RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #28 (Charles Barkley)

[OhayoKD]

Comparing era strengths doesn't have to do anything with time machine argument and you know it.

So if you thought the players from one era would do just as well as they did in another era, you would consider that era weaker?

The scale of projection is not specified by "time machine" simply the fact it is a cross-temporal one. "Time machine"=/"transport a specific player machine

It's not aesthetic preference though.

If that is not an aesthetic preference than what is

Where does "time-machine" imply anything about the specific nature of what is adjusted for beyond "time". It's not typical to factor in racism no. It is simply cross temporal projection.

Then it makes no sense and is extremely inconsistent. Time machine should factor all factors related to different time context.

Okay? Maybe people should factor in racism, they typically don't. And, more importantly, whatever they do choose to factor in is still only relevant if you are projecting a player through time. It may be a bad use of time-machines, but a time-machine is being used.

Sure. "i don't know enough to rate properly and i prefer players i know about" is similar, though I suppose you can make some probabilistic uncertainty case(that could just go the other direction though like with russell).

Yeah and that's one of the examples.

Sure.

[OhayoKD]

I didn't specifically compare him to Harden because Harden wasn't on the board back then.

Well, now he's probably barkley's biggest threat. Seems a good time to make that case.

For starters, I'd take issue with "weaker cast". If you're talking about 2017-18, Harden had CP3, Capela(who was putting 24.8/19.4 per 100 on +9.4 rTS), two elite 3D guys in Ariza and Tucker, and Gordon off the bench with 18ppg on +2.2 rTS. I don't know that that's so much worse than KJ/Majerle/Ceballos/Dumas/West/Chambers/Ainge/etc. If anything, a lot of the coverage of the team for those couple years(16-17 and 17-18) was focused, in addition to Harden's individual offensive accomplishments, on the job Morey had done constructing that team.

was referencing 2019 here they lost by an average of 1.7 points a game to the warriors with 4 and a half games of kd. Am completely open to the idea barkley's help explains the gap in team success and then some, but that case has yet to be made.

I'm just not entirely sure what you're viewing as the gap in team success. Neither guy won a ring, and Harden never even made the Finals as the #1 guy.

I don't think its to barkley's credit the 93 suns played in a separate conference from the Bulls. And that Chicago team did alot worse against non barkley opponents than the 2018 warriors did vs not harden ones. 2018 rockets were also a better regular season team(much better at full-strength)

It seems like the team success thing for Harden is centered around the fact that he almost beat teams that were better than any Barkley faced(the 18 and 19 Warriors, maybe the 17 Spurs, maybe the 20 Lakers, though that last one was a five game series).

Well its based on harden winning a higher percentage of his games in the regular season and the playoffs for his career as well as me placing the 2018 rockets well above any chuck team on the basis of them playing the kd warriors to a dead heat(and quite literally winning the majority of games where chris paul was on the floor).

I don't think their best teams were close to each other and harden won more generally, so i think "team success" goes to harden

I guess there is merit to that argument, but I am not overly compelled by it. If you compare their overall playoff record as a #1 option, they are close. I'm defining that as Harden's Houston years(12-13 through 19-20 - KD was #1 in OKC and Brooklyn, and Embiid is #1 in Philly), and Barkley's post-Dr.J Philly and Phoenix years(87-88 through 95-96). So that's eight seasons for Harden and nine seasons for Barkley. In that time, their playoff W/L records are:

Harden: 42-43
Barkley: 34-36

So Barkley played fewer playoff games due to being saddled with a crappy Philly team, but Harden is one game under .500 and Barkley is two games under .500.

I guess that's fair. On the other hand harden played in the tougher conference and faced better opponents(2017 spurs, 2015, 2018/2019 warriors). Pair that he had a general winning advantage(playoffs and rs), and the better peak team(2018 rockets), I think harden should be considered the more successful player if nothing else.

Sure this seems fine. But if it's within range what breaks the tie for barkley here. You referenced petit as the era-relative best choice but you didn't vote for him presumably because of league-strength. Harden played in a stronger league. You referenced team success with malone, but harden was more successful.

