RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #39 (Manu Ginobili)

[trex_8063]

Thinking about my nomination vote, and wanted to pose a question. Dwight is a guy I'm considering here, but something I noticed as I took a deeper dive into his numbers, is that during his peak years - which I'm defining as his last five years in Orlando - he had a negative on/off in three out of four playoff runs(he was out for the 2012 playoffs, I think that was when he had his back surgery):

08 +8.4(10 games)
09 -12.7(23 games)
10 -3.8(14 games)
11 -1.2(6 games)

It seems especially jarring that he would have -12.7 the year the Magic went to the Finals.

Thoughts? Is there an explanation here?

The key reason is probably that Gortat was a starter caliber center playing very few minutes off the bench fresh against inferior players. In 2009 for instance, the Dwight had a NetRtg of +9.1 in the playoffs while averaging 39 MPG which is fantastic. They just did a little better in the bench minutes with Gortat. Now with that said, Dwight never had super impressive impact numbers at any point of his career. He was a poor passer with a high turnover rate and was much less of a positive offensively than his box numbers would suggest. I'd say it's still a little bit early to nominate him at this point although I do think he belongs in the top 50 somewhere.

I should point out that in the name of optimizing more around Howard they traded Gortat in '10-11. Howard still managed to have a negative On/Off in the playoffs on that team with no other real big getting major minutes, as the team lost in a pretty big upset in the first round to the Hawks.

Full disclosure here: While '10-11 was a weak year for MVP, Howard was my pick at the end of the regular season. And while Howard certainly put up box score numbers in that Hawks, I was still really disappointed.

I don't want to be too negative here - Howard was an outlier physical force without question - but I think one of the things to understand is that people at the time tended to really overrate Howard's defense. There was actual talk about whether we were watching the best defensive player in history...as a post-peak Garnett out-impacted Howard's defense as a matter of course. One aspect of this is that Howard's blocks tended to be visually stunning but dumb - he tended to block shots hard so that they flew out of bounds, and also tended to get called for goaltends on shots that literally weren't necessarily going to be made baskets.

This then to say that part of the reason why he didn't seem to show great impact relative to a starter-caliber center like Gortat, was that he wasn't actually that much more effective than Gortat like we'd expect a superstar to be.

You add that to what I mentioned earlier about him taking issue with the Magic for essentially building perfectly around him - he wanted to prove he could post-up like Shaq when that was not the right approach for him, he had big time "grass is greener" vibes when it came to daydreaming about free agency - and yeah, Howard won't be a guy I personally consider for quite a while.

Regarding Dwight's defensive impact, it's a bit of a puzzler for me because......well, I agree with basically all that you said there. He swatted shots like he was playing volleyball; he really wanted the grand-standing swat out of bounds. I remember seeing some numbers comparing peak Howard to '13 Duncan in terms of % of their blocked shots that were recovered by his team........and Duncan's % was nearly TWICE that of Howard's.

otoh, from '09 to '11 the Magic rDRTG was -6.4, -4.3, and -5.3, respectively. For comparison, those marks in '09 and '11 are better than ANY defense Hakeem Olajuwon EVER anchored. Ever.
In terms of league rank, those rDRTG's were 1st, 3rd, and 3rd.

We look at the aspects where they excelled, and it does appear to be the stuff a big-man would leave the largest imprint upon:

'09
*They were #1 in opp eFG%. Some of that is great perimeter defense, and they were 2nd in opp 3pt% while also allowing the 3rd-fewest 3PA (despite being 12th of 30 in pace). But they were also #1 in opp 2pt%.
**They were #2 in the league in DREB%.

'10
*They were again #1 in opp eFG%, and this year it seems to be entirely what's happening INSIDE the arc, because their 3pt defense was actually mediocre-poor. But they were #1 in opp 2pt%.
**They were #1 in DREB%, too.

'11
*They fall to 4th [of 30] in opp eFG% this year, though again it's mostly on the strength of 2pt defense (3pt defense is average), where they ranked 3rd.
**And they are again #1 in DREB%.


Now I look at the casts around him, and I'm wondering how this occurred if not primarily because of him. Certainly there are some capable defenders, but no real stalwarts. Perhaps the most notable defender [aside from Howard himself] is Rashard Lewis (who misses most of the year in '11, btw).
Not to mention, we see a fair amount of flux in the cast around him, either due to trades or injuries:
*Just about the only guys around consistently in that timeframe were Jameer Nelson and JJ Redick; Redick is a weak defender, and Nelson missed half the year in '09 (and 17 games in '10). Otherwise......
**Hedo Turkoglu was around in '09 and most of '11, but had been traded to Toronto for '10 (and start of '11).
***Vince Carter was around for '10 and early '11 only.
****Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston made up significant portions of the backcourt minutes in '09 only (otherwise were gone).
*****Tony Battie [good defender] was around in '09 only.
******Ryan Anderson [not a good defender in my memory] was around for '10 and '11, but not '09.
*******Matt Barnes [who could be a scrappy defender] was around in '10 only.
********Mickael Pietrus was around in '09 and '10, though only the first few games of '11; same for Marcin Gortat.
*********Brandon Bass was around in '10 and '11 only.

So the rest of the cast saw a fair amount of flux; yet they were consistently elite defensively.


My tentative final impression is that, despite his stupid swatting style of shot-blocking, he was a very effective deterant and/or changer of shots; he was ultra-elite on the defensive glass; and I recall him being a pretty capable pnr defender (his positioning and footwork weren't the greatest, but he was so physically gifted that his recovery was excellent). Added together, it was a potent defensive package. He likely had the physical gifts to BE a GOAT-tier defender, but lacked the smarts to reach those heights. But he was still ultra-elite.


Offensively, yeah, he really had an ideal style built around him in Orlando (with the "four out" casts). The synergy was great because his athleticism lent itself to being a roll-man, really helping the pnr game; and he DID have a ton of interior gravity (sort of like Shaq back in the day): defenses kinda collapsed on him, really opened things up for the shooters. And if he got the ball deep it was game over. Just a monstrous finisher, who basically averaged 10+ FTA/game for five straight years.

