Peaks Project #7

[trex_8063]

OK boys, have at it.....

[SideshowBob]

Tentative Ballot

4. Bird 86 +7.25 (+6.75 O/+0.50 D)

5. Hakeem 93 +7.25 (+4.25 O/+3.00 D)

6. Chamberlain 67 +7.25 (+4.25 O/+3.00 D)

7. Garnett 04 +7.00 (+3.75 O/+3.25 D)

8. Duncan 02 +7.00 (+3.00 O/+4.00 D)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bird

Spoiler:

Case for Bird is simple. I think he's close to the best offense ever with the diversity and effectiveness of his tools and IMO has one of the best offensive skillsets ever for minimizing redundancy. I also see him as a small positive on the defensive end, nothing spectacular but he's a presence on the defensive glass despite the insane rebounding talent around him, can make smart reads and doesn't commit too many errors, and is fairly well disciplined (at least talking about 86). I also like his season long consistency in this year. I think his 88 RS looks even more impressive on the offensive end, but the PS health issues force me to penalize him a bit.

Garnett/Duncan

Spoiler:

Garnett and Russell I think are even with Duncan as well, I'm open to being swayed to switch the 7th spot to either of those (really I'm open to anyone else as well, but moreso those guys). I think I'll prefer Duncan/Garnett over Russell as I'm more confident in their balance than Russell's defense (when asked to break a tie).

IMO Duncan's offense/defense both peak together in 02 and maybe 03, but I have definitely preference for his shooting/scoring skills in 02 so I lean towards that year over 03. Strong and resilient low post game, excellent screening action, modern master of the give and go, etc. Defensively I think he's at about the same place from 99-03, and his lack of redundancy is made evident with the heights that SAS's defense is able to achieve with Robinson/Duncan playing together (given that Robinson might have been just as good as Duncan on that end even late in his career, and given that he's probably the most diverse out of the big 5 modern defenders, is even more portable than Duncan). He's an exceptional shot blocker/rim protector, but what's really key is how adept he is with his positioning which straight up denies/forces penetrators out of the middle (hence the lower raw block numbers). He's also go the lateral mobility/coverage to be a dominant PnR stopper, though I think Garnett is the real standout on that front.

On Garnett, his offense and defense don't peak at the same time IMO. I think he was probably capable of being even better on the defensive end in the 02-05 era, but I don't think it could have been simultaneously sustained along with the offensive game he was displaying (hence I like his Boston years better, particularly 08 and 09). Still, I do believe he was the best PnR defender in the league and that he was still a near ATG-level defensive player with his mobility, lateral coverage, positional versatility, floor awareness, rotational discipline, etc. OTOH I like his offensive game even better than Duncan's; I actually prefer the fact that he's perimeter oriented, that he can stretch the floor AND provide a solid low-post game AND anchor from the high-post as a passing hub that has some of the best vision ever from a big and can use his passing to force rotations and find cutters/shooters/etc AND be an extremely valuable screener not only due to his strong lower-base but also because of his dual threat as a PnR finisher or a PnP spacer. I also think this offensive skillset is extremely portable - he can function as a secondary or tertiary scoring option on his team and still be the best offensive player on the floor, its pretty remarkable. Overall I have his peak as dead-even with Duncan's and I'm not sure which I'm going to actually be picking once we get to voting them in.

Upcoming:

Russell/Walton
Magic/Kareem/Robinson/Erving
West/Wade/Curry/Oscar

[JordansBulls]

1st ballot selection: Duncan 2003 - Great overall season especially in the regular season and dominant team record, ended the 3x LAL title as well

2nd ballot selection: Magic 1987 - Great overall season dominant in the season and playoffs with a great overall playoffs record of 15-3.

3rd ballot selection: Bird 1986 - Great overall season dominant in the season and playoffs with a great overall playoffs record of 15-3 also considered on arguably the greatest team of all time.


--------- RS PER, WS48, --------- PER, WS48 playoffs
Duncan 2003: 26.9, 0.248------------28.4, 0.279 (24 playoff games, title)
Magic 1987: 27.0, 0.263-------------26.2, 0.265 (18 playoff games, title)
Bird 1986: 25.6, 0.244--------------23.9, 0.263 (23 playoff games, title)

Others to consider:
Moses Malone 1983: 25.1, 0.248 -----25.7, 0.260 (13 playoff games, title)
Dwyane Wade 2006: 27.6, 0.239-------26.9, 0.240 (23 playoff games, title)
Julius Erving 1976: 28.7, 0.262-----32.0, 0.321 (13 playoff games, title) - ABA

[drza]

My voting post, too, will look very familiar:

1) 2004 Garnett

2) 2003 Duncan

3) 1965 Bill Russell

I wrote a book about Garnett already in the #5 thread (viewtopic.php?p=44647718#p44647718 ), so I'll keep this brief. I think that Garnett peaked with the best argument of any player of all-time to be both the best offensive and best defensive player in the league at the same time. He contributed in SO many ways that his impact was uniformly massive, in both the regular season and the playoffs, on a year-to-year basis. He was an excellent iso-scorer and 1-on-1 defensive player...but much more importantly, he was one of the best "help offense" and "help defense" big men of all time.

Hakeem is a better iso scorer, but Garnett's contributions made an across-the-board impact that was at least as large with a style that was much more portable and scaleable.

Robinson and Duncan are probably the two players most similar to Garnett, most closely able to replicate the impact. Based on the regular season on/off +/- numbers we have, Robinson in the regular season is the closest thing we have on record to peak KG and peak Cavs Lebron. While I don't kill him for his postseason scoring difficulties (if anyone has championed the over-use we tend to put on scoring efficiency when making evaluations, it's me), I do note that if '95 Robinson isn't scoring up to par he has less that he can contribute in other aspects of offense to maintain his impact. With Garnett, even if his scoring efficiency goes down, he's still able to provide the same defense warping/spacing and offense initiation to keep his impact up. This gives him an edge on Robinson in my book.

Duncan has no postseason issues at all and is able to do almost everything that Garnett can do, just slightly attenuated. His impact was one of the greatest of this era, just slightly behind Garnett. That's why I'm voting them 1-2 here.

For my third vote I'm kind of going off-the-board a bit, but I'm still not convinced that peak Russell shouldn't already have been voted in. His impact was defense-centric, but it was MASSIVE. And portable. And scaleable. And I think he had both the physical and (more importantly) the mental tools to modify his game to fit the circumstances, so I believe his impact in 2015 would be very similar to what it was in 1965...still at the top of the league.

HM: Robinson, Magic, Bird, and Walton (where to put him?)

[trex_8063]

1st ballot: Tim Duncan ‘03
I’m going to start with drza’s quote regarding his offense (though I don't agree wholesale):

Offense:
Duncan: I think that, while less flashy, Duncan's post game was as effective as Dream's. I also think that he was a better passer than either Robinson or Olajuwon. I think that this makes him as good of a low post hub option on offense as Olajuwon was. However, I don't think that either Duncan or Olajuwon are as good of big men offensive hub options as Shaq or Kareem. Thus, I don't know that you could scale up an offense built primarily around Duncan (or Olajuwon's) low-post offense to a best-in-the-league level the way that you could one built around Shaq or Kareem. However, what both Duncan and Olajuwon demonstrated with their post-game was the ability to lead/anchor an offense that was good enough to win with the right combination of strong defense and shooters. Duncan was good in the iso, but not brilliant like Hakeem could be. He also shared shooting range with Hakeem out to about 15 feet, which was a nice counter to the post games.

Duncan epitomizes the “quiet 30” or similar. Because nothing he does is ever flashy or particularly pleasing aesthetically, because he never makes much of an emotional show about anything…….it’s easy to overlook how well he plays in just about each and every game. You rarely see him do something “amazing”, and yet when the end of the game rolls around you see he went for 25 and 15 with 3 ast and 3 blk. And he does that night after night.

In ‘03:
26.9 PER, .248 WS/48, +7.4 BPM in 39.3 mpg.
He scaled that up to 28.4 PER, .279 WS/48, +11.6 BPM in 42.5 mpg in the playoffs. He went for a remarkable 24.7 ppg @ 57.7% TS, 15.4 rpg, 5.3 apg, 3.3 bpg on his way to a title, rolling over the Shaq/Kobe Lakers, and the #1 SRS Dallas Mavericks along the way.
He had the league’s leading PI RAPM at a monstrous +8.3 that year, too.

