New Engelmann Career RAPM (1997–2024)

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I think the fact that there was one set of numbers and then he layered on some additional adjustments (that there’s serious disagreement as to the validity of adding) and the numbers changed fairly significantly is indicative of the fact that this is an area where you can kind of just massage these numbers to make them say a lot of different things. And this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone with any background in statistical analysis. Which is why my attitude on this stuff is that all of it is flawed and the best thing to do is probably to take every measure we’re aware of and consider all of it. Even that’s not a super great solution, since there certainly could be (and probably are) errors that correlate across most/all measures. But I think it’s the best approach we have. Which is all to say that it’s good to have another data point that we can throw into the pile.

that's because a margin of error should be reported somewhere, it would probably help

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I think the fact that there was one set of numbers and then he layered on some additional adjustments (that there’s serious disagreement as to the validity of adding) and the numbers changed fairly significantly is indicative of the fact that this is an area where you can kind of just massage these numbers to make them say a lot of different things. And this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone with any background in statistical analysis. Which is why my attitude on this stuff is that all of it is flawed and the best thing to do is probably to take every measure we’re aware of and consider all of it. Even that’s not a super great solution, since there certainly could be (and probably are) errors that correlate across most/all measures. But I think it’s the best approach we have. Which is all to say that it’s good to have another data point that we can throw into the pile.

I think a good takeaway is that LeBron, Garnett, CP3, Curry, Jokic, and Duncan are monsters no matter how you slice the data.

And Manu!

[OhayoKD]

If the "blackbox" matters to you then weighing transparent methodologies higher is a much more logical step than pretending everything is fundamentally equal...

We went through this in philosophy, it was called "relativism," and it was very bad. After we got over it, we all sufficiently chastised ourselves. And no harm was done (except all the harm it did).

Terrible comparison lol

[Gregoire]

~New Career RAPM~

I just saw this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/1aextmx/new_lifetime_rapm_rankings_1997_includes_playoffs/), which mentioned Engelmann has shared some new career RAPM!

Full data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bg8KxzagN7D0O16EmUO9_kCyXwthEUjKywlrWPQUQt8/edit#gid=0

OG tweet:

Read on Twitter

RAPM is RS + PS
"Please note
- the possession parser hasn't yet been fully debugged
- 'season' is the only adjustment
- it's missing rubber-band and age adjustments, both of which would heavily infl. e.g. Jordan's rating"
This is especially exciting, since neither of the traditional RAPM sources (Goldstein or Engelmann) have published RAPM for the recent seasons.

Some notable ranks in Total RAPM:

Spoiler:

1. Nikola Jokic +9.7
2. LeBron James +9.3
3. Chris Paul +9
4. Kevin Garnett +8.6
5. Draymond Green +8.3
6. Paul George +8
7. Jayson Tatum +7.9
8. Stephen Curry +7.8
9. Tim Duncan +7.7
10. Joel Embiid +7.6
11. Manu Ginobili +7.5
12. John Stockton +7.5
13. Shaquille O'Neal +7.2
14. Michael Jordan +7.1
15. Damian Lillard +7
16. Kevin Durant +6.9
17. Dirk Nowitzki +6.9
18. Jrue Holiday +6.6
19. Kawhi Leonard +6.5
20. Jeff Hornacek +6.4
21. James Harden +6.3
...
25. Jimmy Butler +5.8
...
29. Rudy Gobert +5.8
...
33. Alex Caruso +5.5
34. Ja Morant +5.5
...
36. Karl-Anthony Towns +5.5
37. Dikembe Mutombo +5.5
38. Giannis Antetokounmpo +5.4
...
40. Alonzo Mourning +5.4
41. David Robinson +5.4
42. Reggie Miller +5.3
...
47. Steve Nash +5.2
...
52. Jason Kidd +5.0
...
60. Ben Wallace +4.8
...
64. Ray Allen +4.6
...
87. Anthony Davis +4.3
...
89. Tracy McGrady +4.2
...
95. Luka Doncic +4.1
...
106. Kyrie Irving +3.9
107. Dwyane Wade +3.9
...
112. Kobe Bryant +3.8
...
134. Dwight Howard + 3.5
...
154. Charles Barkley +3.2
...
167. Scottie Pippen +3.1
...
224. Karl Malone +2.6
...
257. Klay Thompson +2.4
...
428. Patrick Ewing +1.6
429. Hakeem Olajuwon +1.6

Some notable ranks in Offensive RAPM:

Spoiler:

1. Nikola Jokic +7.5
2. Stephen Curry +7.3
3. Damian Lillard +7.3
4. James Harden +6.6
5. LeBron James +6.5
6. Karl-Anthony Towns +6.2
7. Chris Paul +5.9
8. Kevin Durant +5.7
9. Dirk Nowitzki +5.6
10. Trae Young +5.5
11. John Stockton +5.3
12. Michael Jordan +5.2
13. Jayson Tatum +5.1
14. Steve Nash +5.1
15. Ray Allen +5
16. Devin Booker +5
17. Ja Morant +4.9
18. Kyrie Irving +4.9
19. Manu Ginobili +4.8
20. Luka Doncic +4.8
21. Kobe Bryant +4.8
22. Kawhi Leonard +4.7
23. Shaquille O'Neal +4.6
...
27. Reggie Miller +4.5
...
36 Tracy McGrady +4.2
37. Charles Barkley +4.1
38. Jrue Holiday +4.0
...
42. Dwyane Wade +3.8
...
50. Jimmy Butler +3.6
...
62. Paul George +3.4
...
83. Klay Thompson +3.2
...
86. Draymond Green +3.1
...
98. Joel Embiid +3.0
99. Giannis Antetokounmpo +3.0
...
139. Tim Duncan +2.6
...
173. Kevin Garnett +2.3
...
221. Anthony Davis +2.0

Some notable ranks in Defensive RAPM:

Spoiler:

1. Kevin Garnett -6.3
2. Dikembe Mutombo -6
3. Alex Caruso -5.4
4. Alonzo Mourning -5.4
5. Draymond Green -5.2
6. Tim Duncan -5.1
7. Rudy Gobert -5.1
8. Shawn Bradley -5.1
9. Ben Wallace -5
10. Paul George -4.6
11. Joel Embiid -4.6
12. Nene -4.5
13. David Robinson -4.4
14. Arvydas Sabonis -4.4
15. Andrew Bogut -4.4
16. Bo Outlaw -4.3
17. Rasheed Wallace -4.2
18. Jason Collins -4.2
19. Vlade Divac -4
20. Immanuel Quickley -3.9
21. Andre Roberson -3.8
22. Tony Allen -3.8
...
25. Yao Ming -3.6
26. Andre Iguodala -3.5
...
36. Chris Paul -3.1
...
40. Metta World Peace -3.1
...
54. Bam Adebayo -2.9
...
58. LeBron James -2.8
59. Jayson Tatum -2.8
...
65. Manu Ginobili -2.7
...
69. Patrick Ewing -2.7
70. Hakeem Olajuwon -2.7
...
72. Shaquille O'Neal -2.6
73. Jrue Holiday -2.6
74. Marc Gasol -2.6
...
83. Dwight Howard -2.5
...
87. Matisse Thybulle -2.5
88. Giannis Antetokounmpo -2.4
...
97. Anthony Davis -2.3
...
108. Nikola Jokic -2.2
109. John Stockton
...
111. Jimmy Butler -2.2
...
113. Jason Kidd -2.2
...
135. Andrei Kirilenko -2.0
...
140. Marcus Smart -2.0
...
159. Michael Jordan -1.9
...
168. Jaren Jackson Jr. -1.9
...
173. Kawhi Leonard -1.8
...
175. Chris Bosh -1.8
176. Jarrett Allen -1.8
...
286. Dirk Nowitzki
...
320. Kevin Durant -1.2
...
325. Scottie Pippen -1.2
...
1036. Dwyane Wade -0.1
...
2223. Kobe Bryant +1.0

Reminders: these are career RAPM numbers, so players with a different percentage of non-prime years will affect these rankings greatly. Players who are mid-prime now (no post-prime years yet) might be overrated, players who are missing prime years before 1997 might be underrated. This also treats the player as a single flat value over their career, so information on season to season changes (e.g. if a player is much better in prime, much worse in non-prime years) gets averaged out.

Some Random Observations:
-Jokic #1 makes some sense. Hyper-valuable player with strong peak, #1 in offense, somewhat surprisingly high defense, and no post-peak seasons to drag his average down.

-LeBron #2 also makes sense given how strong his impact is. GOAT-tier stuff from him considering how long he's been doing it. Offensively, he's just in the Top 5.

