Retro Player of the Year 2004-05 UPDATE — Tim Duncan

[lessthanjake]

Duncan: He was the best player on the champs, the #1 RAPM in the league, and the Finals MVP. It would seem difficult to make any kind of case against him here.

Not sure what RAPM you're quoting specifically here, but my guess would be it's one based on the regular season. While any attempt at playoff RAPM is fraught with small sample, I think it can be informative when simply adding playoff +/- to regular season +/- changes things dramatically.

Here's the raw +/- leaders for the regular season (per b-r):

1. Duncan +692
2. Ginobili +675
3. Nash +662

And here's the tally when combining RS & PS:

1. Ginobili +844
2. Duncan +765
3. Nash +728

This doesn't mean it's utterly impossible for Duncan still to have the #1 RAPM if you combine RS & PS, but aside from the fact that I'm skeptical this is the case, if Duncan still keeps the top spot, it will because of what happened in the regular season before his injury.

It's J.E.'s single-season PI RS+PS RAPM that goes up through 2018-19. Or at least I've always been led to believe it was RS+PS. It has Duncan at #1(8.47), Garnett at #2(8.25), and Manu at #3(6.71).

This is a side-issue, but I do just want to raise the point that I think JE’s single-season PI RAPM is really flawed when it comes to actually using it to assess how good someone was in a specific season.

I think a big problem with it is that it uses a player’s past RAPM as its prior (not clear whether it’s just the one previous season or multiple prior seasons with some weighting to it—my best guess is that it mostly looks at the prior two seasons, but I don’t know). This means it will inevitably have lagged effects, where the quality of prior years is reflected in the current year’s RAPM. That wouldn’t matter much if players’ quality remained pretty stagnant over time. But what it ends up meaning in reality is that if a player takes a big leap (or a step down), it will not really be fully reflected in the actual year it occurred, because the prior will unduly pull the value to where it previously was. The upwards (or downwards) trajectory will end up being reflected in later years, in a lagged effect. So, for instance, I think this is why LeBron’s highest RAPM value in JE’s PI RAPM is actually in 2010-2011, even though LeBron was pretty clearly more impactful in 2009 and 2010. This issue doesn’t make JE’s PI RAPM unusable, but I think it’s something people need to think about when looking at a given year. It’s not the most helpful measure IMO when talking about a player that is having a year that is out of sync with the previous year or two in terms of quality. It’s basically as if JE’s single-season RAPM is really more of a two-year or three-year RAPM, because he’s using previous years’ data as the prior.

Why is this relevant here? Well, Ginobili definitely took a leap in the 2004-05 season, and Duncan was obviously way better than Ginobili in the prior year or two but went a bit downwards in 2004-05 due to injury. In JE’s RAPM, Duncan ended up 1st in 2004-05, while Ginobili ended up 3rd. But if we look at the next couple years, to try to see what the lagged effects were, we see that Ginobili was 1st in 2005-06 while Duncan was 5th, and Ginobili was 1st in 2006-07 while Duncan was 3rd. Given how JE structures his prior, I don’t really think we can look at this and come to the conclusion that it really indicates Duncan was more impactful than Ginobili in 2004-05 specifically.

[Doctor MJ]

Not sure what RAPM you're quoting specifically here, but my guess would be it's one based on the regular season. While any attempt at playoff RAPM is fraught with small sample, I think it can be informative when simply adding playoff +/- to regular season +/- changes things dramatically.

Here's the raw +/- leaders for the regular season (per b-r):

1. Duncan +692
2. Ginobili +675
3. Nash +662

And here's the tally when combining RS & PS:

1. Ginobili +844
2. Duncan +765
3. Nash +728

This doesn't mean it's utterly impossible for Duncan still to have the #1 RAPM if you combine RS & PS, but aside from the fact that I'm skeptical this is the case, if Duncan still keeps the top spot, it will because of what happened in the regular season before his injury.

It's J.E.'s single-season PI RS+PS RAPM that goes up through 2018-19. Or at least I've always been led to believe it was RS+PS. It has Duncan at #1(8.47), Garnett at #2(8.25), and Manu at #3(6.71).

