#20 Highest Peak of All Time (Nash '05 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

Anyway, Doc, here are with/without for West I have. [url](source: http://basketballwins.blogspot.com/2012 ... mpact.html[/url]Of course pace is unknown as well as strength of opponents so these numbers are only team PPG and opponents PPG unadjusted for SOS.

'63 (25 games missed)
with: 117.5 PPG, 112.2 opp PPG
w/o: 111.1 PPG, 112.8 opp PPG

'67 (15 games missed)
with: 121.1 PPG, 120.0 opp PPG
w/o: 116.6 PPG, 121.2 PPG

'68 (31 games missed)
with: 125.2 PPG, 116.3 opp PPG
w/o: 114.6 PPG, 114.4 opp PPG

'69 (21 games missed)
with: 113.5 PPG, 108.0 opp PPG
w/o: 108.7 PPG, 108.4 opp PPG

So his impact is very good (+6.4, +4.5, +10.6 and +4.8) on offense (as expected) and small (-0.6, -1.2, +1.9, -0.4) on defense (also as expected and keep in mind that his defensive impact seems to be negative during '68 season you are voting). Sure, pace, strength of opponents or other Lakers players missed games affected these results, but they are pretty consistent from season to season, so I see no reason to not believe in what they show. And keep in mind that if we want to argue that pace is big factor here (so that Lakers with West played faster) and that’s the reason why his defensive impact seems to be so small or negative (’68), then also West’s offensive impact would be smaller in reality.

Thank you DS. I'll be wanting to analyze this more.

I am going to expand on my thoughts here because I don't see how I could avoid doing so and still be part of the project. West's in the debate, this is info I asked for on West after others mentioned, so what do I think?

My general thought on this is simply: That looks really good! The author clearly feels the same way, he finishes this article saying:

On the Wilt-Russell debates I was always on the Wilt side from the first day I learned to add up points, rebounds, and assists. But I don't think that's right anymore, and I think a legitimate question is whether Wilt was the second best player of his generation after Russell, or whether it was Jerry West.

Of course there's no comparison done there with Oscar, so leave that out, but his wondering whether West might have been more valuable than Wilt? Absolutely. I wonder the same thing. I don't see a huge gap between them period.

So regardless of offense & defense, I look at the numbers there and I see good things. It would be very hard to ever look at something like that, and see major concerns.

Now, what about the PPG seeming to show only offensive change. What does that mean?

Well, to be honest, I've yet to decide how much stock I can really put it in. This came up first with Walton, and it seemed to show his impact was dominated by offense, which is pretty much unbelievable in the literal sense of the word. On the other hand, the idea that Walton's presence could significantly impact pace doesn't seem far fetched at all.

I also notice something else:

West in '68 is standing out like crazy here on his own team's PPG. 11 point difference between when he's in and when he's out? Just so it's clear to everybody: If we accept that at face value as something that nothing to do with pace, that's quite outstanding.

It would imply that his offensive impact was 9 points per 100 possessions, which without question would be right there in the discussion for best offensive player of all time.

I understand the argument that you think West wasn't quite a top tier offensive savant like a few others in history, and so you keep him stickied beneath that plateau there while you use data like this to help you understand his defense, but taken literally, this is Offensive GOAT material right here. Hard for me to fathom being underwhelmed by it.

Now, to say some things on the other side here:

Does that data make me want to proclaim West the Offensive GOAT? No, it doesn't. Between all the uncertainties involved, I'm not willing to let it have too much weight in my evaluation of West.

Even if we are certain, and however we decide to allocate offense & defense, is West's clearly ahead of, say, Nash? No, it's not.

I can definitely see the argument for Nash here over West...but then I can also see arguments for Nash over lots of guys already voted in. Truthfully, I'll be hard pressed to argue all that strongly for anyone over Nash, but I also understand that I'm in serious homer danger with Nash. I'm not talking about my rep, so much as the fact that I've spent so long looking at the positives of Nash, that I'm pretty cautious about actually elevating him over the very best because I think my actual thought process with the guy may simply favor him. I prefer with Nash to stick with easier-to-chew bites where I'm keeping it simple enough that I don't see much room for homer bias.

