RPG . 3.8 APG . 57 FG% . 3 BPG . 30.6 PER

2013 current Lebron James
26.8 PPG 8.0 RPG 7.3 APG .565 FG% 31.6 PER

Two questions for the draft hypothetical --

1) In which era am I drafting (important for rules/league climate)?
2) Do I get to choose the coach (important for determining player roles)?

Typically I'd ask where the team is located (market size/desirability) but for a one year contract it won't matter all that much.

[Gregoire]

Two questions for the draft hypothetical --

1) In which era am I drafting (important for rules/league climate)?
2) Do I get to choose the coach (important for determining player roles)?

Typically I'd ask where the team is located (market size/desirability) but for a one year contract it won't matter all that much.

Very good questions.
1. You can choose best possible era (best environment) for your favorite player since 60s I think...
2. Same thing. For every player you can give him best possible coach to fit him.

[RayBan-Sematra]

T1 : Jordan & Shaq
2 : Kareem
3 : Wilt
4 : Lebron

[RayBan-Sematra]

I am not quite as high on Wilt's 67 season as some others are.

He was a dominant rebounder & defensive anchor but on offense I feel he didn't have to carry quite the load or shoulder the same burden that others did in their ATG seasons.

He only averaged 20ppg in 48mpg while playing in the fastest paced era in league history.
He was also only 3rd or 4th I believe in FGA on that team.

I think Peak Shaq & Kareem carried a larger burden on the offensive end while also dominating the boards and anchoring their teams defenses.

That is why I rank their Peaks ahead of Wilt's.

[Gregoire]

My ranks:
1. MJ
2. Wilt/Shaq
3. Lebron
4. Kareem

[Dipper 13]

He only averaged 20ppg in 48mpg

He actually averaged 24.1 ppg in 45.5 mpg. And 1972 is not KAJ's peak, especially after the playoffs. I don't consider it in his top 5 seasons. He was better in '71, '74, '76, '77, & '80. But if we look at Dean Oliver's pace estimates (the guy who invented Offensive Rating), we see Wilt had a big offensive impact from 1965 to 1966, and then again in 1967. He & Billy Cunningham helped boost the Sixers offense by almost +10 in two seasons, while playing at an identical pace to that of 1965 (120.3). Without looking at the figures relative to league average, the offense improved by nearly +14! The addition of Coach Hannum was the final piece to the puzzle.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1250753&start=45#p35865009

If volume scoring is held against Wilt to criticize the early part of his career before Hannum, then it should not be held against him in 1967. Jerry West made a comment in an interview a few days ago about how anyone can volume score, but it's the all around game that is the most impressive to him.


"It's not hard for people to score."


5 minutes in:

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=9304970

[ceiling raiser]

Two questions for the draft hypothetical --

1) In which era am I drafting (important for rules/league climate)?
2) Do I get to choose the coach (important for determining player roles)?

Typically I'd ask where the team is located (market size/desirability) but for a one year contract it won't matter all that much.

Very good questions.
1. You can choose best possible era (best environment) for your favorite player since 60s I think...
2. Same thing. For every player you can give him best possible coach to fit him.

Ah okay, thanks. In that case:

Wilt

Shaq

Jordan
Kareem

Depends on how LeBron finishes out the season. Right now he'd be 5th I think, but if he continues on this pace I'd bump him to 3rd, right behind Shaq.

[ceiling raiser]

He only averaged 20ppg in 48mpg

He actually averaged 24.1 ppg in 45.5 mpg. And 1972 is not KAJ's peak, especially after the playoffs. I don't consider it in his top 5 seasons. He was better in '71, '74, '76, '77, & '80. But if we look at Dean Oliver's pace estimates (the guy who invented Offensive Rating), we see Wilt had a big offensive impact from 1965 to 1966, and then again in 1967. He & Billy Cunningham helped boost the Sixers offense by almost +10 in two seasons, while playing at an identical pace to that of 1965 (120.3). Without looking at the figures relative to league average, the offense improved by nearly +14! The addition of Coach Hannum was the final piece to the puzzle.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1250753&start=45#p35865009

If volume scoring is held against Wilt to criticize the early part of his career before Hannum, then it should not be held against him in 1967. Jerry West made a comment in an interview a few days ago about how anyone can volume score, but it's the all around game that is the most impressive to him.


"It's not hard for people to score."


5 minutes in:

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=9304970

Here's a spreadsheet with his complete numbers (page 1 is ElGee's complex method, page 2 is basketball-reference's attempt, page 4 is a median):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv? ... rpage=1309

[Dipper 13]

^ I like the idea of a median. Though both Oliver & ElGee have certain figures on Wilt's teams that I find impossible to believe. Oliver seems to underrate the team's defense, same with ElGee and the offense. As you have mentioned before, the real figures may be somewhere in between these estimates. Or they both could be way off.