This is a side-issue, but I do just want to raise the point that I think JE’s single-season PI RAPM is really flawed when it comes to actually using it to assess how good someone was in a specific season.

I think a big problem with it is that it uses a player’s past RAPM as its prior (not clear whether it’s just the one previous season or multiple prior seasons with some weighting to it—my best guess is that it mostly looks at the prior two seasons, but I don’t know). This means it will inevitably have lagged effects, where the quality of prior years is reflected in the current year’s RAPM. That wouldn’t matter much if players’ quality remained pretty stagnant over time. But what it ends up meaning in reality is that if a player takes a big leap (or a step down), it will not really be fully reflected in the actual year it occurred, because the prior will unduly pull the value to where it previously was. The upwards (or downwards) trajectory will end up being reflected in later years, in a lagged effect. So, for instance, I think this is why LeBron’s highest RAPM value in JE’s PI RAPM is actually in 2010-2011, even though LeBron was pretty clearly more impactful in 2009 and 2010. This issue doesn’t make JE’s PI RAPM unusable, but I think it’s something people need to think about when looking at a given year. It’s not the most helpful measure IMO when talking about a player that is having a year that is out of sync with the previous year or two in terms of quality. It’s basically as if JE’s single-season RAPM is really more of a two-year or three-year RAPM, because he’s using previous years’ data as the prior.

Why is this relevant here? Well, Ginobili definitely took a leap in the 2004-05 season, and Duncan was obviously way better than Ginobili in the prior year or two but went a bit downwards in 2004-05 due to injury. In JE’s RAPM, Duncan ended up 1st in 2004-05, while Ginobili ended up 3rd. But if we look at the next couple years, to try to see what the lagged effects were, we see that Ginobili was 1st in 2005-06 while Duncan was 5th, and Ginobili was 1st in 2006-07 while Duncan was 3rd. Given how JE structures his prior, I don’t really think we can look at this and come to the conclusion that it really indicates Duncan was more impactful than Ginobili in 2004-05 specifically.

This is indeed the reason to prefer NPI metrics to PI metrics - if forced to choose - when looking just at season accomplishment. PI gives you a better estimate for how good the player is, because previous seasons are predictive, but it biases the results toward players who've already peaked over those who haven't yet.

I should also be clear that I have issues with the use of RAPM instead of APM for similar reasons - and I think it does tend to create a bias against someone like Garnett in Minny, or frankly, Jokic right now, but RAPM does give the better average result, and in most circumstances between guys on contenders, I think it tends to be pretty unbiased.

There are of course other issues too that we can go into but in general I remain convinced having any of these stats is better than having none.

[iggymcfrack]

Duncan: He was the best player on the champs, the #1 RAPM in the league, and the Finals MVP. It would seem difficult to make any kind of case against him here.

Not sure what RAPM you're quoting specifically here, but my guess would be it's one based on the regular season. While any attempt at playoff RAPM is fraught with small sample, I think it can be informative when simply adding playoff +/- to regular season +/- changes things dramatically.

Here's the raw +/- leaders for the regular season (per b-r):

1. Duncan +692
2. Ginobili +675
3. Nash +662

And here's the tally when combining RS & PS:

1. Ginobili +844
2. Duncan +765
3. Nash +728

This doesn't mean it's utterly impossible for Duncan still to have the #1 RAPM if you combine RS & PS, but aside from the fact that I'm skeptical this is the case, if Duncan still keeps the top spot, it will because of what happened in the regular season before his injury.

