Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #11 - 2016-17 Stephen Curry

[f4p]

1. 2017 Kawhi

This is an excellent regular season with a monster playoffs where he showed that his playoff resilience didn't even care about facing the greatest roster ever, only to be taken out on one of the more famous cheap shots in recent memory. A full WCF would make people like this season more and I can't blame him for a cheap shot injury. 2017 Kawhi wins on lots of teams that had guys who will be listed above him here:

Kawhi's 31.5 PER is 13th all time based on 100 MP and 8th all time for multi-series playoffs. His WS/48 of .314 is 9th all time based on 100 MP and 6th all time for multi-series playoffs. And that's with 1954 mikan included above him. Even with very generous 100 MP and 20 PPG limits, his TS% of 67.2% is 24th all-time. For 200 MP and 24 PPG, it jumps to 6th, and one of the people ahead of him is himself.

If this was a one year phenomenom, I might understand the hesitancy. But "kawhi puts up huge playoff performance" is not a one year phenomenom. If we are truly talking about peaks, there aren't many higher than 2017 playoffs Kawhi.

2. 1983 Moses Malone

Fo' Fo' Fo'. Led the league in regular season PER and WS48 while putting up 24.5 ppg and 15.3 rpg and winning MVP. Then led the playoffs in PER (25.7) and WS48 (0.260) while putting up 26 ppg and 15.8 rpg on 58.7 TS%. In the Finals, he demolished (35 year old) Kareem with 25.8 ppg and 18.0 rpg in a sweep. I was actually just looking at this season to see where I might put it and then convinced myself when I looked at the rest of the Sixers in the playoffs. After Moses at 25.7 PER and 0.260 WS48, the next highest was Maurice Cheeks at 17.3 PER and Bobby Jones at 0.164 WS48 (Dr J really fell off in the playoffs). That puts Moses as far and away the best player in arguably the most dominant playoff run ever. One that he called before it happened just to make it more impressive. This isn't Shaq with Kobe or KD/Steph all having each other's backs in dominant 1-loss runs. This is a one man wrecking crew. Moses gets disrespected enough on all-time lists, a 3-time MVP with a side hustle of smacking Kareem around in the playoffs shouldn't get the same on peak lists.

3. 2006 Dwyane Wade (alternate 2009 Wade)

I'm a floor raising kind of guy I guess, which doesn't seem typical on this board. People who have everything put on them and come up big in the biggest moments with little to no margin of error impress me more than ceiling raisers putting the finishing touches on an already great team. It just seems like a more common problem to solve throughout NBA history than what to do with all this extra talent. Wade had a very good 27/7/6 regular season as a 3rd year player but obviously this is about the playoffs. On one of the jankiest looking title rosters you'll ever see, on a team where Antoine Walker played the 2nd most playoff minutes and White Chocolate played the 4th most, and Shaq was often getting outplayed by Zo, Wade saved his best moments for the biggest series.

Shot 61.7% in the ECF (68.4 TS%!!) against a still very good Detroit team that had just held Lebron to 81 ppg in the previous series. 26.7/5.5/5.2 looks even better when you realize the pace was 83.8. And then of course there are the Finals. Did he shoot 2 to 3 to 40 more free throws than he should have? Sure, but free throw totals were pretty elevated that year so his totals are only sort of absurd. Put up 34.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg, and 2.7 spg on 57.2 TS% while maybe leading the best overall Finals comeback ever. Weirdly, the only team that has probably come closer to losing the Finals before winning is also a team with Wade in the 2013 Finals (with 3rd probably also including Wade in the 2011 Finals). The Heat were down 2-0 and down 13 in the 4th quarter of Game 3. That's dangerously close to "1, 2, 3 Cancun!" time and instead Wade just went crazy and put up 42, 36, 43, and 36 in the next 4 games. In a series with a pace of 90! With 3 of the games decided by 1, 2, and 3. In other words, turn those 42/43 games into just 39 point games and the Mavs are celebrating. Efficiency may not be crazy but on that volume with such a weird, offensively limited roster around him against a very solid defense, this is perhaps the best Finals performance ever by anybody not named Lebron or Jordan. It's a title snatched out of thin air that very few players can say they would have been able to pull off. This is a peaks project and it's hard to peak much higher.

[Doctor MJ]

1. 1977 Bill Walton

Has everyone forgotten about him? In 1977 and 1978, here's the Blazers' record with and without him:

1977 Walton healthy: 44-21
1977 Walton hurt: 5-12

1978 Walton healthy: 48-10
1978 Walton hurt: 10-14

74.7% win rate while he's healthy, and 36.5% while he's hurt. And that's over a pretty big sample size.

Quite honestly I see him on a similar level to Russell, whom I have at 9. Just incredible defensive impact, if you watch the Finals against the Sixers he has the defensive equivalent of a scorer having a 20 point quarter. The commentators were freaking out and screaming "they cannot find a way to score on Bill Walton!"

I think him and Steph are pretty debatable.

Love that you're bringing him up. I haven't forgotten about him, and I think you can make an argument he should have gone in long ago. To me the Kareem vs Walton argument is not open and shut.

I suppose though I wasn't looking to try to argue for him before Giannis among the bigs. Again not saying the case is open and shut Giannis > Walton, but Giannis has a really solid case and I suppose I'd just be really surprised if many people put Walton with his limited minutes even in his biggest seasons, ahead of him.

My issue with walton is fragility, even in 77 he missed a bunch of games. Is why i probably will put robinson above him even if walton offensive skillsrt is more valuable in a playoffs setting

Understandable logic and I can see the case.

One of the things that I've found ends up holding Robinson back is his contemporary Karl Malone. Robinson's prime is a situation where you can argue he's the most impactful player in the world...but when he gets into the playoff series against the guys seen as his rivals, it doesn't go great for him.

Of course, you can certainly argue Malone over Walton, with durability being key to why, but I'm considerably more impressed with what Walton brings to the table. Way stronger defense, with an offensive role that scales superbly against top competition.

[capfan33]

Love that you're bringing him up. I haven't forgotten about him, and I think you can make an argument he should have gone in long ago. To me the Kareem vs Walton argument is not open and shut.

I suppose though I wasn't looking to try to argue for him before Giannis among the bigs. Again not saying the case is open and shut Giannis > Walton, but Giannis has a really solid case and I suppose I'd just be really surprised if many people put Walton with his limited minutes even in his biggest seasons, ahead of him.

My issue with walton is fragility, even in 77 he missed a bunch of games. Is why i probably will put robinson above him even if walton offensive skillsrt is more valuable in a playoffs setting

Understandable logic and I can see the case.

One of the things that I've found ends up holding Robinson back is his contemporary Karl Malone. Robinson's prime is a situation where you can argue he's the most impactful player in the world...but when he gets into the playoff series against the guys seen as his rivals, it doesn't go great for him.

Of course, you can certainly argue Malone over Walton, with durability being key to why, but I'm considerably more impressed with what Walton brings to the table. Way stronger defense, with an offensive role that scales superbly against top competition.

I have the same issue, if Walton could have strung together 3 relatively healthy years he would probably be on my ballot already.

[Owly]

a still very good Detroit team that had just held Lebron to 81 ppg in the previous series.

Maybe there should have more consideration for that version of LeBron.

[falcolombardi]

1. 2017 Kawhi

This is an excellent regular season with a monster playoffs where he showed that his playoff resilience didn't even care about facing the greatest roster ever, only to be taken out on one of the more famous cheap shots in recent memory. A full WCF would make people like this season more and I can't blame him for a cheap shot injury. 2017 Kawhi wins on lots of teams that had guys who will be listed above him here:

Kawhi's 31.5 PER is 13th all time based on 100 MP and 8th all time for multi-series playoffs. His WS/48 of .314 is 9th all time based on 100 MP and 6th all time for multi-series playoffs. And that's with 1954 mikan included above him. Even with very generous 100 MP and 20 PPG limits, his TS% of 67.2% is 24th all-time. For 200 MP and 24 PPG, it jumps to 6th, and one of the people ahead of him is himself.

If this was a one year phenomenom, I might understand the hesitancy. But "kawhi puts up huge playoff performance" is not a one year phenomenom. If we are truly talking about peaks, there aren't many higher than 2017 playoffs Kawhi.