I'll be honest - in a vacuum I'd rank Pettit higher than Barkley based on era-relativity - in fact I did in an earlier thread. But in that thread, my secondary vote for Barkley went uncounted due to a technicality. So, in the interest of not having that happen again, I am making sure my #1 vote is for Barkley.

Okay well Petit is also a poteintial thread winner and i think we were explciitly supposed to use the alternate for strategic concerns...

Also seems worth pointing out harden's best years had him staggering with similar players with similar strengths(chris paul, westbrook) which would generally suppress his rapm.

I also think we have a case of conventional box-skew here which becomes apparent iwith your series comparison

First off, that is a massive volume disparity. 6 points. Secondly turnover economy is not just a matter of assists and points. Harden was handling the ball far more than barkley was. And if we go by assist percentage we get 35%:15% and 20:6 for Barkley.

Barkley has a better ast:tov on far lower volume even if wee just go by assist% which is obviously misleading when we are talkign about harden in a system where possessions were run nearly entirely through him. Harden was also taking more difficult shots and naturally drawing more defensive attention. I don't really see how production favors chuck here, and notably Harden would proceed have to have 2 progressingly better performances the next two years, including a performance many engines already voted higher would be proud of vs an all-time great lakers defense where he was his own team's spacing more or less and his teammate was reduced to a non-factor by injury.

From my vantage point, harden flat out did more than barkley on what was a signficiantly more impressive team performance.


You say this like 35:15 is not extremely effecient and harden was not doing more than chuck before assists and points come into play. Harden was ochrestrating everything for his team offensively, chuck was not. I would take harden's "turnover economy" on 35% of his team's assists over chucks's on 20% anyway.

Your point is fair. Harden's offenses were more dependent on him. Harden is one of the most ball-dominant players of his era, maybe ever. It is worth pointing out that people have asked whether i's healthy for so many of a team's points to be generated by one guy - either directly from scoring or from playmaking. People ask the same thing about Doncic now. Wasn't one of the alleged reasons Harden wanted CP3 moved because CP3 took the ball out of his hands too much? This is neither here nor there re: Barkley, just thought it was worth bringing up

People ask that, but the best offenses ever come from magic, nash, and lebron(playoffs specific), helios who do almost everything. Those guys also see the biggest offensive splits(along with a nother helio in oscar robertson) from their teams without them, and lebron and magic are perhaps the most proven ever in being able to generate great offensive impact and results in a variety of contexts

I don't think harden does it as well, but like, they were literally beating a 73 win team that switched out a few games of iggy and barnes for kevin durant. I don't really get the point of asking that question here.

I think i could argue harden is significantly advantaged outside of the box-score though maybe you can counter with rapm and "barkley defends better", but harden did play in the better league(which seems to at least be a factor), and led better teams which were denied by injury against better opponents. I do think offense would be clearly in harden's favor from a production standpoint though. Especially under antoni when harden practically was the offense from the start of the possession to the end of it. In that context, I think you underrate how effecient he was.

"Outside of the box score", but RAPM is comparable(as you alluded to), yes, so where is the significant advantage? Also, I don't really consider "better league", I look at what a player did in the league they were in.

Well i misunderstood you not voting for petit so that's my bad. I will point out that is just one rapm set. I'd probably out more weight in however barkley looks in wowy stuff or pollock +/- though. You put more stock in rapm than i do, but i can buy barkley being a better defender/offensive rebounding bridges the gap.

I understand where you're coming from re: overall offensive productivity, but on the other hand, some people consider offensive rebounding part of offense too.

It is, but i'm not sure how big of one it is. I also think history would suggest helioing is a more reliable way to generate offensive results with different teams than offensive rebounding is.

Yep, that's fair, my numbers were wrong. It was close, but it was still vs a much weaker opponent than the kd-warriors though I imagine you are not going to dispute harden has the team-success case.

If you are still referring to the 2019 Warriors...

