Euroleague's Top 15 Peaks

[euroleague]

Bruce Bowen carried Tim Duncan. I thought everyone knew that!

Not putting Duncan's peak in the top 5-10 GOAT level means he was carried by Bruce Bowen?

Great argument!

I didn't notice that Duncan was not in your top ten, so I don't get how you drew that conclusion.

you're literally making multiple posts how players are ranked higher on carry jobs, the 03 Spurs won on defense, and Bruce Bowen was the best defender - then for some reason cited their win loss record without Bruce Bowen in another year.
Yet you're trying to spin it as if my post was baseless.

You are essentially implying Bruce Bowen carried the Spurs or had some type of all-nba impact. You think Tim Duncan "only" gets credit because he was the lead scorer on his team? Okay then...if Bruce Bowen was a better defender than Duncan that season that would make him an all-nba caliber player.

What you're saying isn't possible without thinking Bruce Bowen was a significantly better player than what he is usually rated at. So what are you exactly saying about Bruce Bowen? Why would you cite their win loss record without him if you're not implying something?

I didn't say Bruce Bowen was their best defender? Are you hallucinating or something?

I'm saying that David Robinson, Bruce Bowen, Stephen Jackson, and Manu Ginobili had impacts bigger than their box scores directly show. I do think Bruce Bowen was far ahead of his time as the best 3D player in the league (maybe in league history, outside of Klay), and had a bigger impact on the Spurs than his stats let on as a DPOY level perimeter defender who shot 44% from 3.

[Blame Rasho]

Euroleague is having a hissy fit and I can’t stop laughing at all his posts.

[HeartBreakKid]

Bruce Bowen carried Tim Duncan. I thought everyone knew that!

Duncan had bruce bowen in 2003? Unimpressive, not a real carry job ring

Shaq has kobe in 2000? Much more impressive as kobe was outside his prime (even if his pre-prime 2000 playoffs version was likely still better than anyone but duncan in the 2003 spurs)

Kareem in 71 tho? Doesnt count cause he had oscar, even if he was also about as much out of his prime as 2000 kobe

Duncan in 03 had Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, David Robinson, Bruce Bowen.... if you just are going by names, no offense to kobe/oscar, but they don't stand up to that.

But David Robinson was old! And Tony Parker was young! And Manu was still one year away from carrying his team to Olympic gold! And Bruce Bowen was still in his first year of all-defensive teams! Right?

It's interesting you do not see the irony in the underlined.

[Jaivl]

In 2002, with Bowen they were 47-12. Without Bowen, they were 11-12. Duncan played all of those games.

Advanced stats like DRTG, which you likely don't understand well, seem to deceive you. The record makes the impact quite obvious....

DRtg isn’t an “advanced stat.” It’s literally how points you give up per possession or 100 possessions. Team A had a DRtg of 95 and Team B a DRtg of 100. How is that different than the statistic of a final score of 100-95 or 112-105?

It’s funny that the poster you’re responding to is very well-versed in all types of metrics and analytics yet you don’t even understand what defensive rating is yet you’re taking him to task on it.

There are two types of DRTG. The TEAM RTG you're describing is in fact lower than Duncan had during that time (he played almost every game, so it's about the same as the Spurs), and Duncan played almost every game in that stretch. Are you saying the DRTG Duncan had without Bowen and DROB was higher than with them, without seeing any data? The NBA doesn't keep minute to minute DRTG data of player lineups, and it's not on basketball reference.

The formula for individual rating is: Defensive Player Rating = (Players Steals*Blocks) + Opponents Differential= 1/5 of possessions - Times blown by + Deflections * OAPDW( Official Adjusted Players Defensive Withstand). This stat can't be influenced by the defense of a player's teammates.

It seems like you have no idea what you're talking about.

You can easily look for team DRTg with/without players on pbpstats.com

[70sFan]

People in the modern age underestimate how ridiculously game-changing interior defense was before the popularization of the 3 point line, even into the early 00s when the offensive rules hadn't changed yet to block hand-checking and call more blocking fouls.

I fail to see how you can say such thing and then come up this:

13 (4) 1976-77 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
14 (6) 2002-03 Tim Duncan

You just said how important interior defense used to be, then rank two of the greatest interior defenders (with all-time offensive games) behind players like Magic or Bird. I don't think that's consistent way of thinking.

I value Ceiling Raisers more than floor raisers, or LBJ and Westbrook would both be much higher. Bill Russell and Bill Walton gets a huge lift from that value system, Walton more so because of his offensive ability. I do value floor raising, but not nearly as much - or LBJ and Westbrook would be much higher.

Again, then why Duncan so low? What makes Duncan different than Walton or Russell in his ceilling raising ability?

I value being the best player on GOAT level teams, like MJ/Curry/Shaq/Wilt/Moses. I also value "Cinderella Runs" where one player carried a huge load to a ring - like Hakeem/Shaq did. Shaq gets a boost from doing both of these (in 01 and 00). Many people may ask "What about Duncan 03? And Nowitzki 11?" I disagree that those players played as huge of a role on those teams as is popularly held. For Nowitzki 11 - key role players like Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, Tyson Chandler, Kidd, etc. were huge. For Duncan's run in 03, dominant defensive players like Bowen/Stephen Jackson/David Robinson on the team get under-rated by the stats.

The problem is that every single evidence we have shows that Duncan's 2003 run was as close of a carryjob as possible. Spurs were bad without him on the court, they had no reliable secondary creators on offense and even from a roster construction perspective, this team was extremely flawed. Calling someone like Stephen Jackson a "dominant defensive player" is a huge reach and Robinson didn't even play half of the game at that point.

If anyone wants to debate a ranking about someone who hasn't been argued to death already (So not LBJ, Duncan, or Michael Jordan), happy to hear contrary opinions.

Yeah, I want to debate about Kareem's place. Instead of the lazy "he didn't win without a great PG" argument, can you explain me what he lacked as a player to put him so much lower than Shaq, despite:

- being significantly better defender,
- being significantly better isolation scorer,
- being significantly more active on defensive end,
- having no weakness at the FT line,
- having comparable gravity from the post?

If you want to argue any of these, you can try but I doubt you will succeed.

[70sFan]

Bruce Bowen carried Tim Duncan. I thought everyone knew that!

Duncan had bruce bowen in 2003? Unimpressive, not a real carry job ring

Shaq has kobe in 2000? Much more impressive as kobe was outside his prime (even if his pre-prime 2000 playoffs version was likely still better than anyone but duncan in the 2003 spurs)

Kareem in 71 tho? Doesnt count cause he had oscar, even if he was also about as much out of his prime as 2000 kobe

Yeah, that's the type of results we got when people try to create methodology to suit their previously created lists, not the other way around.

[euroleague]

People in the modern age underestimate how ridiculously game-changing interior defense was before the popularization of the 3 point line, even into the early 00s when the offensive rules hadn't changed yet to block hand-checking and call more blocking fouls.

I fail to see how you can say such thing and then come up this:

13 (4) 1976-77 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
14 (6) 2002-03 Tim Duncan

You just said how important interior defense used to be, then rank two of the greatest interior defenders (with all-time offensive games) behind players like Magic or Bird. I don't think that's consistent way of thinking.

I value Ceiling Raisers more than floor raisers, or LBJ and Westbrook would both be much higher. Bill Russell and Bill Walton gets a huge lift from that value system, Walton more so because of his offensive ability. I do value floor raising, but not nearly as much - or LBJ and Westbrook would be much higher.

Again, then why Duncan so low? What makes Duncan different than Walton or Russell in his ceilling raising ability?

I value being the best player on GOAT level teams, like MJ/Curry/Shaq/Wilt/Moses. I also value "Cinderella Runs" where one player carried a huge load to a ring - like Hakeem/Shaq did. Shaq gets a boost from doing both of these (in 01 and 00). Many people may ask "What about Duncan 03? And Nowitzki 11?" I disagree that those players played as huge of a role on those teams as is popularly held. For Nowitzki 11 - key role players like Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, Tyson Chandler, Kidd, etc. were huge. For Duncan's run in 03, dominant defensive players like Bowen/Stephen Jackson/David Robinson on the team get under-rated by the stats.

The problem is that every single evidence we have shows that Duncan's 2003 run was as close of a carryjob as possible. Spurs were bad without him on the court, they had no reliable secondary creators on offense and even from a roster construction perspective, this team was extremely flawed. Calling someone like Stephen Jackson a "dominant defensive player" is a huge reach and Robinson didn't even play half of the game at that point.

If anyone wants to debate a ranking about someone who hasn't been argued to death already (So not LBJ, Duncan, or Michael Jordan), happy to hear contrary opinions.

Yeah, I want to debate about Kareem's place. Instead of the lazy "he didn't win without a great PG" argument, can you explain me what he lacked as a player to put him so much lower than Shaq, despite:

- being significantly better defender,
- being significantly better isolation scorer,
- being significantly more active on defensive end,
- having no weakness at the FT line,
- having comparable gravity from the post?

If you want to argue any of these, you can try but I doubt you will succeed.

