RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #14 (Jerry West)

[70sFan]

Regarding 1960s handles - I also think that it's silly to believe that these players never carried the ball in pick up basketball. Just look at Earl Monroe clips from street games, he was way looser with his dribbling that in the NBA.

Giving Oscar or West different officiating regarding ball-handling wouldn't really confuse them. Of course they'd need some training to master new moves and it's no guarantee they'd be top tier ball-handlers, but they wouldn't need that to be elite. Ball-handling is probably the most overrated skill in basketball anyway.

[DraymondGold]

Alternative: Oscar Robertson



I've been mainly swayed by others arguments on Big O. As an alternate, I believe I could still be swayed back to West here.

West is admittedly the better defender and volume scorer (while holding efficiency), but I like the idea that Oscar Robertson was more efficient (albeit less volume) with incredible all-time playmaking.

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Spoiler:

I think Oscar has a very interesting case for the most robust skillset in the league history and I don't think anything we've seen from him in the playoffs changes that. Oscar was a massive 6'5 220 lbs man (basically a forward body) who could handle the ball against KC Jones pressure with restricted ball-handling rules, while being the best playmaker in the league history up to that point. A lot of people rave about West shooting ability (rightfully so, he was a pull-up monster) but Oscar was arguably a better shooter and the very limited shooting data from trex suggests he's actually more accurate (though it could be useless given the sample). He was less known for that because he could force the issue inside more and he was a masterful post player as well. He was also the first player ever who mastered P&R play. I mean, you can't find any weakness in his offensive repertoire.

For people unfamiliar with prime Oscar game, here are a few montages I could find at the NBA.com... which means they have full games hidden in their archives:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

. Hey ijspeelman, loving the evidence you provided for David Robinson! I'll be looking into it more when we get to the next round

Oscar definitely has a real case over West. You mentioned Oscar was more efficient with his all-time playmaking. I wanted to push back against the idea that Oscar was more efficient -- he might have been in the regular season, but I'm not sure he was if we look at the playoffs!

Playoff Efficiency (relative True Shooting %) by year:

Spoiler:

1967 Oscar: +11.5
1968 West: +10.0
1962 Oscar: +9.6
1973 Oscar: +9.3
1966 West: +9.1
1961 West: +8.8
1964 Oscar: +8.2
1964 West: +7.3
1963 Oscar: +7.3
1962 West: +6.8
1969 West: +6.1
1963 West: +5.8
1965 West: +5.0
1971 Oscar: +4.8
1970 West: +4.6
1965 Oscar: +4.1
1966 Oscar: +3.6
1973 West: +3.1
1974 Oscar: +1.0
1967 Oscar: -2.5
1972 West: -4.1

Let’s take an average. I’m not doing anything fancy like weighting by minutes or number of games, just averaging each year equally.

Overall Playoff Average:
Oscar: +5.69
West: +5.68

Top 5 runs
Oscar: +9.18
West: +8.4

Bottom 5 runs:
Oscar: +2.2
West: +2.88

I’m not seeing a super strong efficiency advantage for Oscar. He has +0.01 better overall efficiency. He does look better in his top 5 runs, but he also looks worse in his bottom 5 runs. And all 3 of his most efficient runs are on less scoring volume than *any* of West’s playoff runs ever. Speaking of scoring volume….

Playoff Scoring (Points per 75 possessions) by year:

Spoiler:

1965 West: +34.5
1964 West: +27.7
1969 West: +28.2
1966 West: +26.4
1968 West: +25.6
1962 West: +25.2
1970 West: +24.2
1966 Oscar: +24.2
1973 West: +24.2
1963 West: +23.8
1963 Oscar: +22.6
1964 Oscar: +22.5
1961 West: +20.8
1965 Oscar: +20.5
1972 West: +20.7
1962 Oscar: +20.4
1973 Oscar: +20.0
1971 Oscar: +18.4
1967 Oscar: +18.3
1972 Oscar: +14.5
1974 Oscar: +12.9

Overall Playoff Average:
Oscar: +19.43
West: +25.57

Top 5 runs:
Oscar: +22.04
West: +28.48

Bottom 5 runs:
Oscar: +16.82
West: +22.74

So West has has a significant scoring volume advantage, consistently around +6 points per 75 more.