On the other hand, I look at, say, West vs McGrady, and I feel like things are really clear. I mean, you look at any +/- type of sample, West has far, far more evidence he's having all-timer impact than McGrady. West's done it on great teams, whereas the only times McGrady even played on good teams were on years people are quick to point out he was far from his peak. West's led offenses that were truly outstanding for their time, and he's done it as has been mentioned with him showing every possible indication that he's the keystone to that offense. Debate his defensive impact how you'd like, but the dude was a scrapper and an incredibly hard worker who clearly generated respect like few in history, and certainly his teammates felt that, while McGrady's made quite clear how weak he was in this respect.

[Doctor MJ]

I think the key with Moses, is that he brings elite rebounding in addition to offense. The impact of 7-9 extra possessions a game is being overlooked a bit.

It has to be remembered though that statistically speaking, it's not adding possessions, it's just something factored into the offense, and Philly's offense got worse when Moses joined because shooting efficiency went down and turnovers went up. You don't a rebounder as if he's a 6th man simply bringing something new to the team, you have to look at the whole picture and what has to change to make it all work together.

[Doctor MJ]

For the Nash supporters: Why didn't his offensive dominance get him voted in earlier? As in, one of the reasons used for him is that "T-Mac and West are primarily offense-first players, and Nash is better offensively, so he should go"...why didn't this argument apply to Erving/Oscar/Wade/Kobe? I mean, it's actually been re-iterated a few times that Wade and Kobe from the RAPM data we have don't have much defensive impact at all, and they're clearly worse offensively.

This comes back to my stance regarding T-Mac vs Wade and Kobe I guess...I just don't see any meaningful separation between the three, so I'm confused why a pro-Nash argument vaults him over T-Mac, but not over Wade and Kobe.

I'm guessing most would consider me to qualify here. I've been voting for West this whole time over Nash for this reason, and I was also intending to vote Wade.

It's probably most telling though if I were to say: It was never clear to me that I'd vote Kobe over Nash, and I have a lot more questions about McGrady's impact than I do Kobe.

To your point of not seeing meaningful separation between the 3, to me that reads like you naturally group the 3, and haven't seen enough to feel comfortable separating them. That's an understandable perspective, however I come from a perspective where I see the differences between Wade & Kobe as being rather astounding. Not saying that the GAP between them is astounding, but they approach basketball in vastly different ways, and they thrive in different ways. For me to start with an assumption that their impact is roughly comparable unless proven otherwise just doesn't make much sense to me.

To go into a little detail:

Wade's an attacker to the point where his longevity is in danger, and his attacking means attacking to get himself in a position to have the easiest chance to score. Kobe's approach is far more conservative, which means he's only been able to make it work by developing a game that's far more complicated than Wade.

On defense, Wade's known more for help defense than Kobe, Kobe's known more for man defense. Setting aside that we can in general say it's questionable how much impact each guy actually has, at the very least, they are doing quite different things.

Maybe most distinctive, their "zones" look very different. Wade's zones tend to involve him making the viewer feel like he's everywhere on the court, whereas Kobe makes you feel like he simply can't miss. Wade's had a real tendency to make us feel this deep in the playoffs, whereas Kobe's biggest zones seem to occur in regular season games, which makes sense if you think of Kobe's zones being more like a typical zone is, but you think of Wade's zones being energy based.

Okay so that's more than I should probably be talking about guys who are already voted in given what I've just said, but since it's being asked, yeah, I see differences. Not differences which clinch one guy being better than the other, but differences that make the assumption of great similarity in impact seem like a bad bet.

Of course then I get into the +/- stuff, and Wade takes all the multi-year analyses I see, and his peak yearly RAPM is well ahead of Kobe, and it helps convince me in a particular direction even before I start thinking about the ramifications of an energy-based zone in a sport where it'd be really nice to be able to have some control over when you zone.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I think the key with Moses, is that he brings elite rebounding in addition to offense. The impact of 7-9 extra possessions a game is being overlooked a bit.

It has to be remembered though that statistically speaking, it's not adding possessions, it's just something factored into the offense, and Philly's offense got worse when Moses joined because shooting efficiency went down and turnovers went up. You don't a rebounder as if he's a 6th man simply bringing something new to the team, you have to look at the whole picture and what has to change to make it all work together.

Actually, Philly's offense put up a better ORtg relative to league average in 1983 than in 1982.

Code: Select all

            76ers  NBA Avg   +/-
1980        105.0  105.3    -0.3
1981        107.0  105.5    +1.5
1982        109.6  106.9    +2.7

1983        108.3  104.7    +3.6


^
What we see is that the 76ers had a better offense with Moses, than without.

And in contrast, here's Houston's offense from that same period....