FWIW, here's the PI RS+PS RAPM from the 97-14 RAPM that I consider the best for the time period:

1 Ginobili, Manu 3.8 2.5 6.4
2 Duncan, Tim 2.2 3.8 6
3 O'Neal, Shaquille 3.2 2.1 5.4
4 Collins, Jason -1.3 6.3 5
5 Miller, Brad 2 2.8 4.9
6 Kidd, Jason 3 1.8 4.8
7 Nowitzki, Dirk 3.4 1.2 4.7
8 Garnett, Kevin 3.1 1.3 4.4
9 Battier, Shane 1.2 3.2 4.4
10 Kirilenko Andrei 1.9 2.2 4.2

[Djoker]

With regards to Nash, I think we have to take the offensive dominance with a bit of a reservation because the Suns were playing a very offensive style (both tactically and lineup-wise) and sacrificing defense for offense. Not saying what Nash was doing with the Suns wasn't impressive because it really was but compared to GOAT-level offensive anchors who produced similar or even slightly worse offensive ceilings on much better defensive teams, he has to be penalized just a bit IMO. In other words, there is a real argument that his teams were flawed and couldn't win in that era as constructed and/or schematically drawn.

On the bold, while this is technically true and relevant to the overall POY conversation, I think we have to remember that the people who first talked this way back in the day thought they were watching a "gimmick", when they should have been thinking "This is how NBA offense should have been being played for the last quarter century."

Sure the team was better on offense and worse on defense because they had Amar'e as their center, but trying to dismiss the team's offensive dominance by pointing to Amar'e doesn't make sense in the year 2025. What they were doing was first and foremost about pace & space, and while Amar'e helped the pace, he wasn't actually helping the space like a 3-point shooter would, and really in terms of the revolution, the space turned out to be more important than the pace.

Good post.

Whether it makes sense in 2025 is irrelevant to whether it works in 2005. Pace & Space definitely works today but the rules were different back then, the makeup of the rosters was different, and even teams like the Suns weren't prepared to shoot as many threes as today's teams. I think there is a very real argument that the Suns' style didn't exactly work in 2005; that it was a flawed approach. I do think if you magically transported the Suns to 2025, they would be better and could win the championship but that's neither here nor there.

As for Ginobili, I know that RAPM loves him but his minutes load is low enough that I don't seriously consider him to be among the 5 best players in the league and probably not even the top 10 best if I'm being honest. I think Manu vs. Chauncey is a good comparison for 2005 as well as the next few seasons. Savvy all-around players who knew what it took to win but not quite superstars. As for the Finals MVP in 2005, it's Duncan all the way for me. I re-watched Game 7 and Manu finished with an efficient 23 points but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game. Duncan was the one who was constantly doubled and tripled and gave the others open looks from three. Manu just exploited the gaps that Duncan's presence created. And that's just the offensive end.

On the bold, I completely understand knocking him because he's playing less minutes, but would emphasize that this may not have been happening because he needed to play less minutes so much because of how Pop chose to allocate the minutes of the agent-of-chaos Ginobili next to the just-feed-Duncan offense he wanted the team to play.

Re: "but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game". Strange the way you made "In the clutch Manu shined" make it seem like it was a weakness on Ginobili's part.

I'll also say that the notion that perimeter guys were lesser players reaping the benefits of the interior volume scorer was very much how people thought at the time...but the paradigm shifts of the past two decades have pointed to a very different conclusion.

For reference, here are the 4Q/OT TS% for the Spurs over the court of the entire '04-05 season (RS & PS):

Ginobili 65.5%
Duncan 53.7%
Parker 48.1%

While this doesn't mean Ginobili wasn't benefitting from the defense's attention on Duncan, I think it gives us an appreciation for why it was misguided to think that interior volume scoring was the best way to play offense. No competent offensive team today would be looking to feed a 53.7% TS scorer, and really, nor should they have been doing so back then if they had a better alternative even if they could better get away with it with their elite defense and tactically weak offensive competition.

I did come around on Manu over the course of this thread and I strongly considered him for my ballot. He went from a top 15 player in the league to top 7 in my valuation. But reduced minutes prevent him from getting higher. Even though Pop in all likelihood should have played him more.

[Doctor MJ]

With regards to Nash, I think we have to take the offensive dominance with a bit of a reservation because the Suns were playing a very offensive style (both tactically and lineup-wise) and sacrificing defense for offense. Not saying what Nash was doing with the Suns wasn't impressive because it really was but compared to GOAT-level offensive anchors who produced similar or even slightly worse offensive ceilings on much better defensive teams, he has to be penalized just a bit IMO. In other words, there is a real argument that his teams were flawed and couldn't win in that era as constructed and/or schematically drawn.