…

All that to say, I’m not sure Oscar has much of an efficiency advantage in the playoffs. He has higher highs, but on lower volume and he has lower lows. Of course, Oscar is still the better playmaker, and West is still the better defender and off-ball player. You can still prefer Oscar for his regular season efficacy or if you think he has better longevity or health.

But I just thought it was worth pointing out that Oscar doesn’t really have an efficiency advantage in the playoffs.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote

1. Dirk Nowitzki
2. David Robinson

Same vote as the last time, just a very complete all around resume of longevity, skill translating to playoffs, portability, character, etc. and won a lot of games with non-elite secondary players most of his prime.

Nominate

1. Karl Malone
2. Kevin Durant

[ijspeelman]

Hey ijspeelman, loving the evidence you provided for David Robinson! I'll be looking into it more when we get to the next round

Oscar definitely has a real case over West. You mentioned Oscar was more efficient with his all-time playmaking. I wanted to push back against the idea that Oscar was more efficient -- he might have been in the regular season, but I'm not sure he was if we look at the playoffs!

Spoiler:

Playoff Efficiency (relative True Shooting %) by year: [spoiler]1967 Oscar: +11.5
1968 West: +10.0
1962 Oscar: +9.6
1973 Oscar: +9.3
1966 West: +9.1
1961 West: +8.8
1964 Oscar: +8.2
1964 West: +7.3
1963 Oscar: +7.3
1962 West: +6.8
1969 West: +6.1
1963 West: +5.8
1965 West: +5.0
1971 Oscar: +4.8
1970 West: +4.6
1965 Oscar: +4.1
1966 Oscar: +3.6
1973 West: +3.1
1974 Oscar: +1.0
1967 Oscar: -2.5
1972 West: -4.1
Let’s take an average. I’m not doing anything fancy like weighting by minutes or number of games, just averaging each year equally.

Overall Playoff Average:
Oscar: +5.69
West: +5.68

Top 5 runs
Oscar: +9.18
West: +8.4

Bottom 5 runs:
Oscar: +2.2
West: +2.88

I’m not seeing a super strong efficiency advantage for Oscar. He has +0.01 better overall efficiency. He does look better in his top 5 runs, but he also looks worse in his bottom 5 runs. And all 3 of his most efficient runs are on less scoring volume than *any* of West’s playoff runs ever. Speaking of scoring volume….

Spoiler:

Playoff Scoring (Points per 75 possessions) by year: [spoiler]1965 West: +34.5
1964 West: +27.7
1969 West: +28.2
1966 West: +26.4
1968 West: +25.6
1962 West: +25.2
1970 West: +24.2
1966 Oscar: +24.2
1973 West: +24.2
1963 West: +23.8
1963 Oscar: +22.6
1964 Oscar: +22.5
1961 West: +20.8
1965 Oscar: +20.5
1972 West: +20.7
1962 Oscar: +20.4
1973 Oscar: +20.0
1971 Oscar: +18.4
1967 Oscar: +18.3
1972 Oscar: +14.5
1974 Oscar: +12.9
Overall Playoff Average:
Oscar: +19.43
West: +25.57

Top 5 runs:
Oscar: +22.04
West: +28.48

Bottom 5 runs:
Oscar: +16.82
West: +22.74

So West has has a significant scoring volume advantage, consistently around +6 points per 75 more.

…

All that to say, I’m not sure Oscar has much of an efficiency advantage in the playoffs. He has higher highs, but on lower volume and he has lower lows. Of course, Oscar is still the better playmaker, and West is still the better defender and off-ball player. You can still prefer Oscar for his regular season efficacy or if you think he has better longevity or health.

But I just thought it was worth pointing out that Oscar doesn’t really have an efficiency advantage in the playoffs.

I saw the efficiency decline in the playoffs for Big O when doing my research and didn't know what to make of it honestly.

Looking further I do also see a drop in AST/36 through his stint in Cincy and a slight increase in his time in Milwaukee in the playoffs.

If I do the same exercise for West, its a bit different. I like to split West's career from 1960-70 and 1970-74. It may seem a bit arbitrary, but the second period is when his efficiency goes down and assists go up in RS. During the first period, his assists/36 stay the same from RO to PS and during the second they decrease by 1 AST/36, but he still leads the league in the play-offs so I don't know how much I take this away from him.