2. 1983 Moses Malone

Fo' Fo' Fo'. Led the league in regular season PER and WS48 while putting up 24.5 ppg and 15.3 rpg and winning MVP. Then led the playoffs in PER (25.7) and WS48 (0.260) while putting up 26 ppg and 15.8 rpg on 58.7 TS%. In the Finals, he demolished (35 year old) Kareem with 25.8 ppg and 18.0 rpg in a sweep. I was actually just looking at this season to see where I might put it and then convinced myself when I looked at the rest of the Sixers in the playoffs. After Moses at 25.7 PER and 0.260 WS48, the next highest was Maurice Cheeks at 17.3 PER and Bobby Jones at 0.164 WS48 (Dr J really fell off in the playoffs). That puts Moses as far and away the best player in arguably the most dominant playoff run ever. One that he called before it happened just to make it more impressive. This isn't Shaq with Kobe or KD/Steph all having each other's backs in dominant 1-loss runs. This is a one man wrecking crew. Moses gets disrespected enough on all-time lists, a 3-time MVP with a side hustle of smacking Kareem around in the playoffs shouldn't get the same on peak lists.

3. 2006 Dwyane Wade (alternate 2009 Wade)

I'm a floor raising kind of guy I guess, which doesn't seem typical on this board. People who have everything put on them and come up big in the biggest moments with little to no margin of error impress me more than ceiling raisers putting the finishing touches on an already great team. It just seems like a more common problem to solve throughout NBA history than what to do with all this extra talent. Wade had a very good 27/7/6 regular season as a 3rd year player but obviously this is about the playoffs. On one of the jankiest looking title rosters you'll ever see, on a team where Antoine Walker played the 2nd most playoff minutes and White Chocolate played the 4th most, and Shaq was often getting outplayed by Zo, Wade saved his best moments for the biggest series.

Shot 61.7% in the ECF (68.4 TS%!!) against a still very good Detroit team that had just held Lebron to 81 ppg in the previous series. 26.7/5.5/5.2 looks even better when you realize the pace was 83.8. And then of course there are the Finals. Did he shoot 2 to 3 to 40 more free throws than he should have? Sure, but free throw totals were pretty elevated that year so his totals are only sort of absurd. Put up 34.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg, and 2.7 spg on 57.2 TS% while maybe leading the best overall Finals comeback ever. Weirdly, the only team that has probably come closer to losing the Finals before winning is also a team with Wade in the 2013 Finals (with 3rd probably also including Wade in the 2011 Finals). The Heat were down 2-0 and down 13 in the 4th quarter of Game 3. That's dangerously close to "1, 2, 3 Cancun!" time and instead Wade just went crazy and put up 42, 36, 43, and 36 in the next 4 games. In a series with a pace of 90! With 3 of the games decided by 1, 2, and 3. In other words, turn those 42/43 games into just 39 point games and the Mavs are celebrating. Efficiency may not be crazy but on that volume with such a weird, offensively limited roster around him against a very solid defense, this is perhaps the best Finals performance ever by anybody not named Lebron or Jordan. It's a title snatched out of thin air that very few players can say they would have been able to pull off. This is a peaks project and it's hard to peak much higher.

Agree wade could honestly have a peak argument over even giannis, bird or curry

[capfan33]

I am typing up a response to your other questions but I wanted to ask about this real quick. From the data i've looked at, Kobe has a very consistent edge in APM data looking at multi year stretches(Kobe looking like a >+5/g player for the entire 06-10 stretch and KD never hitting a +5 aside from in 2016 where he hit a +6.3 - higher than any Kobe mark), while KD has a consistent, large edge when looking at box metrics and box +/- hybrid metrics in the regular season. Though in the playoffs Kobe then gains a small lead in hybrid metrics over his prime.

Is this accurate based on your findings? How did you decide to balance them? I found it surprising you concluded they suggest KD=>Kobe rather than Kobe=>KD when i'm assuming you believe the former should have more value in larger samples at least but maybe i'm doing some weird nitpicking lol

I suspect if you take out the Golden State years Kobe would have a clear cut advantage in the playoffs even though that may be my personal bias shining through. I generally would feel more comfortable with Kobe in the playoffs than KD even if Kobe may not have quite the ceiling KD has.

Thanks for the comments! I figured I'd do the stats for the next tier of players I have.

Without further ado, Here's the Stat Box for Curry, Garnett, Robinson, Giannis, Jokic, Durant, Kobe, Oscar, Walton, West:

Spoiler:

Qualifier: I was a bit looser with rankings this time... if A had a slightly better 1-year peak than B but a slightly worse 2-year peak, I said they're about equal using a ~ symbol. Parenthetical comments are given for players who are about equal to explain whether they have better 1 year or better 2 year. Maybe if I have time I can order each of the tier rankings.
Ai. AuPM: Jokic (best in 22, near-worst in 21) / Curry / KG / Robinson (better in 94 lower in 95) > KD / Giannis (better 22, lower 21) > Kobe
Aii. PS AuPM: Curry > Robinson (99) > KG (04) > Jokic (highest in 22 in this tier, lowest 2/3-year avg in this tier) ~ Kobe (lowest 08, highest 2 year avg) ~ KD (near highest 1 year avg, great warriors years, worst non-warriors) / Giannis (highest 1 year avg, drop other years)

Bi. RAPM: KG > Curry > Robinson > Kobe > Jokic > Giannis > KD
Bii. RS/PS PIPM: Curry (best 2 year avg and postseason-only) ~ KG ~ Robinson (best in 94, worse after) > Giannis ish ~ KD > Walton > Kobe > Jokic
D. WOWY: Curry > Robinson > Oscar > West > Kobe > KG > KD
E. ESPN’s RPM: Jokic > Curry > Giannis > KG > KD ~ Kobe (KD lower peak, higher other years)
F. CORP: Curry > KG > Robinson ~ Kobe ~ KD (Kobe > KD > Robinson after greatest peaks series, reverse before) > West > Oscar

Gi. BPM: Curry > 22 Jokic > 17 KD > Robinson (better 94, 95/96 worse) ~ Giannis (best non peak 19/20, tie 21 with 95/96) ~ KG (best peak year) > Kobe > Oscar > Walton > West
Gii. PS BPM: Curry / 17 KD > Kobe ~ Jokic ~ Giannis > Robinson ~ KG > Walton > Oscar > West

Ballpark Rank according to the data:
Tier 1 (great in all stats): Curry:
Tier 2 (good in almost all stats, better in more-trusted stats): KG ~ Robinson
Tier 3 (good in most stats, better in less-trusted stats): Giannis ~ Jokic >~ KD ~ Kobe
Tier 4 (incomplete data, less good in stats we have): Oscar ~ Walton ~ West

Tier 1: Curry. Top 2 in every stat. Best in all postseason-only numbers. No player beats him in more than 1 category.

Tier 2: KG/Robinson. Like I mentioned before, KG and Robinson are tied in stats they win. Both do better in the stats based on real plus minus data, which we tend to trust more as measuring real value. I think film analysis / context would be needed to argue which is better.

Tier 3: Giannis/Jokic/KD/Kobe.
-I've talked a lot about Giannis' stats, so I won't repeat here too much. He tends to do better in regular-season-only and box-score based stats compared to true plus/minus stars in the tiers above.
-Jokic in 2022 looks like he might be in Tier 1 or 2. Jokic before looks like he could be near the bottom of the group. I will say it's slightly concerning that, like Giannis, he tends to do better in box-score stats (BPM especially, and AuPM has box-inputs) compared to the real plus minus data (RAPM, PIPM). We'll see if he keeps this up in 2023 -- I wouldn't be shocked if he got ranked higher with more hindsight.
-KD, like y'all suggest, does much better in the Warriors years, particularly in box stats (BPM). His lower "true" plus minus ranking make me question whether he's benefiting more from Curry's playmaking than vice-versa. His stats are also a bit more inconsistent with what his peak year is; in some stats, 17 is a clear outlier; while in others, 16 or 14 peak ahead. His low RAPM (together without a high PIPM or WOWY) are concerning. Still, where KD gains is in portability and resilience (when paired with another playmaker / person to attract the defense).
-Kobe's interesting. I'm actually a bit surprised that the data has him lower. In general, KD clearly does better in his Warrior years and in the box stats. Kobe does a hair better than KD's non-Warriors years. For both BPM and AuPM, KD's ahead in both Warrior and non-Warrior years in the regular season, but KD's only ahead in the Warriors years in the playoffs. KD's also ahead in RS/PS PIPM in both Warrior and non-Warrior years. Kobe pulls ahead in RAPM and WOWY. KD's clearly ahead, but the question becomes how much did KD benefit from a better fit (I think the Warriors' playmaking helped KD more than vice versa). I see Kobe as more resilient (I think KD's resilience comes from playing with MVP playmakers), while KD's more scalable.
Casual "eye-test" fans tend to overrate Kobe. Casual "analytics" fans tend to underrate Kobe. More experienced fans probably find a compromise, but it'll be interesting to see his arguments vs KD, because KD does have the statistical advantage.