Additionally, the other thing I'd bring up about Duncan (which applies to his career as a whole, not a just a peak year or two) is his leadership qualities. This is a man who takes a humble and business-like approach to basketball. He doesn't sulk or misbehave, he doesn't play the part of the child or diva, he doesn't bicker or back-stab or in any other way alienate his coach or teammates; he shows up at practice and team functions and follows the team rules, never assuming he deserves special treatment. I think people take for granted the effect that that has on a team, when your superstar conducts himself in that fashion. He's also declined better offers in order to keep the desired team assembled so he can contend. The winning culture that has been present in San Antonio for the last two decades is in no small part due to Duncan's presence and his steadfast dedication to team first.
He also has a steady and calming effect in big games, or in clutch time, simply because he never appears rattled. These are valuable qualities in a leader.


2nd ballot: David Robinson '95 (I think; though '94 and '96 are both amazing seasons, too)
Robinson, to me, is the GOAT defensive player (or at least the GOAT not named Bill Russell). As far as in-era defensive dominance, no one reaches what Bill Russell did....no one. But the thing is, I don't think he could exert that level of dominance in a later era (NOTE: although I freely admit that that is in part due to the fact that everyone to come after has had the Bill Russell Blueprint to work from), and I further think Robinson has the ability to be just as defensively dominant as Russell in the 1950's/60's (if he'd have anywhere near the ingenuity, anyway).
One other thing about Robinson's defense that sort of reminds my of Russell is the manner in which he blocks shots: ever notice how often he keeps the ball in play? Often even tipping it toward teammates? Also a top-notch pnr defender (has a serious edge on Olajuwon in this regard, imo), which would come in quite handy in today's league.

Combine that with being GOAT-level as far as a running and transition-finishing center (amazing finisher in general), having an outstanding face-up game, decent range, and being the best FT-shooting center we've discussed so far.
Dr Spaceman can provide the rest of the justification (he already has).


3rd ballot: Kevin Garnett '04
While I don't agree with drza regarding Garnett's overall offensive potential, he's clearly quite a bit more than what his biggest critics make him out to be offensively. The very slow pace of the '04 TWolves (89.0) belays his production somewhat, too.
Per 100 possessions: 33.2 pts, 6.8 ast, 3.5 tov; 54.7% TS (+3.10% rTS), 112 ORtg (+9.1 to league avg) while playing 39.4 mpg; and anchoring the 5th best offense in the league (+3.0 to league avg). His responsibilities often even included advancing the ball up-court in sort of a point-forward role.

Meanwhile, he was netting (per 100 possessions): 19.0 reb, 2.0 stl, 3.0 blk, playing superb pnr D, excellent low-post D, dictating the half-court defense, etc.....ultimately earning (not just receiving) All-Defensive 1st Team.

A bit of a dip offensively in the playoffs where he faced:
1st rd: -0.2 rDRTG Nuggets team featuring Nene and Marcus Camby in the post.
2nd rd: an admittedly weak (+2.0 rDRTG) Kings team
WCF: -1.6 rDRTG Lakers team, where was being mostly guarded by a very capable Karl Malone

Cassell got injured and missed two games in the WCF. For all people criticize his lack of playoff success in Minnesota, he may have been a Cassell injury away from taking them to the finals for the first time (with a primary supporting cast of Sam Cassell, 33-year-old Latrell Sprewell, Trenton Hassell, Fred Hoiberg, Wally Szczerbiak, Mark Madsen, and Michael Olowakandi). Bear in mind this was (perhaps by far) the BEST supporting cast he saw in Minnesota, too.

drza's pretty well covered the rest. As far as eye-test is concerned, I remember being pretty convinced that he was handily the best player in the league that year.

My top HM's are probably: Magic, Oscar, and Russell. Guys like Bird and Moses are in the neighborhood, too.

[PaulieWal]

Looking at Duncan, Garnett, Bird, RObinson and Magic here. I am pretty sure I am going with Duncan for #1. After that, I can be convinced for anybody for the 2nd and 3rd spots.

[trex_8063]

Bump, just to keep it near the top until penbeast gets it stickied.

[Dr Positivity]

Ballot 1: Duncan 2003

Ballot 2: KG 2004

Ballot 3: Walton 1977

I went with Walton in 77 over Russell because it's hard for me to imagine a player being any more than marginally better defensively than what I saw from Walton in the 77 Finals footage. I would guess Walton on offense has a bigger advantage

[Dr Spaceman]

Just some meta-thinking here: I was surprised to see Kareem take such a commanding lead in his thread, and to a lesser extent Hakeem in his. It seems a little like the players who've had the least discussion centered on them are he ones being voted in. Perhaps I'm just not reading carefully enough, but it seems a little like the "voice" of this project diverges from the voting to an extent.

A lot of the same people voted for Kareem and then Hakeem, which is fine, and I don't have any problem with any player in this tier being voted in at any point here. It's just that I haven't seen a ton of arguments in favor of these guys, and it seems just a tad that they're getting in by default.

I have Hakeem, KG, Duncan and Robinson all in the same level, and while I put Garnett and Robinson a step above and Duncan over Hakeem I'm okay with any order for these 4. I've managed to put Robinson in people's heads as a guy who belongs with the elite bigs, and that's all I could realistically hope to accomplish so I'll take a step back from him for a bit unless he starts to fall past Duncan and KG being voted in.

Garnett Duncan and Robinson should be the next 3 IMO, and then after that I'm going to start pushing the offensive perimeter players. I have them in this order:

15 Curry
87 Magic
11 Nowitzki
86 Bird

I've been a lot higher on individual shot creation lately, hence the high ranks for Curry and Dirk. I think Curry peaked higher than Magic and Bird, impact being mostly equal but portability and shot creation being waaaaaay slanted in Curry's favor. I actually think Curry might be the GOAT at creating high EV opportunities for himself; I mean the ability to rain threes off the dribble over double teams is just so absurd. He creates his looks from behind the arc, which just makes him more efficient than guys who work from inside the arc, and the fact he's a threat from such distance brings some dead easy lanes to the rim for him.

Curry also inverts the floor; a dude with that much gravity from so far out just creates indirectly so much at the rim for his teammates. There's basically nothing you can do on the PNR except trap, and when you do that it's a waltz to the rim for Green who can lob, kick to the corner, or just finish himself if rotations are late. It's just unfair.

I have all 4 mentioned guys over Jordan/LeBron offensively, and after all the 2 way bits are voted in id like to see them be the next men up.

[Dr Positivity]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoxCJH_6LNc[/youtube]

The first 9 minutes of this clip is probably the most dominant individual defense I've seen from a player. Now it's dangerous to just take a player's best stretch and assume he's like that all the time, but nevertheless with his stats and reputation it helped me feel more confident saying Walton's is potentially a top 2 defender of all time by having elements of KG's style but with 3 blocks a game

[Purch]

Going to copy the post I put about Moses Malone's 82' season in the previous thread

I looked into this season a while ago, and have been meaning to make a thread about it, but forgot until the last few days, so now is as good of a time as any.

He didn't win the title this year like he did in '83, but this has a strong case for being his best season. The individual feats are just astonishing.

I'll start with the final 2 games in January. Entering these games, the Rockets were a mediocre 19-22, but they won both games with Moses scoring 33 in the first game and in the second game, he had 32 points, 20 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 blocks on 12/18 from the floor and 7/10 from the line in 41 minutes. This would start an 8 game winning streak, a stretch where Houston went 13-2, a streak of 13 consecutive 30+ point games, a stretch of 30+ in 19 out of 20 games, and lead into a month of February which would make these 2 late January wins look quiet.

Moses opened up the month of February with 53 points(19 in the 4th quarter), 23 rebounds(11 of them were offensive boards), 4 assists and 1 block on 19/30 from the floor and 15/18 from the line.

That was just the first of 3 consecutive 40 point games. He followed it up with 45 points and 20 rebounds and then had 47 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks on 18/28 from the floor and 11/15 from the line.

Here's what Del Harris had to say following these 3 games.

"If there's anybody playing any better in the NBA right now ... well, there just isn't," said Houston Coach Del Harris. "And the thing of it is, he's getting his points off the flow. He's getting them within the framework of our offense, plus the fact he's averaging about 10 points a game off his own hard work on the offensive boards."

Then Moses had a nice 33 point game before he continued with the legendary performances. His next game was a 38 point, 32 rebound game vs the Sonics, he broke his own record with 21 offensive rebounds, a record that still stands 30 years later, and this was the last 30/30 game until Kevin Love did it in the 2010-2011 season.

