Updating my top 50

[iggymcfrack]

.

Hey 70sFan, didn't want to make a new thread for this, but just thought you might be interested to know that I've been doing a bit of a deep dive on Oscar today and I do feel that I've underrated him. I always penalized him pretty heavily for the lack of team success in Cincinnati, but really the more I look at it, the supporting casts are almost as bad as what KG had in Minnesota and they had very similar success (.541 winning percentage for Cincy with Oscar in lineup, .556 for Minny with KG, 2 playoff series wins each). And then of course, both won a championship the year they moved on to greener pastures with a reduced offensive role. The WOWY numbers are incredibly impressive and some of the box stuff is better than I remembered. Leading the league in TS% as a rookie jump shooter in a league with no 3-point line is ridiculous and the fact that he led the league in FT% twice makes me think that if he had played in the modern game, he probably would have been an excellent volume shooter from deep.

I'm not ready to make a massive shift or anything, but I am moving him into my top 20 ahead of Kawhi, Bird, and Kobe for now. And honestly, there's part of me that wonders if he wasn't actually the 2nd most valuable player of the '60s ahead of Wilt. It kinda feels like if those '60s guys were playing 36 MPG with tracking data, Oscar would be the analytics darling with a much better RAPM than Wilt most years. Right now, I'd say my whole 14-20 range is pretty fluid between Wilt, Jokic, Dirk, Malone, Stockton, Wade, and Oscar. I don't really have a high degree of confidence on any of those players definitely deserving to be ranked ahead of the others.

One thing that it's incredibly difficult to find any information on for Oscar is his defense. The Backpicks project mostly estimated him as a neutral-ish defender, but also pointed out that there just isn't much information on that from which to glean anything. When I tried searching elsewhere, I couldn't find any information at all. The Royals consistently struggled defensively while he was there, but they also got significantly worse when he left and the Bucks got significantly better when he joined. What's your opinion on Oscar's defense? Is he like Steph level? A little above average on the whole, but with some weaknesses that can be attacked? Magic Johnson level where his size helps but he's overall a negative because his focus is all on running the offense? Wade level where he's a signficant positive that has a meaningful impact without being elite? Obviously, it's going to be hard for anyone to speak to it definitively, but I wonder what you think of his defense and if there's any kind of rough comp you could give to a modern player.

[70sFan]

Cool thanks, would be very interesting to see this for Ray Allen as well for a complete comparison if you ever got spare time!

Ray Allen

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 0
Weak MVP: 0
All-nba: 6 (2000-03, 2005, 2006)
All-star: 6 (1999, 2004, 2008-11)
Sub all-star: 3 (1998, 2007, 2012)
Role player: 3 (1997, 2013, 2014)

I haven't got there yet, but I suspect I'll give Ray Ray at least half-credit for a "weak MVP" year in '01 (maybe even full credit). He was ballin' that year, and anchoring the #1 offense [admittedly in a defensive era] with Glenn Robinson as likely second-banana. Coming one game away from leading the Bucks to the NBA Finals, and outplaying the supposed MVP in the ECF (and going for 25.1/4.1/6.0 on absurd [for '01] shooting efficiency and only 2.4 topg in the entire playoff run).
Just talking about it, yeah, I think I will give that full credit for weak MVP.

I might do the same with '01 Vince Carter, actually.

Either one was a better MVP choice than Allen Iverson, imo.

I have all three 2001 guards at all-nba level, although if I had to rank them I'd take Allen first without thinking twice. Allen had a really nice season, but I don't think he is on the level of the other "weak MVP" seasons in this project.

[70sFan]

One thing that it's incredibly difficult to find any information on for Oscar is his defense. The Backpicks project mostly estimated him as a neutral-ish defender, but also pointed out that there just isn't much information on that from which to glean anything. When I tried searching elsewhere, I couldn't find any information at all. The Royals consistently struggled defensively while he was there, but they also got significantly worse when he left and the Bucks got significantly better when he joined. What's your opinion on Oscar's defense? Is he like Steph level? A little above average on the whole, but with some weaknesses that can be attacked? Magic Johnson level where his size helps but he's overall a negative because his focus is all on running the offense? Wade level where he's a signficant positive that has a meaningful impact without being elite? Obviously, it's going to be hard for anyone to speak to it definitively, but I wonder what you think of his defense and if there's any kind of rough comp you could give to a modern player.