On the bold, while this is technically true and relevant to the overall POY conversation, I think we have to remember that the people who first talked this way back in the day thought they were watching a "gimmick", when they should have been thinking "This is how NBA offense should have been being played for the last quarter century."

Sure the team was better on offense and worse on defense because they had Amar'e as their center, but trying to dismiss the team's offensive dominance by pointing to Amar'e doesn't make sense in the year 2025. What they were doing was first and foremost about pace & space, and while Amar'e helped the pace, he wasn't actually helping the space like a 3-point shooter would, and really in terms of the revolution, the space turned out to be more important than the pace.

Good post.

Whether it makes sense in 2025 is irrelevant to whether it works in 2005. Pace & Space definitely works today but the rules were different back then, the makeup of the rosters was different, and even teams like the Suns weren't prepared to shoot as many threes as today's teams. I think there is a very real argument that the Suns' style didn't exactly work in 2005; that it was a flawed approach. I do think if you magically transported the Suns to 2025, they would be better and could win the championship but that's neither here nor there.

I appreciate the compliment, as well as the other part of the post where you acknowledged some movement in your assessment of Ginobili. Frankly when someone makes a good rebuttal to me mid-debate I often don't actually see my opinion change until some time later as the rebuttal keeps running through my mind after the conversation is over. Good on you that you were able to process it in real time.

Re: "Pace & Space definitely works today but the rules were different back then". Not really. Pace & space would have literally worked in any era where players were practicing 3's and were in good enough cardiovascular shape, and in fact that's why the '04-05 Suns are really THE most important offensive team in the history of the NBA:

Because people thought what they knew what worked in basketball offense, and they weren't just wrong about the future, they were demonstrated to be dead wrong in the moment. This, along with the gradual adoption of this correct basketball knowledge, led to the greatest paradigm shift in basketball since the big man arrived in the 1940s.

Now, it is true that if the Suns didn't have some good shooters on the team it wouldn't have worked as well, and for many years people tried to argue that the amount of shooting the Suns had was some extreme outlier more noteworthy than anything else...but in 2025 we can recognize otherwise. Was 72% career FT shooter Quentin Richardson an outlier of a shooter? Hell no. The only thing Richardson was an outlier in was dating Brandy.

Re: Suns weren't prepared to shoot as many threes as today's teams. True! In fact in my studies, which Ben Taylor eventually related to Mike D'Antoni during his interview, wherever D'Antoni went the amount of 3PA the team took jumped by about 10 from the previous year. Clearly not a case where D'Antoni said "Just take 10 more per game and I'll be happy!" given that D'Antoni wasn't even aware of the stat.

My assessment is that any given 3 a player takes involves them having to think "Yes, this is a reasonable shot to take", and so if a coach comes in stretching what they think is reasonable, it still only goes so far.

Re: "I think there is a very real argument that the Suns' style didn't exactly work in 2005." I mean, except it did work. The Sun offense with Nash on the court was WAY ahead of the curve of effectiveness at the time.

For perspective.

In '04-05, per b-r, Nash had a 120.3 ORtg on court in a league with a 106.1 ORtg average. That's a +14.2 number for Nash.

By contrast, if we look at Jokic - a clear cut extreme offensiveness outlier this year - he's got a 126.6 in a league with a 113.3 average - +13.3 number.

Perfectly fine to say that you're more impressed with Jokic, and perfectly fine to point out that if the Suns were even more effective they would've won the title, but there's no denying that they were outliers in offensive effectiveness with their approach despite a) not having a 5 who could shoot 3's, b) having decent but not great shooters (Richardson & Marion) in two of the other positions.

[Djoker]

On the bold, while this is technically true and relevant to the overall POY conversation, I think we have to remember that the people who first talked this way back in the day thought they were watching a "gimmick", when they should have been thinking "This is how NBA offense should have been being played for the last quarter century."