His major weaknesses were (as has been stated): poor turnover economy, and a lack of passing ability.


I'd still put his peak in the same neighborhood as centers like Patrick Ewing and Artis Gilmore. It's mostly the longevity of impact which puts those two ahead of him for me.

[MrLurker]

I think Dwight is greatly underrated by most. I am not sure where he will land - or where he should land - but it's nice to see sobriety in this conversation.

[Joao Saraiva]

Vote Manu Ginobili

Manu played less minutes, so his totals are less impressive. But I believe he's the best player available. Given the success of the franchise for so long I can excuse a bit the lower minutes, since he did that contribution for a very long time.

Can't remember who posted it but data suggests the Spurs offense was at his best even in 05 and 07 when Manu initiated offense as opposed to Duncan.

He was a versatile efficient scorer, a very good playmaker and a fantastic player creating space.

While he wasn't the same defender as Kidd I'd argue his offensive impact was bigger, even tough I have Kidd in high regard too.

Alternate Kidd

Nomination Dwight Howard

[Clyde Frazier]

Thinking about my nomination vote, and wanted to pose a question. Dwight is a guy I'm considering here, but something I noticed as I took a deeper dive into his numbers, is that during his peak years - which I'm defining as his last five years in Orlando - he had a negative on/off in three out of four playoff runs(he was out for the 2012 playoffs, I think that was when he had his back surgery):

08 +8.4(10 games)
09 -12.7(23 games)
10 -3.8(14 games)
11 -1.2(6 games)

It seems especially jarring that he would have -12.7 the year the Magic went to the Finals.

Thoughts? Is there an explanation here?

The key reason is probably that Gortat was a starter caliber center playing very few minutes off the bench fresh against inferior players. In 2009 for instance, the Dwight had a NetRtg of +9.1 in the playoffs while averaging 39 MPG which is fantastic. They just did a little better in the bench minutes with Gortat. Now with that said, Dwight never had super impressive impact numbers at any point of his career. He was a poor passer with a high turnover rate and was much less of a positive offensively than his box numbers would suggest. I'd say it's still a little bit early to nominate him at this point although I do think he belongs in the top 50 somewhere.

I should point out that in the name of optimizing more around Howard they traded Gortat in '10-11. Howard still managed to have a negative On/Off in the playoffs on that team with no other real big getting major minutes, as the team lost in a pretty big upset in the first round to the Hawks.

Full disclosure here: While '10-11 was a weak year for MVP, Howard was my pick at the end of the regular season. And while Howard certainly put up box score numbers in that Hawks, I was still really disappointed.

I don't want to be too negative here - Howard was an outlier physical force without question - but I think one of the things to understand is that people at the time tended to really overrate Howard's defense. There was actual talk about whether we were watching the best defensive player in history...as a post-peak Garnett out-impacted Howard's defense as a matter of course. One aspect of this is that Howard's blocks tended to be visually stunning but dumb - he tended to block shots hard so that they flew out of bounds, and also tended to get called for goaltends on shots that literally weren't necessarily going to be made baskets.

This then to say that part of the reason why he didn't seem to show great impact relative to a starter-caliber center like Gortat, was that he wasn't actually that much more effective than Gortat like we'd expect a superstar to be.

You add that to what I mentioned earlier about him taking issue with the Magic for essentially building perfectly around him - he wanted to prove he could post-up like Shaq when that was not the right approach for him, he had big time "grass is greener" vibes when it came to daydreaming about free agency - and yeah, Howard won't be a guy I personally consider for quite a while.

I'm a little confused. I happen to adamantly agree Dwight should've won MVP in 2011. Yet you seem quite down on him otherwise. Do you just think it was that weak of an MVP year, or that he peaked highly and the rest of his prime doesn't compare?

I do tend to think the general public underrates Dwight because he wasn't overly skilled offensively, he hasn't been particularly likable over the last several years, and he did have a short-ish prime. That said, I'm not ready to nominate him either.

[Joao Saraiva]

I think Dwight is greatly underrated by most. I am not sure where he will land - or where he should land - but it's nice to see sobriety in this conversation.

I wanted to vote for him.. unfortunately he's not been nominated yet.

[Samurai]

Vote for #39: Artis Gilmore. Gotta admit that when I watched him play, I was never a big Gilmore fan. And I admit that in his later years, he was largely immobile and deserved his moniker of Rigor Artis. But in his prime, he was a very good center. In his prime, he had a decent array of moves in the low post to get his (very) high percentage shots off, whereas in his later years he was largely limited to putbacks and dunks. He was a solid defender (four time All ABA Defensive First Team and once on the All NBA Defensive Second Team), a very strong rebounder and excellent screen setter. To my eyes, he was the strongest player in the game during the post-Wilt and pre-Shaq years. He won a ring in 75, was the Playoffs MVP that year, league MVP in 72, and made 11 All Star games in his 18-year career.

Alternate vote: Elgin Baylor. Baylor was more highly regarded in his day than he is now. Back then when more advanced stats were unheard of and points were king, he was considered one of the very best in the game since he was a great volume scorer. Now we can look at his stats and realize he was not a particularly efficient shooter and in hindsight it would have made more sense to have West be the primary alpha on offense rather than splitting that role with Baylor. But we're getting to the point in looking at the others not yet nominated that Baylor deserves a mention. He was a ten-time All NBA First Team member, finished in the top 5 in points/game 8 times, and an excellent rebounder with 8 top ten finishes in rebounds/game. And while not known as much for his playmaking as his scoring, he still had 6 top ten finishes in assists/game. In the days before Dr J and long before MJ, Baylor was a pioneer in combining strength with grace, hops and that seemingly impossible trait of "hanging in the air" longer than what many deemed possible. I only saw Baylor play live after injuries took away much of his earlier athleticism, so the "magic" of Baylor was more what my dad would tell me about how incredible he was in his younger days. When my dad saw Dr J, and later Jordan, he felt he was seeing a younger Baylor reincarnated.