93 Bulls: 6.19 SRS/+6.8 Net Rtg
19 Warriors: 6.42 SRS/+6.2 Net Rtg

Seems pretty even to me. I suppose you'll point out that the Warriors numbers are suppressed because Steph and Draymond missed some time and the team was coasting, etc, but I could just as easily point out that the 93 Bulls were coasting to a degree too as the two-time champs and because Michael and Scottie had played for the Dream Team the previous summer and had had little break.

Well the Warriors have a net-rating of 8 with steph vs the bulls having a net-ratingo f 7 with Jordan. Coasting or not, the warriors best players straight up missed more games than the bull's did and were of course really good even without durant in the next two rounds.

I think they were just a flat better opponent frankly.

For me the edge between these two in particular comes down to A)I just think Barkley was a better playoff performer, as evidenced by some of the stuff above, B)As great of a scorer as Harden is, I think Barkley was better, C)For the moment, has a bit more longevity, and D)He didn't play with as much talent as Harden did(Harden had early-prime KD, early-prime Westbrook, late-prime CP3, prime Kyrie, and prime Embiid; Barkley had late-prime Moses, almost-done Dr. J, late-prime KJ, late-prime-to-almost-done Hakeem, and almost-done Drexler)

a) I mean in the sepcific series you comapred, i think the advantage is clearly harden's for reasons stated above. Not a fan of how you use turnovers here. Barkley was not orchestrating his offense throughout the possession and 35:15 is very good effeciency.

Well, that's one series. Like I said in my original post, for their careers in the playoffs, they are:

Barkley:
.193 WS/48
6.3 BPM
+4.8 TS(relative to the league average over his career)

Harden:
.172 WS/48
6.2 BPM
+3.4 TS(relative to the league average over his career)

Plus the fact their RS+PO RAPMs(via J.E.) are comparable. I am not saying it's a big gap, but that I give a slight edge to Barkley.

I don't really get throwing true-shooting in there(a component that would already be baked into a box aggregate), but sure.

b) i think i'd favor harden based on shot-difficulty and volume

I assume by shot-difficulty you're talking about Harden's range and the fact that he's hitting shots from much further away. This is a fair point, but I would argue that Barkley was a 6'4' inside scorer who had to score a ton of points against bigger and taller guys, and he did it extremely efficiently. It's a very different kind of difficulty, but it's there. I know you are not impressed with 'at that height' type arguments, so may we'll just have to disagree.

I mean it's really to me about how likely teammates were to make those shots if i took harden out of the team. I'm just trying to look at who helped their teams more/who was better at helping teams win.

As far as volume...first, here are their career PP100 for RS and PO:

Barkley: 30.2 RS/30.0 PO
Harden: 35.1 RS/32.0 PO

So Harden has a fairly big sizeable gap in the RS, but smaller in the PO.

But Harden's volume is necessarily going to be bigger because he took(and made) a bunch more threes than Barkley did. If we look at Career Field Goals Made Per 100 for RS and PO, it looks like this:

Barkley: 10.7 RS/10.7 PO
Harden: 10.4 RS/9.6 PO

So Barkley actually scored more baskets(and on higher efficiency) and held steady in the playoffs where Harden dropped a little.

(Harden does have more Free Throws Made Per 100 - 10.4 RS/9.3 PO vs 8.1 RS/7.9 PO for Barkley which is worth considering, I won't bury that.)

Well, i think it's to harden's credit he was a better three-point shooter.

c) sure
d) Listing teammates isn't a good way to do this. Harden did not play with westbrook and chris paul simulateously. It doesn't really matter he played with both. What would matter is how long he had that calibre of teammate and even then ultimately, the most important indicator is how good the overall cast is. Harden played with multiple of those teammates once when he wasn't near his best.

Put it this way - 18 CP3 is arguably better than any player Barkley ever played with, depending on how you view 85 and 86 Moses and 97 Hakeem. Same for 13 KD and 23 Embiid.

The only player you listed i see as better than "anyone harden played with" is 23 embid, and he was probably not that anyway in the playoffs with him getting injured again. 2012 KD is to me one of the most overrated individual player seasons ever, but I've already said my piece on that.