Tier 4 Oscar/Walton/West. Here, we're limited by a lack of data. The 3 older players are at the bottom in Backpicks BPM and Postseason BPM. In WS/48, they're all below Curry/Robinson/KD/Jokic/Giannis, though West beats Kobe/Walton and Oscar also beats KG. The two guards beat Kobe/KG/KD in WOWY. Within this tier: Oscar clearly wins over West in the stats, though the gap becomes less clear in the playoffs and West has the scalability/defense advantage that might be lost in the box-stats. Walton seems closer to West than Oscar by the stats. Of course, Walton also has the scalability/defensive advantage, so it's possible more wholistic stats (like RAPM/PIPM) would have shown Walton/West rising higher by capturing defense the box score just misses.

Comment on years:
-Robinson: According to the stats, 94 Robinson > 95 Robinson. Do we trust this? He didn't have a great postseason, so I imagine 95 proponents are making a resilience argument. Do we see playoff improvement from 94 to 95 to make it be worth taking over 94's regular season?
-KD: 14 doesn't look clearly best. 16 looks just as good as 14, and 17 is clearly the best (if we ignore context)
-Kobe: 08 is probably best. It wins in regular season BPM, RAPM, RS/PS PIPM. Still, 09 gets close in postseason BPM/AuPM, and i'd sooner take 09 than 06.
-West: 66 is probably best considering health, but I'd be open to taking other years (e.g. 68-70)

All of this lines up pretty well with what I previously thought. And your point about Kobe is very true as someone who isn't that high on Kobe but also understands that his relative lack of efficiency isn't as bad as it might appear on the surface. While KDs advanced stats look great in GS as per usual it was such an absurd situation it's hard for me to put full stock in them.

With that being said, I guess that KD vs Kobe really does boil down to a philosophical argument at the end of the day, do you want a floor-raiser or ceiling raiser? Personally I think that Kobe's overall skillset in terms of versatility, resilience and goodness is a bit rarer than KDs which is why I would go with Kobe.

Kobe also did so in a tougher defensive environment for a lot of it, against, I would suspect better defenses than KD, but would need to look into it more. I also think that KDs impact is very concentrated in his scoring, which wasn't very resilient until he got to GS, which I'm not a huge fan of. All other things being equal I prefer players that can impact the game in many different ways, and if they can't I want their main skill to be resilient, and KD fails in both of those areas.

[Doctor MJ]

I will say that in the playoffs from '77-'79(really on the higher end of star PS production rises), Erving's production rose but it was still nowhere rly near as good as 1976- they also weren't as dependent on him as the 76 Nets were i'd say. In 1977 he basically led them to the finals as McGinnis was pretty much dead weight that run but the team wasn't especially dominant.

I think part of the bad adjustment was the lack of three point line spacing in the NBA, and part of it were strange fits around Julius. Those teams would sometimes run double centers like Caldwell Jones and Darryl Dawkins together, George McGinnis was an awful fit alonfside Julius as they wanted to do many similar things, and World B. Free's ball dominance did not help either, they all crticized for some of these decisions. Some of those decisions helped the defense but the offense was just not optimizing him(could possibly be an argument against his portability cuz it wasn't like they were terrible offensive casts.
https://vault.si.com/vault/1977/03/21/good-but-why-not-the-best

Another problem was Julius having shaky knees throughout his career and he looked pretty reguvenated because of that, and the addition of a 3 point line by 1980:
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/21/archives/ervings-kness-pass-first-court-test-dr-j-back-knees-pass-court-test.html

There are only like 4 ABA(from 74 to 76) Julius games available on YouTube but he really did not look all THAT different than he did in the NBA playoff games immediately after to me as if he went from randomly dropping from an all-time peak to an all-nba ish level player in one year, part of me feels im either overrating ABA Julius or underrating what NBA Julius would be in a vacuum due to the bad fit and inconsistent role year to year(some years being very dependent on his scoring and other years utilizing him more like an all-around specialist), because by 1976 the ABA wasn't too far off the NBA in player quality.

The WOWY indicators are what give me the most concerns, he looks far more inconsistent year to year than other all-timers in on/off data for the NBA. Some years looking strong and other years having a...negative on/off?

Julius Erving On Court + On/Off by year

77: (+5.2/+6)
78: (+4.9/+0.6)
79: (+1.7/-0.1)
80: (+4.9/+3)
81: (+5.7/-6.7)
82: (+8.6/+10)
83: (+11.4/+10.3)
84:(3.6/+4.4)
85: (+2.9/-3.2)
86:(+4.1/+4.6)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit?usp=drivesdk

Now these are heavily influenced by fit and utilization, and he also rose in production in the playoffs. We also do not have this data for the ABA when many people have him on their ballots for exclusively what he did relative to ABA competition.

We also don't have more lineup/rotation data to really see why this is happening(one thing I see is how Bobby looks very strong as a replacement in these coming off the bench so I wonder if that factored in to it a bit because of the lineups they faced), it still looks kinda unimpressive to me even factoring these in but idk how much value should be placed into these for a ranking with all that information missing. I hope someone else defending Julius right now could answer those for me.

Glad you're bringing this up. As someone who named himself on these boards after Erving, I came in a strong supporter of Erving and I've become less and less so - from a player value ranking perspective - with time. This was true before we saw his 76er +/- data already to some degree, but I have to admit being pretty shocked by how little Erving stood out here.

It has been speculated that it's possible that having a player as unusual as Bobby Jones may cause raw on/off data to look pretty strange. Jones was speculated as potentially a huge per minute impact guy before we saw the data, and the data seems to have bared that out. If the 76er rotation was such that Erving & Jones were significantly staggered in their minutes, it's possible that what's happening is that we're not getting a number for Erving that represents anything at all like the off replacements for other players.

That wouldn't explain everything though. Erving's on/off looked pretty pedestrian in the first two years in Philly before they got Jones.

And yet, I remain convinced that Erving's impact in the ABA was truly exceptional, and I think the dropoff the Nets had with his departure backs that up.

In the end, I'm left feeling like Erving needs to be seen as someone capable of great impact, but not of his own adaptation. He was someone who did his thing, and if you had the right fit around him you resonated with what he was doing. If not, the level you achieved with him wasn't something so high that you couldn't do something similar with a quality team effort.

I might draw analogy to Kawhi's defense toward the end of his time on the Spurs. While his focus on defense had started to wane at this point, there was still no doubt that he was a terrifying man defender that opponents looked to avoid. But while this led to good defense by normal standards, the entire team ran like a defensive machine knowing just what to do to work in the scheme Pop told them to run, and it made the everyday defensive impact of Kawhi a bit murky.

I forgot to ask you about this, but i feel even mpre convinced now green vs giannis defensively is much more of a diacussion tham people think

Warriors: reg sea/play-offs

2015: -4.2/-7.5
2016: -2.6/-4.5
2017 -4.8/ -6.9
2018 -1.0/-7.9
2019 -0.9/-2.0
Avg: -2.7/ -5.8

Now lets compare green led defenses to giannis led defenses

2019 -5.2/-8.9* (corrected)
2020 -7.7/-2.8
2021 -0.9/-6.7
2022 -0.2/ -7.4
Avg: -3.5/ -6.3

They stop being a good defense in regular season but so do green warriors, they have a higher regular season peak too and overall the have a -3.5 defense in reg season over a 4 year stretch

Warriors average defense in reg season over this stretch is -2.8 over a 5 year stretch

Giannis bucks 19-22 are better than green warriors 15-19 in reg season as well as in the playoffs

Is not fully apples to apples as is 4 vs 5 seasons. But there is no indication per team resulrs that warriors led defense by peak green are better than bucks giannos led defense

This in spite of giannis much, much greater offensive load and imo with comparable defensive talent around them

If bucks have a strong run defensively next season they will joinf duncan spurs, ewing knicks and garnett celtics for more dominant prolonged (5-year stretch) defensive runs ever outside russel

Essentially there is not any team level result that suggests green is in a level above giannis as defenders and that is with giannis taking a huge offensive load (relevant if what we are discussin is theorical highest level of defense they can play)

Bucks are a great year away of a historic 5-year run that may end up among the best of the post russel era in relative defensive rating. Including maybe the best postseason one over the robinson/duncam spurs

That seems like something noteworthy

Are we really sure is green and not giannis the best defender of this era?