One thing that is universal, is how dominant the Celtics defense was over a period of time. Even Big O said Boston was not a good offensive team, they won with defense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cNrje_794o&t=12m30s

[ceiling raiser]

^ I like the idea of a median. Though both Oliver & ElGee have certain figures on Wilt's teams that I find impossible to believe. Oliver seems to underrate the team's defense, same with ElGee and the offense. As you have mentioned before, the real figures may be somewhere in between these estimates. Or they both could be way off.

One thing that is universal, is how dominant the Celtics defense was over a period of time. Even Big O said Boston was not a good offensive team, they won with defense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cNrje_794o&t=12m30s

What do you think about the basketball-reference.com numbers? I included them in the median as well.

[Dipper 13]

^What was their method? I thought the Dean Oliver method was on basketball reference already? From what I have seen basketball reference uses the formula below to calculate total possessions, then divide the team's total points scored by the possessions figure & multiply by 100 to determine offensive rating (or total points allowed for defensive rating).

Spoiler:

0.5 * ((FGA + 0.4 * FTA - 1.07 * (ORB / (ORB + Opp DRB)) * (FGA - FGM) + TOV) + (Opp FGA + 0.4 * Opp FTA - 1.07 * (Opp ORB / (Opp ORB + DRB)) * (Opp FGA - Opp FGM) + Opp TOV))

[lorak]

[

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv? ... rpage=1309

Nice work. Could you explain what ortg diff (there are two different), ortgZ (also two different) and ortg% means?

[ceiling raiser]

^What was their method? I thought the Dean Oliver method was on basketball reference already? From what I have seen basketball reference uses the formula below to calculate total possessions, then divide the team's total points scored by the possessions figure & multiply by 100 to determine offensive rating (or total points allowed for defensive rating).

Spoiler:

0.5 * ((FGA + 0.4 * FTA - 1.07 * (ORB / (ORB + Opp DRB)) * (FGA - FGM) + TOV) + (Opp FGA + 0.4 * Opp FTA - 1.07 * (Opp ORB / (Opp ORB + DRB)) * (Opp FGA - Opp FGM) + Opp TOV))

They use some formula involving Ws and Ls in addition to the normal team stats:

Possessions ~ -4.05*Wins - 3.96*Losses + 0.97*FG + 0.75*FGA + 0.70*FTA - 1.37*OReb + 0.53*TotReb + 0.31*Fouls - 0.50*Points +0.19*Opp. Pts

link: http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=7225

FWIW as ElGee's said, his estimates are very good for the early 70s (which seems to be the case), so I'd suggest using those for the later years for which we're missing estimates. As we get into the 60s though, while I think his are good it's difficult to predict how teams performed when we're so far removed from the earliest actual numbers. As such, maybe it's a good idea to look at all three for that decade (as well as the second half of the 50s, though even with three attempts to attempt to reduce noise, I think estimating will still be very difficult).

[

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv? ... rpage=1309

Nice work. Could you explain what ortg diff (there are two different), ortgZ (also two different) and ortg% means?

Yeah, there are six columns following each of ORtg/DRtg/Pace

xxx Diff - just difference from league mean ( [sample-mean] )
xxx % - percent difference from league mean ( [sample-mean]/mean )
xxx Z - z score, or # of SDs from mean ( [sample-mean]/sd )
xxx Diff' - same as other, but mean excludes the sample value (i.e. for an 8 team league, mean is calculated for the other 7 teams; if this is very different from the standard xxx Diff then you might have an outlier)
xxx % - same as above, using modified mean
xxx Z - same as above, using modified mean and SD

I'm actually considering using some test (probably Pierce's criteria, since there's a decent R package) to systematically identify outliers, but for now I'm just eyeballing whether there's a big difference between the first and second sets.

[ardee]

Kareem absolutely does not belong in this discussion... He was manhandled by a 36 year old Wilt that year in the POs. He had nice numbers but Wilt's on-off switch was ridiculous, he could shut down Kareem for any stretch of minutes whenever he decided to. There was one game when he blocked him six times in the fourth quarter and scored 10 points himself.

Ranking these years:

1. Wilt (not even close IMO)

2. Jordan
3. Shaq
4. LBJ



5. Kareem

[john248]

1a. Shaq
1b. Jordan
2. Wilt
3. LBJ
4. Kareem

[PetroNet]

Jordan/Shaq
Wilt
Lebron
KAJ

[BattleTested]

1. Wilt
2. Jordan
3. Shaq
4. Lebron
5. Kareem (kind of unfair you used 72 when he had a subpar postseason.)

[ardee]

I think '77 Kareem would've been a much better choice, yeah.

[HornetJail]

Shaq
Chamberlain
MJ
Kareem
Lebron