It is hard to evaluate prime Oscar defense, because we have little footage from Royals years. Most of my observations come from Bucks games that we have, so keep that in mind.

First of all, we have to remember that Oscar was a huge man. He was listed at 6'5 and his barefoot measurements are in line with Jordan and Kobe heights. The difference between Oscar and Kobe or Jordan is that Robertson started his career above 200 lbs and filled out his frame at around 220 lbs without modern weight training. There is one current player that is similar in terms of body to him - James Harden, except that Oscar was naturally bigger than him. This frame already gives him natural advantages over most guards in the league history. He definitely had value on the boards and strictly as a wide body inside.

Another thing is that Oscar was very competitive man and it's visible in his h2h matchups. In Milwaukee, he showed a lot of effort as a man defender, being very physical against his men and pushing them out ot position. He also took some tough assignments, like Jerry West in the famous 1972 streak end game.

About weaknesses - I didn't study Oscar defense a lot, but he didn't seem to be highly disruptive without the ball, at least when he was older. He didn't get a lot of steals and I don't remember him being any threat as a secondary rim protector. Ben Taylor says that he also had moments of off-ball lapses, but I can't say I can back it up. Another minor one is that his lateral quickness isn't top tier, but it's normal for massive dudes of his size and we have to remember that I'm talking about Milwaukee Oscar, younger Robertson looks much quicker and more athletic in footage we have.

Overall, I don't think he was on Jerry West or Walt Frazier level, but it's hard to blame him for not being the best perimeter defender of his era. I think he was a clear positive in Milwaukee, more so than someone like Curry (but not like Wade).

[penbeast0]

.

Hey 70sFan, didn't want to make a new thread for this, but just thought you might be interested to know that I've been doing a bit of a deep dive on Oscar today and I do feel that I've underrated him. I always penalized him pretty heavily for the lack of team success in Cincinnati, but really the more I look at it, the supporting casts are almost as bad as what KG had in Minnesota and they had very similar success (.541 winning percentage for Cincy with Oscar in lineup, .556 for Minny with KG, 2 playoff series wins each). And then of course, both won a championship the year they moved on to greener pastures with a reduced offensive role. The WOWY numbers are incredibly impressive and some of the box stuff is better than I remembered. Leading the league in TS% as a rookie jump shooter in a league with no 3-point line is ridiculous and the fact that he led the league in FT% twice makes me think that if he had played in the modern game, he probably would have been an excellent volume shooter from deep.

I'm not ready to make a massive shift or anything, but I am moving him into my top 20 ahead of Kawhi, Bird, and Kobe for now. And honestly, there's part of me that wonders if he wasn't actually the 2nd most valuable player of the '60s ahead of Wilt. It kinda feels like if those '60s guys were playing 36 MPG with tracking data, Oscar would be the analytics darling with a much better RAPM than Wilt most years. Right now, I'd say my whole 14-20 range is pretty fluid between Wilt, Jokic, Dirk, Malone, Stockton, Wade, and Oscar. I don't really have a high degree of confidence on any of those players definitely deserving to be ranked ahead of the others.

One thing that it's incredibly difficult to find any information on for Oscar is his defense. The Backpicks project mostly estimated him as a neutral-ish defender, but also pointed out that there just isn't much information on that from which to glean anything. When I tried searching elsewhere, I couldn't find any information at all. The Royals consistently struggled defensively while he was there, but they also got significantly worse when he left and the Bucks got significantly better when he joined. What's your opinion on Oscar's defense? Is he like Steph level? A little above average on the whole, but with some weaknesses that can be attacked? Magic Johnson level where his size helps but he's overall a negative because his focus is all on running the offense? Wade level where he's a signficant positive that has a meaningful impact without being elite? Obviously, it's going to be hard for anyone to speak to it definitively, but I wonder what you think of his defense and if there's any kind of rough comp you could give to a modern player.

Oscar played most of his career with Jerry Lucas who was the prototype of a modern stretch big, not a good defender but a terrific shooter and rebounder who was possible a top 10, certainly a top 20 player in the league consistently. I don't think Garnett had anyone of that level for more than a year or two (Cassell).

I'm also not convinced Oscar would be the impact analytics god, I would guess that would favor Jerry West who adds defense to his nearly equally great offensive skills, though Oscar stays healthy. We do have more Wowy data for West who missed a lot of time.

