Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #21-#22 Spots

[Doctor MJ]

but I also see Jimmy & Kidd as considerably more reliable as leaders and playoff performers.

I understand this was a big and fairly comprehensive post and maybe leaders means something different in this context. Still the combination/collocation of "reliable" and "leaders" for me set off a mental alarm bell.

My impression has been that their their lack of, I suppose, reliability - relative volatility and friction creation - were what led them to more itinerant (and conflict filled) careers than might be typical for players of their talents. One can kind of link it back to a tool you're using - people can argue 4-year RAPM's use for peaks, but I get the idea to seek a more accurate impact-side measure - ... it's maybe less likely for such players that one franchise is getting those 4 years. Maybe that doesn't matter for peaks. Anyway I just felt "reliable as leaders" ... it's "more" so maybe it's an implied criticism of Gobert (and M. Gasol???) ... jarred in my head so thought I'd mention it.

A reasonable push-back.

I'll make the distinction thusly: I see Kidd & Butler as guy who at their best drove their teammates forward with active leadership driven by their intensity and intelligence. I don't think the teams I'm thinking of (Nets & Heat respectively, primarily) make the breakthroughs they do without everything that these two guys brought to the table.

In terms of their unreliability:

I do think people should think about why Kidd changed teams twice before settling in Jersey for the duration of his plausible peak era, but I'm not sure I see anything I see as super relevant to this project. It would have been great if Kidd's rookie arrival on the Mavs had turned that trainwreck around, but it didn't, and the Mavs would end up completely rebuilding by Don Nelson & Son before they ended up gaining traction. Meanwhile I've always heard the Suns trade of Kidd being more about not just off-court stuff, but off-team stuff. I'm not going to tell people they can't try to factor that into their assessment of Kidd the basketball player, but I suppose I'll say I have something of a bias in evaluating player peaks where I focus on what allowed them to have the success they had, and so a strong personality which would in some contexts cause problems may end up a positive for me.

This certainly holds true for Butler as well, but to walk through Jimmy's timeline. I would say that when he left every team but one (Bulls, 76ers, Heat), he did so because the team was not eager to continue to have him as a star member of their core. In such cases, while I will raise an eyebrow at some of Butler's strategic disgruntled behavior and consider it when considering other questions (career, re-draft, etc), they specifically seem not relevant to Butler in a peak project.

The Minny melt down though, I think is worth talking about separately, because there it really seemed like Jimmy decided that his young co-stars Wiggins & KAT were the problem, and he pushed his way out in part because he just didn't think they had the mentality to be the foundation of an elite core, in the process ruining the tenure of his two-time coach Thibs, who desperately wanted Butler there. To me this is the most damning thing Butler's done in his career, and I do hold it against his career, and it would make me cautious were I getting into the Jimmy business... but I also have to admit, I kinda thought he said something that needed saying. This came after the Wolves had given Wiggins a max contract, and that decision, imho, was a big problem.

Over to Gobert: So in a nutshell, I see Kidd & Butler as guys who when they step up and tell their teammates to charge into the breach, the teammates do it with fervor, whereas I see Gobert as a guy who's an awkward person generally who is also dealing with being French in the US.

I don't want to act as if this is a bigger deal than it is to be clear. The objective thing we know is that Gobert and his teams seemed to have a tendency to disappoint, and disappoint defensively, in the playoffs, and this in particular happened in Gobert's big year when they got upset by a short-handed Clipper team that put up a 128.2 ORtg in the series. I think we all have a tendency to point to the Clippers' outside shooting, and many of us wonder if hot shooting luck should be seen as the primary culprit, but we should recall that the Jazz made way more 3's in the series, and shot them well. This was a failure of defense, and while Gobert was not the weak point on the defense, oftentimes defense has a lot to do with team vibe, which had already been a visible concern for the team.

Re: Gasol. Wasn't really looking to talk about Gasol in these terms. I don't think he has the same charisma as Kidd or Butler (at least in an American league), but he never seemed to have the fraught interpersonal situations that came with Gobert.

Final note on Gobert: Worth noting he got to the WCF the last two years in Minny, so clearly his presence is not antithetical to making a deeper playoff run. However, I have to say I don't think these Wolves have been more a dangerous opponent than a true elite contender - they can "upset" more capable overall teams with the right matchup (Nuggets, Lakers), but I don't see them getting through 4 opponents without some astonishing matchup (and injury) luck. I also think that to the extent the Wolves have had a foundation for culture, it is Ant that that is built on. It's got some serious pros and cons, but from a Gobertian perspective, the fact it's there I think helps him.