Offensive highlights:
-Curry 8th overall and 2nd offensively (just behind Jokic) is also pretty impressive, consistent with him being GOAT level offensively considering how many more non-peak years he has than Jokic.
-Chris Paul is 3rd overall and 7th offensively, continues to be loved by impact metrics.
-James Harden 4th offensively and 21st overall, solid.
-KAT at 6th offensively is a bit surprising.
-Durant 8th offensively but 16th overall, and Dirk just behind at 9th offensively and 17th overall.
-Nash at #14th offensively and #47th overall, seems a bit low compared to his reputation here.

Defensive highlights:
-Garnett's defense is #1, enough to boost him to #4 overall. Impact metrics alway love him, but seeing his defense that far above the crowd even with his non-prime years is a bit new for me. His offense is proportionally lower at #173, keeping him from looking best overall in this new stat.
-Old Mutombo is #2 defensively, with some separation after. I wonder if I've been underrating his defense.
-Caruso a bit surprising at #3 defensively, and Paul George at number 10 defensively... the top defenders are obviously dominated by big men, but a few perimeter players do sneak in. Andre Roberson, Tony Allen, and Iguodala are some of the other top perimeter defenders, though they're a tier down between #20–#30. Some of these players are lower-minute defensive specialists, but Paul George specifically is pretty high minutes player. I wonder if his defensive reputation compared to the other recent defensive wings underrates him.
-Draymond Green (5th overall, 5th defensively), continues to be loved by impact metrics.
-Duncan is 6th defensively and 9th overall. Great stuff. A bit below Garnett (as often is the case in impact metrics), but unlike some of the guys I mention below, both Garnett and Duncan don't seem to have their career value cratered that much by their post-prime years (note for DocMJ: Manu is 11th overall, so he's right behind Duncan, and supports your argument that he's underrated)
-Gobert, Ben Wallace, and old Robinson are all also in the top 15, as expected

-Some surprisingly lower ranks:
-Kawhi Leonard at #19 overall and #22 offensively is still pretty good, but a defensive rank of 173 is way lower than his reputation.
-Giannis Antetokounmpo at 38th overall is definitely lower than expected, particularly since his impact metrics in 19/20 were so good and we're also mid peak/prime for him too. Both his defense and offense are out of the top 50.
-Anthony Davis and Luka Doncic at 88th and 95th overall are also a bit low. Doncic's reputation of having worse plus/minus numbers continues.
-Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant are out of the top 100 overall. Wow! Kobe's 22nd offensively, right in line with some of the other Top 20 overall players, Wade's a bit worse at 42nd offensively. It's their defense that's disappointing... Wade's neutral and Kobe's a negative defender. One wonders how much non-prime years are lowering their ranking here. Kobe's reputation as having slightly worse impact metrics continues. For the Kobe fans: Kobe has an unusual number of non-prime games in his career (e.g. 266 RS games pre-age 22 when Wade was drafted, 325 RS games at age 32+ in 2011–2016, 50 + 22 PS games in those age ranges, for 663 total. For comparison, Wade has 0 games pre-age 22, 389 games after age 32+ in 2014–2019 RS, 45 PS games in those age ranges, for 434 total. Based on this, and considering their overall rank is right near each other, there is an argument that Kobe might end up looking better than Wade in say ~10 year prime RAPM, though neither are probably valuable enough in RAPM to crack the top tier based on how low their total career is).

Older players: These are the guys with a major portion of their career missing (pre-1997).
-Jordan 14th overall, and 12th offensively is GOAT-tier stuff, considering ~40% of his sample comes from his Wizards years at age 38–39, and there were nagging injuries in the 1998 regular season. His defense is 159, which is definitely isn't high, but at the same time it's right around the level of Marcus Smart, Jaren Jackson Jr., Kawhi, Jarrett Allen, so not exactly terrible.
-Shaq 13 overall is a touch town from the other modern bigs in Duncan/Garnett, but we're missing 93–96 which includes several prime years. His offense at #23 is strong but not quite as high as expected, but his defense is better than his reputation at 72.
-Old Stockton (12 overall) >> Old Malone (224 overall)
-Old Ewing and old Hakeem are disappointing, both out of the Top 400 overall (69th/70th defensively), at least compared to old Mutombo and Mourning and Barkley and Robinson.

Other Current players: these are some other guys for whom we only have young/prime seasons. We might expect their ranks to drop over time if they're mid-peak now and haven't had any post-prime seasons to drag them down.
-Tatum at 7th overall is obviously great, propped up by being Top 15 offensively
-Embiid 10th overall is also great. He seems much more valuable defensively.

