Well this can go 1 of 3 ways.
You can go with
Jordan 91you can do a fastball and say michael jordan
or you can swing a curveball by saying michael Jeffrey Jordan.
For Jordan, I believe its the fact that he could do so much that no one could see.
ill just add my arguement in another page here.
I believe that he does alot of things that no one sees, which is a testament to his bball iq, and his overall skillset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8MP6839B78ill just put in a few plays where I think jordan is underrated in bball iq
in 2:20, the timing of his jab step was superb. he pretty much time it exactly as his defender was coming off the screen, so he was rushing back to get to jordan, and was left off balance. the window to use this jab step to basically get him off-balance, in this situation, was literally less than half a second. the defender had to over commit to one side, and jordan simply bursted past him in the other side.
in around 2:30, he made a really subtle head fake. while this by itself is quite normal, though the way he did it was quick and pretty much perfect, the important thing to note is that there was a guard literally right next to him that had barely even started running to the corner, making it seem much more legitimate. he basically read what his teammate was going to do before his teammate himself knew it.
in 3:48 ish, there was a really subtle head fake. it was hard to see even when slowing down teh video to 0.25 speed, that got the defender leaning. not only that, but he did a push through crossover that really was just long enough to avoid the defenders hands, but short enough that jordan kept full control/full speed. considering that he scored over 1.9ppp in transition according to some studies, it seems like he would do this on a majority of his transition plays, its just so hard to see. Its more clearly seen int eh 4 minute mark, and its obvious that the defender expected him to go the other way, as he shifted his foot jsut enough so jordan could get past him.
in 4:50, its another show of how he times his jab steps. he basically timed it as his defender was still approaching him, and his left foot was in the air, which made him lean a little, once again.
in 6:45, this is a reason why I think he was much better in the early ninetys than post baseball. normally, even athletic players like westbrook and Wall start "preparing" their fastbreak shot around teh ft line. They only really prepare it furthur when they are literally completely open, to the point where a clear path foul is possible. With Jordan, he regularly, as long as he had a clear few steps to gather, prepared his transition buckets from the 3 point line, and simply used a mixture of his long arms and long strides to just simply find a perfect angle to jump between the gaps of the defense.
6:53 demonstrates his ability to basically understand the mindset of his defender. it seems just like a simple hesitation, and then a crossover. in my opinion, he did something brilliant. he basically played the whole game at full throttle, either making it a point to really get past the defender completely, with room to spare, or take a jab and swing the other way. What he did here was go at a medium pace. at this point, his defender had basically been manhandled, so he pretty much really overcommitted. had he done this earlier, i doubt this would have worked. his ability to change pace multiple times in one possession was frankly astounding. he basically kept a medium pace this time to pretty much displace his defender, and get to the basket at the same time. Something else, is that he used his patented tounge while going during the hesitation, basically making it seem like he would 100% go at that certain direction. something I find unique is how he kept his head low throughout. imo, other superstars usually keep their head a little bit higher during their hesitation moves, making it seem more obvious imo. (a general concept I learned is the lowest head always wins)
7:25 demonstrates his ingenuity. he uses a referee as a screen. he also gets into an argument with Danny Ainge, basically meaning he would have won if a fight started, and his reputation would have been bolstered.
at around 7:50, he made the most subtle move of the game. first of all, he timed this perfectly, just as his defender was lifting his foot that he wanted to "move away" Secondly, the speed at which he did this head fake was probably the fastest one so far. while he was bringing the ball down. he actually made it seem like he would bring it down to the right, and moved his head very slightly to the right, first, if one slows the footage down and watches frame by frame.
he was just flawless really.
Number 2 would be
Shaq. 01I recall 1 season, the 96-97 season, they were 9th in offfensive rating and 8th in defensive rating.
the next year, with a continuity rate of 80 ish, they were 2nd in off rtg and 1th in def rating.
consider that he wasnt at his peak (he would gain 50-60 ish more pounds)
and we have a winner.
I would guess that I would pick
Lebron 09 next, though I rank him wierdly, anywhere from 3rd in peak to below kobe, though thats the fanboy in me most likely.
his box metric (a stat I dont find perfect, but nevertheless) is the highest of all time at his peak. I think that speaks for itself. also, his team won less than 20 games when he left.
Honorable mentions to
Russell (unparalleled defense impact... basically hakeem, taller, faster, with drugs and more athletic, smarter bball iq too, defensively of course. IMO, the myth that wilt would have won 11 championships with russells teams is severly flawed. Wilt couldnt really anchor a bad offensive team to be great, but he could improve a team of course. But the celtic's teams needed defense. I recall that offensively, even with all those hall of famers, they were actually as bad as wilt's teams, well, without wilt in some years.)
- also, did anyone notice the huge offensive rating average increase from the 60s to 70s? 98.1 was good for 4th in the 60s. in the 70s, all of a sudden that became 100.1, and in the very late 70s, 101.6 was good for 19th out of 22.
Wilt (team success is what barred him, but the year he went 17-65, he was on a 48 win team, that had a 76 continuity rate from those 2 years. was it a testament to him trying vs not trying? he had a heart problem that year, but technically, his raw stats were better, so it might be a testement to feeding him being an ineffecient offense. also, the offesne of the 76ers were actually unaffected by his departure, with them recieving archie clark, who scored 13 ppg in 26 minutes, darrell imhoff, who averaged 9 and 10 in 29 minutes, and Jerry Chambers, who averaged 2 seasons of serving hte country, the military, and their offensive rating stayed exactly the same, both in position and in actual rating, though their defense deccreased from 1st to 6th. I recall a book called Basketball on Paper, Rules and Tools for Perormance Analysis, touched on this. in his 8 assists years, when he left, the offensive rating stayed the same.
Something I would like to ask though, how many times has a team's defensive/offensive rating gone down/up because a player left?
I know Mutombo and Rodman had instances of this happening, though in their defense,
Wait, nevermind, I misread the rating, Mutombo with Atlanta was 102, out of atlanta was 111, so I failed on that lol. Rodman didnt improve his team in the last year with the spurs though) - mostly arguing against to justify why I didnt put him in the top 3. the fact that We have to do that cements him in a honerable mention position.
And the question remains... When was his peak? in terms of team impact (bear with me) it could actually be argued that it was his laker years.
Tim Duncan
(literally because I made a pun about someone dunking and his name was coincidently Timothy, so he was, Tim Duncin)
(in terms of Box plus, it was stated by bball reference that players that use communication, leadership, and positioning arent accurately placed and are actually worse than normal in terms of box plus.
but anyway. even in his prime, his leadership qualities might put him over the edge)
In terms of RAPM, I believe that has trouble tracking a few "constants" too. Im not quite sure how it works, but it takes plays from other players and plugs it in right? if thats what it does, then a few problems, in my opinion, are things like, mindset, etc. etc. Im probably wrong about this, but for example, if someone is forced to take 100 shots, in game, (obviously extreme) the curve of shots made will go down for some players more than other "stars"
though it is definately the most intuitive stat.
Also, I beieve that certain variables makes some claims of the stat kind of, well, not accurate.
obviously its one of if not the best stat available, but still.
Definately missed a few
in 37.0 mpg.