[eminence]

‘24 Nuggets I can see, but not so the ‘25 Lakers as ‘more capable overall’ than the recent Wolves.

On the Nets in particular - I don’t really think of them as making a different breakthrough than what the Gobert Jazz ever did. Nets just played in a garbage conference (same goes for AI Sixers).

I do agree with Rudy being broadly incapable in leadership type roles.

[Top10alltime]

1. Joel Embiid (19 > 21 > 24)
2. Russell Westbrook (16 > 17)
3. Tracy McGrady (03)
4. Jimmy Butler (22 > 20 > 23)

Trying my other earlier writeup for 2021 Embiid since no one else is buying 2019:
Regular season - Embiid was second in MVP behind Jokic with 33/11/3 per 75 on +6.4 TS%, 39 to 63 win WOWY. Moving onto playoffs, round 1. Wizards had a poor record overall but they headed into the playoffs strong with a 17-3 finish when both Westbrook and Beal played. Embiid only averaged 28 minutes in the first 3 games but that's because the Sixers were blowing them out while he put up 37/9/3 per 75 on 78% TS. He then gets injured early in G4 and missed G5. How much should we penalize him for the missed time? Considering Embiid gave Philly a comfortable 3-0 lead and he was back 4 days later dropping almost 40, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Anyways, round 2. Hawks were 27-11 after firing Lloyd Pierce (58 win pace), went 4-1 in R1 against one of the hottest teams in the Knicks, and were up in ECF G3 against the champion Bucks before Trae Young got injured. This was the one year Capela looked like a DPOY candidate before he fell off. Despite playing with a bad knee, Embiid came out dropping 39/9/4/3 on 71% TS in G1. Sixers were +13 with him but -17 without and lost. This happened again in G5 where Embiid had 37/13/5/4 on 72% TS. +11 with him but -14 without for another blown win when he was on the bench. I am not going to pretend Embiid didn't have some bad games in that series (G4, G6) but he had 4 huge games (36/11/5/3 on 67% TS) all with double digit +/- that should have already been enough to win the series in 5 if the bench minutes weren't so bad.

There's no point in making any case for Embiid here. The standards are, Embiid has a mediocre playoffs performance when he's dropping (OA/75) 36.6/8.8/3.4 on +21.7 opp adj rTS with +25.7 rORtg amd -7.3 rDRtg on-court, while healthy (Game 4 vs Wizards doesn't count)

And then, when someone has a playoffs performance that comes close to even approaching it, it's an ATG playoffs performance. That's the standards.

People expect Embiid to drop 50/15/12 and 7 blocks with 4 steals and 0 turnovers every night, with a -20 rim fg% diff, while taking a team that has -75 NRTG without him to a 16-0 postseason record beating teams by 45 PPG, and have series of +50 rORtg and -50 rDRtg every night against a -20 defense and +20 offense, just so Embiid can barely make the top 10 peaks of the 2000s. It's ridiculous.
Then people expect nothing but a great playoffs performance from the others, and they're all set.

Why do people have to do this? Why is Embiid judged so unharshly? There's really no point. I'm betting Embiid wouldn't make it over Jim McMillian, if people were to vote that far.

Okay, I know you’re trolling, but I just want to note that out of the 20 players that have been voted in already, 11 of them won the title in the year they were voted in for, 2 of them lost in the Finals that year, and 6 got to the conference finals. The only player peak voted in that was not a year the guy at least made the conference finals was 2015 Chris Paul. Team success is obviously a massive component that’s being considered when determining the greatness of a player’s year, and Embiid does not have any year even making the conference finals. It’s a real problem for him in this vote, and it’s really not Embiid being judged more harshly than other players or by a different standard. He just doesn’t have a year that satisfies a really major criterion people are using.

As to that one exception, I think you probably could try to make a case that Chris Paul being voted in way before Embiid is unfair to Embiid. They both are great players that have frequent injury issues and did not get very far in the playoffs in their prime. But it’s worth noting that the year Chris Paul got voted in for was a year he played all 82 regular season games. I don’t think something like 2014 Chris Paul (where he missed 20 regular season games and then lost in the second round of the playoffs) would’ve gotten traction nearly as early.