Is not like the playoffa defensive results argumenr for green>gobert applies to giannis

Both had great defensive casts but giannis had the slightly better results even as he shouldered his team offense too

Well, I think this drags us back into something we were already talking about which I was looking to give you the last word on, once you said what you thought happened in the Heat series.

As I've said before, I think the Bud's defensive approach is built around protecting the interior and betting they won't get burned too badly from range.

Here's how the Bucks' defense looks in the regular season by rankings pertaining to 3-point shooting:

Year 3P/100 Rank, 3P% Rank
'18-19 30th, 22nd
'19-20 27th, 15th
'20-21 28th, 29th
'21-22 30th, 19th

So you can see, for the entire duration of the Bucks' run, they've performed poorly in the regular season at defending 3-point shooting. They earn stronger overall defensive marks because of the stuff that they do well, but the question is how they deal in the playoffs with a team looking to attack that.

I believe in your prior post you described "hot shooting" as explanation for how teams beat the Bucks, but if it keeps happening, one has to ask whether the Bucks are enabling teams to get "hot".

The Raptors in the 2019 playoffs hit 14.3 3's per game on 37.4% shooting.
The Heat in the 2020 playoffs hit 15.0 3's per game on 37.3% shooting.
The Celtics in the 2022 playoffs hit 15.7 3's per game on 37.7% shooting.

Now, there's more to the game than this obviously. Further, you can find even worse defensive performances from teams by this metric in playoff series in that same time frame (Hello Utah!), so I'm not trying to say that the Bucks are just play the worst on this front.

But what I am saying is that when the Bucks lose in the playoffs - which has happened in 3 out of the 4 years in question - we're always seeing the opponent get off, and get off for more 3's they they were able to get in the regular season, despite the fact that the general thought in the playoffs is that 3's are LESS effective in the playoffs compared to the regular season (and I'll note that from what I've seen teams due tend to take slightly less 3's and shoot slightly less 3P% in the playoffs, with the glaring exception being the 2020 Bubble).

And this leads back to the general idea that if you have an approach that leads to the overall best DRtg in the regular season, but it has a clear weakness which the teams that beat you in the playoffs consistently exploit, then one might argue your regular season numbers are "inflated".

Now 2 things with that:
1. As I said a lot over last season, the Bucks in the regular season the last couple years clearly aren't bringing the entirety of their A game, and so the whole "better for the regular season" thing disappears for those years, but if we're focusing on the 4 playoff runs, I think the point still stands.

2. You wouldn't be bringing this up if you didn't see great DRtg numbers for the Bucks in the playoffs in 3 out of the past 4 years, but of course those numbers are cumulative. Let's consider how the Bucks' defense has looked in the first round in those years.

2019 97.5 (Detroit)
2020 103.0 (Orlando)
2021 96.9 (Miami)
2022 95.3 (Chicago)

When you remember what the 2020 Bubble was like, it becomes clear that the Bucks have looked like an absolutely dominant defense in the first round in each of those years...and yet there's never been a time where the Bucks have the best DRtg against the team that beats them (though granted, they were close in 2019), and even in 2021 they didn't have the best DRtg against all the teams they beat.

By contrast, the Warriors have achieved this in 2015, 2017 and 2022.

While one can of course argue that Giannis is doing more with less, when it comes to which players' team has shown a more consistent ability to be good-as-they-come against all comers in the playoffs, it's definitely the Warriors to this point from what I see.

[Doctor MJ]

1. 1977 Bill Walton

Has everyone forgotten about him? In 1977 and 1978, here's the Blazers' record with and without him:

1977 Walton healthy: 44-21
1977 Walton hurt: 5-12

1978 Walton healthy: 48-10
1978 Walton hurt: 10-14

74.7% win rate while he's healthy, and 36.5% while he's hurt. And that's over a pretty big sample size.

Quite honestly I see him on a similar level to Russell, whom I have at 9. Just incredible defensive impact, if you watch the Finals against the Sixers he has the defensive equivalent of a scorer having a 20 point quarter. The commentators were freaking out and screaming "they cannot find a way to score on Bill Walton!"

I think him and Steph are pretty debatable.

Love that you're bringing him up. I haven't forgotten about him, and I think you can make an argument he should have gone in long ago. To me the Kareem vs Walton argument is not open and shut.

I suppose though I wasn't looking to try to argue for him before Giannis among the bigs. Again not saying the case is open and shut Giannis > Walton, but Giannis has a really solid case and I suppose I'd just be really surprised if many people put Walton with his limited minutes even in his biggest seasons, ahead of him.

If I'm being honest with you, it takes a while for me to be comfortable ranking relatively newer guys over older legends. That's just how I view the game I guess. Even with Walton's limited sample size, the time that has elapsed since then ensures we have a very good grasp on his impact.

So with someone like Giannis, I'm just hesitant. I don't think that in 2009 anyone was saying LeBron just had the GOAT regular season. We said he was great, sure, but it took some time before we realized HOW great. So when I see guys like Giannis and Jokic shattering advanced stat records in the last few years I acknowledge that yeah they may actually be as good as the numbers suggest but it's going to take a bit for me to trust that's the case, moreso out of respect for the previous generations (I think this is what you were talking about with Curry).

Edit: also, what about Jokic vs Walton?

Jokic with his passing initially was basically a supercharged Walton offensively but in the last few years has gained a scoring game that IMO by itself should be comparable in impact to Walton's defense.

Jokic vs Walton is a great debate. Without question Jokic has the advantage on offense and Walton on defense.

The thing I've been pondering recently is how solid Jokic looked defensively this year until the playoffs. While Walton is certainly quicker (and surely seems longer) than Jokic, every truly big big man is getting exploited in the playoffs nowadays. While Walton would handle it better than Jokic, how much better? If we could say that Walton would be the best defender in the playoffs today, then I'd be comfortable ranking him ahead of Jokic.

On the other hand, we might actually be able to say that a fit Jokic back in the '70s would be fundamentally solid against all the attacks of the day. He'd of course still not be as good as Walton, but it's possible that even in the '70s Jokic would be better overall.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Glad you're bringing this up. As someone who named himself on these boards after Erving, I came in a strong supporter of Erving and I've become less and less so - from a player value ranking perspective - with time. This was true before we saw his 76er +/- data already to some degree, but I have to admit being pretty shocked by how little Erving stood out here.

It has been speculated that it's possible that having a player as unusual as Bobby Jones may cause raw on/off data to look pretty strange. Jones was speculated as potentially a huge per minute impact guy before we saw the data, and the data seems to have bared that out. If the 76er rotation was such that Erving & Jones were significantly staggered in their minutes, it's possible that what's happening is that we're not getting a number for Erving that represents anything at all like the off replacements for other players.

That wouldn't explain everything though. Erving's on/off looked pretty pedestrian in the first two years in Philly before they got Jones.

And yet, I remain convinced that Erving's impact in the ABA was truly exceptional, and I think the dropoff the Nets had with his departure backs that up.

In the end, I'm left feeling like Erving needs to be seen as someone capable of great impact, but not of his own adaptation. He was someone who did his thing, and if you had the right fit around him you resonated with what he was doing. If not, the level you achieved with him wasn't something so high that you couldn't do something similar with a quality team effort.

I might draw analogy to Kawhi's defense toward the end of his time on the Spurs. While his focus on defense had started to wane at this point, there was still no doubt that he was a terrifying man defender that opponents looked to avoid. But while this led to good defense by normal standards, the entire team ran like a defensive machine knowing just what to do to work in the scheme Pop told them to run, and it made the everyday defensive impact of Kawhi a bit murky.