The main thing that makes Duncan so low is the change in the dynamic of the game. Interior defense wasn't as important in the 00s as it was in the 60s/70s. Because of that, Duncan wasn't nearly the force defensively that Walton/Russell were. Calling Duncan an "all-time offensive player" is a stretch.

Kareem was great offensively. When he joined the Bucks, they gained EIGHT points in ORTG. And they stayed the same defensively, despite Bob Dandridge joining as well. Kareem was slow getting back in transition, and often struggled defensively even in his early years. He wasn't great in 77 on the defensive end.

Kareem was the hardest player to rank. I originally had him 4th, but ended up moving him down quite a bit, as I think he plateued for around a decade at a similar level.

I would definitely have Kareem as a far worse isolation scorer than Shaq. Shaq didn't even get to play in isolation - almost never saw him defended by one person on an island. That was just a free bucket for him. Because of that his gravity was unparalleled, except by Wilt, in history.

Kareem was a great iso scorer. However, he was no Shaq. I'd give Kareem a slight edge defensively as well. He just lacks that ruthless physicality that Shaq had on offense that changed the way the entire league played basketball. Kareem was a more skilled player, but he could actually get bullied 1v1 by elite defenders like Thurmond and Wilt. Shaq was the one doing the bullying.

[OhayoKD]

I'm not voting on the general thread, but definitely see some major differences from my own list. I would rank the top 15 a bit less on "current popularity" and more on a consistent methodology and value system, roughly as follows:

Euroleague Ranking (RealGM Ranking) Year Player

1 (5) 1961-62 Wilt Chamberlain
2 (3) 1999-00 Shaquille O'Neal
3 (7) 1993-94 Hakeem Olajuwon
4 (17) 1976-77 Bill Walton
5 (1) 1990-91 Michael Jordan
6 (8) 1964-65 Bill Russell
7 (9) 1985-86 Larry Bird
8 (10) 1986-87 Magic Johnson
9 (22) 1975-76 Julius Erving
10 (2) 2011-12 LeBron James
11 (11) 2015-16 Stephen Curry
12 (12) 2003-04 Kevin Garnett
13 (4) 1976-77 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
14 (6) 2002-03 Tim Duncan
15 (13) 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo
15 (25) 1981-82 Moses Malone

Methodology and Specific Examples:

People in the modern age underestimate how ridiculously game-changing interior defense was before the popularization of the 3 point line, even into the early 00s when the offensive rules hadn't changed yet to block hand-checking and call more blocking fouls. Also, in the case of Wilt/Russell/Moses, their rebounding gave their teams 10-20 extra possessions per game.

I value Ceiling Raisers more than floor raisers, or LBJ and Westbrook would both be much higher. Bill Russell and Bill Walton gets a huge lift from that value system, Walton more so because of his offensive ability. I do value floor raising, but not nearly as much - or LBJ and Westbrook would be much higher.

I value being the best player on GOAT level teams, like MJ/Curry/Shaq/Wilt/Moses. I also value "Cinderella Runs" where one player carried a huge load to a ring - like Hakeem/Shaq did. Shaq gets a boost from doing both of these (in 01 and 00). Many people may ask "What about Duncan 03? And Nowitzki 11?" I disagree that those players played as huge of a role on those teams as is popularly held. For Nowitzki 11 - key role players like Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, Tyson Chandler, Kidd, etc. were huge. For Duncan's run in 03, dominant defensive players like Bowen/Stephen Jackson/David Robinson on the team get under-rated by the stats.

If anyone wants to debate a ranking about someone who hasn't been argued to death already (So not LBJ, Duncan, or Michael Jordan), happy to hear contrary opinions.

Jorrdan being a better "cieling raiser" is a hypothetical argument that people haven't really made the case for.

[OhayoKD]

Would like to see this addressed by those who buy into jordan as a demonstrably better cieling raisier:
{quote]

Does measuring the 16 Cavs Overall SRS underrate them, because it underrates their playoff opponents? I have trouble thinking that the 2016 Warriors were underrated by overall-SRS for when they faced the Cavs. They had a top 10 regular season SRS ever in NBA history. It's true that they beat the OKC who were good, but they were also clearly worn down much more by the time they got to the Cavs than LeBron's Cavs were (who had a cakewalk to the finals relative to the opponents the Warriors faced). And the Cavs won 3 of their games when Draymond was suspended, Bogut was injured and out, Barnes had the worst shooting streak of his playoff life, and when Curry was clearly wearing down due to his injuries. I can't imagine

Do the 2017 Cavs improve over the 2016 Cavs? Almost certainly on offense, but they lost a ton of ground on defense. Taking their playoff SRS, the 16 Cavs were +14.55 while the 17 Cavs were +13.74, dragged down by a putrid +0.01 relative defense (putrid for all-time standards).

In what world is a high 60-win team not good enough for a title? Obviously they're good enough for a title. But I wasn't asking whether they were good enough for a title: I was asking whether they were better for a title than Jordan's teams. And Jordan's teams hit +15.73 and +16.60 in playoff-only SRS, which far surpasses LeBron's best playoff-only rating (to say nothing of the regular season gap, which is massive).

Even if were to grant that the 91 bulls were much better than the cleveland cavs(and to be fair they certainly are _better_ emperically), the relevance ultimately comes down to championship likelihood. So let me put it this way:

Which team do you think the best bulls beat the cavs don't. How many of those teams do you think they are? I'd wager the second cleveland cavs would be likely to win against each of the teams the jordan bulls beat . I'd wager the +13 srs heat(more on why the sample size being reduced is non-negotiable for your argument) can do it. I'd wager the 2020 lakers can do it. And i'm pretty sure the playoff data would back me up for all of that.(feel free to vet me). The only stint where i think you'd have a compelling argument for jordan's best opponents would be the 09-10 cavs, but ofc that is extremely reliant on playoff data from a massive cold streak. In the regular season the cavs(who lebron was either more or waaay more valuable to) were one of the best teams ever and kept that going until they went cold vs a red hot magic. Heck, even the 2015 cavs(which you still haven't addressed) based on what they did in the playoffs(without love or kyrie) are probably emperically good enough to beat some of the bulls best opponents(swept a 50 win srs, 60 win team, took a 67 team to 6), and that was lebron with no spacing, a broken back, a broken jump, defending+playmaking with a collection of teammates worse than the bulls before they even drafted MJ.

This is the argument you and ben have to make for "jordan better coz scalability" to be tenable. But even then 'scalability' is reliant on some unfounded assumptions here:

Now does some of that depend on Jordan's teammates? Of course. But if we consider teammates, we reach the same scalability concerns that I re-summarized in my previous reply to falcolombardi.
Okay, so the regular season performance doesn't support LeBron's teams (far worse than Jordan's). Peak Heat Playoff LeBron doesn't beat out Jordan in on-court rating (+5.4 << +8.5). So let's shrink the sample size even more. Let's just look at 2 series, for a total of 9 games.

You say the Healthy Playoff 2012 heat were 91-Bulls level. But... I'm not sure that's true. Let's just take the sample you mentioned, when all three stars were healthy vs the Celtics and the Thunder, they played at a +12.7 SRS . But Jordan's 91 Bulls played at a +15.73 SRS!

To summarize: Multiple Jordan's Bulls years sweep LeBron's teams away in the regular season. The same is true (to a lesser extent) in the playoffs. And if you shrink the sample size even more to just include the best 9 games from the 2012 Heat... Jordan's 91 Bulls still look better by a clear margin (to say nothing of the 96 Bulls).

And again, before you claim it's the teammates, we once again have to return to the scalability discussion in the previous posts.
Yeah, unfortunately this is not true too.

We've shrunk the sample size of the 2012 playoffs, let's shrink the sample of the 2011 playoffs to just look at the first three series. The 2011 Heat played at a +9.2 Playoff SRS, which is great.... but massively far behind the +15.73 of the 91 Bulls (again, to say nothing of the 96 Bulls). This would also fall clearly behind the 92 Bulls and the 93 Bulls.

And again, this is with a shrunken playoff sample for both Miami Heat teams. The gap gets bigger if we take a full-playoff sample for either and the gap grows even more if we start to include the regular season. These teams are clearly worse than Jordan's.

Let's be clear here, for your argument to function, using the shruken samples is not optional. You are specifcally trying to use "lebron-wade-bosh unimpressive results=lebron less scalable" as argumentation, so using games where one of bosh, wade(or both) aren't available is obviously unacceptcable. Similarly using when they aren't that good anymore is also not useful. And while i was generous humoring your use of 2011 lebron, using lebron in one of the worst years of his prime, is also pretty weak. How well do you think jordan holds up if i decide to include 95 or bind jordan to 97 or 98? If you want to use the data of 'prime' lebron-wade-bosh, then use the data of lebron-wade-bosh.

2011 is cutting it(they don't have an offensive system, lebron is at a nadir in regular season and postseason performance) but whatever. The only useful data from 2012 is the one where those three are sharing the field(duh), and in 2013 wade falls off a cliff post injury(up until that point the 2013 heat,finally afforded spacing, are killing all comers).