Man, thanks a lot, huge effort!!

Its amazing, that MJ's overall number is 7,1 (basically Shaq's career number) with only 2 worst prime seasons and 2 Wizards years If I rightly understood... His career number must be just astonishing like 10+... with only Joker maybe close...

[Special_Puppy]

[/quote]

Man, thanks a lot, huge effort!!

Its amazing, that MJ's overall number is 7,1 (basically Shaq's career number) with only 2 worst prime seasons and 2 Wizards years If I rightly understood... His career number must be just astonishing like 10+... with only Joker maybe close...[/quote]

JE broke out Jordan's last two years with the Bulls and he was still number 1 in RAPM which is pretty amazing since he was 33 and 34 in that time period. His RAPM must have been monstrous in his actual prime https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GkOZSq7W14lUSC6fBsdM-W9yydOFSle6q4awUoJne0g/edit#gid=0

[Gregoire]

Man, thanks a lot, huge effort!!

Its amazing, that MJ's overall number is 7,1 (basically Shaq's career number) with only 2 worst prime seasons and 2 Wizards years If I rightly understood... His career number must be just astonishing like 10+... with only Joker maybe close...[/quote]

JE broke out Jordan's last two years with the Bulls and he was still number 1 in RAPM which is pretty amazing since he was 33 and 34 in that time period. His RAPM must have been monstrous in his actual prime https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GkOZSq7W14lUSC6fBsdM-W9yydOFSle6q4awUoJne0g/edit#gid=0[/quote]

Yes, its pretty amazing that he was even better that basically prime Shaq.. The more we see analytical data the more greatness of MJ is confirmed. I hope and wish soon we somehow could measure his pre-1997 impact.

[Gregoire]

I definitely like that some LeBron worshippers here hurt some of their very nice "sides" every time some analytics about MJ are shared like in next locked topic

[trex_8063]

Action taken, re-opening thread.

[DraymondGold]

Two Other RAPMs that may be interesting:

1. Career Age-Adjusted RAPM (1997–2022): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OzfLtHanVmSCPy8Y3cvCj5uFG9k7cPbDO9sQq9JgbuU/edit#gid=0
His explanation for the age correction is as follows: "I compute coefficients for age dummy variables, then do weighed polynomial fit on the results. Far from perfect, for many reasons, such as injuries". The goal is to compare everyone as if they were the same age. Although there's obvious limitations: the age influence is assumed to be the same for everyone, which may not be true (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/1ahpa7m/new_28_year_coach_rapm_evidence_coaches_influence/).

In short, we lose 2 years (so no 2023–2024), but the best young guys look slightly worse (we correct for their sample only having good years) and the older guys look slightly better (we correct for their sample only having their worse years), and probably this overall gets closer to what we'd expect for those old/young guys.

Major changes:
-Jokic -5 positions (from 1st to 6th). Still amazing value, but the age correction slightly (and loss of some peak data in 2023/24) drops him slightly so he's not ahead of the pack.
-Stockton +7 positions (from 12th to 5th). Crazy value from him as an old man, though the age adjustment may be too favorable on him. He probably didn't drop off as an old man compared to his prime as much as most players.
-Jordan +7 positions (from 14th to 7th). Age adjustment helps boost him: if he was that valuable as an old man in late-prime/post-prime, he was likely even more valuable in his prime years. If you think his peak was GOAT level and was higher relative to his late-prime/post-prime value than the average peak to late/post-prime drop off, this becomes the reverse situation as Stockton: the age correction would be underrating prime Jordan.
-No major change (perhaps shifting one spot) from LeBron, Garnett, Chris Paul, Tatum, Duncan, Embiid. All still in top 10.
-Draymond -5 spots (from 5 to 10). Curry -3 spots (from 8 to 11), although changing number of prime years from them and the surrounding players may have an affect here. Gap between Draymond and Curry shrinks -- Curry is barely behind Draymond.

Many more changes outside the top 10, but I'll leave that for others to explore.

For context, this tweet looks at the average RAPM aging curve:

Read on Twitter

Edit: It's one measure, but this seems to support the idea that '8 year primes' are the most common prime length. For peaks, it looks like the most common peak year is age 26 with the second best at age 29. The classic answer for peak age is usually 27, so 26 is pretty close.
The gap between the 2nd year is interesting (though probably nothing) Qualitatively, I have been noticing a trend that some players have their peak years all in a row, while other playesr seem to have their 2 peak single-seasons separated with a slight drop in the middle (e.g. 03–04/08 Garnett, 06/09 Wade, 09/~14–15 Chris Paul, 09/12–13 LeBron, Dirk, and earlier players like 64//67 Wilt or 74/77 Kareem). Perhaps one sometimes corresponds to an athletic peak and the other to a BBIQ/skills peak? Probably I'm reaching on this -- it's almost certainly just noise that distinguishes the values from age 26–29 in this chart, but I thought it was still fun to spitball a bit.