Nomination: Dwight Howard. If I were starting a team, I am not sure who I would draft first between Howard and Gilmore. But since it is very close for me, it only feels right that if Artis is now one of the nominees that Dwight should be as well. DPOY for three consecutive years should be reason enough. But he was also an elite rebounder, leading the league in rebounds/game 5 times and finished in the top ten 13 times. Averaged 20+ points/game 4 times and finished in the top twenty in TS% 9 times despite being a poor FT shooter. He has had some durability issues with injuries, his propensity to draw technicals isn't helpful and he brings some locker room drama, all of which has kept me from nominating him thus far. But I think we are at a point where he deserves some consideration.

Alternate nomination: Dolph Schayes. While admittedly not anywhere close to an expert on 50's basketball, I viewed Schayes as a tier below Pettit. Looking at it more closely, I still view Pettit as the better player but it is closer than I had assumed. 12-time All NBA player (6 of them as First Team member), won a ring in 55, 11-times finished in the top 20 in TS% (no doubt helped by his elite FT shooting), 7 times top 20 in assists, 11 times finished in the top ten in points/game, and 11 times in the top ten in rebounds/game. He even led the league in rebounds in 51, ahead of a prime George Mikan. What I find most interesting is how he made himself from a good to elite FT shooter. With a standard rim being 18 inches and the basketball 10 inches, he concocted a special 14 inch rim and placed it inside a standard rim. He used that to practice his FT's, figuring if he could make it on a much smaller rim he should have no trouble shooting it through a regular rim. He also developed an unusually high arc on his shot to improve his chances of making it through the 14-inch rim. It worked. In his first 2 seasons he shot 75%and 77% from the line. After that, he never shot below 80% for the rest of his career, leading the league 3 times and shooting over 90% several times. Many players had more athleticism as he wasn't known for his quickness or hops; could only imagine how much greater those superior athletes could have been if they had that kind of dedication to turn themselves from a 75% FT shooter into a 90% shooter.

[MrLurker]

I think Dwight is greatly underrated by most. I am not sure where he will land - or where he should land - but it's nice to see sobriety in this conversation.

I wanted to vote for him.. unfortunately he's not been nominated yet.

Who are you currently considering - not a voter but I do like Davis

[Doctor MJ]

The key reason is probably that Gortat was a starter caliber center playing very few minutes off the bench fresh against inferior players. In 2009 for instance, the Dwight had a NetRtg of +9.1 in the playoffs while averaging 39 MPG which is fantastic. They just did a little better in the bench minutes with Gortat. Now with that said, Dwight never had super impressive impact numbers at any point of his career. He was a poor passer with a high turnover rate and was much less of a positive offensively than his box numbers would suggest. I'd say it's still a little bit early to nominate him at this point although I do think he belongs in the top 50 somewhere.

I should point out that in the name of optimizing more around Howard they traded Gortat in '10-11. Howard still managed to have a negative On/Off in the playoffs on that team with no other real big getting major minutes, as the team lost in a pretty big upset in the first round to the Hawks.

Full disclosure here: While '10-11 was a weak year for MVP, Howard was my pick at the end of the regular season. And while Howard certainly put up box score numbers in that Hawks, I was still really disappointed.

I don't want to be too negative here - Howard was an outlier physical force without question - but I think one of the things to understand is that people at the time tended to really overrate Howard's defense. There was actual talk about whether we were watching the best defensive player in history...as a post-peak Garnett out-impacted Howard's defense as a matter of course. One aspect of this is that Howard's blocks tended to be visually stunning but dumb - he tended to block shots hard so that they flew out of bounds, and also tended to get called for goaltends on shots that literally weren't necessarily going to be made baskets.

This then to say that part of the reason why he didn't seem to show great impact relative to a starter-caliber center like Gortat, was that he wasn't actually that much more effective than Gortat like we'd expect a superstar to be.

You add that to what I mentioned earlier about him taking issue with the Magic for essentially building perfectly around him - he wanted to prove he could post-up like Shaq when that was not the right approach for him, he had big time "grass is greener" vibes when it came to daydreaming about free agency - and yeah, Howard won't be a guy I personally consider for quite a while.

Regarding Dwight's defensive impact, it's a bit of a puzzler for me because......well, I agree with basically all that you said there. He swatted shots like he was playing volleyball; he really wanted the grand-standing swat out of bounds. I remember seeing some numbers comparing peak Howard to '13 Duncan in terms of % of their blocked shots that were recovered by his team........and Duncan's % was nearly TWICE that of Howard's.

otoh, from '09 to '11 the Magic rDRTG was -6.4, -4.3, and -5.3, respectively. For comparison, those marks in '09 and '11 are better than ANY defense Hakeem Olajuwon EVER anchored. Ever.
In terms of league rank, those rDRTG's were 1st, 3rd, and 3rd.

We look at the aspects where they excelled, and it does appear to be the stuff a big-man would leave the largest imprint upon:

'09
*They were #1 in opp eFG%. Some of that is great perimeter defense, and they were 2nd in opp 3pt% while also allowing the 3rd-fewest 3PA (despite being 12th of 30 in pace). But they were also #1 in opp 2pt%.
**They were #2 in the league in DREB%.

'10
*They were again #1 in opp eFG%, and this year it seems to be entirely what's happening INSIDE the arc, because their 3pt defense was actually mediocre-poor. But they were #1 in opp 2pt%.
**They were #1 in DREB%, too.

'11
*They fall to 4th [of 30] in opp eFG% this year, though again it's mostly on the strength of 2pt defense (3pt defense is average), where they ranked 3rd.
**And they are again #1 in DREB%.