1. "Trolling" is very ironic of you to say. I don't troll on here, I just spew facts which fans who have blocked their ears can't accept. Everything I said was true, Embiid is expected to do all that to just make it top 10 peaks of 2000s. Embiid is probably going to land below Javonte Cooke if this board had the choice to go that far in peaks, that's how much hate he gets, it's irrational....

2. Chris Paul in 2015 is also another vastly underrated player. I can't understand how guys like Giannis, Wade, SGA, Dirk, and Kobe has made it over him. He should have been vastly higher as well. Another one is KD, who should've been much higher. But both of these guys are worse than Embiid, yes. They are both vastly underrated. Embiid, CP3, and KD are probably the best of that year as well, but that's another story to tell.....

3. If Embiid isn't judged as harshly, he would've been voted in over a third option Manu, and a second option Draymond and AD. But RealGM would vote Embiid below Javonte Cooke or Micha Peavy if they were to go that far, so I cannot be surprised with the irrationality and pure hate Embiid gets.

[Doctor MJ]

‘24 Nuggets I can see, but not so the ‘25 Lakers as ‘more capable overall’ than the recent Wolves.

On the Nets in particular - I don’t really think of them as making a different breakthrough than what the Gobert Jazz ever did. Nets just played in a garbage conference (same goes for AI Sixers).

I do agree with Rudy being broadly incapable in leadership type roles.

Fair enough. I'd note that the Lakers did earn the higher seed, did have the two best players between the two teams, and were considered the favorite, but were extremely uneven in their build which makes it unsurprising that they'd be prone to bad matchups, and there were matchup issues at the heart of Minny's advantage in the series... but frankly after we saw what the Wolves did to the Lakers, I did downgrade them in my mind because I didn't think it would be so decisive.

[eminence]

‘24 Nuggets I can see, but not so the ‘25 Lakers as ‘more capable overall’ than the recent Wolves.

On the Nets in particular - I don’t really think of them as making a different breakthrough than what the Gobert Jazz ever did. Nets just played in a garbage conference (same goes for AI Sixers).

I do agree with Rudy being broadly incapable in leadership type roles.

Fair enough. I'd note that the Lakers did earn the higher seed, did have the two best players between the two teams, and were considered the favorite, but were extremely uneven in their build which makes it unsurprising that they'd be prone to bad matchups, and there were matchup issues at the heart of Minny's advantage in the series... but frankly after we saw what the Wolves did to the Lakers, I did downgrade them in my mind because I didn't think it would be so decisive.

LeBron as meaningfully better than Edwards/Gobert (or better at all) is not something I can get behind at this point of his career. But, I suppose that's fair enough on common perception going into the series for the players/teams.

It certainly felt like easy money picking Minnesota.

[Djoker]

21. 2023 Joel Embiid
22. 2003 Tracy McGrady
23. 2002 Jason Kidd
24. 2017 Russell Westbrook

HM: 2009 Dwight Howard

Next is Embiid for me. His RS resume is spectacular to the point that he's definitely in top 10 discussions for RS only. Problem is his body frequently breaks down by the time the playoffs roll around. I chose 2023 as his peak despite the PS injury because judging by his play in surrounding relatively healthy years like 2021 and 2024, he could have continued his MVP form into the PS. He's the toughest player to place but I think he could have easily been in a few threads ago.

T-Mac's peak is just damn spectacular. Such an all-around force. The only problem is we didn't see him lead a team very far which is due to inadequate support but it is what it is. I can't credit him for driving winning when he didn't do it. That said, both the box score and impact data makes me feel good that he's the best remaining player.

Dwight getting to the Finals in 2009 is a feather in his cap. He and Westbrook are both very flawed players but Westbrook doesn't have a bizarre multiyear streak of his team doing better when he's off the court in the playoffs. Sure ON-OFF can be noisy but we are talking a nice chunk of 100+ playoff games. It's not a good look when it happens postseason after postseason. A lot of posters the last several threads have vouched for Westbrook demonstrating his impact in both Durant and post-Durant years. I wonder if he never played on the Lakers if he'd be looked at in a more positive light.

And Kidd vs. Westbrook, I actually think is close but Kidd epitomizes winning more. Such a cerebral player with terrific decision making over a guy who is a bit of headless chicken at times just makes sense. Kidd was not a great scorer but his other skills are dialed up to the max. I could be persuaded to flip this around maybe... or elevate Dwight...