I forgot to ask you about this, but i feel even mpre convinced now green vs giannis defensively is much more of a diacussion tham people think

Warriors: reg sea/play-offs

2015: -4.2/-7.5
2016: -2.6/-4.5
2017 -4.8/ -6.9
2018 -1.0/-7.9
2019 -0.9/-2.0
Avg: -2.7/ -5.8

Now lets compare green led defenses to giannis led defenses

2019 -5.2/-8.9* (corrected)
2020 -7.7/-2.8
2021 -0.9/-6.7
2022 -0.2/ -7.4
Avg: -3.5/ -6.3

They stop being a good defense in regular season but so do green warriors, they have a higher regular season peak too and overall the have a -3.5 defense in reg season over a 4 year stretch

Warriors average defense in reg season over this stretch is -2.8 over a 5 year stretch

Giannis bucks 19-22 are better than green warriors 15-19 in reg season as well as in the playoffs

Is not fully apples to apples as is 4 vs 5 seasons. But there is no indication per team resulrs that warriors led defense by peak green are better than bucks giannos led defense

This in spite of giannis much, much greater offensive load and imo with comparable defensive talent around them

If bucks have a strong run defensively next season they will joinf duncan spurs, ewing knicks and garnett celtics for more dominant prolonged (5-year stretch) defensive runs ever outside russel

Essentially there is not any team level result that suggests green is in a level above giannis as defenders and that is with giannis taking a huge offensive load (relevant if what we are discussin is theorical highest level of defense they can play)

Bucks are a great year away of a historic 5-year run that may end up among the best of the post russel era in relative defensive rating. Including maybe the best postseason one over the robinson/duncam spurs

That seems like something noteworthy

Are we really sure is green and not giannis the best defender of this era?

Is not like the playoffa defensive results argumenr for green>gobert applies to giannis

Both had great defensive casts but giannis had the slightly better results even as he shouldered his team offense too

Well, I think this drags us back into something we were already talking about which I was looking to give you the last word on, once you said what you thought happened in the Heat series.

As I've said before, I think the Bud's defensive approach is built around protecting the interior and betting they won't get burned too badly from range.

Here's how the Bucks' defense looks in the regular season by rankings pertaining to 3-point shooting:

Year 3P/100 Rank, 3P% Rank
'18-19 30th, 22nd
'19-20 27th, 15th
'20-21 28th, 29th
'21-22 30th, 19th

So you can see, for the entire duration of the Bucks' run, they've performed poorly in the regular season at defending 3-point shooting. They earn stronger overall defensive marks because of the stuff that they do well, but the question is how they deal in the playoffs with a team looking to attack that.

I believe in your prior post you described "hot shooting" as explanation for how teams beat the Bucks, but if it keeps happening, one has to ask whether the Bucks are enabling teams to get "hot".

The Raptors in the 2019 playoffs hit 14.3 3's per game on 37.4% shooting.
The Heat in the 2020 playoffs hit 15.0 3's per game on 37.3% shooting.
The Celtics in the 2022 playoffs hit 15.7 3's per game on 37.7% shooting.

Now, there's more to the game than this obviously. Further, you can find even worse defensive performances from teams by this metric in playoff series in that same time frame (Hello Utah!), so I'm not trying to say that the Bucks are just play the worst on this front.

But what I am saying is that when the Bucks lose in the playoffs - which has happened in 3 out of the 4 years in question - we're always seeing the opponent get off, and get off for more 3's they they were able to get in the regular season, despite the fact that the general thought in the playoffs is that 3's are LESS effective in the playoffs compared to the regular season (and I'll note that from what I've seen teams due tend to take slightly less 3's and shoot slightly less 3P% in the playoffs, with the glaring exception being the 2020 Bubble).

And this leads back to the general idea that if you have an approach that leads to the overall best DRtg in the regular season, but it has a clear weakness which the teams that beat you in the playoffs consistently exploit, then one might argue your regular season numbers are "inflated".

Now 2 things with that:
1. As I said a lot over last season, the Bucks in the regular season the last couple years clearly aren't bringing the entirety of their A game, and so the whole "better for the regular season" thing disappears for those years, but if we're focusing on the 4 playoff runs, I think the point still stands.

2. You wouldn't be bringing this up if you didn't see great DRtg numbers for the Bucks in the playoffs in 3 out of the past 4 years, but of course those numbers are cumulative. Let's consider how the Bucks' defense has looked in the first round in those years.

2019 97.5 (Detroit)
2020 103.0 (Orlando)
2021 96.9 (Miami)
2022 95.3 (Chicago)

When you remember what the 2020 Bubble was like, it becomes clear that the Bucks have looked like an absolutely dominant defense in the first round in each of those years...and yet there's never been a time where the Bucks have the best DRtg against the team that beats them (though granted, they were close in 2019), and even in 2021 they didn't have the best DRtg against all the teams they beat.

By contrast, the Warriors have achieved this in 2015, 2017 and 2022.

While one can of course argue that Giannis is doing more with less, when it comes to which players' team has shown a more consistent ability to be good-as-they-come against all comers in the playoffs, it's definitely the Warriors to this point from what I see.

I feel this is a valid point about the bucks in general, but vs Toronto and vs the Celtics an issue from a defensive perspective was more then being really bad in the non-Giannis minutes, so I don’t see this as hurting his individual case

To be fair, their defense vs the raptors in 2019 wasn’t horrendous as a whole

Vs magic 111.5
Vs 76ers 106.3
Vs bucks 107.3
Vs Warriors 113.3

That being said there’s a clear difference between the first three games where their defense is rather great and the last three where the raptors kinda killed them, vs the first three where the bucks defense clamped them up

(102.3 vs 110.3) overall series giannis on-off
(112.5 vs 121.7) last three games giannis on-off

Generally I value how a series progresses though, so I do agree that despite decent cumulative results I wouldn’t put 2019 as a good showing for them, nor 2020 vs Miami (although weren’t they doing something dumb and dropping on herro and Robinson screening or something?)

They became more diverse with their p and r coverage in 2022 and I think weren’t dropping as much in 2021 as well

Vs the Celtics
104.2 Giannis on the court
119.3 Giannis off the court

(Dray at 103.2 vs 109.9 in comparison vs the Celtics)

As a whole I think their performance with giannis playing in a cumulative sense was elite in 2019 and 2022 relative to other teams with their defenders on the court, 2019 a bit mixed since they got worse as the series continued, but 2022 was them just sucking when Giannis sat in terms of the results on D

[Doctor MJ]

I feel this is a valid point about the bucks in general, but vs Toronto and vs the Celtics an issue from a defensive perspective was more then being really bad in the non-Giannis minutes, so I don’t see this as hurting his individual case

To be fair, their defense vs the raptors in 2019 wasn’t horrendous as a whole

Vs magic 111.5
Vs 76ers 106.3
Vs bucks 107.3
Vs Warriors 113.3

That being said there’s a clear difference between the first three games where their defense is rather great and the last three where the raptors kinda killed them, vs the first three where the bucks defense clamped them up

(102.3 vs 110.3) overall series giannis on-off
(112.5 vs 121.7) last three games giannis on-off

Generally I value how a series progresses though, so I do agree that despite decent cumulative results I wouldn’t put 2019 as a good showing for them, nor 2020 vs Miami (although weren’t they doing something dumb and dropping on herro and Robinson screening or something?)

They became more diverse with their p and r coverage in 2022 and I think weren’t dropping as much in 2021 as well

Vs the Celtics
104.2 Giannis on the court
119.3 Giannis off the court

(Dray at 103.2 vs 109.9 in comparison vs the Celtics)

As a whole I think their performance with giannis playing in a cumulative sense was elite in 2019 and 2022 relative to other teams with their defenders on the court, 2019 a bit mixed since they got worse as the series continued, but 2022 was them just sucking when Giannis sat in terms of the results on D

Good stuff. Wanted to show the evolution of the Celtics series with a similar approach.

Here's Giannis from Game 1 to Game 7:

82.1
109.6
101.2
116.5
111.8
113.8
104.5

And Draymond for the 6 games of their series:

126.4
90.1
131.8
101.5
87.1
97.5

To do a crude split of the first 3 games compared to the rest just by averaging these numbers:

Giannis 1-3: 97.6
Giannis 4-7: 111.7

Draymond 1-3: 116.1
Draymond 4-6: 95.4

I see this as a significant edge for Draymond & the Warriors.