If I decide to incorporate more PS impact, I probably should have West ahead of Oscar (although I am sticking with my alt vote for now and West probably wins this round anywho).

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1 tally:

Oscar - 3 (AEnigma, HBK, Clyde)
West - 8 (Samurai, ltj, rk, ZPage, Gibson, cupcake, Doc, DGold)
Mikan - 5 (beast, OSNB, Ohayo, eminence, f4p)
Robinson - 5 (OaD, iggy, trelos, trex, speel)
Dirk - 2 (Colbinii, Dr P)

No majority, going to Vote 2 for West vs Mikan vs Robinson

Mikan - 1 (AEnigma)
West - 2 (HBK, Clyde)
Robinson - 1(Dr P)
none - 1 (Colbinii)

Jerry West takes it with plurality 10-6-6 over Mikan & Robinson.

Jerry West Inducted at spot #14.



Nomination Vote 1 tally:

Erving - 5 (AEnigma, Samurai, OSNB, Gibson, Clyde)
Jokic - 2 (HBK, iggy)
Durant - 4 (beast, OaD, trelow, cupcake)
Moses - 2 (ltj, ZPage)
Karl - 8 (trex, Colbinii, rk, Doc, eminence, DGold, speel, Dr P)
Paul - 1 (Ohayo)
none - 1 (f4p)

No majority, going to Vote 2 for Karl Malone vs Julius Erving

Erving - 1 (HBK)
Karl - 1 (OaD)
none - 8 (beast, ltj, iggy, trelos, ZPage, Ohayo, cupcake, f4p)

Karl Malone added as Nominee.

Karl Malone takes it with plurality 9-6 over Julius Erving.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I went through the top 50 scorers of all time and picked modern players (still playing). I don’t believe defenses have gotten better since the mid 2000s, and honestly we can just more easily evaluate how these players have gotten better or worse. These are their age 26 to 31 seasons, as well as their 4th season to their 8th season below that

You don't think defensive strategy has improved since the mid-2000s?

I feel like we went through two major defensive revolutions since the mid-2000s.

I phrased it incorrectly, what I meant to say was the defensive ability of perimeter defenders is not Substantially better/more effective than it was in the 2000s, in the sense that the rules outpaced growth and offensive strategy has far outpaced defensive strategy. I do not think it is more difficult in an absolute sense to beat your primary defender than it was in the 2000s, is mainly what I meant.

I somewhat imply It here , but yeah I could have been more clear

“ It’s a similar idea to scheme. A 2023 defense will be more adept at defending against a 2003 offense and attacking weaknesses they have in terms of not being optimized with their spacing and all of that”

[f4p]

The Talent Distribution Question or "We need to talk about Jerry and Oscar."

Spoiler:

So the horse is out of the barn for this Top 100 but perhaps this may serve as food for thought for the next Top 100. I like era-relativity. In fact, I'm about to vote for George Mikan, which makes everything I'm about to say a bit odd I guess. But as we near possibly voting for Jerry West 14th and possibly Oscar or Mikan top 16 or 18, I can't help but wonder if we're really overrepresenting the guys from the First 25. Players whose careers were complete by the time we reached the NBA 25 year anniversary (ok, really 27th anniversary going to 1974, but functional primes done by the 25th anniversary). If all 3 make it consecutively, we will have 5 "First 25" players in the top 16. That's a lot. But of course, how a lot is a lot? After all, as pointed out, these are small sample sizes and prone to lumpiness.

So first, we have to acknowledge that the NBA talent pool has grown. We can roughly just look at the league having about 10 teams for the First 25, 20 teams for the Next 25, and 30 teams for the Last 25. Just taking team-seasons as a rough estimate, we would get that the First 25 represents 1/6 of league historical talent. I say lower, and we'll look into that, but we'll go with this for now. Earlier in the thread, eminence took a crack at a distribution and came up with:

Riffing on an f4p post from last thread - how would folks estimate Star+ talent distribution across the decades?

Lumping the incomplete decades in with the others, when guys entered the league, and rounding to the nearest 4% for now, my own estimations:
'47-'59: 4%
'60-'69: 8%
'70-'79: 8%
'80-'89: 16% (feels like a very talented decade that was a a leap from those prior)
'90-'99: 16%
'00-'09: 20%
'10-'23: 28% (benefitting from the extra years a bit, if I'd stopped in '19 I might have split off 4% somewhere else)

*Noting that the '10-'23 period will be less prevalent on a top 100 careers list like we're doing due to lack of longevity vs lacking talent.