[One_and_Done]

1. Butler (2023)
2. T-Mac (2003)
3. Tatum (2024?)
4. Dwight

With Jimmy, I think it’s still useful to compare him to guys who already got in, like Draymond or Kobe. Guys like Draymond could never carry a team the way Jimmy did in 20, 22, or 23. As far as comparing him to Kobe, Jimmy is giving you enough of Kobe’s scoring, on better efficiency, but is supplementing that with elite D, and a vastly better floor game, that just leads to more winning.

Sometimes stats aren’t everything, because volume stats can’t always capture the impact a guy is having. That said, when you look at say Jimmy Butler’s 2022 playoffs it looks better than Kobe’s 09 playoffs.

Butler 22 PS per 100: 38/10/6, on 604 TS%
Kobe 09 PS per 100: 39/7/7, on 564 TS%

Even raw numbers, which don’t capture Butler’s D and floor game, seem to favour him.

Butler’s absurd carry jobs are being too quickly forgotten. All three of his playoff runs, in 20, 22, and 23, were absurd. He took a starting group of Gabe Vincent, Max Struss, old Kevin Love, and Bam, to the finals. That’s ridiculous.

Butler’s impact on those teams is borne out by the win loss record also. From 20-23 the Heat were 144-81 with Butler, and only 37-41 without him. I’m going with 2023 Butler to account for injuries, even though he was a bit banged up by the finals, just because 64/82 games is enough, given all he did in the playoffs. His 2020 health is better than you think too, given there was a shorter season, he actually played 58/73 games.

Butler’s stats don’t jump off the page as some do, although as I noted above he sure looks comparable to someone like Kobe per 100, but his impact does. Stats don’t always capture stuff like your floor game, or defence, or the little things like intangibles, but it was very clear Jimmy had all those.

My last 3 places are for T-Mac, AD and Tatum, but open to being persuaded otherwise (for actual superstar candidates, not role players). I’m particularly dubious of Tatum, who I don’t think is really a stand out candidate. The choices are starting to thin out is all. AD’s 2020 campaign may be anomalous, but it still happened, so he gets on my ballot. As for T-Mac, he too is better than a number of guys who already got in. His peak/prime was short, because of all the injuries, but at his peak he was generally acknowledged to be better than Kobe back in 03. I’m kind of baffled by the lack of votes for him.

EDIT: I forgot AD got in already. Dwight it is. He carried those Magic teams impressively.

[-Luke-]

21. Joel Embiid 2023

Classifying Embiid here is perhaps the most difficult task in this project. He peaked in 2023-24, until his injury. If he hadn't been injured and had maintained this level of performance for most of the season (including a solid playoff run), I would have selected him long ago, possibly towards the end of the top 10. But the injury did happen as much as all other injuries happened. And it's a one-year peak project and not a two-month peak project.

Still, around 20 feels right to me. 2022-23 was a reasonably healthy regular season with MVP level impact. Despite missing games due to injury in the playoffs I choose to pick Embiid here over other contenders like Draymond, T-Mac, Tatum etc., because they didn't reach his heights, even if the heights have many asterisks in Embiid's case.

22. Jayson Tatum 2024 (2023)

A bit of a contrasting case compared to Embiid. While Embiid highs are very high and his half-a-season peak is way higher than 21st, he can't put together a healthy season. Tatum on the other hand doesn't reach the same heights, but is a jack-of-all-trades player who is good to very good at pretty much everything. Even if his shot failed him like it did in stretches in the playoffs (and especially the finals), he brings high value defensively

23. Tracy McGrady 2003

Although T-Mac had multiple good seasons, 2002-03 is a bit of an outlier season with his career best scoring on career best TS%. But one season is all we need for this project. Too bad we didn't see a bigger sample size in the playoffs, but having that Magic team (without Grant Hill for most of the year) at above 0.500 and in the playoffs was an awesome carry job.

24. Jimmy Butler 2023

While Butler was on the Heat, you never wanted to run into them in the playoffs. Part of that was/is Coach Spo of course, but Jimmy was the leader of two teams that made the finals, although not many people had them in the finals. Not easy to pick a year, but I went with 2023 because he had a better regular season than in 2022 and the playoffs are comparable.

[lessthanjake]

So my top 2 in this vote will be the other guys I voted for in the last thread: 2024 Tatum and 2020 Butler.