Sure the team was better on offense and worse on defense because they had Amar'e as their center, but trying to dismiss the team's offensive dominance by pointing to Amar'e doesn't make sense in the year 2025. What they were doing was first and foremost about pace & space, and while Amar'e helped the pace, he wasn't actually helping the space like a 3-point shooter would, and really in terms of the revolution, the space turned out to be more important than the pace.

Good post.

Whether it makes sense in 2025 is irrelevant to whether it works in 2005. Pace & Space definitely works today but the rules were different back then, the makeup of the rosters was different, and even teams like the Suns weren't prepared to shoot as many threes as today's teams. I think there is a very real argument that the Suns' style didn't exactly work in 2005; that it was a flawed approach. I do think if you magically transported the Suns to 2025, they would be better and could win the championship but that's neither here nor there.

I appreciate the compliment, as well as the other part of the post where you acknowledged some movement in your assessment of Ginobili. Frankly when someone makes a good rebuttal to me mid-debate I often don't actually see my opinion change until some time later as the rebuttal keeps running through my mind after the conversation is over. Good on you that you were able to process it in real time.

Re: "Pace & Space definitely works today but the rules were different back then". Not really. Pace & space would have literally worked in any era where players were practicing 3's and were in good enough cardiovascular shape, and in fact that's why the '04-05 Suns are really THE most important offensive team in the history of the NBA:

Because people thought what they knew what worked in basketball offense, and they weren't just wrong about the future, they were demonstrated to be dead wrong in the moment. This, along with the gradual adoption of this correct basketball knowledge, led to the greatest paradigm shift in basketball since the big man arrived in the 1940s.

Now, it is true that if the Suns didn't have some good shooters on the team it wouldn't have worked as well, and for many years people tried to argue that the amount of shooting the Suns had was some extreme outlier more noteworthy than anything else...but in 2025 we can recognize otherwise. Was 72% career FT shooter Quentin Richardson an outlier of a shooter? Hell no. The only thing Richardson was an outlier in was dating Brandy.

Re: Suns weren't prepared to shoot as many threes as today's teams. True! In fact in my studies, which Ben Taylor eventually related to Mike D'Antoni during his interview, wherever D'Antoni went the amount of 3PA the team took jumped by about 10 from the previous year. Clearly not a case where D'Antoni said "Just take 10 more per game and I'll be happy!" given that D'Antoni wasn't even aware of the stat.

My assessment is that any given 3 a player takes involves them having to think "Yes, this is a reasonable shot to take", and so if a coach comes in stretching what they think is reasonable, it still only goes so far.

Re: "I think there is a very real argument that the Suns' style didn't exactly work in 2005." I mean, except it did work. The Sun offense with Nash on the court was WAY ahead of the curve of effectiveness at the time.

For perspective.

In '04-05, per b-r, Nash had a 120.3 ORtg on court in a league with a 106.1 ORtg average. That's a +14.2 number for Nash.

By contrast, if we look at Jokic - a clear cut extreme offensiveness outlier this year - he's got a 126.6 in a league with a 113.3 average - +13.3 number.

Perfectly fine to say that you're more impressed with Jokic, and perfectly fine to point out that if the Suns were even more effective they would've won the title, but there's no denying that they were outliers in offensive effectiveness with their approach despite a) not having a 5 who could shoot 3's, b) having decent but not great shooters (Richardson & Marion) in two of the other positions.

Oh I'm not low on Nash or the Suns' offense. I have Nash as the fourth best PG that I would build a team around (after Magic, Curry and Oscar) and specifically in the modern era, I think he'd be second after Curry so I definitely think of Nash very highly. The Suns' offense too was just fantastic. The argument is that some of the offense has come at the expense of defense and I don't believe that's a difficult argument to make.

What you said about 3pt shooting is fine. All I will say is that in that era, there really weren't many C's that could shoot 3's. The personnel of the league at that time thus also made for that style perhaps being suboptimal as I eluded to in the previous post.