Splitting the 70's in half and going to 1974 when Oscar and West retired, we get 16%, or about 1/6. eminence was doing talent distribution but I think we can look at it as a good proxy of "For players whose career ended in year X, how much of league talent did their era represent?" Reasonable minds will disagree, but the first guess out of the box agreed with the back of the envelope. Granted, careers couldn't really "end" by 1947 so we're probably overrepresenting the First 25 again, but this is all approximation so let's do with it.

So assuming that was the distribution, how likely is it that we would see 5 out of the top 16 from the First 25? Well, doing a calculation where I just have excel generate 16 random numbers between 0 and 1, and then assign them to an era based on the cumulative historical talent to that point (i.e. 0.358 would line up with the cumulative total of 36% up to 1989 and be assigned to a career ending in 1989). So doing this 1000 times, we get an average of about 2.5 top 16 players from the First 25. We get only a 79 out of a 1000, or 7.9%, chance of seeing 5 top 16 players by random chance. Unlikely, but not necessarily statistically significant.

But what if you are like me and think we are probably at best talking about 10% of historical talent? Well, let's first take a stop by the 12.5% guess along the way (1/8 of historical talent by 1974):

That's a breakdown of:

'47-'59: 2.5%
'60-'69: 5.5%
'70-'79: 9.5% (4.5% by 1974)
'80-'89: 13%
'90-'99: 17.5%
'00-'09: 21%
'10-'23: 31% (trying to boost for international expansion)

Now we're already down to 1.9 Top 16 from the First 25 and only a 3.1% chance of 5 stars by random chance.

But what if we say all these guys aren't getting in at the Top 16. Maybe it's Top 20.

That's 2.35 Top 20 from the First 25 and 8.5% chance. so at least we're back to "not statistically significant" if they're only Top 20 and not Top 16.

But what about 10%?

that's a breakdown of:

'47-'59: 2.5%
'60-'69: 4.5%
'70-'79: 7% (3% by 1974, could probably ding the 50's harder and boost the 70's a little, but the 10% cumulative is what matters)
'80-'89: 14.5%
'90-'99: 18.5%
'00-'09: 21.5%
'10-'23: 31.5% (trying to boost for international expansion)

Now we're down to 1.5 Top 16 from the First 25 and only a 1.1% chance of 5 stars by random chance.

But what if we say all these guys aren't getting in at the Top 16. Maybe it's Top 20.

That's 1.8 Top 20 from the First 25 and 2.6% chance. so back to "statistically significant" even if they're only Top 20 and not Top 16.

I think there's a very strong chance we're overrepresenting the First 25.

But what if we're not even scratching the surface of how different the talent pool was in the past?

This is a worthwhile topic that I think people should ponder for themselves. I'm not really looking to get into it point by point, but will just say:

1. This is something that bothered me when I first started doing all-time rankings.

2. I've since further examined all of these guys, and some of them dropped like a stone on my list. It just so happens that that there are 4 guys (Russell, Wilt, West, Oscar) who don't. And so while I don't want to talk as if my view is everyone's view, I think it's important to understand that this isn't going to be a rate that continues as we go deeper in the Top 100.

3. While it seems extreme to have 4 guys born in a 5 year span back then so highly rated, I think it's important to keep in mind that there is one year that towers over all others in terms of the quantity of great players, and that year was closer to the birth year of the 4 guys in question than it is:

1963 saw Jordan, Olajuwon, Malone & Barkley, along with Mullin, Dumars, Hornacek & Porter. What are the odds that 1963 was the best year of basketball talent in history? Very, very low...but some year has to be that year, and whatever year that is, it's naturally going to beat the odds.

certainly, the odds that at least one unlikely thing will happen are pretty likely. so it's not impossible for them all to be top 20. just that it's probably worth really thinking about the fact that it's essentially a 1.1% chance, and that's with perfect era relativity and not even getting into the race thing, which is likely to drive it to much lower odds. of course my solution was to split the baby and say that it's unlikely but i don't just want to ignore the first 1/3 of nba history, so i can't say i've landed on a great answer yet.

What to do with those plumbers or "How much can we talk about race?"