Code: Select all

              Hou  NBA Avg   +/-
1980        108.1  105.3    +2.8
1981        107.0  105.5    +1.5
1982        108.3  106.9    +1.4

1983         97.0  104.7    -7.7


[Lightning25]

The only reason why I haven't voted yet is because I'm not sure if West is going to win this. It seems like he is losing leverage here.

I'll vote for 1983 Moses Malone this time. He is worthy of it. His defense is questionable but he could play it as he has shown. He just wasn't very consistent or willing at it until he was put on a good team. We all know he is a dominant rebounder and a good scorer and he could anchor a team's offense.

[Doctor MJ]

I think the key with Moses, is that he brings elite rebounding in addition to offense. The impact of 7-9 extra possessions a game is being overlooked a bit.

It has to be remembered though that statistically speaking, it's not adding possessions, it's just something factored into the offense, and Philly's offense got worse when Moses joined because shooting efficiency went down and turnovers went up. You don't a rebounder as if he's a 6th man simply bringing something new to the team, you have to look at the whole picture and what has to change to make it all work together.

Actually, Philly's offense put up a better ORtg relative to league average in 1983 than in 1982.

Code: Select all

            76ers  NBA Avg   +/-
1980        105.0  105.3    -0.3
1981        107.0  105.5    +1.5
1982        109.6  106.9    +2.7

1983        108.3  104.7    +3.6


^
What we see is that the 76ers had a better offense with Moses, than without.

And in contrast, here's Houston's offense from that same period....

Code: Select all

              Hou  NBA Avg   +/-
1980        108.1  105.3    +2.8
1981        107.0  105.5    +1.5
1982        108.3  106.9    +1.4

1983         97.0  104.7    -7.7


Actually, both absolute and relative ORtgs are good to mention. You're quite correct that while one shows the offense getting a bit worse, the other shows it getting a bit better. The really salient point though is that no matter how you look at it, there wasn't a big difference.

I mean, hear we are in a discussion where West appears to add 9 points of efficiency to his team in a given year, and it's not considered so dramatically positive that we all hand him our vote in an instant. Our caution at 9 points of impact has to be remembered when we start getting to the point where we point out a year-to-year improvement that is only 1/10th of that size in the eye of the more sympathetic method.

Re: Houston.

Well, I used to talk about Houston's fall as well, but when people pointed out that this is the organization that won the #1 pick 2 years in a row which caused the creation of the lottery, I don't find those numbers to be something we can rely on the meaning of. In the history of tanking, we're touching on the most prominent example ever.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Actually, Philly's offense put up a better ORtg relative to league average in 1983 than in 1982.

Code: Select all

            76ers  NBA Avg   +/-
1980        105.0  105.3    -0.3
1981        107.0  105.5    +1.5
1982        109.6  106.9    +2.7

1983        108.3  104.7    +3.6


^
What we see is that the 76ers had a better offense with Moses, than without.

And in contrast, here's Houston's offense from that same period....

Code: Select all

              Hou  NBA Avg   +/-
1980        108.1  105.3    +2.8
1981        107.0  105.5    +1.5
1982        108.3  106.9    +1.4

1983         97.0  104.7    -7.7


Actually, both absolute and relative ORtgs are good to mention. You're quite correct that while one shows the offense getting a bit worse, the other shows it getting a bit better. The really salient point though is that no matter how you look at it, there wasn't a big difference.

I mean, hear we are in a discussion where West appears to add 9 points of efficiency to his team in a given year, and it's not considered so dramatically positive that we all hand him our vote in an instant. Our caution at 9 points of impact has to be remembered when we start getting to the point where we point out a year-to-year improvement that is only 1/10th of that size in the eye of the more sympathetic method.

Re: Houston.

Well, I used to talk about Houston's fall as well, but when people pointed out that this is the organization that won the #1 pick 2 years in a row which caused the creation of the lottery, I don't find those numbers to be something we can rely on the meaning of. In the history of tanking, we're touching on the most prominent example ever.

I guess my main problem with that, is the same reason why I prefer 1966 West over 1968 West. I feel early in this project people got a bit too focused on with/without numbers. In reality, they're a result of a lot more than a star player's absence. Roster depth, coaching, player utility, SOS, etc., all play a role in it. So while a 9 point difference with West out a certain year may be interesting, it says more about his role on that team, than his actual impact/play.

The other main issue of course, is that players like 1983 Moses/1966 West are penalized for player nearly every game. They don't get the benefit of these numbers. Who's to say what numbers we would have had with West out in 1969 especially with Baylor banged up. it's all a bit much.