I'll concede the 2012 heat don't quite matchup to the 91 bulls, but i'd guess they beat all the bulls side excepting 96 and 91 and i'm guessing you'd agree. So let's consider:

You spend a lot of time theoerizing how good jordan's teammates really were but this is mostly just you tryign to think of team strength in absolute terms(all-star vs role player) as opposed to relative terms(how did they compare to the opposition).

All evidence we have tells us that lebron's heatles teammates were not[i] as good as jordan's:

#1 Jordan dropped off in [i]effiency in defense, playmaking, and scoring, droppedd off in all his impact metrics, ect, ect, yet the bulls defense and offense skyrocketed to league best when they were merely average defensively/good with jordan at his most effecient, most productive, and most impactful(pick the metric, idc, pre 91 jordan beats 91 jordan)
#2. Jordan plays bad and meh in the first two games of the ecf and the bulls obliterate the 2nd best team in the east in the first two games.
#3 Jordan leaves, the bulls add some role players and...huh, they sweep a 48 win team and then lose in 7 to a 61 win team
#4 next year they lose rodman, have olympic fatigue, ect, still a 50 win srs without mj though they underperform that in record(a bit better than .500)

The heat without lebron(remember these guys allegedly do what lebron does so they guys shouldn't do too badly).... are a 40 win team.

They also have worse relative to era spacing, have two best players who are both offense-slanted and do largely the same thing, ect, ect....

Finally, lebron is a much better three point shooter post-heat(as in he's outright good) so why would this even matter for later lebron's?

There's a lot of reasons for the heat not being as good as the bulls that have nothing to do with "73 win beater lbj is a worse cieling raiser", so idk why you started with that. There's even alot of reasons that have nothing to do with "heatles james is a worse cieling riasier." Jordan's value/effiency dipped with better teammates or he got worse. You can choose either narrative but neither's implications look to good for mj here.

Either
A. Peak Jordan can only hit 50 wins with a 30 win team or
B. Jordan's value dropped off when his team got better despite having several circumstantial advantages in terms of fit over lebron

and there's
C. What team does any of this matter against? Lebron+bosh+wade were good enough for +12 in the playoffs when they shared the court and were in the range of "their best" with bad relative to era spacing despite lebron overall having less help than mj. What team is too strong for that which the 91 or 96 bulls are beating?

Finally
D. you specifically wanted to compare lebron's teams to his other teams to make the case that lebron gets better team results solo than he does with co-stars. The problem with his is his 2012 results(with bosh and wade in the lineup coz duh) blow away the 2013 postseason results despite inferior spacing. Lebron with kyrie blows away lebron without. And Lebron with AD blows away just about any other lebron year in the playoffs despite inferior spacing. Lebron's teams "don't get better with co-stars" isn't a thing. So your assumption that lebron given a 50 win team can't elevate them higher than mj did is pure supposition.

My apologies, but where are you getting these numbers? Are they playoff-only or regular season, per 100 possessions or per 48 minutes? they don't quite match what I'm seeing on pbpstats.com... if you're comparing regular season per 100 stats for LeBron to Jordan's playoff-only per 48, both of those different contexts would make LeBron's stats look better and Jordan's worse.

Ben's videos. Ben's average aupm/rapm thing is from a top 10 video.

LeBron's average playoff only on-rating from 2011-2014 is +5.4 per 48, which would certainly bring MJ's 89-93 average down from +8.5...

Likewise, where are you getting these stats?

In Thinking Basketball's final "Greatest Peaks" video, he states Jordan's 3-year playoff AuPM is 2nd All time. Lebron's is 3rd all time in his first Cavs stint, and his Heat/2nd Cavs numbers are worse.

Similarly, in the same video, he states 89-91 Jordan's best 3-year playoff BPM is 1st all time. LeBron's 09-11 stats are clearly lower in 2nd, and even lower in Miami.

Where are you getting these stats (?)

The three year sample is higher because jordan's best three years come in a row while all of lbj's three year samples have one down year holding them back.

Both you and Ben seem to be working backwards from the assumption lebron is bound by his healtles(ignoring that even over the course of the heatles the team context and lebron as a player is changing rapidly) years as opposed to just looking at the evidence without a preconcpetion of what lebron at his best must be. Lakers Lebron compares pretty well with prime mj stuff(think he beats all of them in pipm). 15-17 lebron romps if you take out mregularization and just look at raw impact and for the best lebron and jordan years to be a contest you need to use bpm's/box-score aggregates(and even then 09 reigns supreme).

I will repeat, in 2015 lebron had no spacing and defend+passed to an individual result arguably as impressive as any of mj's in terms of team influence. You have to really narrow what you're looking at here to get comparability.

The 91 vs 90 comment is interesting. Good catch! Do you think this is championship bias favoring 91 over 90? Most film review / reading I've done shows Jordan's a more willing teammate/passer/off-ball-player in 91 vs 90, which gains him value, but perhaps at the cost of some motor/young-athleticism. Do you think the athleticism is enough of a reason to take 90?

By film tracking jordan created less and had a similar amount of turnovers despite handing the ball a lot less. He also had more defensive breakdowns while making less defensive plays and doing virtually nothing at the rim. Finally his effiency and volume dropped despite playing weaker defenses. To make matters worse jordan's second best performance is highly inflated by garbage time. If you extrapolate a 4 quarter performance from jordan's performance from the first three quarters of game 2(before the game was effectively over), jordan's average in the ecf vs the pistons drops to 24. Jordan is fatly not as good in 91 as he is in 90 and 89 which while commendable playoff carry jobs, don't neccesarily even match what lebron does in a down year in 2015. It's a big reason why me and emp are skeptical of whether the adjusted metrics tell a more accurate story than just looking at the raw stuff. Pipm scales down what lebron is doing to 20 win territory but that doesn't really pass the sniff test and even ben seems to acknowledge this when he describes 2009 as a "40 win lift" even when metrics put it at ~25 wins. But even then, rapm favors lebron pretty strongly, and pipm and aupm seem to agree.

Do you have stats to support this? Presumably you're talking about 12 Miami and 2020 lakers?

Yes. That stat was posted earlier in this post:

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

Notably the 2012 heat and 2020 lakers were better in the playoffs than the 2013 heat. Ben off course never addresses this which is part of why alot of people here are rolling their eyes at his theories.

[/quote]

[70sFan]

The main thing that makes Duncan so low is the change in the dynamic of the game. Interior defense wasn't as important in the 00s as it was in the 60s/70s. Because of that, Duncan wasn't nearly the force defensively that Walton/Russell were.

I guess it could be an explaination, except of two things:

1. You said in your opening post that:

People in the modern age underestimate how ridiculously game-changing interior defense was before the popularization of the 3 point line, even into the early 00s when the offensive rules hadn't changed yet to block hand-checking and call more blocking fouls.

You literally stated that interior defense was extremely important in the early 2000s.

2. You have Hakeem at number 3, despite him peaking less than 10 years before. Interior defense wasn't as important in the 1990s as it was in the 1960s/70s either, but it didn't stop you from putting him that high. Unless you think Hakeem was all-time offensive player but then...

Calling Duncan an "all-time offensive player" is a stretch.

This claim becomes questionable, because Hakeem wasn't clearly a better offensive player than Duncan.

Kareem was great offensively. When he joined the Bucks, they gained EIGHT points in ORTG. And they stayed the same defensively, despite Bob Dandridge joining as well.

You don't take into account the fact that the league became much more efficient as a whole in 1969/70 season (which was often credited to the process of ball creation, but I don't think how much true it is). When you take a look at relative numbers, here is how Bucks team changed between 1969 and 1970:

Offense: +4.7
Defense: +3.6

So that's not true, Bucks went from mediocre offensively and horrible defensively to excellent offensively and above average defensively.

Kareem was slow getting back in transition, and often struggled defensively even in his early years.

That's very weak choice of the argument, considering that you have Shaq and Wilt ahead of Kareem and these two run in transition significantly less.

He wasn't great in 77 on the defensive end.

That's not my impression from watching all the available 1977 Lakers games. In these games, Kareem contested ridiculous number of shots, while being significantly more active and mobile than Shaq ever was.

Here are the numbers from my tracking work, a part of the post from the peaks series:

Rim protection

1971-79 Kareem: 6.4 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.5 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1999/00 Shaq (excluding 2000/01 games): 3.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.8 weak effort plays at the rim per game

With roughly the same number of questionable plays, Kareem defended almost twice as many shots as Shaq. You may think that Shaq was more intimidating inside, but that's not true. When I also incluce high quality rotations that prevented from rim shots vs lack of them, Shaq also looks notably worse:

1971-79 Kareem: 3.1 high quality rotations vs 2.2 missed rotations
1999/00 Shaq: 1.4 high quality rotations vs 1.8 missed rotations

If we compare these numbers to all time great rim protector like Hakeem, you'll see how these two compare:

1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 7.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 1.9 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 3.6 high quality rotations vs 1.3 missed rotations

I know that my stats are a little bit fuzzy, so I'll show my concerns based on a few examples from games I tracked:

Spoiler:

- let's start with something subtle - Shaq here cheated inside, leaving Smits open to help on Miller drive, but when Reggie actually decides to drive O'Neal was way too late with his help. Possessions like these don't pop out in mind if you don't track a lot of games, but Shaq did it consistently. He didn't guard his man on perimeter, because he wanted to help inside but he often was way too late anyway.