[falcolombardi]

Glad you're bringing this up. As someone who named himself on these boards after Erving, I came in a strong supporter of Erving and I've become less and less so - from a player value ranking perspective - with time. This was true before we saw his 76er +/- data already to some degree, but I have to admit being pretty shocked by how little Erving stood out here.

It has been speculated that it's possible that having a player as unusual as Bobby Jones may cause raw on/off data to look pretty strange. Jones was speculated as potentially a huge per minute impact guy before we saw the data, and the data seems to have bared that out. If the 76er rotation was such that Erving & Jones were significantly staggered in their minutes, it's possible that what's happening is that we're not getting a number for Erving that represents anything at all like the off replacements for other players.

That wouldn't explain everything though. Erving's on/off looked pretty pedestrian in the first two years in Philly before they got Jones.

And yet, I remain convinced that Erving's impact in the ABA was truly exceptional, and I think the dropoff the Nets had with his departure backs that up.

In the end, I'm left feeling like Erving needs to be seen as someone capable of great impact, but not of his own adaptation. He was someone who did his thing, and if you had the right fit around him you resonated with what he was doing. If not, the level you achieved with him wasn't something so high that you couldn't do something similar with a quality team effort.

I might draw analogy to Kawhi's defense toward the end of his time on the Spurs. While his focus on defense had started to wane at this point, there was still no doubt that he was a terrifying man defender that opponents looked to avoid. But while this led to good defense by normal standards, the entire team ran like a defensive machine knowing just what to do to work in the scheme Pop told them to run, and it made the everyday defensive impact of Kawhi a bit murky.

I forgot to ask you about this, but i feel even mpre convinced now green vs giannis defensively is much more of a diacussion tham people think

Warriors: reg sea/play-offs

2015: -4.2/-7.5
2016: -2.6/-4.5
2017 -4.8/ -6.9
2018 -1.0/-7.9
2019 -0.9/-2.0
Avg: -2.7/ -5.8

Now lets compare green led defenses to giannis led defenses

2019 -5.2/-8.9* (corrected)
2020 -7.7/-2.8
2021 -0.9/-6.7
2022 -0.2/ -7.4
Avg: -3.5/ -6.3

They stop being a good defense in regular season but so do green warriors, they have a higher regular season peak too and overall the have a -3.5 defense in reg season over a 4 year stretch

Warriors average defense in reg season over this stretch is -2.8 over a 5 year stretch

Giannis bucks 19-22 are better than green warriors 15-19 in reg season as well as in the playoffs

Is not fully apples to apples as is 4 vs 5 seasons. But there is no indication per team resulrs that warriors led defense by peak green are better than bucks giannos led defense

This in spite of giannis much, much greater offensive load and imo with comparable defensive talent around them

If bucks have a strong run defensively next season they will joinf duncan spurs, ewing knicks and garnett celtics for more dominant prolonged (5-year stretch) defensive runs ever outside russel

Essentially there is not any team level result that suggests green is in a level above giannis as defenders and that is with giannis taking a huge offensive load (relevant if what we are discussin is theorical highest level of defense they can play)

Bucks are a great year away of a historic 5-year run that may end up among the best of the post russel era in relative defensive rating. Including maybe the best postseason one over the robinson/duncam spurs

That seems like something noteworthy

Are we really sure is green and not giannis the best defender of this era?

Is not like the playoffa defensive results argumenr for green>gobert applies to giannis

Both had great defensive casts but giannis had the slightly better results even as he shouldered his team offense too

Well, I think this drags us back into something we were already talking about which I was looking to give you the last word on, once you said what you thought happened in the Heat series.

As I've said before, I think the Bud's defensive approach is built around protecting the interior and betting they won't get burned too badly from range.

Here's how the Bucks' defense looks in the regular season by rankings pertaining to 3-point shooting:

Year 3P/100 Rank, 3P% Rank
'18-19 30th, 22nd
'19-20 27th, 15th
'20-21 28th, 29th
'21-22 30th, 19th

So you can see, for the entire duration of the Bucks' run, they've performed poorly in the regular season at defending 3-point shooting. They earn stronger overall defensive marks because of the stuff that they do well, but the question is how they deal in the playoffs with a team looking to attack that.

I believe in your prior post you described "hot shooting" as explanation for how teams beat the Bucks, but if it keeps happening, one has to ask whether the Bucks are enabling teams to get "hot".

The Raptors in the 2019 playoffs hit 14.3 3's per game on 37.4% shooting.
The Heat in the 2020 playoffs hit 15.0 3's per game on 37.3% shooting.
The Celtics in the 2022 playoffs hit 15.7 3's per game on 37.7% shooting.

Now, there's more to the game than this obviously. Further, you can find even worse defensive performances from teams by this metric in playoff series in that same time frame (Hello Utah!), so I'm not trying to say that the Bucks are just play the worst on this front.

But what I am saying is that when the Bucks lose in the playoffs - which has happened in 3 out of the 4 years in question - we're always seeing the opponent get off, and get off for more 3's they they were able to get in the regular season, despite the fact that the general thought in the playoffs is that 3's are LESS effective in the playoffs compared to the regular season (and I'll note that from what I've seen teams due tend to take slightly less 3's and shoot slightly less 3P% in the playoffs, with the glaring exception being the 2020 Bubble).

And this leads back to the general idea that if you have an approach that leads to the overall best DRtg in the regular season, but it has a clear weakness which the teams that beat you in the playoffs consistently exploit, then one might argue your regular season numbers are "inflated".

Now 2 things with that:
1. As I said a lot over last season, the Bucks in the regular season the last couple years clearly aren't bringing the entirety of their A game, and so the whole "better for the regular season" thing disappears for those years, but if we're focusing on the 4 playoff runs, I think the point still stands.

2. You wouldn't be bringing this up if you didn't see great DRtg numbers for the Bucks in the playoffs in 3 out of the past 4 years, but of course those numbers are cumulative. Let's consider how the Bucks' defense has looked in the first round in those years.

2019 97.5 (Detroit)
2020 103.0 (Orlando)
2021 96.9 (Miami)
2022 95.3 (Chicago)

When you remember what the 2020 Bubble was like, it becomes clear that the Bucks have looked like an absolutely dominant defense in the first round in each of those years...and yet there's never been a time where the Bucks have the best DRtg against the team that beats them (though granted, they were close in 2019), and even in 2021 they didn't have the best DRtg against all the teams they beat.

By contrast, the Warriors have achieved this in 2015, 2017 and 2022.

While one can of course argue that Giannis is doing more with less, when it comes to which players' team has shown a more consistent ability to be good-as-they-come against all comers in the playoffs, it's definitely the Warriors to this point from what I see.

Is important to remember that the goal of a defense is not holding rivals to the lowest 3pt% possible but to the less points total that is possible. Even overall true shooting you hold your rival to is not important, actual defensive rating is

Bucks have zagged where the league zigged with doubling down in prioritizing the paint over the perimeter....and the results are outright excelent over a extended stretch

Other than heat those teams like toronto and boston failed to punish bucks overall defense result. in spite of the bombardment from 3 bucks still had a stromg defensive result. Again results>theory here

And even with the heat, the lone black mark in the bucks defensive run, you mention how the bubble was an anomaly jumpshooting wise with the usual shooting pattern of the playoffs reversingb

If in future playoffs teams are able to repeat the miami result more often i will change my evaluation of bucks defense and will think they got lucky over these 4 years with "how the dice rolled". If the pattern remains i will think it worked incredibly well amd womt hold the "how" against them

But what I am saying is that when the Bucks lose in the playoffs - which has happened in 3 out of the 4 years in question - we're always seeing the opponent get off, and get off for more 3's they they were able to get in the regular season

Both bucks and boston offenses were held fairly below their regular season averages in those victories, blaming the defense tactics there would be as incorrect as blaming nets offense for losing against boston

You wouldn't be bringing this up if you didn't see great DRtg numbers for the Bucks in the playoffs in 3 out of the past 4 years, but of course those numbers are cumulative. Let's consider how the Bucks' defense has looked in the first round in those years.