Now I look at the casts around him, and I'm wondering how this occurred if not primarily because of him. Certainly there are some capable defenders, but no real stalwarts. Perhaps the most notable defender [aside from Howard himself] is Rashard Lewis (who misses most of the year in '11, btw).
Not to mention, we see a fair amount of flux in the cast around him, either due to trades or injuries:
*Just about the only guys around consistently in that timeframe were Jameer Nelson and JJ Redick; Redick is a weak defender, and Nelson missed half the year in '09 (and 17 games in '10). Otherwise......
**Hedo Turkoglu was around in '09 and most of '11, but had been traded to Toronto for '10 (and start of '11).
***Vince Carter was around for '10 and early '11 only.
****Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston made up significant portions of the backcourt minutes in '09 only (otherwise were gone).
*****Tony Battie [good defender] was around in '09 only.
******Ryan Anderson [not a good defender in my memory] was around for '10 and '11, but not '09.
*******Matt Barnes [who could be a scrappy defender] was around in '10 only.
********Mickael Pietrus was around in '09 and '10, though only the first few games of '11; same for Marcin Gortat.
*********Brandon Bass was around in '10 and '11 only.

So the rest of the cast saw a fair amount of flux; yet they were consistently elite defensively.


My tentative final impression is that, despite his stupid swatting style of shot-blocking, he was a very effective deterant and/or changer of shots; he was ultra-elite on the defensive glass; and I recall him being a pretty capable pnr defender (his positioning and footwork weren't the greatest, but he was so physically gifted that his recovery was excellent). Added together, it was a potent defensive package. He likely had the physical gifts to BE a GOAT-tier defender, but lacked the smarts to reach those heights. But he was still ultra-elite.


Offensively, yeah, he really had an ideal style built around him in Orlando (with the "four out" casts). The synergy was great because his athleticism lent itself to being a roll-man, really helping the pnr game; and he DID have a ton of interior gravity (sort of like Shaq back in the day): defenses kinda collapsed on him, really opened things up for the shooters. And if he got the ball deep it was game over. Just a monstrous finisher, who basically averaged 10+ FTA/game for five straight years.

His major weaknesses were (as has been stated): poor turnover economy, and a lack of passing ability.


I'd still put his peak in the same neighborhood as centers like Patrick Ewing and Artis Gilmore. It's mostly the longevity of impact which puts those two ahead of him for me.

So your logic in general makes sense but I think you'll find that Howard's DReb impact is quite mild when looking at regression data. I'll have to try to find something that gives that data, but that was my impression at the time.

Here's the general thing: You don't get great defensive rebounding as a team by having explosive guys who jump out of the gym, you get it when you have a good team plan for preventing opponents from getting offensive rebounds. Offensive rebounding is the place where explosive guys really helps - and it's thus the place where young bigs oftentimes have their impact - because the defense inherently has better position, and so great athleticism can help you beat the odds.

The goal of defensive rebounding is just about control the territory where the rebound is most likely to go by walling off offensive players who crash the boards.

This is not to say that having an explosive big go for the defensive rebound is a bad thing, but you don't want all your guys doing that. You want most your players to be either boxing out, or sprinting down the court to be transition targets.

In the case of the Magic specifically, aside from regression data we can hopefully find, I think it's worth noting how the Magic looked after Dwight left. Notice that even though the team basically started from scratch with both core and coach, and the team on the whole looked like a tanking team, they still had a DReb% almost as good as they had previously. That's not proof that Dwight wasn't valuable on the defensive boards, but it does make one ask: If the previous Magic were great on the defensive boards because of Dwight, then who was "the new Dwight"? If there is such an answer, it's Vucevic, but of course Vooch didn't ever have a body like Dwight so if he is "the new Dwight" on the defensive boards, we have to ask what that even means.

In terms of explaining the great Orlando Magic defense with Dwight, I'd point out that in Dwight's final year in Orlando, the team defense was actually mediocre. Now, Dwight's defensive On/Off that year looks good so I'm not saying he was doing nothing, only that we have plenty of evidence that it really was a team effort that was creating the great team defense previously.

I'm not looking to suggest Howard wasn't the defensive MVP of the team, but suffice to say, I do think other guys were important to making the Magic defensive special when it was truly special.

[OhayoKD]

Vote
1. Artis Gilmore

One and Done made a good case:

Spoiler:

I think it’s almost time to vote for Gilmore.

Unlike fellow MVP and 11 time-star Pettit, Gilmore led his team to a title in a much tougher league. The ABA in 1975 was probably stronger than the NBA. Gilmore has a skill set that would absolutely translate today. When I look at Gilmore, I see a guy who physically resembles a stronger, slightly shorter version of Kareem. His huge arms and relative fluidity would make him an excellent rim-roller, who in a pinch could score in other ways in and around the rim. His short jump shots and hook look surprisingly clean, even if I don’t know how often they went in.

It’s easy to look on youtube and find extensive footage of Artis dunking on Kareem and playing great against the showtime Lakers, on just horrible Chicago teams that clearly didn’t put anything much around him. There’s even a game of the NBA stars against the ABA stars, where Gilmore matches up very well physically with 1972 Wilt. If we were in the top 10 that would mean nothing, but we’re now nominating people who will be 30 or higher all-time.

Statistically, Gilmore compares favourably to say Moses, who is already in.

Moses per 100 from 1979-84: 31.6/18.2/2, 2 blks, 115 Ortg/103 Drtg, 578 TS%
Gilmore per 100 from 1975-79: 27.5/17.1/3.4, 3 blks, 113 Ortg/97 Drtg, 601 TS%

Yeh, Moses scores a bit more, because of a play style he wouldn’t be able to replicate today. Otherwise though I’m not seeing much difference between him and Gilmore, except Gilmore’s style would be even more valuable today, and his team mates and situation was in general far worse than Moses. Moses doesn’t even really have Gilmore beat on longevity. Gilmore played 1329 games and was an all-star still at age 36. Moses last all-star season was at age 33, and if we take away his completely irrelevant final 3 seasons he drops from 1455 games down to 1372 games, though I guess Gilmore’s last few seasons weren’t terribly relevant either. Moses has maybe more longevity, depending on how you look at it, because he started earlier. But it’s not enough to matter.