Spoiler:

- in this case, Shaq rotated well and was in perfect position to shut down the drive, but instead of waiting for the next move, he jumped forward for no reason, which made slasher open. Again, it could look like a random play, but Shaq's discipline in such situations was always very questionable and in next situations, I will show you what I mean by "poor fundamentals".

Spoiler:

- you can see here Shaq helping at the rim reasonably well, but watch the way he tried to contest the shot. Again, it may look subtle that he simply missed his contest due to Pacers player going for reverse, but it's really not the case. Shaq had a lot of moments like these, when he missed the ball with his hand not by inches, but by feets. His positioning was horrible in many of these situations and it often led to hard fouls we see on highlight reels. Shaq simply lacked fundamentals to position himself in right position and he lacked patinece and discipline to contest shots at the right moment. Here is another example from the same game:

Spoiler:

Again, these subtle things, along with his poor mobility and lack of motor made him considerably worse defender than Kareem. Jabbar wasn't at his absolute peak defensively in 1977, but he was still much more active. Although his fundamentals weren't on Bill Walton level (Kareem had a bad habit of positioning himself sideways to driving player at times, though it was more pronounced around 1979), he was levels above Shaq in terms of anticipation and ability to contest shots.

I know that these examples are not drastic, but they show Shaq at his absolute apex (2000 finals) doing very basic mistakes. I don't want to include his poor P&R coverages or lack of mobilty, as these things are well known here.

The only advantage Shaq has over Kareem is his post defense, but he doesn't approach Kareem as a rim protector.

Kareem was the hardest player to rank. I originally had him 4th, but ended up moving him down quite a bit, as I think he plateued for around a decade at a similar level.

So he's being criticized for the fact that he was good for longer time than other players?

I would definitely have Kareem as a far worse isolation scorer than Shaq.

Then you'd be wrong. I tracked a lot of peak Shaq and prime Kareem games in the last year and Shaq doesn't touch Kareem as a isolation scorer. Here is the longer post I wrote about them in the peaks series:

Shaq's scoring efficiency was heavily driven by putbacks and inside finishes. It could be seen both as advantage as disadvantage. On one hand, he's amazing at creating easy shots - better than Kareem. On the other, he's far more limited as a creator with the ball in his hands. Take a look at their post game numbers I tracked throughout the last year:

- 1971-79 Kareem (33 games): 21.8 ppg on 52.8 FG% and 57.1 TS%
- 2000-01 Shaq (38 games): 17.8 ppg on 49.3 FG% and 49.8 TS%

I think samples are decently representative for both. Again, it's up to you if you prefer Shaq's ability to generate easy points, or Kareem's ability to finish tough shots no matter what. I think what Kareem gives you brings a bit more value and is less teammates depended. We really haven't seen prime Shaq in a bad situation and I don't think he'd be able to carry his team to the same degree Kareem did. We also have seen Kareem in great situations (let's say in 1971 and 1980) and he showed ridiculous value, despite probably not being at his peak anymore.

Shaq didn't even get to play in isolation - almost never saw him defended by one person on an island. That was just a free bucket for him.

That's also not true, Shaq had plenty of one on one plays (like any high volume scorer) and he didn't always score on them. You don't realize how many inefficient hooks, one handers and fadeaways Shaq took to reach that level of volume.

Because of that his gravity was unparalleled, except by Wilt, in history.

Another post from the peaks project:

About Shaq's gravity - this one is a massive game changer, but I wonder how much different it was compared to Kareem. I mean, this is how Kareem was guarded in 1977 playoffs:

Spoiler:

This are not highly selected screens - I picked them from one quarter of game 3 vs Warriors. Kareem absorbed ridiculous amount of defensive attention and he had a harder time beating it without the three point line.

If you think that Kareem didn't draw similar attention to peak Shaq, then you're mistaken.

Kareem was a great iso scorer. However, he was no Shaq.

That's true, he was significantly better.

I'd give Kareem a slight edge defensively as well.

Slight is an understatement.

He just lacks that ruthless physicality that Shaq had on offense that changed the way the entire league played basketball. Kareem was a more skilled player, but he could actually get bullied 1v1 by elite defenders like Thurmond and Wilt. Shaq was the one doing the bullying.

But Shaq also struggled against certain coverages, most notably vs Spurs Twin Towers or Ostertag. I doubt Kareem would struggle nearly as much against these two matchups.

I think you agree that Shaq would have a lot of problems with Wilt defending him, so why do you keep it against Kareem?

[euroleague]

The main thing that makes Duncan so low is the change in the dynamic of the game. Interior defense wasn't as important in the 00s as it was in the 60s/70s. Because of that, Duncan wasn't nearly the force defensively that Walton/Russell were.

I guess it could be an explaination, except of two things:

1. You said in your opening post that:

People in the modern age underestimate how ridiculously game-changing interior defense was before the popularization of the 3 point line, even into the early 00s when the offensive rules hadn't changed yet to block hand-checking and call more blocking fouls.

You literally stated that interior defense was extremely important in the early 2000s.

2. You have Hakeem at number 3, despite him peaking less than 10 years before. Interior defense wasn't as important in the 1990s as it was in the 1960s/70s either, but it didn't stop you from putting him that high. Unless you think Hakeem was all-time offensive player but then...

Calling Duncan an "all-time offensive player" is a stretch.

This claim becomes questionable, because Hakeem wasn't clearly a better offensive player than Duncan.

Kareem was great offensively. When he joined the Bucks, they gained EIGHT points in ORTG. And they stayed the same defensively, despite Bob Dandridge joining as well.

You don't take into account the fact that the league became much more efficient as a whole in 1969/70 season (which was often credited to the process of ball creation, but I don't think how much true it is). When you take a look at relative numbers, here is how Bucks team changed between 1969 and 1970:

Offense: +4.7
Defense: +3.6

So that's not true, Bucks went from mediocre offensively and horrible defensively to excellent offensively and above average defensively.

Kareem was slow getting back in transition, and often struggled defensively even in his early years.

That's very weak choice of the argument, considering that you have Shaq and Wilt ahead of Kareem and these two run in transition significantly less.

He wasn't great in 77 on the defensive end.

That's not my impression from watching all the available 1977 Lakers games. In these games, Kareem contested ridiculous number of shots, while being significantly more active and mobile than Shaq ever was.

Here are the numbers from my tracking work, a part of the post from the peaks series:

Rim protection

1971-79 Kareem: 6.4 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.5 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1999/00 Shaq (excluding 2000/01 games): 3.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.8 weak effort plays at the rim per game

With roughly the same number of questionable plays, Kareem defended almost twice as many shots as Shaq. You may think that Shaq was more intimidating inside, but that's not true. When I also incluce high quality rotations that prevented from rim shots vs lack of them, Shaq also looks notably worse:

1971-79 Kareem: 3.1 high quality rotations vs 2.2 missed rotations
1999/00 Shaq: 1.4 high quality rotations vs 1.8 missed rotations

If we compare these numbers to all time great rim protector like Hakeem, you'll see how these two compare:

1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 7.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 1.9 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 3.6 high quality rotations vs 1.3 missed rotations

I know that my stats are a little bit fuzzy, so I'll show my concerns based on a few examples from games I tracked:

Spoiler:

- let's start with something subtle - Shaq here cheated inside, leaving Smits open to help on Miller drive, but when Reggie actually decides to drive O'Neal was way too late with his help. Possessions like these don't pop out in mind if you don't track a lot of games, but Shaq did it consistently. He didn't guard his man on perimeter, because he wanted to help inside but he often was way too late anyway.

Spoiler:

- in this case, Shaq rotated well and was in perfect position to shut down the drive, but instead of waiting for the next move, he jumped forward for no reason, which made slasher open. Again, it could look like a random play, but Shaq's discipline in such situations was always very questionable and in next situations, I will show you what I mean by "poor fundamentals".

Spoiler:

- you can see here Shaq helping at the rim reasonably well, but watch the way he tried to contest the shot. Again, it may look subtle that he simply missed his contest due to Pacers player going for reverse, but it's really not the case. Shaq had a lot of moments like these, when he missed the ball with his hand not by inches, but by feets. His positioning was horrible in many of these situations and it often led to hard fouls we see on highlight reels. Shaq simply lacked fundamentals to position himself in right position and he lacked patinece and discipline to contest shots at the right moment. Here is another example from the same game:

Spoiler:

Again, these subtle things, along with his poor mobility and lack of motor made him considerably worse defender than Kareem. Jabbar wasn't at his absolute peak defensively in 1977, but he was still much more active. Although his fundamentals weren't on Bill Walton level (Kareem had a bad habit of positioning himself sideways to driving player at times, though it was more pronounced around 1979), he was levels above Shaq in terms of anticipation and ability to contest shots.