2. Coaching RAPM (1997–2024):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aCMwq4qu_m1-Tzc63CmRxQ2H9qq5vFUMpZViJanPxfw/edit#gid=0
Coaches are treated as the 6th man on the floor when running the RAPM. (see: https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/1ahpa7m/new_28_year_coach_rapm_evidence_coaches_influence/, and the twitter posts cited here).

I'm not sure what the off-sample would be for the coaches (e.g. they probably don't track when coaches misses a game, right? And even if they did, that would miss some of the ever-present factors like the coach's system and locker room culture which was set throughout the season). So my bet would be, the signal is probably dominated by just the on rating of the team, and from perceived changes in players when they change teams and play with a different coach. We know team change WOWY is *massively* noisy (usually noise > signal, per multi-year WOWY database), so this would again be massively noisy. Me personally, I would think the noise would be too high to use a coaching RAPM to then try to measure a player's RAPM (the uncertainty in the coach's RAPM would have too great an affect on the players for comfort, and too complex of an effect when players have multiple coaches to correct for it mentally).

Still, it's interesting to look at the coaches RAPM itself to try to get a sense of some broad take-aways (admitting the bias in this kind of measurements, I still want to know... who generally stands out as a better/worse coach, what's the range of coach's values, etc.).

The top 25 coaches are:

Spoiler:

Overall Rank Coach Offense Defense (negative is better) Total
1 Phil Jackson 2.4 -4.2 6.6
2 Mike Fratello 0.1 -4.7 4.8
3 Jeff Van Gundy -0.3 -4.8 4.5
4 Tom Thibodeau 0.4 -4.1 4.4
5 Ime Udoka 0.8 -3.4 4.2
6 Scott Skiles 0.3 -3.9 4.2
7 Larry Bird 0.5 -3.2 3.8
8 Billy Donovan 1.5 -2.2 3.7
9 Michael Malone 1.5 -2.1 3.6
10 Steve Kerr 1.8 -1.8 3.5
11 Mike Budenholzer 0.8 -2.6 3.4
12 Stan Van Gundy 0.2 -3.1 3.3
13 Doc Rivers 0.6 -2.6 3.2
14 Brad Stevens 0.7 -2.4 3.1
15 Mike Brown 0.4 -2.7 3.1
16 Jim O'Brien 0.1 -3 3.1
17 Doug Collins 0.4 -2.5 2.9
18 Gregg Popovich 0.5 -2.3 2.7
19 George Karl 1.4 -1.3 2.7
20 Hubie Brown 1.2 -1.5 2.7
21 Taylor Jenkins 0.8 -1.8 2.7
22 Kevin McHale 0.7 -1.9 2.7
23 Willie Green 0.4 -2.2 2.6
24 Mike D'Antoni 1.7 -0.9 2.6
25 Erik Spoelstra 1.1 -1.5 2.6

This ranks Phil Jackson as the best coach (although he's a prime candidate for someone who might be overrated based on the lineups he happened to have). The top 25 has plenty of the usual suspects, like Popovich, Kerr, Spoelstra, D'Antoni. Despite the reputation of being overrated, Doc Rivers is up at 13th over a lot of the previous guys. Gregg Popovich ranks only 18th.

Among modern coaches, Tom Thibodeau and Ime Udoka rank in the top 5 (!), and Mike Malone and Mike Brown look pretty good.

Hubie Brown (a possible NBA's Top 15 GOAT Coaches snub/HM) is 20th, based on only 3 years of coaching from ages 69–71. Rick Carlisle, another possible snub/HM, is down at 83.

Broadly, coaches seem to influence defense more than offense. Engelmann says "Knowing who the coach is, will lead to better prediction results of a 5-man unit's defensive performance, than knowing who the 5 players are". Obviously, we should take this coaching estimation with a *huge* grain of salt, but since it's the first analytical evaluation of coaching I've ever seen, I'd say it's pretty interesting!

[LukaTheGOAT]

Chris Paul is top 15-20 all-time. This is final.