I am more impressed by Gilmore than I am with guys like Ewing or Stockton, the latter wasn’t even a real star. The former seems to be perpetually overrated. Gilmore wishes he had all the help Ewing did.

2. Rick Barry

-> Good longevity
-> Led a champion

Not really the best player left, but his longevity is good enough here I think

Nomination

1. Westbrook

Honestly weird he hasn't gotten discussion yet(and now that I think about he probably should have already been inducted by now)

but whatever, let's get this going

-> All-time Creator with all-time playoff elevation and all-time playoff impact
-> Was the most valuable piece on a team that thumped a 67-win team and took a 73-win team to 7, probably the best playoff performer in 2014 on a team which pushed the tiki-taka spurs without their best defender
-> Track-record of elevating against better opponents
-> Excellent cultural figure/teammate by all accounts, something which he leveraged to help OKC sign Paul George to a long-term contract, something they are still benefitting from
-> Great RS floor-raiser, 45-wins(full-strength) without KD with OKC's shallowest cast in 2015, and 2017 was even better
-> Saw a +9 srs team in 2013 turn into something like a +3 one when he was hurt
-> Excellent clutch player
-> Underrated longetivity, has been an elite playoff creator as early as 2010(when he elevated vs the eventual champions as he tends to do), had a strong 2023

Alt-nomination

2. Draymond

Will get into this more but he has the leas empirical question marks than Manu, the better real-world profile, arguably better RAPM/plus-minus, is more proven without Steph, and I'd say has the best series performance in the 2016 finals.

An important point to consider I think when using finals +/- is that Draymond has generally ran into much better finals opponents. Have not done it with the celtics(though I imagine they'd look good), but every other finals opponent Draymond has run into entered with a higher rolling srs/psrs than any finals opponent Manu has run into. The weakest, the 2015 cavs, came off a series where they performed at +16 vs the hawks with kyrie barely playing and no kevin love.

[Doctor MJ]

So, pertaining to Dwight Howard's defensive rebounding, I went to look at nbashotcharts, and found that the site is no longer up going forward, but you can still download the old data which goes back to 2011.

With this in mind, if I do a sorting of the top guys by regressed defensive rebounding from 2011 to 2016, and then I only mention guys who show up in bkref's top minutes guys first page (top 200) from '11-12 to '15-16, which I'm guessing is the same thing, here's the leaderboard:

1. Omer Asik 3.33
2. Zaza Pachulia 2.37
3. Ian Mahinmi 2.35
4. Nene 2.27
5. Nikola Vucevic 1.98

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 0.91

If I do the same for offensive rebounding:

1. Kenneth Faried 4.75
2. Andre Drummond 3.94
3. Zach Randolph 3.51
4. Joakim Noah 3.03
5. Al-Farouq Aminu 2.99

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 1.86

This isn't the data I recalled from years back - that was about years more in Howard's prime, but it definitely goes along in the general direction of what I was thinking.

The guys who top out the defensive rebounding progressions aren't generally guys with jump-out-the-gym athleticism, while on offensive rebounding, they often are. (Shout out to Randolph, he of the legendary Z-Bound getting his own misses and turning them into makes, as one type of exception to this rule.)

Because I was curious, here's how those numbers for the last multi-year swath I see, once again Top 200 in minutes, this time '20-21 to '22-23:

Defensive Rebounding:
1. Jusuf Nurkic 3.02
2. Nikola Jokic 2.50
3. Al Horford 2.17
4. Ivica Zubac 1.99
5. Kawhi Leonard 1.97

Offensive Rebounding:
1. Steven Adams 5.09
2. Clint Capela 4.75
3. Kevon Looney 4.24
4. Robert Williams 3.69
5. Jonas Valanciunas 3.68

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Induction Vote 1: Manu Ginobili

Induction Vote 2: Rick Barry

Nomination Vote 1: Dolph Schayes

Nomination Vote 2: Dwight Howard

I am voting strategically here. I was having a very difficult time choosing between Barry, Baylor, and Manu, but it looks like it's coming down to Manu and Gilmore(I believe my vote is going to tie it, with second votes considered), and between those two it's an easy decision for me.

I understand the arguments for Gilmore - the longevity, the efficiency, the defense. But his NBA playoff career is so underwhelming that I have a hard time getting past it. Granted - as I've said before - he came into a bad situation in Chicago, suffering two first-round losses. But then he gets to San Antonio; the year before he arrived in San Antonio, the Spurs were eliminated in the WCF by the Lakers; his first year in San Antonio, the result was the same - the Spurs were eliminated in the WCF by the Lakers. In Gervin's final year with the Spurs, and in Gilmore's first year there post-Gervin, the team was eliminated in the first round both times.

The Bulls did see some real lift when Gilmore first arrived there in 1977, going from cellar dweller to first-round elimination, but for as good as his statistics and longevity are, it just seems like he wasn't a very effective ceiling raiser in the NBA, and his NBA playoff performances didn't seem to make a big impact.

Perhaps I'm not giving his ABA title enough credit.

Manu, on the other hand...by both impact metrics and eye test, Manu was indispensable to three title teams - yes, in addition to 2005 and 2007, I think he still mattered that much in 2014 - he was #2 on the Spurs in on/off in the playoffs that year, and #1 was Aron Baynes who played much less(101 minutes to Manu's 586).

As for nominations - as good as his metrics are, I remain unconvinced that Draymond could ever be a #1 on title team, whereas Schayes was just that, and Dwight - even with my misgivings about his playoff on/off numbers, limited skill as a scorer, and lack of competitive spirit, showed that you could build a real contender around him as the #1 in his peak years. I'm not entirely comfortable putting someone who I don't believe could be a #1 option over guys who have proven they are(or at least gotten close). For this reason, since the three of these guys are currently tied, I'm giving my support to Schayes and Dwight over Draymond.

[OhayoKD]

Induction Vote 1: Manu Ginobili

Manu, on the other hand...by both impact metrics and eye test, Manu was indispensable to three title teams - yes, in addition to 2005 and 2007, I think he still mattered that much in 2014 - he was #2 on the Spurs in on/off in the playoffs that year, and #1 was Aron Baynes who played much less(101 minutes to Manu's 586).