It is, but was there a player he lost to he should have clearly won against? You're saying barkley was not significantly better than harden, but barkley being near harden was always going to be a dramatic drop

At the very least, I'd have taken both Barkley and Harden over Wade. I think Harden is pretty comfortably ahead of Wade offensively and I don't know that Wade's defense makes up for it. And I'd probably have taken both over Jokic and Giannis just based on longevity.

Well you apparently would take petit over both. Petit was voted 25th last project ahead of everyone you mentioned. Even with what you were confident on, Barkley was due for a big fall.

Okay but should barkley be rated higher because of his height? Shouldn't that be applied in reverse for his weaknesses?

Also, i will point out that everyone you listed was a big-man who did not get as much help as barkley woyld have gotten in terms of teammates boxing out.

Maybe? but i think you might overvalue rebounds in terms of value.

Again, you do not appear to be sympathetic to 'at that height' type arguments, so I think we just disagree on that.

Re: applied in reverse for his weaknesses...are you suggesting that he be penalized for not being as good a playmaker as other guys his height? If so, I'd simply suggest that the number of 6'4' guys who are equally as mediocre in that respect as Barkley would outnumber the number of 6'4' guys who rebound at Barkley's rate. I.E. I think he's much more of an outlier one way than the other.

Sure, but that is kind of a prequisite for being ranked here at all.

I do wonder if your "don't adjust for height" list differs signficantly from your "adjust for height" one. Would the former see the likes of Kareem,Shaq, Duncan, or Hakeem climb? How about tweeners like Lebron?

You talked about bigger players just latently being more impactful in the #1 thread. Is your list basically "impact relative to height"?

If all it took for a height-disadvantaged player to rebound like that was for his bigger teammates to box out for him, there'd be more 6'4' guys rebounding like Barkley. I mean, I'm sure it was a factor, but let's give Barkley credit where it's due.

Sure, we can. I'm not a fan on throwing out "goat-tier" unless you think a player can reasonably be argued for #1 though

[70sFan]

So if you thought the players from one era would do just as well as they did in another era, you would consider that era weaker?

You may think that players would do the same, but things like rules or equippment etc. prevented them from reaching the full potential on the court for example. It's not my statement, but it's just an easy example.

The scale of projection is not specified by "time machine" simply the fact it is a cross-temporal one. "Time machine"=/"transport a specific player machine

Could you please stop repeating this? I haven't mentioned the "scale" of projection even once.

[tsherkin]

yeah. i imagine 90 and 91 do the heavy lifting regardless

That makes sense to me, yes. And of course, they were good postseason runs on the whole, he just trended down rather notably and wasn't a good scorer in the playoffs. Now, a series in 1990 means little enough: Jordan in the second three-peat was at or below playoff league average in scoring efficiency against all 3 Finals opponents. He was also supporting massive volume on ridiculously low turnovers, running sort of 4.5-on-5 due to Rodman (and sometimes less due to Pippen) and such, but yeah. Pippen wasn't the only one who had issues, lest I bag on him too much, and he offered a lot in terms of setting the table, keystone'g the triangle and then of course on defense, though that's another discussion.

[rk2023]

If anyone would know or remember, how did Pettit look in Moonbeam's WOWYR data-viz?

[Owly]

I don't want to talk as if I have any definitive answer here - I'm surprised by Stockton falling too.

I will say: Us having access to Stockton's +/- isn't a new thing. We've had access to most of what we currently have for more than a decade, and it's been factored in by folks who want to factor it in several projects ago.

To the extent there's new information, it's the older stuff. We got access to '90s stuff after the '00s stuff, and our early '90s & '80s stuff is still very small sample. I don't know how much this is striking any specific posters as new, but what I will say is that while the '00s stuff supported a case for Stockton > Malone, I'd say that the '90s stuff favors Malone. One might think this is irrelevant because Malone was ahead of Stockton always in this list, but speaking as someone trying to keep an open mind on stuff, I was very much looking to see whether Stockton would continue to have the edge as we went back into the Jazz Golden Age. Had I see data in a glaringly pro-Stockton direction I'd have him ahead of Malone now. Instead I'm all the more settled on Malone being the clear MVP of the team in their contending years.