So why do people make the plumber joke about the early NBA? Well, frankly, it's because they see a lot of white people. All white people in fact for the very early NBA. Heavily white well into the 60's. And well, they don't see that today. Certainly not American whites. The NBA was essentially 100% American back in the day (I'm sure there were exceptions, don't @ me) and started off all white. Based on census data for 1960 (we'll start in Jerry and Oscar's time), the population was ~180 million. Now it's 330 million. So multiply by 1.83, account for the 25% of the league that is international, throw in some increase due to money, and maybe we get a 3x-5x increase in the talent pool?

But based on an article from 2016, there were only 42 white Americans in the league in 2016. Take 450 players, lop off 120 give or take for international players, and that's 42 out of 330, or about 1 out of 8 for American players. A 100% white league is now 12.5% white from the American part of the talent pool. The census says there were ~160 million white Americans in 1960. There are 47 million black Americans today. So a population less than 1/3 of the effective talent pool population from 1960 is supplying something like 7 out of every 8 players today, in a league with almost 4 times the roster spots. The white population of America has only grown since 1960, up to over 200 million, and yet it is effectively cut off from the NBA by 47 million people. The previous leagues weren't just drawing from a smaller talent pool, they appear to have been drawing from the wrong talent pool. My 10% estimate from before is probably not even close to as severe as we should be.

Key things here:

1. By 1970 the NBA was majority Black I believe. I totally get being skeptical of the guys who exited before that time, but realistically Wilt, Oscar & West were clear cut stars until almost the very end of their careers so I don't see a logic to knocking them because of who was around when they started.

this would probably be the strongest argument for the old guys. older player A played with a young player B and looked good doing it and then older player B played with a young player C and looked good doing it so how much change could there have been? now obviously, at some point the incremental change becomes the enormous overall change but when exactly that is will be tough to say.

2. When we talk about "white Americans" there's an elephant in the room: White Europeans are thriving in the NBA at the highest of levels, and not because we found the one-in-a-billion quick twitch guy. Realistically, we have a White American problem more than a White problem in the NBA, and that's cultural.

There was a time when if you were born and raised in Indiana, you were playing basketball in your spare time as a matter of course. There was a time when Jews were seen as the minority who were so exceptional at basketball, and those who stood out within that community at basketball took it extremely seriously. Things change.

Mostly in the US nowadays, if you're White, you don't expect that there's a future for you in basketball beyond a college scholarship.

but this is arguably part of the same issue. even if we assume they did stop thinking about it as a career, white people didn't stop thinking there was a career in basketball because they don't enjoy making millions of dollars playing basketball. it would only be because the radical shift in the demographics of basketball made it evident how unlikely it was and only proves that previous demographics were just far, far, far from being optimized.

Spoiler:

There was a weird thread talking about this stuff over on the GB that talked about Kevin Love as the best White American in quite some time. Forgetting the silliness of his actual point, the thing that immediately stood out to me about Love was this:

Love's dad played in the NBA.

When your dad did a thing, and you have obvious talent for it, you're far more likely to devote yourself to it.

And this will sound self-aggrandizing, but it is what it is: Had my father been in the NBA, I expect that I'd have either been an NBA player, or been a near miss. I'm bigger than Kevin Love, I was a good shooter, passer, and ball-handler at least relative to the kids around me...and yet I never took it seriously as something I had a future in. Now, I had health problems during adolescence that are just as important as anything else when thinking about this stuff, but regardless of that, I saw my future in terms of my academic strengths rather than my athletic strengths. Had that not been how I saw my future - had my family not expected me to go to college despite none of my ancestors being college grads - I may well have spent my free time refining my basketball game.

So where does this leave us or "Should we talk about Babe Ruth?"

The short answer is "I don't know". I probably believe the "severe" case is more true than not, but is that how we want to do an all-time ranking? Babe Ruth put up enormous numbers playing in a segregated league. Of course, black players never came to dominate MLB. In fact, they seem to often lament the lack of black talent in the majors. And the influx of Latin American talent seems to be less about integration and more akin to the NBA's international expansion. But setting aside the fact the situations aren't necessarily analogous, what if they were? Could we tell the history of baseball without Babe Ruth? I don't believe so.