I mean we could look at the 4 games Moses missed in 1983, but of course those were at the end of the year. So basically we have one guy who missed 30+ games, and as a result has with/without stats, and another guy who won his 2nd straight MVP on a totally different team, while leading the NBA in rebounding, being All-NBA/All-D, and FMVP in an epic playoff run, while playing nearly every game.

I tend to think RealGm over complicate things sometimes.

[Werry]

[




Maybe most distinctive, their "zones" look very different. Wade's zones tend to involve him making the viewer feel like he's everywhere on the court, whereas Kobe makes you feel like he simply can't miss. Wade's had a real tendency to make us feel this deep in the playoffs, whereas Kobe's biggest zones seem to occur in regular season games, which makes sense if you think of Kobe's zones being more like a typical zone is, but you think of Wade's zones being energy based.

Okay so that's more than I should probably be talking about guys who are already voted in given what I've just said, but since it's being asked, yeah, I see differences. Not differences which clinch one guy being better than the other, but differences that make the assumption of great similarity in impact seem like a bad bet.

Of course then I get into the +/- stuff, and Wade takes all the multi-year analyses I see, and his peak yearly RAPM is well ahead of Kobe, and it helps convince me in a particular direction even before I start thinking about the ramifications of an energy-based zone in a sport where it'd be really nice to be able to have some control over when you zone.

lol @ this moron.

Kobe's zones haven't come deep in the playoffs?

2010 WCF: 34/9/7/2/63% TS
2010 WCSF: 31/6/4/2/62% TS
2009 Finals: 32/7/6/2/54% TS
2009 WCF: 34/6/6/2/60% TS
2008 WCF: 29/6/5/2/62% TS
2008 WCSF: 34/7/6/2/63% TS
2006: 29/6/5/2/60% TS
2002 Finals: 28/6/5/2/62% TS (#1 defense in league)
2001 WCF: 35/9/5/2/62% TS
2001 WCSF: 33/7/7/2/61% TS

post-season:
14 40+ point games (3rd all-time)
85 30+ point games (2nd all-time)
08-10 post-season run: 30/6/6/2/57% TS while leading Lakers to three straight Finals and back-to-back rings. Better run than anything Wade has ever had.
2001 post-season: 29.4/7.3/6.1/1.8/55.5% TS. Better run than anything D-Whistle has ever had.

RS:
Kobe---114 40+ point games (average TS: 62% TS)
Wade--32
Kobe---25 50+ points
Wade--3

lmao not even remotely close.

Kobe gets into zones with FAR greater ease than Wade can due to his far superior shooting abilty/skill. lol @ you attacking like it's simply a matter of getting hot. Idiot.

10 RAPM: Kobe---6.6
Wade---5.5

[Werry]

Manu was better in 05 for sure, and probably in 11.

lol @ this dumass. Manu wasn't remotely close to Bryant.

This dude's ridiculous. This has to be close to his 100th account at this point.

Cue a "You mad???" quote

STFU phaggett.

[Doctor MJ]

I guess my main problem with that, is the same reason why I prefer 1966 West over 1968 West. I feel early in this project people got a bit too focused on with/without numbers. In reality, they're a result of a lot more than a star player's absence. Roster depth, coaching, player utility, SOS, etc., all play a role in it. So while a 9 point difference with West out a certain year may be interesting, it says more about his role on that team, than his actual impact/play.

Well, I'd point out that year-to-year changes are a form of on/off. I use all kinds of on/off data, consider it all worth pondering, but also use caution with it all. I don't object to your caution, but no matter how you slice it, Moses to Philly wasn't an offensive revolution.

And given that Moses by traditional stat metrics is one amazing looking offensive player, that's a cause for caution no doubt.

The other main issue of course, is that players like 1983 Moses/1966 West are penalized for player nearly every game. They don't get the benefit of these numbers. Who's to say what numbers we would have had with West out in 1969 especially with Baylor banged up. it's all a bit much.

Well, I keep this in mind too. I've seen people at times try to knock Hakeem because he never showed huge on/off numbers, but when his most impressive years are all healthy, that's basically irrelevant.

Re: '66 West. The thing is though that we're not just talking about '68 West because he had great on/off but because his "on" was an outlier, and because it happened in a year with a new team strategy. It's understandable to say, "I'm still cautious in separating that year from the rest of West's career", but when you start looking at it from a perspective of the fact that the Lakers were actually attempting a very large change to how they did things, there's no reason to really round results back to previous norms.