I know that these examples are not drastic, but they show Shaq at his absolute apex (2000 finals) doing very basic mistakes. I don't want to include his poor P&R coverages or lack of mobilty, as these things are well known here.

The only advantage Shaq has over Kareem is his post defense, but he doesn't approach Kareem as a rim protector.

Kareem was the hardest player to rank. I originally had him 4th, but ended up moving him down quite a bit, as I think he plateued for around a decade at a similar level.

So he's being criticized for the fact that he was good for longer time than other players?

I would definitely have Kareem as a far worse isolation scorer than Shaq.

Then you'd be wrong. I tracked a lot of peak Shaq and prime Kareem games in the last year and Shaq doesn't touch Kareem as a isolation scorer. Here is the longer post I wrote about them in the peaks series:

Shaq's scoring efficiency was heavily driven by putbacks and inside finishes. It could be seen both as advantage as disadvantage. On one hand, he's amazing at creating easy shots - better than Kareem. On the other, he's far more limited as a creator with the ball in his hands. Take a look at their post game numbers I tracked throughout the last year:

- 1971-79 Kareem (33 games): 21.8 ppg on 52.8 FG% and 57.1 TS%
- 2000-01 Shaq (38 games): 17.8 ppg on 49.3 FG% and 49.8 TS%

I think samples are decently representative for both. Again, it's up to you if you prefer Shaq's ability to generate easy points, or Kareem's ability to finish tough shots no matter what. I think what Kareem gives you brings a bit more value and is less teammates depended. We really haven't seen prime Shaq in a bad situation and I don't think he'd be able to carry his team to the same degree Kareem did. We also have seen Kareem in great situations (let's say in 1971 and 1980) and he showed ridiculous value, despite probably not being at his peak anymore.

Shaq didn't even get to play in isolation - almost never saw him defended by one person on an island. That was just a free bucket for him.

That's also not true, Shaq had plenty of one on one plays (like any high volume scorer) and he didn't always score on them. You don't realize how many inefficient hooks, one handers and fadeaways Shaq took to reach that level of volume.

Because of that his gravity was unparalleled, except by Wilt, in history.

Another post from the peaks project:

About Shaq's gravity - this one is a massive game changer, but I wonder how much different it was compared to Kareem. I mean, this is how Kareem was guarded in 1977 playoffs:

Spoiler:

This are not highly selected screens - I picked them from one quarter of game 3 vs Warriors. Kareem absorbed ridiculous amount of defensive attention and he had a harder time beating it without the three point line.

If you think that Kareem didn't draw similar attention to peak Shaq, then you're mistaken.

Kareem was a great iso scorer. However, he was no Shaq.

That's true, he was significantly better.

I'd give Kareem a slight edge defensively as well.

Slight is an understatement.

He just lacks that ruthless physicality that Shaq had on offense that changed the way the entire league played basketball. Kareem was a more skilled player, but he could actually get bullied 1v1 by elite defenders like Thurmond and Wilt. Shaq was the one doing the bullying.

But Shaq also struggled against certain coverages, most notably vs Spurs Twin Towers or Ostertag. I doubt Kareem would struggle nearly as much against these two matchups.

I think you agree that Shaq would have a lot of problems with Wilt defending him, so why do you keep it against Kareem?

Duncan:

Yes, interior defense was important in the early 2000s. However, the "even" was said because interior defense had certainly faded in importance since the 60s and 70s. Bill Russell was averaging like 10 blocks per game. Interior offense was also massively important in that era, and Duncan clogged the paint without being that great offensively.

I do think Hakeem was significantly better offensively than Duncan. His FT shooting was better, he had far greater range, he was more mobile, he was a match-up nightmare with the dreamshake, and he ran a much better offense with less help (particularly in 93). He scored at a higher volume with better efficiency than Duncan ever had, while playing against much better competition at his position. In most playoff series in Duncan's peak, Duncan scored less than 25ppg on mediocre efficiency.

Many people talk down the talent on Duncans' teams. Horry was a teammate of both - as a 2nd year NBA vet, he may have been the 2nd best player on the 94 team. When he joined the Spurs the year after 03, he didn't make the starting lineup - he was the 3rd guy off the bench. Horry wasn't significantly worse at 33 than he was as a rookie - his eFG% and per36 numbers were almost identical. Duncan just had much more help.

Shaq/Kareem:

As to your argument about post-scoring on tough shots... Shaq, once he got into his position, was unstoppable by one person, and he did it frequently. The data you are using is tracks much worse possessions (relatively) for Shaq than for Kareem. Shaq's game did involve a lot of super efficient shots, like put-back and dunks, but that is a crazy thing to criticize him for. Giannis game also revolves around dunking, but that doesn't make it ineffective.

On defense, Kareem was slightly better. Shaq was definitely more intimidating, contrary to your argument, as opposing teams would actively avoid driving into the paint if he was there. Notice how Hakeem and Kareem had far more defensive possessions that were impactful per game? I can't say for certain Shaq's intimidation was the cause, but it seems pretty clear he was challenged less at the rim.

Furthermore, the effect of fouling Shaq is often considered a statistical negative against him, because of his FT efficiency - but getting the 3rd string center into the game for major minutes is a huge bonus for his team on both ends.

Regarding the twin towers: Kareem had trouble against single coverage quite frequently. To imagine he'd score much on a combination of David Robinson and Tim Duncan is crazy - nobody in history could, including Wilt.

I don't have time to make a video-intensive post, as it's getting very late here, but I may reply later with more details and specific examples to illustrate my points.

[70sFan]

Duncan:

Yes, interior defense was important in the early 2000s. However, the "even" was said because interior defense had certainly faded in importance since the 60s and 70s. Bill Russell was averaging like 10 blocks per game. Interior offense was also massively important in that era, and Duncan clogged the paint without being that great offensively.

Russell almost certainly didn't average 10 blocks per game. Even if you look at the numbers collected from newspapers (which usually only mention blocks when they were in a big number), Russell gets around 8 bpg and again - the sample of size is likely massively inflated. When you actually watch Russell games, he was a terror on defensive end but he usually had less than 10 blocks (in fact, I don't think we have a single game in which Russell had 10+blocks on the tape).

I do think Hakeem was significantly better offensively than Duncan. His FT shooting was better, he had far greater range, he was more mobile, he was a match-up nightmare with the dreamshake, and he ran a much better offense with less help (particularly in 93). He scored at a higher volume with better efficiency than Duncan ever had, while playing against much better competition at his position. In most playoff series in Duncan's peak, Duncan scored less than 25ppg on mediocre efficiency.

1. The difference in FT shooting is extremely small for peaks:

1993-95 Hakeem: 75.1% on 7.0 attempts in RS, 75.4% on 7.0 attempts in PS
2001-03 Duncan: 71.1% on 8.2 attempts in RS, 69.9% on 9.8 attempts in PS

The difference between 75.4% and 69.9% on 7 attempts per game is less than 0.4 ppg.

2. "Far greater range" is actually not true, if we look at Duncan's shooting chart and Hakeem's chart I made, their shooting range is quite comparable:

1993-94 Hakeem (38 games):



10-16 feet: 44.2% on 0.347 shots
16+ feet: 40.0% on 0.102 shots

2003 Duncan:



10-16 feet: 42.5% on .225 shots
16+feet: 38.3% on 0.111 shots

3. He was more mobile, but he was also smaller and less physical. Being mobile by itself isn't an advantage offensively.

4. Duncan was also a matchup nightmare, that's not an argument.

5. Hakeem didn't run "much better offense with less help", especially in 1993:

1993 Rockets: +1.6
1994 Rockets: -0.4
1995 Rockets: +1.4

2001 Spurs: +3.6
2002 Spurs: +2.0
2003 Spurs: +2.0

Another false statement.

6. Scoring:

2001-03 Duncan: 23.9 pp75 on 55.9 TS% (+4.0 rTS%) in RS, 24.2 pp75 on 55.8 TS% (+3.9 rTS%)
1993-95 Hakeem: 25.7 pp75 on 56.8 TS% (+3.2 rTS%) in RS, 27.6 pp75 on 56.4 TS% (+2.8 rTS%)

Staggering difference indeed...

Shaq/Kareem:

As to your argument about post-scoring on tough shots... Shaq, once he got into his position, was unstoppable by one person, and he did it frequently. The data you are using is tracks much worse possessions (relatively) for Shaq than for Kareem. Shaq's game did involve a lot of super efficient shots, like put-back and dunks, but that is a crazy thing to criticize him for. Giannis game also revolves around dunking, but that doesn't make it ineffective.

No, I don't penalize Shaq for dunks and put-backs. I included all post possessions, including deep catches, unsuccessful fronting attempts and defensive breakdowns. I didn't include putbacks, but Shaq rebounded only around 4% of his post shots, so it wouldn't have much of an impact for his efficiency. Even all of his putbacks are only around 15% of his shots.