I would also guess he's behind Russell and Wilt, maybe Thurmond too though I'm not nearly as high on Thurmond as some others. Some of that is the center oriented game of the era. From what I can tell, Oscar and Jerry had huge separation from the other best guards of the era (Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Lenny Wilkens); the equivalent of Jordan v. Drexler or more.

[AEnigma]

There is no “impact analytics” case for West over Oscar.

Now, as someone who does take Oscar over West, I will note that is nothing surprising when considering the teams each had around them. Just because Nash had more “impact” on the Suns than Kobe had “impact” on the Lakers, we do not say Nash was inherently better or had a higher peak (although I do wonder, but for unjustified suspensions, whether that would be seen as true with a title in 2007).

And on the subject of Nash, for as much as we can say he played with a “top 10 to 20” talent like Amar’e, I think there is decent evidence that a less offensively “talented” but more defensively stout big would have been of much greater benefit. By analogue, swap Jerry Lucas for a rookie Willis Reed in 1965, and I expect the Royals would have been able to mount a stouter fight against Wilt’s 76ers and Russell’s Celtics. Mind you, Reed himself did not really take off as a defensive anchor until paired with DeBusschere, who himself is several levels beyond any defender Oscar had on the Royals.

[trex_8063]

And on the subject of Nash, for as much as we can say he played with a “top 10 to 20” talent like Amar’e, I think there is decent evidence that a less offensively “talented” but more defensively stout big would have been of much greater benefit. By analogue, swap Jerry Lucas for a rookie Willis Reed in 1965, and I expect the Royals would have been able to mount a stouter fight against Wilt’s 76ers and Russell’s Celtics. Mind you, Reed himself did not really take off as a defensive anchor until paired with DeBusschere, who himself is several levels beyond any defender Oscar had on the Royals.

I'd be curious to see what the Nash Suns could have done with even someone as good as Clint Capela: a decent [not great] defender, and very good rim-runner for Nash to run pnr with. Extremely limited otherwise, but I wonder if merely having some rim pressure and being a BIG upgrade defensively [relative to Amare] would have made them just as good (even though Capela has far less reputation than Amare).

[iggymcfrack]

.

Hey 70sFan, didn't want to make a new thread for this, but just thought you might be interested to know that I've been doing a bit of a deep dive on Oscar today and I do feel that I've underrated him. I always penalized him pretty heavily for the lack of team success in Cincinnati, but really the more I look at it, the supporting casts are almost as bad as what KG had in Minnesota and they had very similar success (.541 winning percentage for Cincy with Oscar in lineup, .556 for Minny with KG, 2 playoff series wins each). And then of course, both won a championship the year they moved on to greener pastures with a reduced offensive role. The WOWY numbers are incredibly impressive and some of the box stuff is better than I remembered. Leading the league in TS% as a rookie jump shooter in a league with no 3-point line is ridiculous and the fact that he led the league in FT% twice makes me think that if he had played in the modern game, he probably would have been an excellent volume shooter from deep.

I'm not ready to make a massive shift or anything, but I am moving him into my top 20 ahead of Kawhi, Bird, and Kobe for now. And honestly, there's part of me that wonders if he wasn't actually the 2nd most valuable player of the '60s ahead of Wilt. It kinda feels like if those '60s guys were playing 36 MPG with tracking data, Oscar would be the analytics darling with a much better RAPM than Wilt most years. Right now, I'd say my whole 14-20 range is pretty fluid between Wilt, Jokic, Dirk, Malone, Stockton, Wade, and Oscar. I don't really have a high degree of confidence on any of those players definitely deserving to be ranked ahead of the others.

One thing that it's incredibly difficult to find any information on for Oscar is his defense. The Backpicks project mostly estimated him as a neutral-ish defender, but also pointed out that there just isn't much information on that from which to glean anything. When I tried searching elsewhere, I couldn't find any information at all. The Royals consistently struggled defensively while he was there, but they also got significantly worse when he left and the Bucks got significantly better when he joined. What's your opinion on Oscar's defense? Is he like Steph level? A little above average on the whole, but with some weaknesses that can be attacked? Magic Johnson level where his size helps but he's overall a negative because his focus is all on running the offense? Wade level where he's a signficant positive that has a meaningful impact without being elite? Obviously, it's going to be hard for anyone to speak to it definitively, but I wonder what you think of his defense and if there's any kind of rough comp you could give to a modern player.