Would an all-time list be fun if we just wiped away a huge chunk of league history? Probably not. But I think it's worth keeping in mind and possibly making some updates. And I think, more likely than not, that 5 Top 20 players from such a radically different league with a radically different talent pool is probably exceedingly unlikely. I have a soft spot for Mikan as the NBA's Babe Ruth to some degree and so I suppose I will vote for him in this thread. But two guys who did not dominate to even remotely the same degree, from only about a decade later, guys who aren't necessarily nearly as integral to telling the entire story of the NBA, the 3rd and 4th best players from their era? Now that I've thought about it more, I'm not sure I can really see them as all being worthy of a Top 15-20 slot. A reexamination may be in order.

A wise place to end things.

I think that the place to start here with the baseball analogy is in the recognition that baseball matured earlier than basketball. It really makes sense to ask whether Babe Ruth would be a superstar in the MLB today - in a way it doesn't make sense with a basketball contemporary like the 5'11" Nat Holman.

But that doesn't NOT make me want to talk about the Holmans of the world, and we could absolutely have a project that focused on historical significance where Holman should be a lock for being in the Top 100. It's just that if we're focused on competitive ability, there's no comparison, because of the changes that have come to the game of basketball since Holman played.

Now as I say this, you're clearly implying that Ruth would NOT be able to play today so this is a source of disagreement that we can get more into. I would say that what Ruth represents is the start of power in baseball, and we know enough based on how big parks were back in the day to know that he had plenty of power by modern standards. We also know that so much of what makes a great hitter has to do with vision and hand-eye coordination, and I think this isn't something we've seen a drastic improvement on in the last century.

so i was saying i think babe ruth is actually closer to a modern player because the demographics of baseball did NOT change as drastically. now, i still think if you just dropped him in the batter's box to face his first 103 mph fastball followed by a 95 mph slider, he'd probably be woefully unprepared as time clearly marches on in all sports. but he'd basically be playing the sport he grew up with in a way that wouldn't necessarily be true of a basketball player from the 50's.

Spoiler:

By contrast in basketball what we've seen are 3 big things:

1. Taller people, and taller people getting recruited into basketball and trained to make use of their advantages.
2. Intense training to improve shooting ability particularly in the 21st century.
3. Equipment and rule changes that have allowed more reliance on dribbling, and thus encouraged the relevant training.

Of those 3, it's really only the height that puts competition between eras totally out of - literal - reach.

I think people think that the athletes of today are drastically superior compared to what came before, but I think people overestimate what's gone on here. If you had asked people whether someone who looked like Jokic could be MVP of the modern NBA before he showed up and proved he could, people would have said, "Hell no, maybe in the '50 when Mikan was doing it". Same for Steve Nash. Even the people who believe John Stockton could've been better than Nash weren't saying that Stockton was an MVP-level talent back in the '90s. Had you asked them, they'd have said, "Hell no, maybe in the '50s when Cousy was doing it."

We keep being surprised by guys today who look like guys from the '50s, and I think we need to recognize that this is happening to us, and be less certain about what we think we know. Just because things have changed, doesn't mean that the new is necessarily completely dominant over what came before.

[MyUniBroDavis]

No way I just saw tiktokkers and rec league get compared to nba players lol

[ShaqAttac]

Spoiler:

Voting Post
1. George Mikan


Mikan: before this project, i figured i'd be voting for george mikan once we got everyone else out of the way. that's what you do. you vote for all the people who have won an alpha championship, throw in some longevity guys whose careers you remember real well, and then you eventually vote for "that guy". mikan. guy who played in the 40's. with the plumbers. and not even the good plumbers.

but then you think about it, and the guy started his nba career 12 years before west and oscar. those guys played in a modern league, right? and they were nowhere close to the era-relative dominance of mikan. like, not even a little. and then you go back a little further. bill russell won a title in 1957 as a rookie, and we all just lump that in with his other 10 titles. all from the modern nba, right? and yet just 3 years earlier, mikan won a title as the best player in the league. could the league have changed that much? it's not like the league suddenly became massively more popular and money started flooding in and the 1957 talent pool swamped the 1954 talent pool.

while i do think it's reasonable to think that there was a fairly rapid increase in the league talent in the early days, it's hard to think that titles in 1953 and 1954 could really be that different from a title in 1957.