Moses outrebounded the entire Sonics team by himself, and Lenny Wilkens had this to say.

Originally Posted by Lenny Wilkens
"Moses was really controlling the boards," said Seattle Coach Lenny Wilkens. "Bob Pettit and Bill Russell were two of the best (rebounders) that I ever saw. Moses compares very favorably."

Moses finally offered his 2 cents as well.

"I had stretches like this in high school, but never in pro ball," Malone said, "My body feels so good right now. I stay in shape. I'm losing pounds. The main thing is I'm getting rest."

After a few more 30+ games, one of them in Houston's first loss in more than 3 weeks, Moses had 44 points and 16 rebounds vs the Cavs. Followed by a few more "ordinary" 30+ games, Moses had 34/21 vs Dallas, then he was finally held under 30 with 23 points and 9 rebounds on 8/17 shooting show that he was normal, but the Rockets still beat Denver ever.

However, he'd end February with 43 points and 23 rebounds, and 44 points. Unfortunately, this game didn't end so well as Moses was held to just 2 points in the 4th, missed the potential game-winner in regulation and was held to just 2 points in overtime.

He'd add another 40+ game with 43 points on his first game in March, 14 of his points in the 4th quarter, although Houston would lose this game too.

Overall, Moses averaged 38.1 ppg and 17.3 rpg in the month of February. he had at least 30 points in 13 of the 14 games, scored 40+ 6 times that month and had at least 20 rebounds 6 times that month. He led Houston to an 11-3 record and to nobody's surprise was voted player of the month for February.

But this was not the end of Malone's dominance. After starting off March with the aforementioned 43 point game for a second streak of 3 40+ games in a row in about a month, he continued dropping 30+ including 38/12 with 3 blocks on 16/26 from the floor and 6/6 from the line while playing all 48 minutes, he then came through in the clutch the next game. He had 39 points and 18 rebounds including the offensive rebound and game-winner with 4 seconds remaining to beat the Suns by 2.

He was then held under 30 for just the second time in 21 games with 28 and he shot just 10/28, and followed it up with a 26 point game, which may have made people think he was cooling off. Not the case. He responded with 49 points and 12 rebounds while scoring 22 in the 4th quarter to beat the Blazers, then he was relatively quiet with games of 24 and 19 points, respectively, but responded with 39 points and 17 rebounds vs Kareem's Lakers, though Kareem sat out the second half with a sprained ankle.



Moses transitioned into his next outstanding performance with 31 points in between. He duplicated his outstanding performance from about a week and a half earlier vs Portland when he had 41 points and 18 rebounds as well as a 12 point 4th quarter to beat Portland again. He followed this up with 46 points vs the Sonics to continue his dominance of both these Northwest teams. he had a 38/20 game vs the Mavs sandwiched between 29/17 and 35/15 games vs the Warriors, the latter being on April 1st. He had a relatively quiet 21/15 game in a win vs the Spurs to lead into another monster game vs Kareem and the Lakers. Moses had 37 points and 21 rebounds, although Kareem did get the last laugh with 12 of his 20 points in the 4th quarter to pull out the win.

This was really when Malone's historical dominance, which last over 2 months, finally came to an end, as he scored 30+ in just 1 of his last 6 games to end the regular season.

But comparable stretches to Malone's 2 months in April have been few and far between.

Moses finished the season with a career-high 31.1 ppg which was 2nd in the league and a league-leading 14.7 rpg as he was voted MVP.

[SideshowBob]

Spoiler:

Just some meta-thinking here: I was surprised to see Kareem take such a commanding lead in his thread, and to a lesser extent Hakeem in his. It seems a little like the players who've had the least discussion centered on them are he ones being voted in. Perhaps I'm just not reading carefully enough, but it seems a little like the "voice" of this project diverges from the voting to an extent.

A lot of the same people voted for Kareem and then Hakeem, which is fine, and I don't have any problem with any player in this tier being voted in at any point here. It's just that I haven't seen a ton of arguments in favor of these guys, and it seems just a tad that they're getting in by default.

I have Hakeem, KG, Duncan and Robinson all in the same level, and while I put Garnett and Robinson a step above and Duncan over Hakeem I'm okay with any order for these 4. I've managed to put Robinson in people's heads as a guy who belongs with the elite bigs, and that's all I could realistically hope to accomplish so I'll take a step back from him for a bit unless he starts to fall past Duncan and KG being voted in.

Garnett Duncan and Robinson should be the next 3 IMO, and then after that I'm going to start pushing the offensive perimeter players. I have them in this order:

15 Curry
87 Magic
11 Nowitzki
86 Bird

Spoiler:

I've been a lot higher on individual shot creation lately, hence the high ranks for Curry and Dirk. I think Curry peaked higher than Magic and Bird, impact being mostly equal but portability and shot creation being waaaaaay slanted in Curry's favor. I actually think Curry might be the GOAT at creating high EV opportunities for himself; I mean the ability to rain threes off the dribble over double teams is just so absurd. He creates his looks from behind the arc, which just makes him more efficient than guys who work from inside the arc, and the fact he's a threat from such distance brings some dead easy lanes to the rim for him.

Curry also inverts the floor; a dude with that much gravity from so far out just creates indirectly so much at the rim for his teammates. There's basically nothing you can do on the PNR except trap, and when you do that it's a waltz to the rim for Green who can lob, kick to the corner, or just finish himself if rotations are late. It's just unfair.

I have all 4 mentioned guys over Jordan/LeBron offensively, and after all the 2 way bits are voted in id like to see them be the next men up.

What are your thoughts on 09/10 Nowitzki vs 11? Do you think he's improved his skillset but everything doesn't come together (teamwise) until 2011 or that there are changes/improvements in 2011 that are driving the Mavs?

The way I see it, he's got about as much polish in his game in 09/10 than he did in 11, but with the added bonus of youth (better stamina, more mobile, better rebounding, etc.). More along the same lines, I think a lot of the arguments for earlier Nowitzki, 06 and 07, center around the same idea - his offense is almost certainly more refined later on but the age makes him a bit of a negative on defense (at high opportunity cost at PF spot). While the younger version doesn't quite have the post-game, his defense isn't as much of a liability, if one at all, and that might account for the difference on the offensive end.

[Purch]

I always knew it was a great season but upon further analysis I think it's on a very short list of the greatest ever. Only Wilt and Kareem in their peak years ever dominated throughout the regular season so thoroughly. Funny thing is Moses started the year a bit slow but the second half of the season he was as dominant as any player ever. U He just steamrolled the best centers in the league. For the entire season he averaged 31.1 ppg and 14.7 rpg on 51.9% shooting. He was second in the league in scoring and led in rebounding, PER, and Win Shares.

Month-by-Month:

October (2 games): 39.0 ppg, 10.5 rpg

November (15 games): 25.3 ppg, 13.7 rpg

December (12 games): 28.5 ppg, 15.4 rpg

January (13 games): 28.7 ppg, 13.8 rpg

February (14 games): 38.1 ppg, 17.3 rpg on 55% shooting

March (16 games): 35.0 ppg, 14.1 rpg

April (9 games): 28.1 ppg, 15.6 rpg



During the all-star game on January 31st, Moses had 12 points and 11 rebounds in just 20 minutes played but West coach Pat Riley decided to bench Moses in the 4th quarter in favor of Kareem. The West lost the game and Moses was pissed and this event is rumored to have motivated his tear on the league. For 33 straight games from February 2nd to April 6th, Moses averaged 36.0 ppg and 15.8 rpg.

His game against Sikma and the Supersonics on February 11th is one of the all-time legendary performances. Moses outrebounded the entire Seattle team 32-21, grabbed an NBA record 21 offensive rebounds, and outrebounded center Jack Sikma by a 32-3 margin (and also outscored him 38-16). Sikma was in his prime that season averaging 19.6/12.7 and one of the best defenders and rebounders in the league.


Here are his performances against the best centers in the league.


vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (5 games)

Moses: 34.8 ppg, 15.8 rpg

Kareem: 21.8 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 3.2 apg on 51.8% shooting

Kareem left one game in the 1st half with an ankle injury but Moses still killed an aging Kareem. Moses had games of 36/10, 37/22, 23/9, 39/17, and 37/21 against the Lakers.

81-82 Season

10/30/1981

Kareem: 33/10/2 (11/25, 11/16)
Moses: 36/10 (18/?, 0/2)

Rockets win 113-112 in double OT. Moses scores a game-winning lay-up with one second remaining.