Oscar played most of his career with Jerry Lucas who was the prototype of a modern stretch big, not a good defender but a terrific shooter and rebounder who was possible a top 10, certainly a top 20 player in the league consistently. I don't think Garnett had anyone of that level for more than a year or two (Cassell).

I'm also not convinced Oscar would be the impact analytics god, I would guess that would favor Jerry West who adds defense to his nearly equally great offensive skills, though Oscar stays healthy. We do have more Wowy data for West who missed a lot of time.

I would also guess he's behind Russell and Wilt, maybe Thurmond too though I'm not nearly as high on Thurmond as some others. Some of that is the center oriented game of the era. From what I can tell, Oscar and Jerry had huge separation from the other best guards of the era (Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Lenny Wilkens); the equivalent of Jordan v. Drexler or more.

The Backpicks article on Oscar had an interesting blurb on Lucas suggesting he was overrated:

In ’65, despite returning the same young core, the Royals fall back to their familiar 46-win pace (1.8 SRS). Lucas missed time that year, but Cincy was actually better without him. This was a pattern with Lucas, who posted commendable stats but seemed to barely move the needle; he has one of the worst WOWY scores on record (-1.3) and WOWYR finds him similarly ineffective (ranking 559th as a neutral-impacter player). Odds are, his defensive deficiencies limited his value, and while the Royals maintained the same offensive heights as the ’64 team, they regressed defensively in ’65.

[penbeast0]

Yeah, Lucas has always been a bit of a conundrum. He checks all the offensive boxes, efficiency, floor stretcher, passing ability, rebounding, and seemed to put in the effort defensively when I watched him a reasonable amount with the Knicks (didn't see a lot of Cincinnati games). But his team results were never very impressive and I've seen the WOWY scores before. But I think that while you can blame a lot of Cincinnati's defensive issues on him, you also have to give him some credit for Cincinnati's strong offenses too. (Same thinking as for Oscar except that Oscar was definitely the man while Lucas was the #2).

[trex_8063]

Yeah, Lucas has always been a bit of a conundrum. He checks all the offensive boxes, efficiency, floor stretcher, passing ability, rebounding, and seemed to put in the effort defensively when I watched him a reasonable amount with the Knicks (didn't see a lot of Cincinnati games). But his team results were never very impressive and I've seen the WOWY scores before. But I think that while you can blame a lot of Cincinnati's defensive issues on him, you also have to give him some credit for Cincinnati's strong offenses too. (Same thinking as for Oscar except that Oscar was definitely the man while Lucas was the #2).

I tend to view Jerry Lucas like his generation's Kevin Love (efficient, floor-stretcher, passing ability, rebounding), except perhaps never improving defensively (as Kevin Love clearly did become not a total liability at every turn in Cleveland [and after]).

[Cavsfansince84]

Yeah, Lucas has always been a bit of a conundrum. He checks all the offensive boxes, efficiency, floor stretcher, passing ability, rebounding, and seemed to put in the effort defensively when I watched him a reasonable amount with the Knicks (didn't see a lot of Cincinnati games). But his team results were never very impressive and I've seen the WOWY scores before. But I think that while you can blame a lot of Cincinnati's defensive issues on him, you also have to give him some credit for Cincinnati's strong offenses too. (Same thinking as for Oscar except that Oscar was definitely the man while Lucas was the #2).

I think it may be possible that Cincy just didn't need Lucas much like the Nash Suns despite A'mare putting up great off numbers didn't need to him to be a great offense and would have been better off with a more defensive oriented big since Nash could still create great offense. So all in all it wasn't a great fit despite the great ORtg's.

[penbeast0]

Yeah, Lucas has always been a bit of a conundrum. He checks all the offensive boxes, efficiency, floor stretcher, passing ability, rebounding, and seemed to put in the effort defensively when I watched him a reasonable amount with the Knicks (didn't see a lot of Cincinnati games). But his team results were never very impressive and I've seen the WOWY scores before. But I think that while you can blame a lot of Cincinnati's defensive issues on him, you also have to give him some credit for Cincinnati's strong offenses too. (Same thinking as for Oscar except that Oscar was definitely the man while Lucas was the #2).