I am really torn about who to vote for otherwise. I’m at least somewhat tempted by the following guys (in no particular order):

2003 Jason Kidd
2017 Russell Westbrook
2021 Joel Embiid
2003 Tracy McGrady
2004 Ben Wallace
2004 Rasheed Wallace
2009 Dwight Howard
2001 Allen Iverson
2019 Damian Lillard
2009 Pau Gasol
2025 Tyrese Haliburton

Out of these, I think a few will fall out relatively quickly for me.

- Dame just feels like he falls a bit short to me. Not for any particular reason, but it’s just that nothing stands out enough IMO.

- I like Ben Wallace, but I think we have to really be leaning into defensive impact in order to go for him, and his RAPM numbers don’t look all that great, so it’s hard for me to get there with him.

- I think Rasheed Wallace is one of the best players of his generation and is massively underrated, but I’m not sure he’s got a specific year that works great for him for purposes of a single-year peaks project. 2004 is the title year but it feels to me like he was probably a bit better as a player in his Blazers years. So that makes it hard to vote for a particular year of his.

- With Iverson, I think he’s worth an honorable mention, but I’ve always felt like his team succeeded due to a combination of a weak conference and a great defense, and the impact data bears out that Iverson wasn’t having massive impact. He did hold together the offense, but I don’t think I could get to voting for him for one of these last few spots.

So that leaves Kidd, Westbrook, Embiid, McGrady, Howard, Gasol, and Haliburton as guys I’m seriously considering for my finals spots. I think I’m leaning towards Kidd, Westbrook, and Embiid for #23-25 but I don’t feel strongly and have to think about it more.

Following up on this:

My Vote

1. 2024 Jayson Tatum

2. 2020 Jimmy Butler

3. 2017 Russell Westbrook

4. 2009 Dwight Howard


So I explained my first two votes in the last thread, so I’ll focus here on my next two choices. In the above post, I gave a list of players I was considering and then explained briefly why a few of them fell out relatively easily for me. However, that still left 7 guys for 2 remaining slots.

So a lot of culling and difficult choices still need to be made. Here’s a few more brief explanations as to why certain guys didn’t make it for me:

I really like Pau Gasol’s playoff performances. He was fantastic in both title runs. Ultimately, though, I just don’t quite see him as the same tier of player as these other guys, and I look at RAPM data and it bears that out, since he’s notably below the other guys I’m considering.

I think Tyrese Haliburton is worth considering, but a couple things make me veer away from him. First, his RAPM data isn’t up there with the others. It’s better than Pau Gasol’s but still below the others. That might be okay, since his candidacy is really about a Finals run. But then I do think he should be dinged some for being injured in the Finals. It was late in the Finals, so I don’t disqualify him on this basis, but it does matter. Ultimately, as many heroics as he had in the playoffs, I can’t quite bring myself to vote for someone I think was a worse regular season player just on the basis of a playoff run he got injured in.

With 2003 McGrady, he was great, but ultimately I can’t quite get there with him. His team lost in the first round. That was very understandable in the circumstances, but it does hurt a case for greatness. And a problem I have is that he didn’t exactly go out in a blaze of glory. The Magic taking the series to 7 games was impressive, and he had a significant amount to do with that. But he did also finish the series off with games with TS%’s of 44.6%, 52.1%, and 40.1%. That 52.1% isn’t terrible for the era and he was facing a really good defensive team, but I’m just not *that* inspired by his performance in the series, and I feel like I’d probably want to be in order to vote for someone who lost in the first round. Even that could potentially be overcome if he was a regular season impact monster, but he’s actually a little below some of the other guys on this list in that regard. So that leaves the possibility of just voting for him based on box-stat achievement. After all, he put up a 10+ BPM, etc. It’s not a bad case at this point in the project to be honest, but if I’m going that route, then I think there’s at least one better option (i.e. 2017 Westbrook, who, for instance, had a higher BPM, and managed a genuinely historic achievement).

That leaves Kidd, Westbrook, Embiid, and Howard. Here’s how I see these guys:

Howard and Kidd both are somewhat flawed players but they led their team to the Finals in pretty impressive fashion. Kidd is generally a slightly more impactful player than Dwight IMO, but the difference isn’t huge. Dwight’s team had a tougher road to the Finals, but sweeping the 2003 Pistons is actually very impressive too. Dwight was better in the Cavs series than Kidd was in the Pistons series though IMO. Both were pretty disappointing in the Finals. Dwight has bad playoff on-off, but I don’t really put much stock in that due to how small playoff samples are. It is a career-wide thing though, and the sample for that isn’t *that* small. Overall, it’s really hard to separate these guys.