As for nominations - as good as his metrics are, I remain unconvinced that Draymond could ever be a #1 on title team, whereas Schayes was just that, and Dwight - even with my misgivings about his playoff on/off numbers, limited skill as a scorer, and lack of competitive spirit, showed that you could build a real contender around him as the #1 in his peak years. I'm not entirely comfortable putting someone who I don't believe could be a #1 option over guys who have proven they are(or at least gotten close). For this reason, since the three of these guys are currently tied, I'm giving my support to Schayes and Dwight over Draymond.

Voting for Manu and then questioning whether Draymond could be the #1 on a title team is very weird to me. Draymond archetypes(as well as worse versions of that arcehtype like ben wallace) have arguably or clearly been the #1 on title teams and have even at points been arguably #1 in the league(walton, russell). Where are the manu analogs? Had the Warriors facing a +14 opponent in the 2016 Cavs won game 7, Draymond would have been the #1 on the title team so I don't really get how this is even a question.

Also...

If people want to use longeitvity/a possible higher cieling to favor manu, fine. But as far as uncertainly/noise/floor goes, manu is a much bigger question mark than draymond and I'm not really sure how that's up for dispute. Draymond looks like a superstar by wowy in the rs(tiny 2 game sample but since people use it for manu, playoffs too), Manu does not. Draymond was playing comparable minutes with and without Steph and overall(sometimes even more), Manu was not.

Manu's case is substantially more "theoretical" than Draymond and there is a lot less correlation with his style of play and championships or impact.

Draymond is the sure thing. Manu is the wild card. Not sure how one justifies framing it the other way around.

On a separate note, I'm curious why you aren't considering Rick Barry. He seems like a viable winner here and led a team to a title.

[HeartBreakKid]

Vote is for Anthony Davis - Anthony Davis has an amazing combination of efficiency and defense. It took a few years for his defense to catch up to his scoring but it is still quite monstrous and one of the best of his generation. He is a rather diverse player for someone who is primarily an off ball guy. He can pull up from far away, play off the catch, pick and pop, or finish at the rim at an incredible rate. His career is disjointed with injuries as well as an unfortunate sit out situation due to wanting to leave NO. I think he is simply a higher level players than most of the guys left.

My alternate vote is for Manu Ginobili – I think he could have played more minutes even if the sacrifice was perhaps missing a few more games. He is likely just an example of many other stars who probably should have been used off the bench. He does everything at an all-nba level just about. There isn’t really a real weakness to his game as an SG other than lack of sample size due to minutes and perhaps not being able to see what he can do with a team of his own. He seems way more efficient and probably a better shooter than a guy with the shooting reputation in Rick Barry. He is a comparable playmaker, perhaps even more dynamic than Rick and certainly ahead of Baylor and Gilmore.


My nomination is for Willis Reed - Arguably just as good as Frazier albeit his career feels even shorter.

My alternate nomination is for Kevin McHale – A lot of what I said with Davis applies to McHale. Great combination of hyper efficient scoring and good defense. His defense has less data to back up and he doesn’t seem like he is a true anchor, so that is why I haven’t vote for him earlier. His scoring is quite legendary, but he suffers from a similar situation as Manu in that he didn’t really have his own team for most of his career, and maybe the one season where he did his efficiency was still insane but his volume wasn’t much better. I don’t believe he was a blackhole, just he was so good at scoring there wasn’t much reason to pass, but lack of playmaking comparably does make him seem one dimensional albeit his game has a lot of nuance to it.

[f4p]

Induction Vote 1: Manu Ginobili

I think he had higher level impact than some of the people voted above him and I wanted to vote him higher but the minutes are enough of a problem that this seems about right for Ginobili. This is somewhat the opposite of the John Stockton question, where you ask how can two teammates both be ranked so high if they never won. Well, how can the second best Spur not be ranked highly if they won so much. Since I'm not very high on Tony Parker, the answer would seem to be that Ginobili is really, really good (and so was Pop). He was always the Spur I feared with the ball in his hands down the stretch of big playoff games. He was basically good at every facet of basketball, with no real exploitable weaknesses, and he was fearless and clutch and seemed to be about as perfect and selfless a teammate as there is. Impact numbers off the chart, a 2005 playoff run with absolutely crazy stats, 4 titles and was still very good on the 2014 team.

[trex_8063]

So, pertaining to Dwight Howard's defensive rebounding, I went to look at nbashotcharts, and found that the site is no longer up going forward, but you can still download the old data which goes back to 2011.

With this in mind, if I do a sorting of the top guys by regressed defensive rebounding from 2011 to 2016, and then I only mention guys who show up in bkref's top minutes guys first page (top 200) from '11-12 to '15-16, which I'm guessing is the same thing, here's the leaderboard:

1. Omer Asik 3.33
2. Zaza Pachulia 2.37
3. Ian Mahinmi 2.35
4. Nene 2.27
5. Nikola Vucevic 1.98

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 0.91

If I do the same for offensive rebounding:

1. Kenneth Faried 4.75
2. Andre Drummond 3.94
3. Zach Randolph 3.51
4. Joakim Noah 3.03
5. Al-Farouq Aminu 2.99

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 1.86

This isn't the data I recalled from years back - that was about years more in Howard's prime, but it definitely goes along in the general direction of what I was thinking.

The guys who top out the defensive rebounding progressions aren't generally guys with jump-out-the-gym athleticism, while on offensive rebounding, they often are. (Shout out to Randolph, he of the legendary Z-Bound getting his own misses and turning them into makes, as one type of exception to this rule.)