Shaq was less efficient isolation scorer, there is no objective criteria that could dispute this fact.

On defense, Kareem was slightly better. Shaq was definitely more intimidating, contrary to your argument, as opposing teams would actively avoid driving into the paint if he was there. Notice how Hakeem and Kareem had far more defensive possessions that were impactful per game? I can't say for certain Shaq's intimidation was the cause, but it seems pretty clear he was challenged less at the rim.

Or maybe much slower pace has something to do with that?

I even showed you how Shaq's poor fundamentals hurt him as a rim protector. He was consistently out of position to help and didn't have the timing to block most shots. You just ignored it.

Of course he was intimidating, but that's not enough to put him ahead of Kareem, who was absurdly effective at protecting the paint while having similar effect on opposing teams. I didn't even touch how horrible Shaq was outside the paint and how poor his motor was on that end...

Furthermore, the effect of fouling Shaq is often considered a statistical negative against him, because of his FT efficiency - but getting the 3rd string center into the game for major minutes is a huge bonus for his team on both ends.

That's true, Shaq's ability to draw fouls is a big advantage over Kareem. I don't think it's enough to make such a large separation between them.

Regarding the twin towers: Kareem had trouble against single coverage quite frequently. To imagine he'd score much on a combination of David Robinson and Tim Duncan is crazy - nobody in history could, including Wilt.

Kareem was very rarely guarded one on one. I showed you examples of how peak Kareem was defended. He absorbed a lot of defensive attention, just like Shaq.

I don't have time to make a video-intensive post, as it's getting very late here, but I may reply later with more details and specific examples to illustrate my points.

I hope you do, because for now it looks like you picked Shaq because you're simply more familiar with him...

[OhayoKD]

This is an interesting point to bring up because it sounds impressive on paper, Wilt single-handedly taking the all-mighty Celtics to 7 games.

But in reality, the Celtics heavily underperformed in the postseason most years and routinely got taken to 6 and 7 games by vastly inferior teams. Just a few quick examples, in 1960 they got taken to 6 games by Wilts 2.77 SRS Warriors and then got taken to 7 by....the 1.77 SRS Hawks lol. The series after Wilt's they got taken to 7 by the 1.8 SRS Lakers who were even worse than Wilt's 2.63 SRS Warriors. And this pattern repeats itself for the rest of the decade.

If you want to give some brownie points to Wilt that's fair, but honestly, if that's the crux of your argument that Wilt's 62 season was not only his best season but the GOAT peak, given all that's been written about Wilt's lack of offensive impact in his volume scoring years, I'm not convinced at all.

The Celtics didn't underperform, but other teams were talented. The Lakers were missing Elgin Baylor for half the season, and you use SRS to judge their team?

In 1960 not only were the Celtics not as good, but the Hawks weren't close to the winning that series. They won a few games by single digits, then got blown out every loss - including game 7. Wilt in 62 got eliminated by 2 points in game 7, and the series was extremely close.

These "reality" points about the Celtics seem very sketchy - not sure if you're trolling or just don't know what you're talking about.

Even allowing for Baylor missing half the season, the Celtics had an 8.25 SRS, in an 8 team league. The Lakers weren't remotely close to them unless you somehow think 40 games of Baylor is worth 5 SRS lol. And since you brought up the margin of victory, in 63 the 6.3 SRS Celtics taken to 7 by the Royals winning by an average of 5.5 PPG. Wilt's Warriors in 62 lost by an average....of 5.5PPG lol. 63 finals, they get taken to 6 by the 2.7 SRS Lakers and were outscored by 2PPG.

Hell in 65 Wilt took a similar strength Boston team to 7 again and lost by just 1 point in game 7, and only got outscored by 3PPG in that series (albeit with a better supporting cast). And to sum this up, I may have mispoke when I said that Boston underperformed in the playoffs compared to the regular season, I'm not familiar enough with every season to say why exactly. But the point I am making which I think your smart enough to get, is that the Celtics getting taken to 7 wasn't uncommon, they weren't some insurmountable juggernaut.

thing is that everyone took them to 6 or 7 basically and everyone lost anyway so like, I don't know if it matters that much

[euroleague]

Duncan:

Yes, interior defense was important in the early 2000s. However, the "even" was said because interior defense had certainly faded in importance since the 60s and 70s. Bill Russell was averaging like 10 blocks per game. Interior offense was also massively important in that era, and Duncan clogged the paint without being that great offensively.

Russell almost certainly didn't average 10 blocks per game. Even if you look at the numbers collected from newspapers (which usually only mention blocks when they were in a big number), Russell gets around 8 bpg and again - the sample of size is likely massively inflated. When you actually watch Russell games, he was a terror on defensive end but he usually had less than 10 blocks (in fact, I don't think we have a single game in which Russell had 10+blocks on the tape).

I do think Hakeem was significantly better offensively than Duncan. His FT shooting was better, he had far greater range, he was more mobile, he was a match-up nightmare with the dreamshake, and he ran a much better offense with less help (particularly in 93). He scored at a higher volume with better efficiency than Duncan ever had, while playing against much better competition at his position. In most playoff series in Duncan's peak, Duncan scored less than 25ppg on mediocre efficiency.

1. The difference in FT shooting is extremely small for peaks:

1993-95 Hakeem: 75.1% on 7.0 attempts in RS, 75.4% on 7.0 attempts in PS
2001-03 Duncan: 71.1% on 8.2 attempts in RS, 69.9% on 9.8 attempts in PS

The difference between 75.4% and 69.9% on 7 attempts per game is less than 0.4 ppg.

2. "Far greater range" is actually not true, if we look at Duncan's shooting chart and Hakeem's chart I made, their shooting range is quite comparable:

1993-94 Hakeem (38 games):


10-16 feet: 42.5% on .225 shots
16+feet: 38.3% on 0.111 shots

3. He was more mobile, but he was also smaller and less physical. Being mobile by itself isn't an advantage offensively.

4. Duncan was also a matchup nightmare, that's not an argument.

5. Hakeem didn't run "much better offense with less help", especially in 1993:

1993 Rockets: +1.6
1994 Rockets: -0.4
1995 Rockets: +1.4

2001 Spurs: +3.6
2002 Spurs: +2.0
2003 Spurs: +2.0

Another false statement.

6. Scoring:

2001-03 Duncan: 23.9 pp75 on 55.9 TS% (+4.0 rTS%) in RS, 24.2 pp75 on 55.8 TS% (+3.9 rTS%)
1993-95 Hakeem: 25.7 pp75 on 56.8 TS% (+3.2 rTS%) in RS, 27.6 pp75 on 56.4 TS% (+2.8 rTS%)

Staggering difference indeed...

Shaq/Kareem:

As to your argument about post-scoring on tough shots... Shaq, once he got into his position, was unstoppable by one person, and he did it frequently. The data you are using is tracks much worse possessions (relatively) for Shaq than for Kareem. Shaq's game did involve a lot of super efficient shots, like put-back and dunks, but that is a crazy thing to criticize him for. Giannis game also revolves around dunking, but that doesn't make it ineffective.

No, I don't penalize Shaq for dunks and put-backs. I included all post possessions, including deep catches, unsuccessful fronting attempts and defensive breakdowns. I didn't include putbacks, but Shaq rebounded only around 4% of his post shots, so it wouldn't have much of an impact for his efficiency. Even all of his putbacks are only around 15% of his shots.

Shaq was less efficient isolation scorer, there is no objective criteria that could dispute this fact.

On defense, Kareem was slightly better. Shaq was definitely more intimidating, contrary to your argument, as opposing teams would actively avoid driving into the paint if he was there. Notice how Hakeem and Kareem had far more defensive possessions that were impactful per game? I can't say for certain Shaq's intimidation was the cause, but it seems pretty clear he was challenged less at the rim.

Or maybe much slower pace has something to do with that?

I even showed you how Shaq's poor fundamentals hurt him as a rim protector. He was consistently out of position to help and didn't have the timing to block most shots. You just ignored it.

Of course he was intimidating, but that's not enough to put him ahead of Kareem, who was absurdly effective at protecting the paint while having similar effect on opposing teams. I didn't even touch how horrible Shaq was outside the paint and how poor his motor was on that end...

Furthermore, the effect of fouling Shaq is often considered a statistical negative against him, because of his FT efficiency - but getting the 3rd string center into the game for major minutes is a huge bonus for his team on both ends.

That's true, Shaq's ability to draw fouls is a big advantage over Kareem. I don't think it's enough to make such a large separation between them.

Regarding the twin towers: Kareem had trouble against single coverage quite frequently. To imagine he'd score much on a combination of David Robinson and Tim Duncan is crazy - nobody in history could, including Wilt.

Kareem was very rarely guarded one on one. I showed you examples of how peak Kareem was defended. He absorbed a lot of defensive attention, just like Shaq.

I don't have time to make a video-intensive post, as it's getting very late here, but I may reply later with more details and specific examples to illustrate my points.

I hope you do, because for now it looks like you picked Shaq because you're simply more familiar with him...