11/11/1981

Kareem: 21/9/3 (9/21, 3/3)
Moses: 37/22 (15/?, 7/9)

Lakers win 95-93. Kareem had 4 points in the last minute to fuel the Lakers comeback.

11/29/1981

Kareem: 23/3/4 (10/14, 3/5)
Moses: 23/9 (9/?, 5/6)

Lakers win 122-104. Magic had 12/11/11 for LA and Hayes had a 30/12 game for Houston.

3/21/1982

Kareem: 12/6/4 (6/9, 0/1)
Moses: 39/17 (12/?, 15/18)

Lakers win 107-102. Kareem left the first half with an ankle injury and did not return. Moses had 25 points in that half and just 14 in the second. Magic took over late.

4/6/1982

Kareem: 20/3/3 (7/14, 6/8)
Moses: 37/21 (9/?, 19/21)

Lakers win 108-97.

Cumulative Stats

Kareem: 21.8 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 3.2 apg on 51.8 %FG/69.7 %FT/55.9 %TS
Moses: 34.4 ppg, 15.8 rpg on 82.1 %FT

Moses just dominated Kareem this year in 3 out of the 5 games. He’s the clear winner here.

vs. Robert Parish (2 games)

Moses: 37.5 ppg, 11.5 rpg

Parish: 11.0 ppg

Moses had games of 37/11 and 38/12 against the Celtics.


vs. Jack Sikma (5 games)

Moses: 31.4 ppg, 16.0 rpg

Sikma: 17.8 rpg

Moses had games of 21/11, 28/15, 24/9, 38/32, and 46/13 against the Sonics.


vs. Mychal Thompson (5 games)

Moses: 36.2 ppg, 13.6 rpg, 1.4 apg on 60.8% shooting

Thompson: 21.4 ppg, 12.4 rpg, 3.4 apg on 59.3% shooting

Moses had games of 28/10, 34/8, 29/20, 49/12, and 41/18 against the Blazers.


vs. Artis Gilmore (2 games)

Moses: 29.0 ppg, 16.0 rpg

Gilmore: 21.5 ppg

Moses had games of 31/16 and 27/? against the Bulls.



Overall in 19 games against the five best centers in the league above, Moses averaged a monstrous 33.8 ppg and 14.8 rpg. He went 17-1-1 in scoring and we don't have rebounds for all games but of course he dominated them pretty badly on the glass.

[Dr Spaceman]

Looking forward to discussions on Walton as well. I think he can be argued as belonging with the elite bigs, especially as Kareem was voted in and it's not at all clear to me that KAJ was actually better than Walton. I have a lot of trouble contextualizing that era though.

I don't think Moses is a candidate yet, and I will detail why in a bit.

[SideshowBob]

bast on Moses

Why do people say Moses was overrated?

1) his defense was poor, was a big mins guy on the worst defensive team of his era (late 70s/early 80s Rockets) so he deserves a lot of blame for that, particularly playing the center position which has the most impact on defense both in positive and negative way. if you're a bad defensive PG, it won't matter all that much, but if you're Bargnani your team is surely not gonna be able to hide you defensively.

2) his offense was dependant on playing with other star players, you couldn't run the offense through Moses like you could with many of the all time bigs, it gets worse, you couldn't even dump the ball down low and expect Moses to dominate 1 on 1 because he didn't really have much of a post-game. his scoring was all about offensive rebounding and finishing off of others. sure he had some scoring moves, that famous pump fake and drive, he fouled out your entire frontline, he was amazing FT scorer, he was surely very unconventional, but the most valuable bigs gave you a guy who is able to be a playmaker, either from the high post (Walton, KG) or from the low post (Hakeem, Shaq). Moses was neither.

3) his style of play made his offense hurt his team's defense because as he was crashing the boards, he was unable to get back on defense and that was a huge loss in an era when every team played at 100+ pace. if you look at Moses stats what stands out the most is offensive rebounding, the least valuable stat in the boxscore. then you have high volume scoring @ high efficiency but those pts come as a finisher, not from his shot creation. think Pau Gasol vs McHale. then most importantly you have his defense being well sub-par. didn't boxout very well (Rockets had bad defensive rebounding %), blocked some shots but that came from chasing blocks not from playing good defense, played well as a man defender but that's not nearly as important as help D etc. the study of Moses Malone's game teaches you which boxscore stats are important in terms of high impact, and which aren't. it teaches you what's the right way of playing basketball. Moses' style

as a result of which his boxscore stats were great but they didn't translate very well to impact. Moses was excellent at what he was doing, as boxscore stats clearly indicate, but what he was doing wasn't necessarily that valuable to his teams. it wasn't the right way.

mystic on Moses (vs. Nowitzki)

the better scorer/rebounder/defender isn't picked here?

Playoff numbers. All 12 years for Nowitzki and for Malone from 1979 to 1989.

Code: Select all

              Gm   PPG   TS%   ORB%  DRB%  AST%  TOV%  STL%  BLK%  PER  WS/48
Malone        77   23.8  54.8  14.1  23.4  6.5   11.3  1.1   2.4   22.1 0.177
Nowitzki     128   25.9  58.4  4.2   24.6  11.8  9.4   1.4   1.8   24.7 0.205


So, overall Malone had a couple of more blocked shots and the higher ORB%. The higher BLK% came from Malone rather trying to block a shot than really defend the position and the higher ORB% was a result of Malone playing strictly underneath the opponents basket. Overall Malone's playing style did not lead to a huge impact. His defense was mediocre at best, him being late back on defense was making the defense rather worse. Nowitzki has to be seen as the better defender.
Malone's positional advantage underneath the own basket did not lead to a higher percentage of rebounds. That is a big indicator that Nowitzki is indeed the better rebounder. The raw boxscore numbers are giving a misleading impression here.
Nowitzki has a huge advantage in terms of passing and ball handling, something which can't be ignored. Overall Nowitzki was the higher impact player and a look at the advanced boxscore metrics reveals him also having the better combination of production and efficiency. Thus, the logical choice has to be Nowitzki in both cases. Especially for the team building aspect we have to see that Malone missed more games.

Moses
22/14/1.6 on .48%

Dirk
25/10/.9 on .46%

Since when is 25.9 ppg rounded down to 25? And using FG% in that case is misleading, because of the 3pt%. Nowitzki has 49.3 eFG% while Malone during his best years has 48.1 eFG%. The TS% is also a better tool to get a grasp on the scoring efficiency.

Dirk well undoubtably stay as the better PS scorer of the two while Moses is of course the better regular season scorer is at 25ppg for his first 13 NBA seasons

Malone scored 23.3 ppg during his first 13 NBA seasons, not 25. Malone also played at a higher pace during those years, which increased his touches. Obviously he went down in the playoffs despite playing more minutes, while Nowitzki went up. Nowitzki's scoring efficiency stays the same in the playoffs, Malone gets worse.

Moses is unquestionably a better rebounder then Dirk PS and RS

No, he isn't. Malone is just put into a different situation on the offensive end, which led to more opportunities to get offensive rebounds. The DRB% in the RS shows Malone as better, but that changes in the postseason. Now, what do you think is a better indicator of rebounding strength? Beating up weaker opponents in terms of rebounding or being better against better opponents?
Offensive rebounding is based much more on the offensive position than on skills, unless you believe that someone can rebound under the own basket while being incapable of doing it under the opponents basket. Makes no sense to assume such thing. A PF having a more perimeter oriented game will not have as many chances to grab an offensive rebounds than a C who only stays under the opponents basket. That one should be easy to understand. Well, and due to that the offensive rebounding numbers aren't telling you much about the ability of a player to rebound. Let alone that offensive rebounding does not show any kind of positive impact on the overall team success in average.

I don't understand your use of percentages, those that are in favor of Malone come with negativity from you

Because the numbers have to put into context. Nowitzki as center has a higher BLK% than Moses Malone, just that Nowitzki didn't play that much center. Also, Nowitzki in the post is rather defending the position, while Moses Malone rather tried to challenge the shot. The former is the better way to defend. And given the latter Malone's BLK% is rather low.