Westbrook has a somewhat unique case. In terms of impact, I think he’s up there between Kidd and Howard. His team lost in the first round, which is a big issue. He was okay in the series—putting up massive raw numbers but with low efficiency and a lot of turnovers. Losing the series was understandable, but it does matter that he lost in the first round and didn’t have a super great series in doing so. That said, I think the case for peak Westbrook’s greatness is in the box numbers. It’s not just the 11.1 BPM—which is incredibly high. It’s that the triple-double average was a genuinely historic achievement. People had been talking for my entire lifetime about Oscar Robertson averaging a triple double. It was considered a legendary achievement. So there really is something “great” about achieving it as well. I don’t think it necessarily translates to absolutely historic impact (though peak Westbrook’s impact was very good), but the statistical achievement itself was historic and that has serious weight for me.

The last one is 2021 Embiid. Embiid’s case is pretty straightforward. He’s the best player left. And I do think that’s true. He’s a better and more impactful player than anyone else left. However, his team lost in the second round of the playoffs to a relatively weak team. He was actually good in the series, but not particularly special. He'd been really good in the first round, but he basically missed almost 2 games of that round, so it’s hard to base a vote on that series. And he missed 21 games in a shortened season (so it was almost 30% of the season). Finally, as good as he is, he doesn’t have any historic statistical achievement like Westbrook did.

I find it really hard to pick between these four guys. Each one has a real case.

Ultimately, I guess I tried to break the tie by thinking about whose year was more memorable. Thinking about it that way, I think Westbrook really does belong here at this point. He’s a really unique case, but I just think averaging a triple double was a seriously “great” achievement, and we’re far enough down the list here that that’s actually enough for me at this point. Meanwhile, I think it’s hard to get to voting for Embiid. Nothing stands out too much except just the general fact that he’s a great player. Which leaves a question between 2003 Kidd and 2009 Howard. I don’t feel strongly about this at all. But the tiebreaker for me is that I think what Howard did against the 2009 Cavaliers was the most impressive thing either of them did in the playoffs. That said, I’m so torn between them that I changed my vote while writing this post, and I really might edit my vote to change it later.

[eminence]

My ballot is a replica of last thread, so not too much detail here - if you've got questions/comments feel free.

1. Jayson Tatum '24
2. Joel Embiid '23
3. Ben Wallace '04
4. Russell Westbrook '16

Tatum - Consistent top level player, had it all come together on the team level in '24. Very balanced player who is good at practically everything. Lead the #4 relative offense of the era.

Embiid - If not for injuries he'd be notably higher, last player available who really challenged for the best in the world title. PO struggles overstated imo, usually individual offensive stats focused, and not borne out in the impact data, perhaps offset by increased defensive effort.

Wallace - quoting from last time "If the Martians had the death beam pointed at earth and I needed to make an ordered list of the 'best' players it'd probably be another ~12 spots before I got to Ben. But for this list, I think those guys are 5-10% better than Ben and when factoring availability/accomplishment I'm happier with Big Ben in this spot than anyone else."

Westbrook - He/KD paired to lead one of the more impressive teams/offenses remaining. '16 Thunder were the #13 relative offense of the era and beat the '16 Spurs. Westbrook was the primary decision maker on that squad.

Assuming some of my votes win the ballot here - Dwight Howard will be the next player I support, but not sure who'd be up after that.

[Top10alltime]

Following up on this:

My Vote

1. 2024 Jayson Tatum

2. 2020 Jimmy Butler

3. 2017 Russell Westbrook

4. 2009 Dwight Howard

As usual, you will tell me that you are voting for a player that got at least to the conference finals, completely ignoring the fact, that Russell Westbrick was gentleman swept in the first round by playoffs choker Lames Harden with Lou Williams as his best player . That's better than Embiid dominating the playoffs?

Again, inconsistency. But RealGM would vote Eli Ndiaye or Jericho Sims over Embiid, so I can't be surprised with this.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Jayson Tatum '22 > '24 > '23
2. Dwight Howard '09 > '10 > '11
3. Joel Embiid '23 > '22 > '21
4. Jason Kidd '02 > '03 > '04

Alright, time to commit. I ended up seeing Butler drop down my list, thought that could change again next wrong.