[lessthanjake]

Yeah I do think that there’s a point that the personnel of the league made the style less good than it is now. I remember thinking about this a lot at the time, because I was very convinced that the Suns style of offense was better and I discussed it with people a lot back then. People often responded that that style was inherently bad defensively. I didn’t really think that was necessarily right, but the biggest point on that that I did find at least somewhat persuasive was that you couldn’t really find almost any PFs and Cs that both stretched the floor offensively and were actually good defenders and rebounders. Practically speaking, that made the offensive style have a real tradeoff defensively, in a way that isn’t the case anymore now that big men have widely learned to shoot from range. I still think it was the optimal style even back then, but I think the personnel of the league makes that *even more* the case now.

[Djoker]

Yeah I do think that there’s a point that the personnel of the league made the style less good than it is now. I remember thinking about this a lot at the time, because I was very convinced that the Suns style of offense was better and I discussed it with people a lot back then. People often responded that that style was inherently bad defensively. I didn’t really think that was necessarily right, but the biggest point on that that I did find at least somewhat persuasive was that you couldn’t really find almost any PFs and Cs that both stretched the floor offensively and were actually good defenders and rebounders. Practically speaking, that made the offensive style have a real tradeoff defensively, in a way that isn’t the case anymore now that big men have widely learned to shoot from range. I still think it was the optimal style even back then, but I think the personnel of the league makes that *even more* the case now.

Thank you for phrasing this more eloquently than I did. Exactly what I meant when I was talking about personnel. Big guys who could shoot and defend well like Wemby, AD, Porzingis, Lopez etc. weren't widespread around the league then.

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 16 approved voters: Djoker, AEnigma, B-Mitch 30, OhayoKD, capfan33, ILikeShaiGuys, Paulluxx, konr0167, ShaqAttac, penbeast0, Narigo, One_and_Done, homecourtloss, Lebronnygoat, CEOofKobefans, and trelos. DJoker, AEnigma, B-Mitch 30, CEOofKobefans, ILikeShaiGuys, OhayoKD, and trelos voted for both Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Please let me know if I seem to have missed or otherwise improperly recorded a vote.

2004-05 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year —Steve Nash (Unanimous)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Steve Nash    7   0   0    35    1.000
2a. Dirk Nowitzki    0   1   3    6    0.171
2b. Lebron James  0   2   0   6    0.171
2b. Manu Ginobili    0   2   0    6    0.171
5. Shaquille O’Neal   0   1   2    5    0.143
6. Ray Allen   0   1   0    3    0.086
7. Kobe Bryant   0   0   1    1    0.029
7. Kevin Garnett   0   0   1    1    0.029

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Ben Wallace (2)

Code: Select all

Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Ben Wallace   5   2   0    31    0.886
2. Tim Duncan   2   5   0    25    0.714
3. Kevin Garnett  0   0   4    4    0.114
4. Yao Ming  0   0   3    3    0.086

Retro Player of the Year — Tim Duncan (5*)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Tim Duncan  13  2  0  0  1    145   0.906
2. Steve Nash  2  11  1  2  0   108   0.675
3. Kevin Garnett  0  2  7  5  0   64   0.400
4. Shaquille O’Neal  0  0  4  3  4   33   0.206
5. Dirk Nowitzki   0  1  2  2  3   26   0.163
6. Manu Ginobili  1  0  1  1  2   20   0.125
7. Lebron James   0  0  0  3  4   13   0.081
8. Ben Wallace   0  0  1  0  2   7   0.044

In the prior project, there were 19 votes, with no overlap. These are the aggregated results of the two projects across 35 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Tim Duncan  26  6  1  0  2    309   0.883
2. Steve Nash  6  15  6  3  1.33   205.33   0.587
3. Kevin Garnett  2  8  8  10  2   148   0.423
4. Shaquille O’Neal  0  3  7  7  6.33   83.33   0.238
5. Dirk Nowitzki   0  2  5  4  6   57   0.163
6. Dwyane Wade  0  1  3  5  2.33   39.33   0.112
7. Manu Ginobili  1  0  2  1  3   26   0.074
8. Lebron James   0  0  1  3  4   18   0.051
9. Amar’e Stoudemire   0  0  1  1  1   9   0.026
10. Ben Wallace   0  0  1  0  2   7   0.020
11. Tracy McGrady  0  0  0  0  3   3   0.009
11. Ray Allen  0  0  0  1  0   3   0.009
13. Chauncey Billups   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.003
13. Allen Iverson  0  0  0  0  1   1   0.003

2006 thread has been open.