Because I was curious, here's how those numbers for the last multi-year swath I see, once again Top 200 in minutes, this time '20-21 to '22-23:

Defensive Rebounding:
1. Jusuf Nurkic 3.02
2. Nikola Jokic 2.50
3. Al Horford 2.17
4. Ivica Zubac 1.99
5. Kawhi Leonard 1.97

Offensive Rebounding:
1. Steven Adams 5.09
2. Clint Capela 4.75
3. Kevon Looney 4.24
4. Robert Williams 3.69
5. Jonas Valanciunas 3.68

Can you explain what these numbers actually mean? Like how they are arrived at, and what they proport to be telling us (other than higher is better)?

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1:

Barry - 3 (AEnigma, trelos, Clyde)
Artis - 4 (beast, LA Bird, Samurai, Ohayo)
Ginobili - 6 (Doc, hcl, Rishkar, Joao, OSNB, f4p)
Baylor - 1 (trex)
Davis - 2 (iggy, HBK)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 between Ginobili & Gilmore:

Artis - 3 (AEnigma, Clyde, trex
Ginobili - 3 (trelos, iggy, HBK)

Manu Ginobili 9, Artis Gilmore 7

Manu Ginobili is Inducted at #39.



Nomination Vote 1:

Pierce - 1 (AEnigma)
Green - 3 (beast, Doc, hcl)
Schayes - 4 (Rishkar, Clyde, LA Bird, OSNB)
Howard - 3 (trelos, Joao, Samurai)
Drexler - 1 (trex)
Westbrook - 2 (iggy, Ohayo)
Reed - 1 (HBK)
none - 1 (f4p)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 between Schayes, Green & Howard:

Green - 1 (Ohayo)
Schayes - 0 (none)
Howard - 0 (none)
none - 5 (AEnigma, trex, iggy, HBK, f4p)

Eliminating Howard. Continuing runoff between Schayes & Green:

Green - 0 (none)
Schayes - 2 (trelos, Samurai)
neither - 1 (Joao)

Dolph Schayes 6, Draymond Green 4

Dolph Schayes is added to Nominee list.

[Doctor MJ]

So, pertaining to Dwight Howard's defensive rebounding, I went to look at nbashotcharts, and found that the site is no longer up going forward, but you can still download the old data which goes back to 2011.

With this in mind, if I do a sorting of the top guys by regressed defensive rebounding from 2011 to 2016, and then I only mention guys who show up in bkref's top minutes guys first page (top 200) from '11-12 to '15-16, which I'm guessing is the same thing, here's the leaderboard:

1. Omer Asik 3.33
2. Zaza Pachulia 2.37
3. Ian Mahinmi 2.35
4. Nene 2.27
5. Nikola Vucevic 1.98

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 0.91

If I do the same for offensive rebounding:

1. Kenneth Faried 4.75
2. Andre Drummond 3.94
3. Zach Randolph 3.51
4. Joakim Noah 3.03
5. Al-Farouq Aminu 2.99

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 1.86

This isn't the data I recalled from years back - that was about years more in Howard's prime, but it definitely goes along in the general direction of what I was thinking.

The guys who top out the defensive rebounding progressions aren't generally guys with jump-out-the-gym athleticism, while on offensive rebounding, they often are. (Shout out to Randolph, he of the legendary Z-Bound getting his own misses and turning them into makes, as one type of exception to this rule.)

Because I was curious, here's how those numbers for the last multi-year swath I see, once again Top 200 in minutes, this time '20-21 to '22-23:

Defensive Rebounding:
1. Jusuf Nurkic 3.02
2. Nikola Jokic 2.50
3. Al Horford 2.17
4. Ivica Zubac 1.99
5. Kawhi Leonard 1.97

Offensive Rebounding:
1. Steven Adams 5.09
2. Clint Capela 4.75
3. Kevon Looney 4.24
4. Robert Williams 3.69
5. Jonas Valanciunas 3.68

Can you explain what these numbers actually mean? Like how they are arrived at, and what they proport to be telling us (other than higher is better)?

Sure!

So, what we call RAPM is regression applied to the team score, but we can run regression on all sorts of other things.

We have these "Four Factors" for offense & defense from Dean Oliver which divide up each side of the ball into 4 things:

Offense (Defense)
eFG% (and opponent's eFG%)
TO% (and opponent's TO%)
ORB% (DRB%, or opponent's ORB%)
FT/FGA ratio (and opponent's FT/FGA)

What I'm referring to are the two rebounding stats regressed.

All of this stuff is good for understanding how a guy seems to be impacting his team, but I think there's specifically a lot of insight to be looked at from DRB% because what you see is that it's not necessarily the guys who get the defensive rebounds who come out great by the regression, which really hammers in that team defensive rebounds are more about team coordination than individual brilliance. (Whereas offensive rebounding is much more individual with the team context being more about whether the coach decides to have guys crash the boards or not.)

I'm kinda motivated to do more work with this data on a thread here now that we're talking about this and nbashotcharts doesn't supply a handy, sortable reference, but not this morning.

[Owly]

...
When we talk about Allen Iverson and '01 Sixers, the sentiment here is often in sharp rebuke of the typical narrative [that AI "carried" them to the Finals]; and this sentiment frequently comes from the very same posters who credit Rick Barry with a "carry-job" in '75.

Though with Allen Iverson and the '01 Sixers, while the offense he "carried" in the rs was fairly average [+0.6, ranked 13th of 29], and they won primarily on their defense in the rs.........in the playoffs they carried forth to the Finals based [certainly to a far greater degree than is seen for the '75 Warriors] on the performance of their offense.......

Relative to the defense being faced, they were:
+5.6 rORTG in the 1st round against the Pacers (defense slightly underperformed as a -1.4 rDRTG).
+5.4 rORTG in the ECSF against the Raptors (defense underperformed drastically at +2.1 rDRTG).
+2.1 rORTG in the ECF against the Bucks (defense performed as a -2.4 rDRTG).
-2.2 rORTG in the Finals (defense was OK(ish) at a -1.6 rDRTG).


So it seems like, if anything, Iverson is MORE deserving of the "carrying" narrative (though they did fall short in the Finals, albeit to an all-time tier team [something which did not stand in Barry's way in '75]).