2019 97.5 (Detroit)
2020 103.0 (Orlando)
2021 96.9 (Miami)
2022 95.3 (Chicago)

Do you have the equivalent numbers for warriors to compare both after the first round?

Even if we decide that it makes the most sense to use second round and forward only i would then need to compare both teams that way

For the record is not like warriors defense didnt have weak points or bad series too im later rounds. Cavs offense outright obliterated their defense in both 16 and 17 finals for example

and yet there's never been a time where the Bucks have the best DRtg against the team that beats them (though granted, they were close in 2019), and even in 2021 they didn't have the best DRtg against all the teams they beat.

Apologies for my english reading comphrension here, is not my first language and sometimes i dont get what people mean

Do you say that the teams that beat the bucks (toronto, miami, boston and even suns) had better defensive rating over the full playoffs? I ask this because i am not sure if i read the point correctly

Who has more "1st places" seems pretty arbitrary

The 1st place defense of 1 season can be the 5th best one the next year, for a project like this i prefer to focus on the actual relative defense rating of a team

If a team has a -9 defense in the playoffs the same year the 2004 pistons go -11 i wont hold being 2nd against them nor will i say the team that was first at -6 defense a different year was more impressive

[MyUniBroDavis]

2017 Curry
- one of the highest level of plays in a postseason ever, probably the best or second best offensive postseason ever all things considered, impact data off the charts, etc etc.

2021 Giannis
- I think I’ve made my point throughout the thread, but I view 2021 Giannis in the playoffs as a Tier 1A defender with his strong but slightly lowered offensive impact, I could see him above the guys above him (not curry) purely playoffs

2020 AD
- I’ll add more to this in the next post but in all honesty I’m seriously debating putting him above giannis. I’ll fully say that I think ADs playoff run is a near top 5 peak here, and I think lebrons effect on ADs numbers is massively overstated. The idea he was scoring in easy mode is a bit silly when you really think about their games.

In terms of pure scoring, per 75 poss his scoring numbers are in the absolute top tier of high effeciency high volume scoring in the playoffs, in terms of full championship runs, the only run off the top of my head with a similar levels of effeciency and volume is 2017 Curry, Durant and Lebron.

At the level of high effeciency they are, low effeciency games have much more leverage on averages, so I’m fine calling 2020 AD among most effecient high scoring big man runs of all time

The argument against AD essentially comes down to he played with Lebron so it was easy mode and the competition was pretty bleh, and his RS

The idea AD, one of the best off ball big men ever, +one of the best playmakers ever in lebron = crazy synergy seems cool but in reality it’s a bit more complicated then that. AD fits pretty poorly on that team actually, if he was optimized we’re probably looking at a GOAT playoff run contender.

That sounds silly, but you can make a genuine argument AD was ATG on both ends, not just in the context of bigs but in general

He’s not in the debate for best offensive or defensive run ever of course, but he was a clear best defender in the nba and offensively speaking was probably on par with some of the best wings ever in terms of playoff offensive impact

Offensively speaking he’s two primary skills are his off ball game particularly as a rolling big, and his post game (although his face up game might be better)

So him having his level of impact on a team with pretty bad spacing relative to the league, with two pick and roll ball handlers that don’t make sense with him when you really think about it, with a coaching staff that is notoriously bad at running post counters, among the worst in the league

[MyUniBroDavis]

I feel this is a valid point about the bucks in general, but vs Toronto and vs the Celtics an issue from a defensive perspective was more then being really bad in the non-Giannis minutes, so I don’t see this as hurting his individual case

To be fair, their defense vs the raptors in 2019 wasn’t horrendous as a whole

Vs magic 111.5
Vs 76ers 106.3
Vs bucks 107.3
Vs Warriors 113.3

That being said there’s a clear difference between the first three games where their defense is rather great and the last three where the raptors kinda killed them, vs the first three where the bucks defense clamped them up

(102.3 vs 110.3) overall series giannis on-off
(112.5 vs 121.7) last three games giannis on-off

Generally I value how a series progresses though, so I do agree that despite decent cumulative results I wouldn’t put 2019 as a good showing for them, nor 2020 vs Miami (although weren’t they doing something dumb and dropping on herro and Robinson screening or something?)

They became more diverse with their p and r coverage in 2022 and I think weren’t dropping as much in 2021 as well

Vs the Celtics
104.2 Giannis on the court
119.3 Giannis off the court

(Dray at 103.2 vs 109.9 in comparison vs the Celtics)

As a whole I think their performance with giannis playing in a cumulative sense was elite in 2019 and 2022 relative to other teams with their defenders on the court, 2019 a bit mixed since they got worse as the series continued, but 2022 was them just sucking when Giannis sat in terms of the results on D

Good stuff. Wanted to show the evolution of the Celtics series with a similar approach.

Here's Giannis from Game 1 to Game 7:

82.1
109.6
101.2
116.5
111.8
113.8
104.5

And Draymond for the 6 games of their series:

126.4
90.1
131.8
101.5
87.1
97.5

To do a crude split of the first 3 games compared to the rest just by averaging these numbers:

Giannis 1-3: 97.6
Giannis 4-7: 111.7

Draymond 1-3: 116.1
Draymond 4-6: 95.4

I see this as a significant edge for Draymond & the Warriors.

I don’t disagree with that really, although on nba.com 4-7 shows up as 109.9 def rtg for Giannis on the floor and 124.1 with him off of it, although that’s probably total minutes vs averages.

While I would say that Warriors team defended the Celtics better in general, At the same time I would say that Draymond being > Giannis in the playoffs isn’t something I’m against, but again I’ve maintained that defensive IQ and versatility >>> in the playoffs, and while Giannis has both in spades I have Dray as the smartest defender in nba history by a pretty big distance in an absolute sense and only worse than russell in a relative sense, so I do have him as a tier 1 playoff defender to be honest, at least in his better defensive playoff runs

I’ll fully say that I think when people say “oh Garnett would be a 7ft draymond” it’s oversimplifying it, draymond doing what he does purely off his IQ at 6ft5 absurd. A 7ft draymond would be the best defender of all time by a ridiculous distance in any era

I don’t think it’s neccessarily clear cut, both have decently strong evidence at being defensive outliers in specific years

I feel in terms of peaks, that Duncan and minesotta Garnett were tier 1 defenders and Duncan was the best in the league, but I do think people tend to overstate their impact on that end vs the best defenders of today relatively, in the sense they there’s an expectation that they were completely in a class of their own on that end when I don’t think that was the case, vs usually being the top of a tier one class that usually had a few people

People push back at statements like offensive players are better today, which honestly makes sense, but accept statements like defensive players were better back then, which doesn’t make sense (although being more impactful back then makes sense, that’s like taking box scores today at face value)

(I do think Boston KG or peak TD would be the best defender in the league today to be clear)

[falcolombardi]

I feel this is a valid point about the bucks in general, but vs Toronto and vs the Celtics an issue from a defensive perspective was more then being really bad in the non-Giannis minutes, so I don’t see this as hurting his individual case

To be fair, their defense vs the raptors in 2019 wasn’t horrendous as a whole

Vs magic 111.5
Vs 76ers 106.3
Vs bucks 107.3
Vs Warriors 113.3

That being said there’s a clear difference between the first three games where their defense is rather great and the last three where the raptors kinda killed them, vs the first three where the bucks defense clamped them up

(102.3 vs 110.3) overall series giannis on-off
(112.5 vs 121.7) last three games giannis on-off

Generally I value how a series progresses though, so I do agree that despite decent cumulative results I wouldn’t put 2019 as a good showing for them, nor 2020 vs Miami (although weren’t they doing something dumb and dropping on herro and Robinson screening or something?)

They became more diverse with their p and r coverage in 2022 and I think weren’t dropping as much in 2021 as well

Vs the Celtics
104.2 Giannis on the court
119.3 Giannis off the court

(Dray at 103.2 vs 109.9 in comparison vs the Celtics)

As a whole I think their performance with giannis playing in a cumulative sense was elite in 2019 and 2022 relative to other teams with their defenders on the court, 2019 a bit mixed since they got worse as the series continued, but 2022 was them just sucking when Giannis sat in terms of the results on D

Good stuff. Wanted to show the evolution of the Celtics series with a similar approach.