[canada_dry]

I re-watched Game 7 and Manu finished with an efficient 23 points but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game. Duncan was the one who was constantly doubled and tripled and gave the others open looks from three. Manu just exploited the gaps that Duncan's presence created. And that's just the offensive end.

Do you think Duncan's FMVP was a good choice taking everything into account?

What i really like is how he says "but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game". "BUT"

So he dominated in and scored the biggest baskets in the biggest possiblebmoments of the biggest possible quarter of the biggest possible game of the biggest possible round of the whole year... it gets no bigger...but eh. Whatever.

inconvenient truth...we're too good! -Phil Blackson

[70sFan]

I re-watched Game 7 and Manu finished with an efficient 23 points but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game. Duncan was the one who was constantly doubled and tripled and gave the others open looks from three. Manu just exploited the gaps that Duncan's presence created. And that's just the offensive end.

Do you think Duncan's FMVP was a good choice taking everything into account?

What i really like is how he says "but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game". "BUT"

So he dominated in and scored the biggest baskets in the biggest possiblebmoments of the biggest possible quarter of the biggest possible game of the biggest possible round of the whole year... it gets no bigger...but eh. Whatever.

inconvenient truth...we're too good! -Phil Blackson

I didn't asked ironically, I believe that Duncan was a better player than Manu in 2005.

[Djoker]

I re-watched Game 7 and Manu finished with an efficient 23 points but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game. Duncan was the one who was constantly doubled and tripled and gave the others open looks from three. Manu just exploited the gaps that Duncan's presence created. And that's just the offensive end.

Do you think Duncan's FMVP was a good choice taking everything into account?

What i really like is how he says "but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game". "BUT"

So he dominated in and scored the biggest baskets in the biggest possiblebmoments of the biggest possible quarter of the biggest possible game of the biggest possible round of the whole year... it gets no bigger...but eh. Whatever.

inconvenient truth...we're too good! -Phil Blackson

They weren't the biggest possible moments. He simply hit four free throws and a lay up with the Spurs up like 4-5 points in the final minute. That padded his final stats.

[canada_dry]

Do you think Duncan's FMVP was a good choice taking everything into account?

What i really like is how he says "but 6 of those points came in the final minute to ice the game". "BUT"

So he dominated in and scored the biggest baskets in the biggest possiblebmoments of the biggest possible quarter of the biggest possible game of the biggest possible round of the whole year... it gets no bigger...but eh. Whatever.

inconvenient truth...we're too good! -Phil Blackson

They weren't the biggest possible moments. He simply hit four free throws and a lay up with the Spurs up like 4-5 points in the final minute. That padded his final stats.

... wow. if you dont see how egregiously hating that statement was. He iced the game for them. Got it done. Big time. Factually the truth.

inconvenient truth...we're too good! -Phil Blackson

[Top10alltime]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Zg9zHtj-lLIt8jowrrLNqrJobauQJQdIg9t11RjL7E/edit?usp=sharing

My 2005 Nash game 6 vs Mavs tracking

Final tally -
33x doubled
74 DTOs
34 EDTOs
33 creation
102 possessions available

[OhayoKD]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Zg9zHtj-lLIt8jowrrLNqrJobauQJQdIg9t11RjL7E/edit?usp=sharing

My 2005 Nash game 6 vs Mavs tracking

Final tally -
33x doubled
74 DTOs
34 EDTOs
33 creation
102 possessions available

Per-possession that gives us
.32 EDTOs and .73 DTOS
For comparison:

...

Jordan, 1991 Finals Game 2 (13 assists, also tracked by top10alltime)

This means per-possession Jordan had around .11 EDTOS and .28 DTOS.