So my thoughts regarding the last two comments here and Stockton generally without too deep a dive...

Big picture late career Stockton as great impact isn't new: 97-14 had him really strong.

Think I may have done the gist of this before but:
Regarding the later "90s" data as a blow for Stockton
AScreaming ... RAPM
97 NPI
Hornacek 9th 4.98
Malone 14th 4.42
Stockton 19th 3.88

98 NPI
Hornacek 24th 3.06
Malone 5th 4.63
Stockton 4th 4.72

98 PI
Hornacek 12th 4.98
Malone 8th 5.31
Stockton 7th 5.32

99 NPI
Hornacek 31st 2.49
Malone 19th 2.92
Stockton 8th 3.79

99 PI
Hornacek 20th 4.36
Malone 16th 4.58
Stockton 11th 5.14

00 NPI
Hornacek 129th 0.32
Malone 45th 1.96
Stockton 6th 4.75

00 PI
Hornacek 44th 2.61
Malone 19th 1.96
Stockton 8th 6.18

Stockton first all but once, though some are negligible ... but then '97 isn't huge. These are all rate, Stockton plays less minutes.

Mid 90s does give an advantage to Malone, but Stockton's gulf in the small sample versus 76ers data takes a big chunk out of that lead in terms of on-off across the total Pollack dataset [my calcs had JS: 10.12111492 on-off KM: 11.56766594, I can't guarantee that I didn't err there].
(and if generalized from, in a regressed to sustainable way ... and depending where your "mean" is ... could see a big boost to earlier Stockton).

Rise and fall is noisy and subject to voting pool, voting system etc. Stockton had been as low as 31st in 2011 (which would be lower in real terms now) and as high as 21st in '17 [17th in '03 isn't real terms better, I shouldn't think].

Fwiw I lean bullish versus present norms and think the rank upside could be pretty high if one is nudging him up a bit for several years.

I appreciate you fleshing out what you're seeing. I'll lay some stuff out.

I would consider the Jazz a serious contender only in the '90s. Here's the On and On-Off we have for Malone & Stockton:

Regular Season
'93-94:
Malone +7.4, +17.4
Stockton +6.4, +7.3

'94-95:
Malone +10.6, +9.6
Stockton +10.4, +6.4

'95-96:
Stockton +11.5, +14.5
Malone: +10.2, +13.5

'96-97:
Malone: +11.7, +21.9
Stockton: +8.7, +7.6

'97-98:
Malone +9.6, +17.4
Stockton +12.2, +12.4

'98-99:
Malone +10.4, +13.0
Stockton +11.6, +10.5

So in the time we have where the Jazz were an actual contender, Malone has the On/Off advantage in 5 of the 6 seasons, while always playing more minutes.

Over to the playoffs:

1997:
Malone +3.0, +26.6
Stockton -1.9, -2.8

1998:
Malone +1.7, +13.2
Stockton -1.6, -2.4

1999:
Stockton +9.3, +24.4
Malone +3.5, +15.4

Malone with the On-Off edge in 2 of 3 seasons, and by a large margin those 2 seasons. Small sample size of course, but certainly not a reason to erase the regular season trend.

Okay then, considering why we diverge in perspectives:

1. I'm making use of data from '93-94 onward while you're only counting from '96-97 onward. Makes sense why you'd want to hold of doing mid-90s analysis because we don't have the ability to do RAPM mid-90s, but it's not something I put aside.

2. I'm looking specifically at playoff +/- data while RAPMs from the time can't do very well even if the statmaker tries when you're just talking about 3 post-seasons.

3. You're focused on RAPM, which nominally a superior stat to the On & On-Off stuff I'm using, which begs further conversation.

Many have objected to my use of raw +/-, and I do get the concerns, but I do think it tells us some things RAPM doesn't. Is it better than RAPM? Nah, but none of the stats are perfect, and when we don't see alignment between the raw and the regressed, I think we really need to get an explanation for what's going on before we side with one sub-family to overturn what the rest of the data and consensus contemporary opinion was.