1. You're ignoring FT shooting in the playoffs?

93-94 Olajuwon: 81% FT
02-03 Duncan: 72% FT

2. Raw shooting statistics regarding shooting don't tell the story across eras and teams. Defensive rules changed, removing illegal defenses, and team structures allowed Duncan to have easier match-ups on offense.

5. Hakeem's teams had far less talent, and higher ORTG. Comparing them to league average is facetious, as the league average was certainly better in 93/94 than it was in 2001 (after multiple expansion teams were added). It's a fact the Rockets had a better ORTG.

The Hakeem Rockets ORTG was similar to prime Malone/Stockton's Jazz. The Duncan Spurs ORTG was similar to 40 year old Malone/Stockton's Jazz. That's a more clear measure than "league average".

6. Let's look at playoff scoring and playoff ORTG, in the series they lost and against elite opposition at their position, to see whether the team's offense struggled as a result of their failure to get points when it counted.

Duncan's Spurs: 01 vs Lakers: 90.4 ORTG. Duncan averaged 29 ppg on 51% TS.
Duncan's Spurs: 02 vs Lakers: 99.8 ORTG Duncan averaged 23 ppg on 53% ts.
Duncan's Spurs: 04 vs Lakers: 96.2 ORTG Duncan averaged 21 ppg on 53% ts.
02 Duncan vs KG: 23ppg on 51% TS
05 Duncan vs Camby: 22ppg on 51% TS

1995 Hakeem vs DRob: 35 ppg on 59% TS
1995 Hakeem vs Malone: 35 ppg on 61% TS
1994 Hakeem vs Malone: 28 ppg on 57% TS
1994 Hakeem vs Ewing: 27 ppg on 56% TS
1993 Hakeem vs Kemp: 23 ppg on 57% TS
1995 Hakeem vs Shaq: 33ppg on 51% TS

It seems pretty clear that Duncan struggled heavily against strong defensive opposition at his position. Hakeem went up against elite big-men in almost every series, and did quite well.. it's just painfully obvious that Hakeem was the better scorer when it mattered.

Duncan only did well in series without a solid opposing big.

4. Duncan was just a match-up nightmare when he played with DRob, because DRob was so versatile offensively. He didn't do well against elite opposing bigs, as I've shown.

5. Shaq vs Kareem

I am indeed far more familiar with Shaq, and have watched almost a thousand of his games. That's why your three 2-second clips are not going significantly alter my opinion on his defense.

I'll provide some clips on Kareem to illustrate my points, as right now I only have about 20 minutes and I don't have clips readily available.

[70sFan]

1. You're ignoring FT shooting in the playoffs?

93-94 Olajuwon: 81% FT
02-03 Duncan: 72% FT

Did you even read my response? I included postseason numbers as well, let me repeat them for you:

"1993-95 Hakeem: 75.1% on 7.0 attempts in RS, 75.4% on 7.0 attempts in PS
2001-03 Duncan: 71.1% on 8.2 attempts in RS, 69.9% on 9.8 attempts in PS

The difference between 75.4% and 69.9% on 7 attempts per game is less than 0.4 ppg."

2. Raw shooting statistics regarding shooting don't tell the story across eras and teams. Defensive rules changed, removing illegal defenses, and team structures allowed Duncan to have easier match-ups on offense.

Now please, explain me how removing illegal defense makes anything easier for offensive players. I really want to hear the explaination for this ridiculous statement...

5. Hakeem's teams had far less talent, and higher ORTG. Comparing them to league average is facetious, as the league average was certainly better in 93/94 than it was in 2001 (after multiple expansion teams were added). It's a fact the Rockets had a better ORTG.

If comparing to league average is facetious, then you should stop raving about Wilt Chamberlain, who by 1994 standards anchored the worst offense ever and was very inefficient scorer.

The league averages changed, because 1994 had significantly more offense-friendly rules: illegal defense, shorter three point line, lack of zones etc.

Not to mention that the difference between 1994 Rockets and 2003 Spurs in ORtg is the difference between 105.9 and 105.6. Yeah, incredible difference indeed.

The Hakeem Rockets ORTG was similar to prime Malone/Stockton's Jazz. The Duncan Spurs ORTG was similar to 40 year old Malone/Stockton's Jazz. That's a more clear measure than "league average".

That's not true, Jazz had significantly better offense than Rockets:

1993-95 Jazz: 110.8
1993-95 Rockets: 108.4

The difference of 2.4 ORtg is significant.

6. Let's look at playoff scoring and playoff ORTG, in the series they lost and against elite opposition at their position, to see whether the team's offense struggled as a result of their failure to get points when it counted.

Duncan's Spurs: 01 vs Lakers: 90.4 ORTG. Duncan averaged 29 ppg on 51% TS.
Duncan's Spurs: 02 vs Lakers: 99.8 ORTG Duncan averaged 23 ppg on 53% ts.
Duncan's Spurs: 04 vs Lakers: 96.2 ORTG Duncan averaged 21 ppg on 53% ts.
02 Duncan vs KG: 23ppg on 51% TS
05 Duncan vs Camby: 22ppg on 51% TS

1995 Hakeem vs DRob: 35 ppg on 59% TS
1995 Hakeem vs Malone: 35 ppg on 61% TS
1994 Hakeem vs Malone: 28 ppg on 57% TS
1994 Hakeem vs Ewing: 27 ppg on 56% TS
1993 Hakeem vs Kemp: 23 ppg on 57% TS
1995 Hakeem vs Shaq: 33ppg on 51% TS

It seems pretty clear that Duncan struggled heavily against strong defensive opposition at his position. Hakeem went up against elite big-men in almost every series, and did quite well.. it's just painfully obvious that Hakeem was the better scorer when it mattered.

Duncan only did well in series without a solid opposing big.

Why do you include only the losses in Duncan's case, but you give all the winning series from Hakeem (with the exception of 1993 one)? Why don't you include ORtg for Hakeem series? Why did you exclude 2003 or 1999 vs Lakers, when you included the other Lakers series? Why did you include 2005 to this conversation, but you ignored Hakeem's 1996 series vs Sonics?

I can cherrypick all I want as well, but I won't because that's not how we should talk about it.

4. Duncan was just a match-up nightmare when he played with DRob, because DRob was so versatile offensively. He didn't do well against elite opposing bigs, as I've shown.

38 years old Robinson was so versatile offensively? Are you sure you've watched a single 2003 Spurs game recently?

5. Shaq vs Kareem

I am indeed far more familiar with Shaq, and have watched almost a thousand of his games. That's why your three 2-second clips are not going significantly alter my opinion on his defense.

I could show you dozens of such plays, it's not me cherrypicking short clips. As I said, I've watched over 40 peak Shaq games recently and I have notes to all of them. Shaq was a low effort, low motor defender with poor defensive fundamentals. He wasn't a bad defender strictly because of his size and physique, but he's not even close to elite defender like Kareem.

I'll provide some clips on Kareem to illustrate my points, as right now I only have about 20 minutes and I don't have clips readily available.

Still waiting, because so far you didn't provide much to prove your point.

[euroleague]

1. You're ignoring FT shooting in the playoffs?

93-94 Olajuwon: 81% FT
02-03 Duncan: 72% FT

Did you even read my response? I included postseason numbers as well, let me repeat them for you:

"1993-95 Hakeem: 75.1% on 7.0 attempts in RS, 75.4% on 7.0 attempts in PS
2001-03 Duncan: 71.1% on 8.2 attempts in RS, 69.9% on 9.8 attempts in PS

The difference between 75.4% and 69.9% on 7 attempts per game is less than 0.4 ppg."

2. Raw shooting statistics regarding shooting don't tell the story across eras and teams. Defensive rules changed, removing illegal defenses, and team structures allowed Duncan to have easier match-ups on offense.

Now please, explain me how removing illegal defense makes anything easier for offensive players. I really want to hear the explaination for this ridiculous statement...

5. Hakeem's teams had far less talent, and higher ORTG. Comparing them to league average is facetious, as the league average was certainly better in 93/94 than it was in 2001 (after multiple expansion teams were added). It's a fact the Rockets had a better ORTG.

If comparing to league average is facetious, then you should stop raving about Wilt Chamberlain, who by 1994 standards anchored the worst offense ever and was very inefficient scorer.

The league averages changed, because 1994 had significantly more offense-friendly rules: illegal defense, shorter three point line, lack of zones etc.

Not to mention that the difference between 1994 Rockets and 2003 Spurs in ORtg is the difference between 105.9 and 105.6. Yeah, incredible difference indeed.

The Hakeem Rockets ORTG was similar to prime Malone/Stockton's Jazz. The Duncan Spurs ORTG was similar to 40 year old Malone/Stockton's Jazz. That's a more clear measure than "league average".

That's not true, Jazz had significantly better offense than Rockets:

1993-95 Jazz: 110.8
1993-95 Rockets: 108.4

The difference of 2.4 ORtg is significant.

6. Let's look at playoff scoring and playoff ORTG, in the series they lost and against elite opposition at their position, to see whether the team's offense struggled as a result of their failure to get points when it counted.