Dirk has never been called a good defender while Moses has, its not unthinkable that he would block more shots

If someone called Moses Malone a good defender, he rather didn't see him play or didn't understand the implications on defense Malone's playing style had.

he took a very Lebron Cavs Rockets team to the Finals against Bird Celtics

The Rockets run to finals was rather lucky. They played really weak teams and had the luck that their opponents missed more free throws than usually in important games. The Lakers went 22 of 35 from the line in game 3, while the Rockets went 21-22. If both are shooting their free throws normally, the Lakers go 25-35 and the Rockets 17-22, that makes a 7 point swing in a 3pt game. The Rockets should have been out in the first round without the luck at the free throw line. Then they play the Spurs, a team similar to the 2011 Rockets in terms of strength in the next round, then they go on playing the Kings in the WCF, a team as weak as the 2011 Suns. That was really just luck, because the better 1981 Suns lost game 7 at home to those Kings. And then in the finals, despite their two wins, the have in average a -9.8 scoring margin. They basically went lucky twice, which is within the normal variance, in order to not get swept.
The Rockets made the finals 1981, because of circumstances, not because they were such an incredible strong team due to Moses Malone's playing level.

then had one of the best PS runs with Philly, imo having a better performance then Dirk

No, Malone did not have a better performance level than Nowitzki. Heck, Nowitzki's performance level in 2006 was higher than anything Moses Malone ever did in the playoffs. Malone just happened to play in a faster era, making his raw boxscore numbers looking more impressive. For example, the 1983 76ers had 97.2 pace, the 2006 Mavericks 88.9, the 2011 Mavericks 86.9.

And it is pretty telling that you completely ignore the fact that Nowitzki is clearly superior in terms of ball handling and passing. Keep in mind, Moses Malone went to a team which went to the finals the season before. That team was more depended on Julius Erving than on Malone, when we look at the performance level of the team in games without those respective players.

I'd probably roll with Dirk, but Moses gets underrated. His offensive value gets misunderstood.

In this thread 7 people picked Moses Malone (Nowitzki has 6), 6 of them seem to think that this is an easy choice and some making statements like Malone would have had the far superior peak and had some sort of crazy longevity. Malone is constantly considered the better defender despite the fact that there is NOTHING (including watching them play!) which can back that up. Malone is considered the far superior rebounder, because people don't understand that a guy underneath the basket is more likely to grab an offensive rebound than someone playing on the perimeter while going back on defense. The defensive rebounding numbers are not showing any kind of advantage for Moses Malone. The only thing we see in the regular season is that Moses Malone as center on defense gets more defensive rebounds than Nowitzki as PF. Well, if someone actually know where the ball goes most of the time, that is hardly surprising. When Nowitzki played C he had a clearly higher DRB% than when he played PF too.

As it seems Malone is still overrated. The reason seems to be that most people are judging players solely on raw boxscore numbers like PPG and RPG. How they come up with the idea that Moses Malone was the better defender is really interesting, because the only explanation I have is that they still think Nowitzki would be some sort of bad defender.

Moses Malone is like Kevin Love without the jumper. Someone who produces impressive boxscore numbers while not having such a high overall impact.

Btw, for that guy posting Erving's boxscore stats: Erving was busy covering up defensive lapses also by Malone during that championship run. He was the defensive anchor of that team, while Moses Malone was allowed to crash the offensive board. Erving was blocking more shots in less minutes than the supposed to be great defender Moses Malone. But well, I doubt that people are aware of that ...

Moses Malone didn't even make a huge difference to the team performance at his peak, why should I want him in other seasons when he constantly was out in the first round and not the cornerstone of a franchise being able to win.
I count 8 seasons in which Malone was healthy enough and good enough to be the best player on a championship team, that is exactly 1 season more than James has. But Malone had a lot less impact, if we don't dismiss all the evidence we have. He made a small improvement to the Rockets when he joined. He didn't improve a below average team much (granted, he had that playoff run to the finals), he didn't make a big difference to the 76ers at his absolute peak. The 76ers without him were already a 5.7 SRS team, with him that improved to 8.15 SRS with a healthy Erving playing in 1983. When Erving missed 10 games (2 games in January and 8 games in March with a wrist injury) the 76ers went down to a 3.06 SRS team. The 76ers without a absolute peak Malone were better than the 76ers with absolute peak Malone and without past peak Erving. What should I believe when peak Malone doesn't even come close a difference LeBron James made?

I think people are putting way too much stock into the boxscore numbers and way too easily they are impressed with big offensive rebounding numbers. Since the offensive rebounding numbers are available the correlation coefficient between scoring margin and ORB% is 0.06, in the last 10 years it is even -0.1. There is no clear indication that offensive rebounding helps a team to win more games. In comparison the coefficient for DRB% is 0.3. Offensive rebounding might be the single most overrated boxscore stat, even BLK% and STL show a much higher correlation to scoring margin (0.2 and 0.17 respectively). That is based on the data of 983 single team seasons from 1973/74 to 2010/11.

If you want to know how much someone helps a team win with his rebounding look at the DRB% of that player. Moses Malone's defensive rebounding is basically on par with Nowitzki's, his BLK% and STL% too. The defensive impact of Moses Malone was not big, for sure not bigger than Nowitzki's, especially when we take into account the negative effect of turnovers for the team defense. It is very likely that Moses Malone's impact on the game was lowered due to the high TO-R (turnover rate has a -0.3 correlation coefficient to scoring margin, a much bigger impact factor than offensive rebounding).

And that all is reflected in the team results with and without Moses Malone. He didn't make such a big difference, for sure not a big difference as people seem to think.

mystic on Moses (vs. Garnett)

mysticbb's data on the correlation between OReb% and wins is useful, but other studies show that it's bit of a layered issue that depends on team strategy and personnel: http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=954" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pelton was right saying that correlation doesn't mean causation. But I established the causation before. And overall the conclusion of Pelton and myself is the same.

Interesting thing regarding rebounding and defense: The Spurs last season explicitly decided to focus their defense more on positional defense and shot defense instead of being prepared for the defensive rebound. The result: a better defense in comparison to the year before. Overall I argued before that the most important part of the defense is actual positional defense, then rebounding then shot defense. We can't really deceiver whether the better positional or better shot defense of the Spurs led to a better defensive efficiency, but I might need to change my opinion on the importance of defensive rebounding in comparison to the shot defense. Unfortunately I haven't really come up with an idea to really test that, but the SportsVU data might give a pretty good database for that.

Overall I wrote up my opinion on Moses Malone multiple times (even cited here in this thread); he is overrated due to more impressive total numbers, adjusted for pace, minutes and league average he isn't as impressive anymore. Someone pointed out the 16/9 season in 1992 and implied that it would have made him the best C in the league right now, but that couldn't be more wrong. Malone was an even worse defender that season than usual, his offensive numbers weren't really that impressive. The Bucks were about 3 points worse than the previous season without Moses Malone, most of that came on the defensive end. I easily take the current Garnett at C over the 1992 Moses Malone.

Malone was a good player, hard worker, but not particular great skilled or blessed with a high basketball IQ, his passing was bad, his ball handling below average for a C, he was great at positioning himself underneath the opponents basket, never gave up on an offensive rebound opportunity, tried to make it fit underneath the own basket and had even sometimes the ability to limit better offensive players just by his pure will and hustle. But he was slow in transition defense, didn't cover much ground on the defensive end, slow at recover on the defensive end, and overall not a good team defender due to his lack of really understanding the defensive concepts. For a part of his career his was clearly a positive influence on the court, for the later part of his career he was not. He collected boxscore numbers, but he was far away from the impact elite players made. Even at his peak his impact was limited due to his limited skillset. In 1983 he gets the awards, but Erving turned out to be the more important player for the 1983 76ers.

Garnett is easily the choice here; much better at peak, better longevity (the guy had still elite impact last season, and since having a better role established for him on the Nets, his impact is again up there with the best in the league (the defensive numbers for January were already presented here in this thread). Yeah, Garnett was never the elite scorer, but his overall offensive skillset and versatility are more helpful for a team to establish a better offense than Moses Malone's. On the defensive end there is no question at all (at least there shouldn't be), that Garnett is the much better defensive player.

If someone really wants to disagree with that, I suggest looking at Garnett and his play, try to understand why the teams played so much better with Garnett on the court, it really helps to understand the overall basketball game better (talking strictly about 5on5 basketball here).

[70sFan]

[b]1st ballot - Tim Duncan 2003
2nd ballot - Bill Russell 1962
3rd ballot - David Robinson 1995[/b]

I will say something more about my choices.
HM: Dr J, Bill Walton, Bird, Magic, Oscar, Moses

[drza]

Peak Garnett vs Robinson

This seems like an obvious comp here, as both are starting to get traction and there are obvious similarities between them. In this post I'll start with some numbers then go into a decently in depth stylistic comp (much of which from an old post), with cliff notes.