Don't want to/can't go deep now.

97 we know what's happening for on-off RAPM disparity: Stockton's babysitting the junk unit.

My post does include Pollack dataset. I attempted aggregate the 94-96 with versus 76ers. As alluded to, done a while ago, can't be sure it's done perfectly but I think Stockton eats back a good chunk of the 94-96 Malone lead just in those few games ... if it's broadly indicative of an earlier trend that could be a big positive for JS.

I've included 2000 because I think from it being part of AScreaming's work that data would be part that came out later.

Maybe Stockton was "fooling" short term and long term RAPM, I'm very much not the expert. My impression has been that isn't likely.

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1:

Ewing - 1 (beast)
Barkley - 5 (iggy, OSNB, Clyde, rk, trex)
Harden - 4 (AEnigma, trelos, hcl, f4p)
Pettit - 3 (HBK, Samurai, Doc)

No majority, going to Vote 2 between Barkley & Harden:

Barkley - 1 (Barkley)
Harden - 0 (none)
neither - 3 (beast, HBK, Doc)

Barkley 6, Harden 4.

Charles Barkley is Inducted at #28.



Nomination Vote 1:

Stockton - 5 (beast, iggy, OSNB, Clyde, trex)
Miller - 3 (AEnigma, hcl, rk)
Kawhi - 1 (HBK)
Frazier - 3 (Samurai, trelos, Doc)
none - 1 (f4p)

No majority, going to Vote 2 between Stockton, Miller & Frazier:

Stockton - 0 (none)
Miller - 0 (none)
Frazier - 1(HBK)
none - 1 (f4p)

Miller eliminated. Continuing Stockton vs Frazier:

Stockton - 1 (hcl)
Frazier - 0 (none)
none - 3 (f4p, AEnigma, rk)

Stockton 6, Frazier 4.

John Stockton is added to Nominee list.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Charles Barkley is Inducted at #28.

Watch on YouTube

[falcolombardi]

I was too late to vote but i would nominate reggie miller

for being an all time level playoff scorer who elevated good but not stacked casts into consistemt offensive success in the postseason on the level of the all time offensive weapons, good longevity, arguably good modern translation albeit his approach/skillset is less rare now

(if not his combination of relentless off ball motor, foul drawing, height and shooting accuracy)

[Doctor MJ]

So my thoughts regarding the last two comments here and Stockton generally without too deep a dive...

Big picture late career Stockton as great impact isn't new: 97-14 had him really strong.

Think I may have done the gist of this before but:
Regarding the later "90s" data as a blow for Stockton
AScreaming ... RAPM
97 NPI
Hornacek 9th 4.98
Malone 14th 4.42
Stockton 19th 3.88

98 NPI
Hornacek 24th 3.06
Malone 5th 4.63
Stockton 4th 4.72

98 PI
Hornacek 12th 4.98
Malone 8th 5.31
Stockton 7th 5.32

99 NPI
Hornacek 31st 2.49
Malone 19th 2.92
Stockton 8th 3.79

99 PI
Hornacek 20th 4.36
Malone 16th 4.58
Stockton 11th 5.14

00 NPI
Hornacek 129th 0.32
Malone 45th 1.96
Stockton 6th 4.75

00 PI
Hornacek 44th 2.61
Malone 19th 1.96
Stockton 8th 6.18

Stockton first all but once, though some are negligible ... but then '97 isn't huge. These are all rate, Stockton plays less minutes.

Mid 90s does give an advantage to Malone, but Stockton's gulf in the small sample versus 76ers data takes a big chunk out of that lead in terms of on-off across the total Pollack dataset [my calcs had JS: 10.12111492 on-off KM: 11.56766594, I can't guarantee that I didn't err there].
(and if generalized from, in a regressed to sustainable way ... and depending where your "mean" is ... could see a big boost to earlier Stockton).