I tend to view Jerry Lucas like his generation's Kevin Love (efficient, floor-stretcher, passing ability, rebounding), except perhaps never improving defensively (as Kevin Love clearly did become not a total liability at every turn in Cleveland [and after]).

It still works as Lucas went to New York, took a role where he wasn't a major scoring option and wasn't terrible defensively.

[WestGOAT]

.

Since CORP(-like) metrics are basically derived from team SRS (if I understand correctly: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1197767), would (or should?) the cumulative corp of teammates for a specific season not match/correlate strongly with the actual SRS of that team during that season?

For example, let's have a look at the 2014 Spurs. According to Sansterre's overall SRS calculations, which incorporate postseason MOV to update regular season SRS (I believe) the 2014 Spurs had an overall SRS of +12.3 (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2063865). So if you would add up the CORP-value of all the 2014 Spurs players playing major minutes, would this come close to the +12.3?

I saw that you rated Kawhi as an "All-Star" in 2014, which corresponds to an individual contribution to overall team SRS of 1.5 ~ 2.
Would the rest of the squad make up ~ +10 SRS difference, if you would (have the time to) evaluate his teammates?

Spurs 2014 playing major minutes in the post-season:
Tim Duncan
Kawhi Leonard
Tony Parker
Boris Diaw
Manu Ginobili
Danny Green
Tiago Splitter
Marco Belinelli
Patty Mills
Matt Bonner
Aron Baynes

I'm intrigued because I have the feeling that the overall squad SRS won't hit 12, I might be wrong, but in that case maybe someone on that Spurs team is being underrated (unless you want to ascribe Pop some SRS-value). I'm also asking cause, I'm especially curious how you rate Duncan in 2014. I don't think you provided his evaluation, but that's probably lower than Bill Russell in 1969 who you considered a "Weak-MVP" during that season (which would be +3.5 - +4 individual SRS contribution), right?

[70sFan]

.

Since CORP(-like) metrics are basically derived from team SRS (if I understand correctly: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1197767), would (or should?) the cumulative corp of teammates for a specific season not match/correlate strongly with the actual SRS of that team during that season?

For example, let's have a look at the 2014 Spurs. According to Sansterre's overall SRS calculations, which incorporate postseason MOV to update regular season SRS (I believe) the 2014 Spurs had an overall SRS of +12.3 (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2063865). So if you would add up the CORP-value of all the 2014 Spurs players playing major minutes, would this come close to the +12.3?

I saw that you rated Kawhi as an "All-Star" in 2014, which corresponds to an individual contribution to overall team SRS of 1.5 ~ 2.
Would the rest of the squad make up ~ +10 SRS difference, if you would (have the time to) evaluate his teammates?

Spurs 2014 playing major minutes in the post-season:
Tim Duncan
Kawhi Leonard
Tony Parker
Boris Diaw
Manu Ginobili
Danny Green
Tiago Splitter
Marco Belinelli
Patty Mills
Matt Bonner
Aron Baynes

I'm intrigued because I have the feeling that the overall squad SRS won't hit 12, I might be wrong, but in that case maybe someone on that Spurs team is being underrated (unless you want to ascribe Pop some SRS-value). I'm also asking cause, I'm especially curious how you rate Duncan in 2014. I don't think you provided his evaluation, but that's probably lower than Bill Russell in 1969 who you considered a "Weak-MVP" during that season (which would be +3.5 - +4 individual SRS contribution), right?

I don't really think you can do it that easily. Even Ben mentioned that he uses portability curve for players and we have to take into consideration things like fit, coaching, off-court stuff etc. I think such lists should be used as the baseline for further discussion, not as the ultimate to rate players and analyze teams - it's not even created for that purpose.

I actually mentioned 2014 Duncan's rate before, here are the other ones I did from that team:

Tim Duncan: all-star
Kawhi Leonard: all-star
Tony Parker: all-star
Manu Ginobili: sub all-star

Diaw would be probably placed in sub all-star tier as well, Green would be on the edge of these two lower tiers (maybe also sub- all-star?).

[WestGOAT]

I don't really think you can do it that easily. Even Ben mentioned that he uses portability curve for players and we have to take into consideration things like fit, coaching, off-court stuff etc. I think such lists should be used as the baseline for further discussion, not as the ultimate to rate players and analyze teams - it's not even created for that purpose.