Box score stats per 100 possessions
1995 Robinson: 36.9 pts (60.2% TS), 14.5 reb, 3.9 asts, 3.8 TOs, 2.2 stl, 4.3 blk
2004 Garnett: 33.2 pts (54.7% TS), 19.0 reb, 6.8 asts, 3.5 TOs, 2.0 stl, 3.0 blk

1995 Robinson PO: 32.6 pts (53.6% TS), 15.6 reb, 4.0 asts, 4.8 TOs, 1.9 stl, 3.4 blk
2004 Garnett PO: 29.9 points (51.3% TS), 18 reb, 6.3 asts, 5.1 TOs, 1.6 stl, 2.8 blk

Net on/off +/- per 100 possessions:
1995 Robinson: +19.9
2004 Garnett: +20.7
2004 Garnett PO: +26.7 (small sample size of 18 games -->"off" unreliable but matches)

Quick thoughts on the numbers: there really isn't a lot of separation in these numbers in either direction, IMO. The box scores help detail some of their differences...on offense Robinson is a more efficient finisher while Garnett does more team offense initiation; on defense Robinson was a better shot blocker while Garnett crashed the boards harder. And obviously the non-boxscore stuff isn't detailed, but their on/off +/- profiles essentially match. I included KG's playoff on/off +/- since we have that, but we don't have the same for Robinson. But on the whole, by the numbers, the two appear to be similar in caliber.

More scouting-based comparison

I did a comp of Garnett and Robinson in the Top 100 project that was specifically not based on longevity. As such, much of it works as a comparison of their styles/production at their peaks so I'll re-post it below. The cliff notes version is that the main differences between them are stylistic, with Robinson as more of a vertical/interior defender and offensive finisher vs. Garnett's more horizontal defense and higher degree of team offense initiation. Ultimately, below, I conclude that Garnett's impact is more robust, translateable to the postseason, and ultimately valuable than Robinson's.

The basic non-longevity-based Garnett vs Robinson comparison deals with their approaches to offense and defense. Obviously there are a lot of similarities between the two...they're about the same height, both stupidly athletic for someone that tall, all-history on defense, great on offense, both have the middle name "Maurice'...just a lot of similarities. As far as differences, though, I'd say there are some fundamental differences in those offensive and defensive approaches. And your evaluation of the utility of these approaches will go a long way towards determining which that you believe to be better.

Defense: We've done a lot of talking in this project about defense, and the differences between what we've been calling "vertical" and "horizontal" defense. Traditionally, the vertical approach has been more lauded (e.g. shot-blocking, post defense, controlling the paint). Recently pretty strong arguments have been made that horizontal defense may be more valuable than previously expected, though, especially in the modern game (here's an old blog post from Doc MJ that sort of introduces the concept: http://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/howard-is-the-dpoy-but-hes-no-garnett/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ).

Boiled down, the vertical defense approach is meant to lower the opponent's ability to make the highest percentage shot in the NBA (near the rim) and to therefore encourage them to operate more from the perimeter, where the shooting percentages are lower. Horizontal defense, on the other hand, is meant to spread defensive help over a larger area, thereby discouraging and lowering the percentages of the most frequently planned for shot attempts.

Robinson and Garnett, obviously, have components of both types of defense in their games. Robinson was very mobile for a center, while Garnett was still a very good shot-blocker. But on the continuum, Robinson was more vertical while Garnett was more horizontal. Since we don't have databall-level data for Robinson's peak, it is difficult to say quantitatively which of Garnett or Robinson had more defensive impact. Perhaps we'll get some new insight on this as we go through these threads.

Some other thoughts about their defense outside of the role generalization.

1) While one could argue that blocks are assumed in the "vertical" defense category, I'd be remiss not to point out that Robinson blocked a LOT of friggin shots. His combined blocks and steals numbers, much like Hakeem's, were crazy and shouldn't be minimized.

2) Despite the fact that KG's horizontal approach kept him further from the rim, his defensive rebounding percentages (25.9% career, 26.9% career postseason, 28.1% prime postseasons (99 - 08)) were higher than Robinson's (23.4% career, 24.3% career postseason, 23.6% prime postseasons (90 - 96)). How much do you factor in rebounding to the defensive whole?

3) How do you factor in KG's "middle linebacker" effect on team defenses vs. Robinson's less vocal approach? Someone (Doc MJ? ElGee?) in this project made the argument that Garnett's vocal quarterbacking on defense, especially in regards to how this leads his teams into defending the pick-and-roll, might be his most valuable defensive quality (Pretty sure it was ElGee. If so, would you mind posting it again?).

Offense On offense, the main difference between them is that Robinson is more of a finisher while Garnett is more of an initiator. Boiled down, the offenses of Robinson's peak teams relied on him more to be the recipient of the final pass to make the shot while the offenses of Garnett's peak teams relied on him to be more of a decision maker and set up offense for teammates. (Again this is general, as both are on the continuum and not at absolutes). Robinson made life easier for his offensive mates by drawing defensive attention. Garnett did this as well, but also made life easier directly with his floor generalship and passing.

Which role is more vital? I guess it depends on how it's executed. I would argue that in general, though, all things being equal the initiator is more valuable. In the last thread, while comparing Larry Bird and Hakeem, I looked at some stylistic impact trends among frontcourt offense initiators with good perimeter scoring games vs. high-volume-big-man-finishers. For those that click the spoiler, I'd argue that Garnett would fit into the examples that I gave for Bird (though more-so with the power forwards listed than the SFs) while Robinson would fit into the ones I gave for Hakeem (Like Hakeem, Robinson also only had an assist-to-turnover ratio over 1 three times in his career, which I argue suggests that he was more finisher than distributor).

Spoiler:

Now, let's pan out and look at the trends. For Bird, I would compare him on offense to other forwards with a) great shooting range, and/or b) excellent playmaking. For Olajuwon, I would compare him on offense to other big men with a) good scoring volume and b) a great post game.

For Bird, the two most obvious comps (IMO) are LeBron and Dirk. Neither are perfect matches, but between them they tend to be most similar to Bird's offensive gifts. According to Doc MJ's RAPM spreadsheet (prior-informed, year-to-year from 1998 - 2012, normalized by year-to-year standard deviation), LeBron and Nowitzki are the two forwards with the highest 5-year peaks in normalized Offensive RAPM (average +8.1 and +7.0 in those 5-year peaks, respectively). The next two forwards with the highest marks are Antawn Jamison (+5.9) and Kevin Garnett (+5.3), one of which scored at volume with long shooting range and the other with a mixture of volume, range and playmaking. If you sort the spreadsheet for 1-year peaks instead of 5 (to help with players that might not have 5 full years in the '98 - '12 range), the next 5 highest forwards that weren't previously mentioned are Karl Malone (+7.3 from '98 - 2000), Charles Barkley (+7.5 from '98 - 2000), Carlos Boozer (+6.9 over his two All Star years of '07 and 08), Detlef Schrempf (+7.0 in '98), Scottie Pippen (+7.0 in '98) and Grant Hill (+6.3 from 98 - 2000). While I wouldn't comp Bird with the pure 4s (Malone/Barkley/Boozer), I would say that Schrempf (big tweener 3/4 with range), Pippen (point forward) and Hill (do-everything-forward) all have enough similarities to be reasonable comps.

For Hakeem (especially pre-'93) the player who I'd be most comfortable comping him to on offense would be Tim Duncan (5-year peak average offensive RAPM +4.8). Shaq is the highest rated post player (+7.6), but I really don't see a lot of overlap between Hakeem's approach and Shaq's so I don't see that as a comp. There really aren't a lot of volume-scoring back-to-the-basket pivots that measure out very well in the '98 - 2012 RAPM data. Perhaps that's due to a talent gap (e.g. there just might not be very many talented post big men this generation). I tried to think of bigs that do their damage in the paint that regularly averaged 20+ points with assist-TO-ratios less than 1, I think of some of these names:

Shaq (1998 - 99, after 2003): +6.6 (98, 99, 04, 05, 06)
Duncan (1998 - 2000; by 2002 he regularly had A/TO well over 1): Offensive RAPM + 3.7 from '98 - 00
Zo Mourning (98 - 2000): +3.7 from '98 - 00
Amare Stoudemire: +2.9 5-year peak
Dwight Howard: +2.8 5-year peak
Zach Randolph: +2.3 5-year peak
Yao Ming: +1.9 5-year peak
Al Jefferson: +1.0 5-year peak

Food for thought: Normally I call this section 'conclusions', but I didn't put enough here to really conclude anything. This is just food for thought. It seems to me that, generally speaking from the RAPM data that we have since '98, there are an awful lot of players that have similar qualities to Bird that measure out extremely well in the offensive RAPM studies. Meanwhile, the players that seem to play most like pre-93 Olajuwon just don't seem to measure out nearly as well on offense.