obviously, if you are going to play in the weakest era, perhaps weakest by a bit, you better absolutely dominate. and mikan does. enough that i think that's it's certainly right to start talking about him now. we are talking about west and oscar, and they are seemingly fairly distant 3rd/4th in their era. is a clear cut #1, arguably a bill russell-level winner with wilt chamberlain-level stats, from just 12 years before not better than them? there obviously isn't much to go on as far as stats or videotape for mikan, but what we do have in stats is dominant.

once they start counting minutes in 1952, which is after the lane-widening, mikan leads the league in PER for the next 3 years. actually peaking at 29.0 in 1954. he finishes 2nd, 1st, and 3rd in WS48.

in the playoffs, he leads the league in PER all 3 years. he finishes 3rd, 1st, and 1st in WS48.

in fact, in 1954, the year that is only 3 years before bill russell wins his first title, mikan sets the playoff record for PER (33.6) and WS48 (0.391), records which would stand for a multi-series playoff run until 2009 lebron. the 0.391 WS48 is just enormous. so he had the most statistically dominant playoffs for most of NBA history while winning a title, including winning as an SRS underdog in the finals against +4.3 team.

and of course, by all accounts this is the weak part of his career. from 1949-1951, he average 28.0 ppg on 41.7 FG% compared to 20.7 ppg and 38.8 FG% from 1952-1954. the league was a little faster-paced in the earlier 3 year era, but considering the gulf between these stats and given that he was leading the league in basically everything from '52-'54, he was almost certainly having the highest PER seasons in history from '49-'51. he played 40 mpg in 1952. even if we assume he played 43 mpg in 1949, 1950, and 1951, his WS48 in the regular season would beat 1972 kareem all 3 years for the nba record.

in the playoffs, the statistical difference between '49-'51 and '52-'54 is basically the same. so again, almost certainly at least in 2nd all-time in PER behind 2009 lebron and possibly in first. even if he played all 48 minutes in 1949, he would have the WS48 record at 0.420. so mostly like somewhere around 0.450 WS48 if he played 45 minutes. only 1951 shows a drop off.

and what probably impressed me the most when i started looking at numbers before this project, things that were supposed to impress me about hakeem, mikan stands out as an amazing playoff riser.

Actual Championships vs Expected Championships - 5 vs 2.31 (2.69 delta is 7th), +116% is 13th

how did this happen? well, playoff resiliency. i looked at the last project's Top 33 (just stopped at pippen due to time and less interest in the players below him) plus newer guys like jokic, giannis, embiid, and kawhi and then put in tatum and butler. i would've put in doncic but i only did ages 22-35 and doncic only had one season (though he would have led the list below).

all the data is from ages 22 to 35 and it looks at the BBRef stats PER, WS48, BPM, and TS% and compares each year to the regular season. the resilience at the end is just an average of the normalized increase/decrease for each value. +1 is a top 95% value and -1 is a bottom 6.5% value (couldn't use 5% because the lower values were so low that they were making the average season as slightly "resilient"). for playoff runs shorter than 10 games, the final value was multiplied by "Games/10" so a 5 game, 1 round playoffs would get weighed at 50%. the table is their career average (each playoff run weighed equally to essentially average your resiliency from year to year). mikan comes in 3rd behind kawhi and hakeem. so the guy who absolutely kills regular season stats also shows up as one of the great individual playoff risers ever. and he's a huge team riser as well.

Code: Select all

Rank   Player Name             Career Avg       
1      Kawhi Leonard           0.4561           
2      Hakeem Olajuwon         0.3315           
3      George Mikan            0.3246           
4      Lebron James            0.2747           
5      Bill Russell            0.2548           
6      Walt Frazier            0.2318           
7      Jerry West              0.2142           
8      Michael Jordan          0.2081           
9      Tim Duncan              0.166             
10     Magic Johnson           0.0968           
11     Scottie Pippen          0.0963           
12     Oscar Robertson         0.0865           
13     Kobe Bryant             0.0856           
14     Charles Barkley         0.0779           
15     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     0.0554           
16     Dirk Nowitzki           0.0534           
17     Jayson Tatum            0.0247           
18     Nikola Jokic            0.0205           
19     Shaquille O'neal        0.0179           
20     Moses Malone            0.0093           
21     Dwyane Wade             -0.0021           
22     Chris Paul              -0.0156           
23     Julius Erving           -0.0231           
24     Jimmy Butler            -0.0341           
25     Wilt Chamberlain        -0.0851           
26     Kevin Garnett           -0.1115           
27     Larry Bird              -0.1327           
28     Kevin Durant            -0.1435           
29     Patrick Ewing           -0.1446           
30     David Robinson          -0.1552           
31     Steve Nash              -0.1582           
32     Stephen Curry           -0.1613           
33     Bob Pettit              -0.1624           
34     John Stockton           -0.182           
35     Giannis Antetokounmpo   -0.1975           
36     James Harden            -0.1982           
37     Karl Malone             -0.2959           
38     Joel Embiid             -0.533           