Also understand that I look at those Laker teams in general and ask, "Shouldn't that offense have been even BETTER?", and this was something I was really considering as part of my West evaluation before this project. So to me the idea that with a different scheme big improvements could be made just makes things fit into place.

All that said though, obviously the only reason I'm finding this out now only now is that if what I now believe is true, some astonishing circumstance arose which made it so hard to see, and those circumstances means there simply much sample to see.

With '83 Moses, I feel like I get where you're coming from:

This was about as good of a team as we've ever seen, and it happened with the arrival of an existing MVP player who immediately got called the MVP again. This appears to be a superstar level player without any clear ceiling as to what kind of a team he can impact.

I just can't help but notice that the things that appeared impact by MVP Rocket Moses were on offense, but in Philly it was the defense that really came together. This is a pretty big switch up, and it makes you ask: How big was Moses effect really?

[bastillon]

vote: Nash 05

[Doctor MJ]

Huh.

Vote: Nash '05.

[ardee]

Doc, ElGee, where are you guys ? Am I the only one who has voted for West?

[Lightning25]

Doc, ElGee, where are you guys ? Am I the only one who has voted for West?

Yes, I was originally voting for West since he was the best two-way player but it looks like no one else really values him. I don't blame them though because West's peak season on here is an injury-plagued one.

I wouldn't mind either Nash or Moses winning this round. I voted Moses though.

[Doctor MJ]

Well unless someone has an objection to the count, It looks to me like Nash won. I'll start the next thread tentatively.

[Doctor MJ]

Doc, ElGee, where are you guys ? Am I the only one who has voted for West?

I held off on voting because of all the weird things going on. When it came time that I hate to pick somebody, it was clearly a race between Moses, McGrady, and Nash. So, I voted Nash. Pretty weird if he wins to be honest, which is one of the reasons, I kinda want to make sure no one sees a mistake.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I just can't help but notice that the things that appeared impact by MVP Rocket Moses were on offense, but in Philly it was the defense that really came together. This is a pretty big switch up, and it makes you ask: How big was Moses effect really?

I'm just not sure why you feel it was defense over offense. The 76ers went from +3 DRtg in 1982 to +3.8 in 1983. Their ORtg went from +2.7 to +3.6 in 1983. So their offense/defense improved at the same clip.

Further, the improvement in their DRtg came from a dramatic jump in DRB%. They were #22 out of 23 teams in 1982, and jumped to #10 thanks to Mose's rebounding. Also, Philly went from the #17 team in allowing FT/FGA, to #4. So yes, Moses was directly responsible for the defensive jump.

At this time, I've said all I can. Clearly, by pretty much every individual/team metric, Moses was amazing in 1983. But honestly, it just seems he's been nitpicked apart. I'm at the point where I'm still unsure what people are actually voting on, because Ewing got in with pretty much no scrutiny, while Moses has been given nothing but scrutiny. The narrative effect is just too big.

[Doctor MJ]

I just can't help but notice that the things that appeared impact by MVP Rocket Moses were on offense, but in Philly it was the defense that really came together. This is a pretty big switch up, and it makes you ask: How big was Moses effect really?

I'm just not sure why you feel it was defense over offense. The 76ers went from +3 DRtg in 1982 to +3.8 in 1983. Their ORtg went from +2.7 to +3.6 in 1983. So their offense/defense improved at the same clip.

Further, the improvement in their DRtg came from a dramatic jump in DRB%. They were #22 out of 23 teams in 1982, and jumped to #10 thanks to Mose's rebounding. Also, Philly went from the #17 team in allowing FT/FGA, to #4. So yes, Moses was directly responsible for the defensive jump.

At this time, I've said all I can. Clearly, by pretty much every individual/team metric, Moses was amazing in 1983. But honestly, it just seems he's been nitpicked apart. I'm at the point where I'm still unsure what people are actually voting on, because Ewing got in with pretty much no scrutiny, while Moses has been given nothing but scrutiny. The narrative effect is just too big.

By absolute measures, it was the defense that improved. I understand that relative is something to look at as well, but the idea behind relative is typically that you don't want to penalize a team for outside changes to the game outside of their control, but when we're talking about back to back years, and the 2nd year shows a trend that goes against the trend of the era, I'm reluctant to do too much with the relative.

There's also the matter that at least on my cursory look in the post-season, the 76ers were really doing great on defense there.