Tatum was an easy call for the first spot, Howard gabbing the second over Embiid was tougher. I definitely think a 100% Embiid was at his best better, Embiid's really not always at his best even within a given season. Siding with Kidd over Butler for the last slot,

[trelos6]

As the first iteration of the project winds down, I wanted to highlight a few of my favourite seasons which were not quite good enough to make the cut.

2016-17 Isaiah Thomas. King in the 4th. Amazing scoring season and clutch performances.

Al Horford - Boston years. Such an amazing role player. Figured out his role and owned it throughout his 30's.

2020-21 Jrue Holiday. Bledsoe was great defensively on the Bucks, so I didn't think Jrue was going to be much of an addition. Boy was I wrong. His offensive game opened up so much for the Bucks.

2019-21 Damian Lillard. Amazing offensive explosions. Carrying the Blazers to back to back top 3 offenses.

2011-12 Rajon Rondo. Could control the game so well without scoring. Amazing vision, and as players backed off him, daring him to shoot, he'd carve them up even more with his passing. Some of the best passing highlight packages you will see. If Wade wasn't so dirty, Celtics may have stopped the Heatles run in 2012.

2008-09 Brandon Roy. Everyone loves Roy. Such a fun player to watch.

2003-04 Ron Artest. Great defensive season, was on the cusp of greatness, and then malice in the palace happened.

2003-04 Peja Stojakovic. One of the great early 3pt shooting seasons. 3 3pm at 43%. This man would have been a menace in today's game.

2005-06 Shane Battier. Another legendary role player. Smart defensive mind, 40% from 3.

[70sFan]

20. 2020/21 Joel Embiid (HM: 2022/23)

The hardest player to rank for obvious reasons. I decided to go with 2020/21. Even with the injuries and disappointing end of the Hawks series, I think that Embiid is more valuable than anyone else left. I wish I had more time to do some deep dive on his defensive abilities, but I am fine with younger version. 2023 Embiid is still a good rim protector, but he was very sluggish outside the paint.

21. 2008/09 Dwight Howard (HM: 2010/11, 2009/10)

I think the discussion in this project made me even lower on Dwight, but I can't see him outside top 25. He's an excellent defensive presence inside and although he had a lot of weaknesses offensively, his strengths were very hard to gameplan against (though it's possible with the right personel).

22. 2002/03 Tracy Mcgrady

23. 2021/22 Jimmy Butler (HM: 2019/20, 2022/23

[70sFan]

Voting results

Votes:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

       
        "trelos6": ["Jimmy Butler", "Joel Embiid", "Dwight Howard", "Tracy McGrady"],
        "LA Bird": ["Joel Embiid", "Russell Westbrook", "Tracy McGrady", "Jimmy Butler"],
        "eminence": ["Jayson Tatum", "Joel Embiid", "Ben Wallace", "Russell Westbrook"],
        "DraymondGold": ["Joel Embiid", "Tracy McGrady", "Dwight Howard", "Jayson Tatum"],
        "Djoker": ["Joel Embiid", "Tracy McGrady", "Jason Kidd", "Russell Westbrook"],
        "One_and_Done": ["Jimmy Butler", "Tracy McGrady", "Jayson Tatum", "Dwight Howard"],
        "-Luke-": ["Joel Embiid", "Jayson Tatum", "Tracy McGrady", "Jimmy Butler"],
        "lessthanjake": ["Jayson Tatum", "Jimmy Butler", "Russell Westbrook", "Dwight Howard"],
        "Docor MJ": ["Jayson Tatum", "Dwight Howard", "Joel Embiid", "Jason Kidd"],
        "70sFan": ["Joel Embiid", "Dwight Howard", "Tracy McGrady", "Jimmy Butler"]

Number of voters: 10

Best Kemeny score:

Spoiler:

1. Joel Embiid
2. Tracy McGrady
3. Jayson Tatum
4. Jimmy Butler
5. Dwight Howard
6. Russell Westbrook
7. Jason Kidd
8. Ben Wallace
Kemeny score: 163

Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #21-#22 Spots:

#21. 2022/23 Joel Embiid



#22. 2002/03 Tracy McGrady

[Top10alltime]

You should've waited for more voters, then you could reach the RealGM collective goal of putting Embiid outside the top 25.

I'm glad he's finally in, but he should've been in the top 10, top 7 even

Also, 70sFan, can I join this project now, I have like 600+ posts