Rise and fall is noisy and subject to voting pool, voting system etc. Stockton had been as low as 31st in 2011 (which would be lower in real terms now) and as high as 21st in '17 [17th in '03 isn't real terms better, I shouldn't think].

Fwiw I lean bullish versus present norms and think the rank upside could be pretty high if one is nudging him up a bit for several years.

I appreciate you fleshing out what you're seeing. I'll lay some stuff out.

I would consider the Jazz a serious contender only in the '90s. Here's the On and On-Off we have for Malone & Stockton:

Regular Season
'93-94:
Malone +7.4, +17.4
Stockton +6.4, +7.3

'94-95:
Malone +10.6, +9.6
Stockton +10.4, +6.4

'95-96:
Stockton +11.5, +14.5
Malone: +10.2, +13.5

'96-97:
Malone: +11.7, +21.9
Stockton: +8.7, +7.6

'97-98:
Malone +9.6, +17.4
Stockton +12.2, +12.4

'98-99:
Malone +10.4, +13.0
Stockton +11.6, +10.5

So in the time we have where the Jazz were an actual contender, Malone has the On/Off advantage in 5 of the 6 seasons, while always playing more minutes.

Over to the playoffs:

1997:
Malone +3.0, +26.6
Stockton -1.9, -2.8

1998:
Malone +1.7, +13.2
Stockton -1.6, -2.4

1999:
Stockton +9.3, +24.4
Malone +3.5, +15.4

Malone with the On-Off edge in 2 of 3 seasons, and by a large margin those 2 seasons. Small sample size of course, but certainly not a reason to erase the regular season trend.

Okay then, considering why we diverge in perspectives:

1. I'm making use of data from '93-94 onward while you're only counting from '96-97 onward. Makes sense why you'd want to hold of doing mid-90s analysis because we don't have the ability to do RAPM mid-90s, but it's not something I put aside.

2. I'm looking specifically at playoff +/- data while RAPMs from the time can't do very well even if the statmaker tries when you're just talking about 3 post-seasons.

3. You're focused on RAPM, which nominally a superior stat to the On & On-Off stuff I'm using, which begs further conversation.

Many have objected to my use of raw +/-, and I do get the concerns, but I do think it tells us some things RAPM doesn't. Is it better than RAPM? Nah, but none of the stats are perfect, and when we don't see alignment between the raw and the regressed, I think we really need to get an explanation for what's going on before we side with one sub-family to overturn what the rest of the data and consensus contemporary opinion was.

Don't want to/can't go deep now.

97 we know what's happening for on-off RAPM disparity: Stockton's babysitting the junk unit.

My post does include Pollack dataset. I attempted aggregate the 94-96 with versus 76ers. As alluded to, done a while ago, can't be sure it's done perfectly but I think Stockton eats back a good chunk of the 94-96 Malone lead just in those few games ... if it's broadly indicative of an earlier trend that could be a big positive for JS.

I've included 2000 because I think from it being part of AScreaming's work that data would be part that came out later.

Maybe Stockton was "fooling" short term and long term RAPM, I'm very much not the expert. My impression has been that isn't likely.

Appreciate the clarifications.

Re: Babysitting the junk unit. I'm aware of the argument and it could indeed explain Stockton looking worse by more raw +/- numbers.

I think what's hard for me to get passed is that the Jazz very clearly increased Malone's primacy in this time period not just in scoring but in playmaking for others, and it is the period when the Jazz truly became a contender. It is possible that what Stockton did per minutes with the lineups he was in was more impactful than what Malone was doing per minute, but it wasn't the Jazz Plan A, and opponents' certainly knew that and were scheming based on a Malone-oriented team.

I should also say that there's a lot in common here with the '04-05 thread where I'm discussing Ginobili & Duncan. I have always had similar concerns for Ginobili as I do Jazz-heyday Stockton based on their limited minutes. In that other thread I'm arguing for Ginobili to be clear - not as generally deserving to be ranked higher than Duncan, but indicating that indeed, he seems have been the MVP of the Spurs in those playoffs based on how stark his +/- advantage is.