Some will look at this post, see "RAPM", and immediately tune it out. I can't do anything about that. But for those that have read this far and at least have an open mind about it, I ask you to consider a few things:

1) Is it plausible (likely, even?) that there really is a "spacing" effect that stretch forwards bring to the table that benefits the offense simply by forcing defenders to account for them further out?

2) Is it plausible (likely, even) that there really is a version of a defensive "warping" effect that volume scoring players have that draws defensive attention (usually from more than one source) to them? And that if there is such a locus around that player, that having the locus on a dynamic or perimeter-based player might distort the defense away from the rim and thus increase the probability that the other offensive players might get higher percentage shots?

3) Is it plausible (almost certain, even) that players that can intelligently floor general/act as an offense initiator for their teams can really put their teammates into great positions to score with the way that they run the offense?

If so, then I would argue that these three things are all elements that can make up great "help offensive" players.

My follow-up theory that I'm working through is that, just like help defense vs. 1-on-1 defense, that "help offense" can have a larger impact on the team's offensive results than 1-on-1 offense. And since the elements of help offense don't rely upon game-to-game scoring efficiency, I'd argue that Bird (even in his 20.5 ppg/50.5% TS days) could have been having a (potentially much) larger positive offensive impact on those early Celtics playoff teams than pre-93 Olajuwon was having on the Rockets.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1336694&p=40740500#p40740500" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

YMMV as to whether there is anything to this "help offense" concept that I was trying to describe and/or whether some data mining trends from 15 years of current RAPM data that don't hit the mid-90s or before are enough to support the concept. But I will say that this difference in team roles is part of the reason that Garnett's (or Bird's, for that matter) scoring efficiency in the playoffs don't affect their impacts as much as it does for a player like Robinson. If your main offensive role is to score, then failing to do that up to par does more to limit effectiveness.

As an illustration, if you look at Robinson's worst prime shooting performance in a postseason (47% TS in 1994 against the Jazz), his other offensive contributions were 3.5 assists vs. 2.3 TOs . Whereas in Bird's (48% in '83) or KG's (44% TS in 2000 aainst Blazers) worst prime shooting performance in a postseason they were still contributing elsewhere (6.8 asts vs 3.2 TO for Bird, 8.8 asts vs 2.6 TOs for KG). Assists aren't the greatest stat, but they do help illustrate here that the initiators were still able to pull more of their offensive load even when the shots weren't falling.

Bottom Line: I'm happy to see the pendulum swinging back on Robinson, as I've always felt like his postseason scoring is counted too heavily against him at times. I look forward to arguing for Robinson, likely before most are. That said, I do believe that Garnett was a bit better. The defensive debate is difficult to call, but I think Garnett's offensive approach and execution is more valuable to successful team offense than Robinson's.

[Purch]

I believe Mystic had a very peculiar way of looking at Moses' rebounds vs Dirk or Garnett. Two things really stick out to me

1. He seems to belive that offensive rebounding and Defensive rebounding are the same basic attribute. What I mean by this, is that he claims that Dirk is just as good a rebounder because Malone and himself rebound at a similar rate on the defensive end.

2. He argues that the discrepancy in offensive rebounds, is due only to their positioning on the floor on offense.

I think this is a simplistic analysis, that unfairly misrepresents offensive rebounds.

1. The issue with looking at offensive rebounding as the same skill as defnesive rebounding is that it doesn't correctly take into account the situations surronding both sides of rebounding. On average teams teams record over double the amount of defensive rebounds than they do offensive rebounds. For instance Portland last season averaged 10.7 offensive rebounds per game whiles they averaged 35.1 defensive rebounds per game on the other end. Why is it that the top defensive rebounding team in the league was less than averge on the offensive glass? Was it because they were inferior rebounders? No. Lamarcus/Robin are both better defensive rebounders than offensive rebounders.

When a posession beggings in the nba, the defensive players are the the first to set up on the active side of the court. As a result of this, they're in a position where they box players out of position to get offensive rebounders. Logic says that if player A is occupying a space, then player B can't get into the same stop to get the rebound. For this reason defensive rebounds are easier to accumulate than offensive rebounds. So just because you have the ability to keep players from moving you out of the rebounding space that you established early on the defensive end, it doesn't mean you have the skills neccesary to get boards on the offensive end.

To get offensive rebounds, there's two ways it can potentially happen. The first is long rebounds, in which the ball hits off the rim and goes away from the paint. In these situations, wings, and bigs who play away from the basket actually benifit more than players like Malone, who are primarily in position under the basket. Dirk and KG benifited more from these rebounds than Malone.

The second is the more relevant in reguards to great offensive rebounders like Malone and Barkley. This is when great rebounders are able to position themselves in ideal spots around the basket by pushing the defensive rebounders out of their spots. This requires a high IQ of where the ball will likely fall, enough strength to push set players out of position, and a quick enough second jump to rebound your own missed shot. This is why great defensive rebounders can be medicore on the offesnive end. This is also why a guy like Kendrick Perkings who's always playing around the paint, isn't a specacular offensive rebounder. The skill requires a mix of strength, positioning and quickness that very few players have. On the defensive end great positioning and strength is needed to the same extent because defenses set up prior to the offenses coming down the court.

2. He seems to argue that the only reason Malone rebounded better offensively was because of where they played on the court, and as a result he's not actually a better rebounder. To me the spots you go on the floor is directly related to who you are as a player, and for a great offensive rebounder getting to the correct spot is 50% of the battle. If Dirk was to play closer to the basket, he would lose out on his warping effect and the spacing he's given to his offenses. On the other hand if Malone had changed his game to play further away from the basket, he would have spaced the floor better but he wouldn't be able to put himself in as good rebounding position.

In it's simplest form... it comes down to the fact that no player can be great in every aspect of the game. If you're gonna play further away from the basket, you're going to get those long rebounds, but you'll miss out on offensive rebound oppurtunites. If you play closer to the basket you'll can put yourself in position for rebounds, but you limit your ability to space the floor.

When we evaluate how good players were on the floor, we should be careful not to seperate that from the decisions they made to put themselves in their ideal positions to be effective. We must also realize that there's advantages/disadvantages to where you get your offense from.

[Clyde Frazier]

Spoiler:

Just some meta-thinking here: I was surprised to see Kareem take such a commanding lead in his thread, and to a lesser extent Hakeem in his. It seems a little like the players who've had the least discussion centered on them are he ones being voted in. Perhaps I'm just not reading carefully enough, but it seems a little like the "voice" of this project diverges from the voting to an extent.

A lot of the same people voted for Kareem and then Hakeem, which is fine, and I don't have any problem with any player in this tier being voted in at any point here. It's just that I haven't seen a ton of arguments in favor of these guys, and it seems just a tad that they're getting in by default.

I have Hakeem, KG, Duncan and Robinson all in the same level, and while I put Garnett and Robinson a step above and Duncan over Hakeem I'm okay with any order for these 4. I've managed to put Robinson in people's heads as a guy who belongs with the elite bigs, and that's all I could realistically hope to accomplish so I'll take a step back from him for a bit unless he starts to fall past Duncan and KG being voted in.

Garnett Duncan and Robinson should be the next 3 IMO, and then after that I'm going to start pushing the offensive perimeter players. I have them in this order:

15 Curry
87 Magic
11 Nowitzki
86 Bird

Spoiler:

I've been a lot higher on individual shot creation lately, hence the high ranks for Curry and Dirk. I think Curry peaked higher than Magic and Bird, impact being mostly equal but portability and shot creation being waaaaaay slanted in Curry's favor. I actually think Curry might be the GOAT at creating high EV opportunities for himself; I mean the ability to rain threes off the dribble over double teams is just so absurd. He creates his looks from behind the arc, which just makes him more efficient than guys who work from inside the arc, and the fact he's a threat from such distance brings some dead easy lanes to the rim for him.

Curry also inverts the floor; a dude with that much gravity from so far out just creates indirectly so much at the rim for his teammates. There's basically nothing you can do on the PNR except trap, and when you do that it's a waltz to the rim for Green who can lob, kick to the corner, or just finish himself if rotations are late. It's just unfair.

I have all 4 mentioned guys over Jordan/LeBron offensively, and after all the 2 way bits are voted in id like to see them be the next men up.