Jordan, 1991 Finals Game 5 (10 assists):

.225 EDTOs, .5 DTOs

Lebron 2007 Game 1 (4 assists)

Lebron averaged, per possession:
.425 EDTOs, .75 DTOS

Lebron 2007 Game 4 (10 assists, Tsherkin did not track DTOs)

.44 edtos per possession

[Doctor MJ]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Zg9zHtj-lLIt8jowrrLNqrJobauQJQdIg9t11RjL7E/edit?usp=sharing

My 2005 Nash game 6 vs Mavs tracking

Final tally -
33x doubled
74 DTOs
34 EDTOs
33 creation
102 possessions available

Cool stuff guys!
Request: Could you define the terms & acronyms and perhaps give an exemplar action for each?
Suggestion: Perhaps in the doc or on a master site/doc?

[OhayoKD]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Zg9zHtj-lLIt8jowrrLNqrJobauQJQdIg9t11RjL7E/edit?usp=sharing

My 2005 Nash game 6 vs Mavs tracking

Final tally -
33x doubled
74 DTOs
34 EDTOs
33 creation
102 possessions available

Cool stuff guys!
Request: Could you define the terms & acronyms and perhaps give an exemplar action for each?
Suggestion: Perhaps in the doc or on a master site/doc?

Sure. You can find the definition of DTOS and EDTOS here
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=115129660#p115129660

1. Defenders taken out (DTOs) -> this is when a player entirely or near-entirely renders a defender unable to affect an offensive play themselves(excepting a reset)

2. Additional Defenders Affected (ADAs) -> this is when a player helps render a defender unable to affect an offensive play

…

I will also be qualitatively judging “creations” as either “Great”, “Good”, “Decent’, or “Weak”.

I have chosen 1 game for each player and will look at the first 40-possessions of each.

EDTOs are defenders you take out who aren’t primarily responsible for guarding you. Please note that in a possession where a player makes multiple passes, EDTOs will not be counted for taking out a guy who is primarily guarding that player a second time. Nor will they be counted if a new defender taken out happens to be your guy.

The bar for what constitutes "creation" can vary between different people but for Lebronny, who has done the most creation tracking of anyone on this website, they usually only count possessions where a player racked up at least 1 edto (they had a lower treshold earlier on but have tightened things up as of late).

Note that there is no differentiation between how defenders are taken out or affected. It can be done via ball-handling, passing, rebound gravity, screen-setting, pulling someone into a teammate, and so on.


Examples.

DTO (Magic gets 2 here)
https://youtu.be/BBNQFaUkg0s?t=89

DTOs vs EDTOs vs ADAs
https://youtu.be/BBNQFaUkg0s?t=442

Magic gets 4 DTOs here, 2 are just from beating his own man twice and 2 are from extra defenders he passes the ball past. Magic only gets an ADA for getting the ball past Sampson as Sampson was dealing with Kareem.

A final example you might be familiar with:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13GyFE-Fd_ONgEsRbARhr-4IO3s5Z91A1/view

On this play Hakeem gets 1 ADA for pulling his man a little as a roller.

Most of the trackers don't use ADAs but that input is there in case one wants to account for secondary or tertiary creation.

The tallies can change a bit depending on the eye making judgements:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2428804

I also counted 39 EDTOs for these creations though i count edtos differently than KD and i think some of my edtos are adas for them. KD said they saw 35 edtos and 17 adas.

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2434783
(During game 4 of the 2007 Finals Tsherkin counted 35 EDTOs for Lebron while I would have counted 36.)


FWIW, there are also defensive inputs top10 has been using defined here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2451946
(first spoiler tag)
We have a concept of a help defense counterpart for dtos (DKI - defenders kept in) but I've been too lazy to test it out.

A doc solely dedicated to different inputs and their definitions isn't a bad idea.

[Doctor MJ]

FWIW, there are also defensive inputs top10 has been using defined here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2451946
(first spoiler tag)
We have a concept of a help defense counterpart for dtos (DKI - defenders kept in) but I've been too lazy to test it out.

A doc solely dedicated to different inputs and their definitions isn't a bad idea.

Well, I'm certainly not going to call you 'lazy'.

I think this is really a very worthy project that I could see really becoming a grassroots/open-source type thing with enough visibility. Thank you for the work you've done!