the following table shows how much better a player was in the playoffs to explain how many championships they won. well, it turns out for mikan it would be a massive 13.5 wins per season or 5.0 SRS. even above hakeem.



won like russell, dominated stats like wilt, playoff riser like hakeem. at some point, winning 7 titles in 8 years, dominating basically every regular season stat that was available, dominating every playoff stat that was available, being one of the great playoff risers ever, and still basically being able to do it all within 3 years of bill russell entering the nba, tells me mikan needs to be above other players from the league's first 25 years who weren't nearly as dominant in their era.

this is cool

[OhayoKD]

Well ok, your argument has given me some food for thought, though I don't think it's quite fair to include 21 and 22 in your critique of Jokic given the teammates he was missing in those years, when I specifically left 2022 out of what I said about Giannis.

Well I included 2022 and the Boston Series for Giannis as well as two series where Giannis played through injury and missed games, so I don't think it is unfair for me to count Jokic's 21/22.

You pointed out that playoff on/off discrepancy between Giannis and Jokic, but it's nearly the only thing statistically that goes strongly in Giannis's favor.

I wouldn't say the only thing. I'll make a post giving a broader overview at some point, but based on cryptbeam's scaled apm(apparently designed to make 1-year stuff more cross comparable like ben taylor's), Gianni's 2019 scores much higher than any Jokic year and is the highest non-lebron or kg year in the data-set. It is also one of two-non lebron years in the top 7 with at least 5000 possessions played(if i was to make it top 10, there would also be 03 Duncan and 04 falls just short of 5000 possessions due to injury). I wouldn't put too much weight on this(we don't have longer time frames, and jokic/giannis have a combined 3-years showing up...) but whatever.

I also don't think Jokic coming out a bit better(and this is assuming they're all identical in terms of possessions) per-possession during a time span he played 5000 less minuites is that compelling of a case. Ditto with RPM.

RAPTOR loves Jokic, but metrics like LEBRON and Darko prefer Giannis.

Real-world impact also arguably favors Giannis with the +8 and +9 SRS Giannis led in 19/20 looking average in games without him(which would also suggest the on/off disparity is more a product of unfavorable rotations than an actual disparity in value). And I'll reiterate, one of those teams saw their srs go up in the playoffs despite playing a sandbagging toronto side that was much better than anyone Jokic's beat(or even been competitive against).

I think jokic has an arguable advantage, but I don't think it's clear-cut and ultimately Giannis's teams(largely on the strength of their defense) improve more in the playoffs. I think if you go one-year 2023 Jokic has a solid case vs any giannis stretch but i think 2019 and 2020 both have strong cases as the best rs between the too and from a purely impact perspective 2019 has a case as the best overall year with 2022 having a great playoff case.

Add that Giannis has the longevity and probably has been used less optimally and I'd prefer Giannis by impact leaving us with..,

Just looking at box stuff first:

Okay, but the issue here is that if you alter the weightings or just track different parts of the game, you could come up with endless metrics that strongly favor Giannis(just like one could do with Jokic). See: IBM

I'd say it's kind of clear per/bpm stuff underrates atg defenders and the dbpm stuff doesn't really lineup with real-world signals(check what happens to the bucks rs d-rating when giannis starts coasting in 2021 vs what happens in the playoffs. This is also true to a degree for the hybrids but(raptor aside) this is mitigated by direct rapm input. I haven't checked how it works with Jokic, but iirc Steph looks alot worse when you take out box in raptor and alot better if you only use box-lebron in LEBRON. Meanwhile defensive anchors like Lebron, Draymond, and Giannis all see the opposite effect.

So I'd be cautious just metric counting when arguing player a has "most" of the stuff. Giannis also kind of broke PIPM but the Wizards bought that so...