What are your thoughts on 09/10 Nowitzki vs 11? Do you think he's improved his skillset but everything doesn't come together (teamwise) until 2011 or that there are changes/improvements in 2011 that are driving the Mavs?

The way I see it, he's got about as much polish in his game in 09/10 than he did in 11, but with the added bonus of youth (better stamina, more mobile, better rebounding, etc.). More along the same lines, I think a lot of the arguments for earlier Nowitzki, 06 and 07, center around the same idea - his offense is almost certainly more refined later on but the age makes him a bit of a negative on defense (at high opportunity cost at PF spot). While the younger version doesn't quite have the post-game, his defense isn't as much of a liability, if one at all, and that might account for the difference on the offensive end.

This is more or less how I feel. There’s a clear difference in playing style between pre 08 dirk and post 08 dirk.

He became an extremely patient player, and didn’t let those smaller defenders irritate him anymore. His footwork in isolation became more dangerous. He also relied even more on P&R and high post play, as opposed to hanging around the 3PT line. The Mavs stopped running so many plays trying to get him open 3s, and he ended up being more of a 2nd or 3rd option on 3PT attempts, which usually ended up being more open shots.

It’s really simple: his teammates failed to show up in the playoffs in 08/09/10, and finally did in 2011. He also had an excellent post season run in his own right, but he was still a monster in the playoffs in those 3 seasons prior.

[Quotatious]

Ballot #1 - Tim Duncan '03

Ballot #2 - Bill Russell '62

Ballot #3 - Julius Erving '76



I've already explained my Duncan and Russell picks in the previous thread. Duncan ahead of Russell because the offensive gap in Tim's favor is bigger (and allows his teams to use Duncan in a way that they couldn't use Russell - as the #1 scoring option, championship caliber offensive anchor) than the defensive gap in Russell's favor.

I had A LOT of candidates for my third ballot - Erving, Walton, Robinson, Garnett, Bird, Magic, I even considered Wade and Curry. Ultimately, I've decided to go with Dr. J, because of an idea that appeared to me out of thin air, and I thought it made a lot of sense - the idea is that when I'm in doubt, I'll take the players who stepped up their game in the playoffs, compared to the regular season. I mean, having monstrous RS numbers, like for example D-Rob and KG had, is nice and all (in another thread, I even argued that we are probably putting too much emphasis on the playoffs, for a number of reasons - uneven competition level, small sample size compared to the regular season, random events such as injuries or suspensions sometimes have a huge impact on outcomes of playoff series, even if they don't have anything to do with the players we are considering here, but only with their teammates or opponents), but when we are talking about the best players of all-time, cream of the crop, I think the playoffs should have more weight than the regular season. When a player is capable of improving his game in the playoffs, compared to how well he played in the regular season, to me indicates that he was probably saving something for the postseason, and could've played harder/put up better numbers in the RS, if he had to (assuming a big enough playoff sample size, let's say at least 10 games, especially against strong opponents, so that there's no chance such an improvement could be a fluke).

When you look at the players I've supported so far in this project - '09 LeBron, '91 Jordan, '77 Kareem, '94 Hakeem - all of them improved their game in the playoffs, compared to the RS, even if they didn't win a title (like LBJ and KAJ), there's tangible evidence, such as stats (I mean - raw stats are supposed to go up in the playoffs, because superstars almost always play more minutes in the postseason compared to regular season, but if their advanced stats, which measure per-minute productivity, also go up, that's an obvious indication that a player improved his game), then it's certainly admirable, because playoff opponents are better than an average regular season opponent, and they tend to play harder, give 100% in every game.

This is also the case with '03 Duncan, '62 Russell and '76 Erving. Their numbers (both raw and advanced) were better in the playoffs, compared to RS. Plus, the icing on the cake - they all won a championship, not to mention that Duncan and Erving probably helped their teams overachieve a bit. Both were doing so much for their teams in every area of the game...

I'll disagree with bastillon and SideshowBob that Duncan's '02 season was clearly better than '03. In terms of regular season boxscore numbers and FT shooting, it sure was, but I don't think his impact on winning was higher in '02 compared to '03. RAPM and ORtg differentials like '03 more than '02, and his playoff performance against the Lakers in '02 leaves something to be desired. He was struggling offensively down the stretch (even though the Lakers won in 5, it was a very close series, all of those games were decided by about 5-10 points, and Duncan couldn't deliver in crunch time). He had some really poor shooting games, and also had a game with 10 turnovers.

He didn't have any of those problems in '03. What's amazing about Duncan's '03 playoffs, is that he shot below 40% from the field only ONCE in 24 games. That's amazing consistency.

I know the '76 Doc selection may be controversial, but the only reason I don't have him in my top 5 is the fact that he played in the ABA, when the talent level was split between the two pro leagues, to begin with. I don't think Doc's stats would be 100% the same if there was one pro league at that time, but considering that his per 100 possessions numbers were very similar in the ABA and NBA, I think he could've gotten 95% of the stats he had in '76, in the NBA, if there was one pro league that year, and he still had to carry his team by himself, instead of sharing the load on offense with other stars, like he did in '77 with McGinnis and Collins. Especially when you look at Erving's NBA stats in his MVP season in '81 (I mean per 100 poss. stats) and compare them to his '76 per 100 poss. stats, there's almost no difference at all, other than a bit higher rebounds in '76. I don't buy the argument that CavsFan364 was making in an effort to discredit the ABA, when he said that Erving was gradually improving as a player in the late 70s, and peaked when he was 30+ years old in the early 80s. That seems very dubious to me, because Erving was a player who relied on athleticism a lot, and for that type of player, it seems far more likely that he would peak at age 26 instead of 30-32.

Late ABA was not a weak league. Several of the ABA's best players went on to be elite NBA players. Obviously the ABA (but also the NBA in the mid 70s) was weaker than the post merger NBA, but the thing is, both leagues were weaker, but NBA/ABA were about equal, neither had a clear edge at that time, both were just weakened by the talent level split. That's why I don't take Doc's stats at face value, 100%, but that percentage is still close enough that it doesn't make a really big difference in my opinion. Especially when you consider this:

- Dr. J, even in the NBA, had some of his best performances against really strong competition. For example in '77 (I'm mentioning that year because it was only one year removed from '76), he played his best basketball in the finals against Portland.

Erving's '76 finals were easily on '91-'93 MJ and '00-'02 Shaq level. Just total dominance. But, unlike MJ's and Shaq's teams, Dr. J's team was a clear underdog. They had an inferior regular season record, SRS and clearly less starpower compared to the Nuggets.

Erving averaged 37.7 ppg (scored 45 and 48 points in game 1 and 2, respectively, and his lowest scoring output of that series was 31 points), 14.2 rebounds (had double-digit rebounds in every game, including 19 in game 6), which is absolutely amazing for a 6'6''/6'7'', 200-210 lbs (or something like that) small forward, and also 5.3 assists. Shot 59% from the field on 22.3 field goal attempts per game (shot below 50% from the field only once, and even in that game, he still shot 11/23, so only one made shot away from 50%), and 78.6% from the foul line, on 14 free throw attempts per game. That's 66% TS. Not bad, huh?

Even just that finals performance is enough to warrant consideration for top 10 peaks ever.

Also, let's be fair - it wasn't Doc's personal fault that there were two professional basketball leagues in the early/mid 70s - if you wanted to play pro basketball at that time, you had to choose one or the other. I can't hold him responsible for something that was beyond his control.

Erving was an excellent finals performer in general. He had an excellent series in '74, leading his team to the title in 5 games, great in '77, and very good in '80 and '82, as well, even in losses. Below par in '83, but his team still won in a sweep, and Doc was already approaching the end of his prime in '83.

Erving also made the All-Defensive 1st team in '76, and anchored the best defense in the ABA.

ABA had already recorded turnovers several years before the NBA started doing that, so we have all the stats necessary to calculate Erving's advanced metrics, and they are superb, especially in the playoffs - at face value, Doc is in Jordan/LeBron category - as I've said before, I think those stats are a bit inflated, so I don't put him on the same level as MJ and LBJ, but he's not that far behind. Still a little better than Bird and Magic, in my opinion. Better two-way player.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qNqZVklGm0[/youtube]

I know highlights are not very helpful in player analysis, because they only show the good plays, ignoring the bad, but it's hard to find anything better from Doc's '76 season (there's a full Colonels/Nets game from the '74 season, but not from '76). Anyway, Doc's individual numbers (especially in the most important part of the season), his team success and individual accolades, speak for themselves.