Doesn't change the overriding point but I would be inclined to add the caveat "by this tool" to that final sentence.

For Iverson we have playoff on-off that - without restating perils of single playoff on-off for player goodness, contribution etc - would suggest the team certainly didn't fall apart with him off the court in that sample as things happened to happen. We can't be as sure the Warriors didn't collapse when Barry went out, though if one reads it as probable the defense remained strong it would follow as probable that the offense would have to get significantly ugly for the net result to get really bad for the Warriors in the off minutes. The certainty isn't there though. As alluded to above, caveats about reading a lot into tiny off samples against a limited range of opponents apply.

[trex_8063]

So, pertaining to Dwight Howard's defensive rebounding, I went to look at nbashotcharts, and found that the site is no longer up going forward, but you can still download the old data which goes back to 2011.

With this in mind, if I do a sorting of the top guys by regressed defensive rebounding from 2011 to 2016, and then I only mention guys who show up in bkref's top minutes guys first page (top 200) from '11-12 to '15-16, which I'm guessing is the same thing, here's the leaderboard:

1. Omer Asik 3.33
2. Zaza Pachulia 2.37
3. Ian Mahinmi 2.35
4. Nene 2.27
5. Nikola Vucevic 1.98

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 0.91

If I do the same for offensive rebounding:

1. Kenneth Faried 4.75
2. Andre Drummond 3.94
3. Zach Randolph 3.51
4. Joakim Noah 3.03
5. Al-Farouq Aminu 2.99

And Dwight:

Dwight Howard 1.86

This isn't the data I recalled from years back - that was about years more in Howard's prime, but it definitely goes along in the general direction of what I was thinking.

The guys who top out the defensive rebounding progressions aren't generally guys with jump-out-the-gym athleticism, while on offensive rebounding, they often are. (Shout out to Randolph, he of the legendary Z-Bound getting his own misses and turning them into makes, as one type of exception to this rule.)

Because I was curious, here's how those numbers for the last multi-year swath I see, once again Top 200 in minutes, this time '20-21 to '22-23:

Defensive Rebounding:
1. Jusuf Nurkic 3.02
2. Nikola Jokic 2.50
3. Al Horford 2.17
4. Ivica Zubac 1.99
5. Kawhi Leonard 1.97

Offensive Rebounding:
1. Steven Adams 5.09
2. Clint Capela 4.75
3. Kevon Looney 4.24
4. Robert Williams 3.69
5. Jonas Valanciunas 3.68

Can you explain what these numbers actually mean? Like how they are arrived at, and what they proport to be telling us (other than higher is better)?

Sure!

So, what we call RAPM is regression applied to the team score, but we can run regression on all sorts of other things.

We have these "Four Factors" for offense & defense from Dean Oliver which divide up each side of the ball into 4 things:

Offense (Defense)
eFG% (and opponent's eFG%)
TO% (and opponent's TO%)
ORB% (DRB%, or opponent's ORB%)
FT/FGA ratio (and opponent's FT/FGA)

What I'm referring to are the two rebounding stats regressed.

All of this stuff is good for understanding how a guy seems to be impacting his team, but I think there's specifically a lot of insight to be looked at from DRB% because what you see is that it's not necessarily the guys who get the defensive rebounds who come out great by the regression, which really hammers in that team defensive rebounds are more about team coordination than individual brilliance. (Whereas offensive rebounding is much more individual with the team context being more about whether the coach decides to have guys crash the boards or not.)

I'm kinda motivated to do more work with this data on a thread here now that we're talking about this and nbashotcharts doesn't supply a handy, sortable reference, but not this morning.

Thank you.
I figured it was something like this. However, what do the numbers actually mean? What does 0.91 mean? What does 3.33 mean?

i.e. is that +0.91 DREBs/100 [vs a league avg player]? Something else?

[Doctor MJ]

Can you explain what these numbers actually mean? Like how they are arrived at, and what they proport to be telling us (other than higher is better)?

Sure!

So, what we call RAPM is regression applied to the team score, but we can run regression on all sorts of other things.

We have these "Four Factors" for offense & defense from Dean Oliver which divide up each side of the ball into 4 things:

Offense (Defense)
eFG% (and opponent's eFG%)
TO% (and opponent's TO%)
ORB% (DRB%, or opponent's ORB%)
FT/FGA ratio (and opponent's FT/FGA)

What I'm referring to are the two rebounding stats regressed.

All of this stuff is good for understanding how a guy seems to be impacting his team, but I think there's specifically a lot of insight to be looked at from DRB% because what you see is that it's not necessarily the guys who get the defensive rebounds who come out great by the regression, which really hammers in that team defensive rebounds are more about team coordination than individual brilliance. (Whereas offensive rebounding is much more individual with the team context being more about whether the coach decides to have guys crash the boards or not.)

I'm kinda motivated to do more work with this data on a thread here now that we're talking about this and nbashotcharts doesn't supply a handy, sortable reference, but not this morning.

Thank you.
I figured it was something like this. However, what do the numbers actually mean? What does 0.91 mean? What does 3.33 mean?

i.e. is that +0.91 DREBs/100 [vs a league avg player]? Something else?

No problem.

Re: what do numbers actually mean? So, it's not my data and I honestly haven't thought too hard about these details.

What I would expect is that it gets created in much the same way as RAPM - by looking at all the player stints as well as who was on the floor next to them - and then regressing with regularization. And the thing about regularization is that it disconnects the data from clear basketball meaning.

So for example, before RAPM became a thing, people used APM. In APM, one point means one point. If a player is listed as a +5, that's literally saying that it estimates 5 points of impact per some amount of time/possessions (such as per 100 possessions), but with RAPM you lose that. What you gain is more reliable data - more resilience to noise - and thus RAPM has a good argument for being the better ordering of players as well as the relative gaps between them, but you can't use a literal interpretation of the numbers the way you can for APM.

Hence, while an unregularized version of the 4 factors regressions might literally mean something clear like "two more defensive rebounds per 100 possessions", I don't think we can get that from this data.