I actually mentioned 2014 Duncan's rate before, here are the other ones I did from that team:

Tim Duncan: all-star
Kawhi Leonard: all-star
Tony Parker: all-star
Manu Ginobili: sub all-star

Diaw would be probably placed in sub all-star tier as well, Green would be on the edge of these two lower tiers (maybe also sub- all-star?).

Not familiar with this, do you have a link on this?

[70sFan]

I don't really think you can do it that easily. Even Ben mentioned that he uses portability curve for players and we have to take into consideration things like fit, coaching, off-court stuff etc. I think such lists should be used as the baseline for further discussion, not as the ultimate to rate players and analyze teams - it's not even created for that purpose.

I actually mentioned 2014 Duncan's rate before, here are the other ones I did from that team:

Tim Duncan: all-star
Kawhi Leonard: all-star
Tony Parker: all-star
Manu Ginobili: sub all-star

Diaw would be probably placed in sub all-star tier as well, Green would be on the edge of these two lower tiers (maybe also sub- all-star?).

Not familiar with this, do you have a link on this?

It's in the thread you shared the link before.

[trex_8063]

.

Since CORP(-like) metrics are basically derived from team SRS (if I understand correctly: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1197767), would (or should?) the cumulative corp of teammates for a specific season not match/correlate strongly with the actual SRS of that team during that season?

For example, let's have a look at the 2014 Spurs. According to Sansterre's overall SRS calculations, which incorporate postseason MOV to update regular season SRS (I believe) the 2014 Spurs had an overall SRS of +12.3 (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2063865). So if you would add up the CORP-value of all the 2014 Spurs players playing major minutes, would this come close to the +12.3?

I saw that you rated Kawhi as an "All-Star" in 2014, which corresponds to an individual contribution to overall team SRS of 1.5 ~ 2.
Would the rest of the squad make up ~ +10 SRS difference, if you would (have the time to) evaluate his teammates?

Spurs 2014 playing major minutes in the post-season:
Tim Duncan
Kawhi Leonard
Tony Parker
Boris Diaw
Manu Ginobili
Danny Green
Tiago Splitter
Marco Belinelli
Patty Mills
Matt Bonner
Aron Baynes

I'm intrigued because I have the feeling that the overall squad SRS won't hit 12, I might be wrong, but in that case maybe someone on that Spurs team is being underrated (unless you want to ascribe Pop some SRS-value). I'm also asking cause, I'm especially curious how you rate Duncan in 2014. I don't think you provided his evaluation, but that's probably lower than Bill Russell in 1969 who you considered a "Weak-MVP" during that season (which would be +3.5 - +4 individual SRS contribution), right?

I don't really think you can do it that easily. Even Ben mentioned that he uses portability curve for players and we have to take into consideration things like fit, coaching, off-court stuff etc. I think such lists should be used as the baseline for further discussion, not as the ultimate to rate players and analyze teams - it's not even created for that purpose.

I actually mentioned 2014 Duncan's rate before, here are the other ones I did from that team:

Tim Duncan: all-star
Kawhi Leonard: all-star
Tony Parker: all-star
Manu Ginobili: sub all-star

Diaw would be probably placed in sub all-star tier as well, Green would be on the edge of these two lower tiers (maybe also sub- all-star?).

I rate the '14 Spurs as super-deep, but without anyone I'd rate "All-NBA" or higher.

I've done Kawhi and Duncan so far on my own CORP ratings; I rated both as "All-Star level" too.

Tony Parker I'd only give "Sub All-Star", and perhaps only barely that; maybe even award him only a halfway between Sub All-Star and Role Players. He'd come down sharply off his '13 standard, his rate of production and efficiency, his impact metrics are all notably Sub All-Star, and this in <30 mpg in rs [missed 14 games, too]; and then had his customary slump in quality during the ps. For me, it's Sub All-Star at best.

Manu I'd give at least Sub All-Star (probably even halfway to All-Star). He's got the metrics (both box-based and impact) that are consistent with All-Star [even hedging toward All-NBA], but in low minutes (<23 mpg in rs, 25.5 mpg in playoffs). It's only for that limited availability that I'd downgrade him to somewhere between All-Star and Sub All-Star.

Danny Green, Boris Diaw, and Patty Mills would ALL get at least a "Role Player" season, if not Sub All-Star [probably I'll go halfway between the two tieir for at least 1-2 of them].