Duncan's Spurs: 01 vs Lakers: 90.4 ORTG. Duncan averaged 29 ppg on 51% TS.
Duncan's Spurs: 02 vs Lakers: 99.8 ORTG Duncan averaged 23 ppg on 53% ts.
Duncan's Spurs: 04 vs Lakers: 96.2 ORTG Duncan averaged 21 ppg on 53% ts.
02 Duncan vs KG: 23ppg on 51% TS
05 Duncan vs Camby: 22ppg on 51% TS

1995 Hakeem vs DRob: 35 ppg on 59% TS
1995 Hakeem vs Malone: 35 ppg on 61% TS
1994 Hakeem vs Malone: 28 ppg on 57% TS
1994 Hakeem vs Ewing: 27 ppg on 56% TS
1993 Hakeem vs Kemp: 23 ppg on 57% TS
1995 Hakeem vs Shaq: 33ppg on 51% TS

It seems pretty clear that Duncan struggled heavily against strong defensive opposition at his position. Hakeem went up against elite big-men in almost every series, and did quite well.. it's just painfully obvious that Hakeem was the better scorer when it mattered.

Duncan only did well in series without a solid opposing big.

Why do you include only the losses in Duncan's case, but you give all the winning series from Hakeem (with the exception of 1993 one)? Why don't you include ORtg for Hakeem series? Why did you exclude 2003 or 1999 vs Lakers, when you included the other Lakers series? Why did you include 2005 to this conversation, but you ignored Hakeem's 1996 series vs Sonics?

I can cherrypick all I want as well, but I won't because that's not how we should talk about it.

4. Duncan was just a match-up nightmare when he played with DRob, because DRob was so versatile offensively. He didn't do well against elite opposing bigs, as I've shown.

38 years old Robinson was so versatile offensively? Are you sure you've watched a single 2003 Spurs game recently?

5. Shaq vs Kareem

I am indeed far more familiar with Shaq, and have watched almost a thousand of his games. That's why your three 2-second clips are not going significantly alter my opinion on his defense.

I could show you dozens of such plays, it's not me cherrypicking short clips. As I said, I've watched over 40 peak Shaq games recently and I have notes to all of them. Shaq was a low effort, low motor defender with poor defensive fundamentals. He wasn't a bad defender strictly because of his size and physique, but he's not even close to elite defender like Kareem.

I'll provide some clips on Kareem to illustrate my points, as right now I only have about 20 minutes and I don't have clips readily available.

Still waiting, because so far you didn't provide much to prove your point.

1. I'm not talking about the 95 Jazz. I'm talking about the 93-94 Jazz. In 95, Stockton had his career year which pushed them above their normal primes. Why argue a point different than the one I'm making - it's quite the strawman.

2. I didn't include Hakeem in 96, because he was old by then. That wasn't his peak, which is what we are comparing. Would love to include more losses by Hakeem, but he didn't have many. I included Duncan's wins against Camby and KG, but he lost most games during his peak. I didn't include 03 because Shaq was beat down and exhausted by then, and was no longer performing at a remotely elite level on the defensive end. In 04, Shaq took a step back offensively and had more energy for defense.

3. David Robinson was quite versatile at scoring throughout his career. He retired before he turned 38, so I'm not sure what obviously incorrect point you're trying to argue, but in 2003 he was still a very solid offensive player. 3.5 ORB per 36 minutes, a solid jumpshot, and quick moves under the basket.

4. Illegal defenses forced opposing centers out from under the rim, as they had to track their man. This led to paint defense being lighter for guards, and middle to long distance shots from bigs being more contested. As they had to track their man to avoid illegal defense calls, and couldn't just camp the paint.

5. I haven't posted any Kareem clips, because it's quite easy to cherry pick and because you've posted several Kareem clips yourself on youtube, and should obviously know what's in them. In this clip,

Watch on YouTube

, Walton often invites Kareem to take the shot with his left - giving him wide open looks to the basket several times in single coverage, while defending his right hard. At 8:00, you can literally hear the commentators say "The Lakers expected more doubles".... because he was defended in single coverage except when cutters came right near him, and players would throw some help.

In the Warriors series, he was mostly guarded in single coverage by rookie Robert Parish or Clifford Ray (you can watch several games on youtube

Watch on YouTube

). You're really going to compare single coverage by rookie back-up centers to the type of gravity Shaq had?

[70sFan]

1. I'm not talking about the 95 Jazz. I'm talking about the 93-94 Jazz. In 95, Stockton had his career year which pushed them above their normal primes. Why argue a point different than the one I'm making - it's quite the strawman.

You cherrypicked the worst version of Jazz offense in the 1990s to make your point and you still failed:

1994 Jazz: 108.6 ORtg
1994 Rockets: 105.9 ORtg

Rockets weren't close to Jazz offensively in 1994.

2. I didn't include Hakeem in 96, because he was old by then. That wasn't his peak, which is what we are comparing. Would love to include more losses by Hakeem, but he didn't have many. I included Duncan's wins against Camby and KG, but he lost most games during his peak.

But Duncan wasn't at his peak in 2005 either, why do you include this series then?

I didn't include 03 because Shaq was beat down and exhausted by then, and was no longer performing at a remotely elite level on the defensive end. In 04, Shaq took a step back offensively and had more energy for defense.

Come on, that's ridiculous argumentation. Shaq wasn't any better in 2004 than 2003 and you know it. Why did you exclude 1999 series then?

3. David Robinson was quite versatile at scoring throughout his career. He retired before he turned 38, so I'm not sure what obviously incorrect point you're trying to argue, but in 2003 he was still a very solid offensive player. 3.5 ORB per 36 minutes, a solid jumpshot, and quick moves under the basket.

Which production is better?

8.5/7.9/1.0 on 53.1 TS% in 26.4 mpg

or

14.0/10.6/2.3 on 59.3 TS% in 35.5 mpg

The second one is Thorpe. Thorpe was a better offensive rebounder and scorer than Robinson at this point, why don't you start raving about Hakeem's help?

4. Illegal defenses forced opposing centers out from under the rim, as they had to track their man. This led to paint defense being lighter for guards, and middle to long distance shots from bigs being more contested. As they had to track their man to avoid illegal defense calls, and couldn't just camp the paint.

So you agree that Hakeem played in an era with more open paint, weaker rim protection and didn't face the same number of bodies inside?

5. I haven't posted any Kareem clips, because it's quite easy to cherry pick and because you've posted several Kareem clips yourself on youtube, and should obviously know what's in them. In this clip,

Watch on YouTube

, Walton often invites Kareem to take the shot with his left - giving him wide open looks to the basket several times in single coverage, while defending his right hard. At 8:00, you can literally hear the commentators say "The Lakers expected more doubles".... because he was defended in single coverage except when cutters came right near him, and players would throw some help.

0:50 - double
1:09 - double
2:18 - triple (and illegal defense)
2:30 - double
2:55 - double
3:38 - fronting (and illegal defense)
3:56 - triple
4:30 - off-ball double
4:54 - double
6:22 - double
7:00 - double
7:18 - double
7:25 - double

... should I continue? Did you even watch this video?

In the Warriors series, he was mostly guarded in single coverage by rookie Robert Parish or Clifford Ray (you can watch several games on youtube

Watch on YouTube

). You're really going to compare single coverage by rookie back-up centers to the type of gravity Shaq had?

After your previous point, I have concerns if you can name a double team when you see it...

5:28 - off-ball double, then on-ball double
6:47 - double
8:34 - double
16:12 - double
17:28 - double
18:00 - triple
18:28 - double

That's only the first quarter, I don't even need to go further. Not to mention that the majority of 1977 defensive possessions on Kareem would be illegal in 2000. Hard doubles are significantly easier to deal with than soft ones.

[frica]

Wonder how'd Manute Bol or Mark Eaton would handle Euroleague.
Being able to camp the paint with that reach...

[Jaivl]

Wonder how'd Manute Bol or Mark Eaton would handle Euroleague.
Being able to camp the paint with that reach...

Big centers have it much easier in Europe, for sure - "studs" like Ante Tomic, Tavares or Krstic (lots of other examples) managed to be quite dominant.

Length and positioning scale extremely well - huge/smart but not great NBA defenders like Pau Gasol become menaces in FIBA play, and a washed, slow AK47 just crushed the Euroleague for a year with his length and IQ.

Still, Bol probably gets played off the court after 5 quick fouls.

[falcolombardi]

Wonder how'd Manute Bol or Mark Eaton would handle Euroleague.
Being able to camp the paint with that reach...

Big centers have it much easier in Europe, for sure - "studs" like Ante Tomic, Tavares or Krstic (lots of other examples) managed to be quite dominant.

Length and positioning scale extremely well - huge/smart but not great NBA defenders like Pau Gasol become menaces in FIBA play, and a washed, slow AK47 just crushed the Euroleague for a year with his length and IQ.

Still, Bol probably gets played off the court after 5 quick fouls.

Do you think brook lopez could be a star in fiba basketball or euroleague?