Tiago Splitter and Marco Belineli would both get "Role Player" designations from me, as well. Maybe Cory Joseph, too.


I mean, they're just crazy deep: at least NINE players I'd give at least solid role player status.

[iggymcfrack]

Yeah, Lucas has always been a bit of a conundrum. He checks all the offensive boxes, efficiency, floor stretcher, passing ability, rebounding, and seemed to put in the effort defensively when I watched him a reasonable amount with the Knicks (didn't see a lot of Cincinnati games). But his team results were never very impressive and I've seen the WOWY scores before. But I think that while you can blame a lot of Cincinnati's defensive issues on him, you also have to give him some credit for Cincinnati's strong offenses too. (Same thinking as for Oscar except that Oscar was definitely the man while Lucas was the #2).

Cincinnati had it's best offense the year before he arrived though. I kinda wonder if Lucas wasn't the kind of player that would have been a very good floor raiser offensively while maybe not having much value on a team that already had the best offense in the league behind a hyper-efficient #1 option.

[WestGOAT]

I don't really think you can do it that easily. Even Ben mentioned that he uses portability curve for players and we have to take into consideration things like fit, coaching, off-court stuff etc. I think such lists should be used as the baseline for further discussion, not as the ultimate to rate players and analyze teams - it's not even created for that purpose.

I actually mentioned 2014 Duncan's rate before, here are the other ones I did from that team:

Tim Duncan: all-star
Kawhi Leonard: all-star
Tony Parker: all-star
Manu Ginobili: sub all-star

Diaw would be probably placed in sub all-star tier as well, Green would be on the edge of these two lower tiers (maybe also sub- all-star?).

Not familiar with this, do you have a link on this?

It's in the thread you shared the link before.

thanks for that, I overlooked it when I skimmed through that initial post. Portability is an interesting concept, but seems very subjective thing to determine. Do you know how Ben determined the "slope" (SRS/15, SRS/10, SRS/7) of portability curves he mentioned?

I do totally buy in on the concept that complementing skillsets can synergize, instead of simply having an additive effect (or in the case of redundant skillsets like LeBron and Westbrook have marginal effects at best), but looking back at the 2014 Spurs is really interesting, they seem like the greatest team ever with the least amount of cumulative individual impact/"talent". Despite that they are often regarded as the great teams ever. For example they were arguably more dominant than the 2008 Celtics when it comes to SRS, but at surface-level the Celtics would be considered way more loaded.

[Jaivl]

.

Since CORP(-like) metrics are basically derived from team SRS (if I understand correctly: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1197767), would (or should?) the cumulative corp of teammates for a specific season not match/correlate strongly with the actual SRS of that team during that season?

For example, let's have a look at the 2014 Spurs. According to Sansterre's overall SRS calculations, which incorporate postseason MOV to update regular season SRS (I believe) the 2014 Spurs had an overall SRS of +12.3 (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2063865). So if you would add up the CORP-value of all the 2014 Spurs players playing major minutes, would this come close to the +12.3?

I saw that you rated Kawhi as an "All-Star" in 2014, which corresponds to an individual contribution to overall team SRS of 1.5 ~ 2.
Would the rest of the squad make up ~ +10 SRS difference, if you would (have the time to) evaluate his teammates?

Spurs 2014 playing major minutes in the post-season:
Tim Duncan
Kawhi Leonard
Tony Parker
Boris Diaw
Manu Ginobili
Danny Green
Tiago Splitter
Marco Belinelli
Patty Mills
Matt Bonner
Aron Baynes

I'm intrigued because I have the feeling that the overall squad SRS won't hit 12, I might be wrong, but in that case maybe someone on that Spurs team is being underrated (unless you want to ascribe Pop some SRS-value). I'm also asking cause, I'm especially curious how you rate Duncan in 2014. I don't think you provided his evaluation, but that's probably lower than Bill Russell in 1969 who you considered a "Weak-MVP" during that season (which would be +3.5 - +4 individual SRS contribution), right?

That's not how CORP works -- CORP is supposed to approximate your value on a random team. Your actual team only accounts for 1/30 of all possible scenarios (I'd say actually way less than 1/30, ideally we'd want to mentally randomize rosters and not only teams, but yeah).

Also, SRS is not really additive that way. And there's many other considerations.