Here's Giannis from Game 1 to Game 7:

82.1
109.6
101.2
116.5
111.8
113.8
104.5

And Draymond for the 6 games of their series:

126.4
90.1
131.8
101.5
87.1
97.5

To do a crude split of the first 3 games compared to the rest just by averaging these numbers:

Giannis 1-3: 97.6
Giannis 4-7: 111.7

Draymond 1-3: 116.1
Draymond 4-6: 95.4

I see this as a significant edge for Draymond & the Warriors.

Having the bad games early on is not better than having the bad games later on tho.

The bad defense result in games 1 and 3 dont stop counting

We often see this where a player struggles in the first half of a series are seemingly not important if they finish off strong. Nor do a player early goodness matter at all if he plays bad the second half of a series

And it really doesnt make much logical sense. If you get yourself into a hole at the start of a series even an awesome level of play later may not be enough.

If you are great enough in the first half of a series to take a commanding lead you may not need to finish it off strong to close off the series

I know you are very high on the ability to adapt through a series but that doesnt mean what happens in games 1-3 is any less relevant that what happens in games 5-7 as far as evaluating a series performance holistically

But even beyond this i would warn against comparing two defenders/team defenses on the small sample size of 1 series each

Over a 4-5 year sample at their best giannis is more than comparable in team results

[MyUniBroDavis]

I feel this is a valid point about the bucks in general, but vs Toronto and vs the Celtics an issue from a defensive perspective was more then being really bad in the non-Giannis minutes, so I don’t see this as hurting his individual case

To be fair, their defense vs the raptors in 2019 wasn’t horrendous as a whole

Vs magic 111.5
Vs 76ers 106.3
Vs bucks 107.3
Vs Warriors 113.3

That being said there’s a clear difference between the first three games where their defense is rather great and the last three where the raptors kinda killed them, vs the first three where the bucks defense clamped them up

(102.3 vs 110.3) overall series giannis on-off
(112.5 vs 121.7) last three games giannis on-off

Generally I value how a series progresses though, so I do agree that despite decent cumulative results I wouldn’t put 2019 as a good showing for them, nor 2020 vs Miami (although weren’t they doing something dumb and dropping on herro and Robinson screening or something?)

They became more diverse with their p and r coverage in 2022 and I think weren’t dropping as much in 2021 as well

Vs the Celtics
104.2 Giannis on the court
119.3 Giannis off the court

(Dray at 103.2 vs 109.9 in comparison vs the Celtics)

As a whole I think their performance with giannis playing in a cumulative sense was elite in 2019 and 2022 relative to other teams with their defenders on the court, 2019 a bit mixed since they got worse as the series continued, but 2022 was them just sucking when Giannis sat in terms of the results on D

Good stuff. Wanted to show the evolution of the Celtics series with a similar approach.

Here's Giannis from Game 1 to Game 7:

82.1
109.6
101.2
116.5
111.8
113.8
104.5

And Draymond for the 6 games of their series:

126.4
90.1
131.8
101.5
87.1
97.5

To do a crude split of the first 3 games compared to the rest just by averaging these numbers:

Giannis 1-3: 97.6
Giannis 4-7: 111.7

Draymond 1-3: 116.1
Draymond 4-6: 95.4

I see this as a significant edge for Draymond & the Warriors.

Having the bad games early on is not better than having the bad games later on tho.

The bad defense result in games 1 and 3 dont stop counting

We often see this where a player struggles in the first half of a series are seemingly not important if they finish off strong. Nor do a player early goodness matter at all if he plays bad the second half of a series

And it really doesnt make much logical sense. If you get yourself into a hole at the start of a series even an awesome level of play later may not be enough.

If you are great enough in the first half of a series to take a commanding lead you may not need to finish it off strong to close off the series

But even beyond this i would warn against comparing two defenders/team defenses on the small sample size of 1 series each

Over a 4-5 year sample at their best giannis is more than comparable in team results

I think it’s the idea of getting figured out vs figuring someone out which I sympathize with tbh, since it’s not really a random sample of 7 games vs games that build upon each other

[falcolombardi]

Good stuff. Wanted to show the evolution of the Celtics series with a similar approach.

Here's Giannis from Game 1 to Game 7:

82.1
109.6
101.2
116.5
111.8
113.8
104.5

And Draymond for the 6 games of their series:

126.4
90.1
131.8
101.5
87.1
97.5

To do a crude split of the first 3 games compared to the rest just by averaging these numbers:

Giannis 1-3: 97.6
Giannis 4-7: 111.7

Draymond 1-3: 116.1
Draymond 4-6: 95.4

I see this as a significant edge for Draymond & the Warriors.

Having the bad games early on is not better than having the bad games later on tho.

The bad defense result in games 1 and 3 dont stop counting

We often see this where a player struggles in the first half of a series are seemingly not important if they finish off strong. Nor do a player early goodness matter at all if he plays bad the second half of a series

And it really doesnt make much logical sense. If you get yourself into a hole at the start of a series even an awesome level of play later may not be enough.

If you are great enough in the first half of a series to take a commanding lead you may not need to finish it off strong to close off the series

But even beyond this i would warn against comparing two defenders/team defenses on the small sample size of 1 series each

Over a 4-5 year sample at their best giannis is more than comparable in team results

I think it’s the idea of getting figured out vs figuring someone out which I sympathize with tbh, since it’s not really a random sample of 7 games vs games that build upon each other

Sure but the ability to adapt and figure out rivals only matters as long as it is useful to the overall result of the series

Extreme exampke here but if you figured out how to beat a rival and their weaknesses wheb you are 0-3 down and 20 points behind in the fourth, how useful would that be?

If you figure out a rival too late to dig out of a hole it wont make up for the underperformance before

Similarly even wheb "figured out" by a rival doesnt mean the games before that stop mattering. Having a 2-0 or 3-1 or even 3-2 lead before being "figured out" is still tremendously valuable and you can still finish off the series going 1-2 or whatever (there are even cases of teams who go 3-0 get tied 3-3 and then finish the series despite going 1-3 over the final games)

And more importantly im such a tiny sample as a 6-7 game series, the difference in def or off rsting in different parts of a series may be down to simple variance, garbage minutes, etc

[homecourtloss]

I think potentially part of the reason why the best 2 way bigs of today might not have the predecessors could be the increased offensive load and therefore having less energy to expend on defense (defense that requires you to be more mobile than ever). Box-score stats are sexier thsn ever because more offense is run through stars than ever before. Ben Taylor has his video on "heliocentrism," where offenses have decided to maximize themselves by giving the ball to the star more than ever and this is possible because teams purposely flanks stars with more spacing and therefore it opens up room for stars to perhaps to attack as they would like as the punishment for helping incorrectly can be quite severe.
https://youtu.be/r0934lGZ4dw

Heck, stars are better able in the PS to attack weak defenders by drawing a switch too. More spacing has allowed for more passing angles than ever before to be available to guys. Ruled favor offensive players more in regards to how they draw fouls and also the dribble moves that are allowed. Teams have more analytics staff in their offices and therefore tell the players of their optimal spots on the floor (this goes both ways as defenses are more prepared but I think good offense can often beat good defense with how the rules are).

That being said, I think it can be said offensive stars are on creating more separation because offenses are more dependent on them. However, this could perhaps prove harmful to their defensive value.

Anyways, the following is someone who conducted Scaled RAPM calculations for seasons since 01 and Giannis doesn't have a season in the top 30. At the same time you see offensive impact that is greater generally in more recent years.
http://www.cryptbeam.com/rapm/

Great post and touches on some things I’ve been wondering about.

Isn’t Giannis in at #7? Also, this doesn’t include 2020, 2021, or 2022.

The entire list is littered with KG, James, and Dirk—crazy.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I think potentially part of the reason why the best 2 way bigs of today might not have the predecessors could be the increased offensive load and therefore having less energy to expend on defense (defense that requires you to be more mobile than ever). Box-score stats are sexier thsn ever because more offense is run through stars than ever before. Ben Taylor has his video on "heliocentrism," where offenses have decided to maximize themselves by giving the ball to the star more than ever and this is possible because teams purposely flanks stars with more spacing and therefore it opens up room for stars to perhaps to attack as they would like as the punishment for helping incorrectly can be quite severe.
https://youtu.be/r0934lGZ4dw

Heck, stars are better able in the PS to attack weak defenders by drawing a switch too. More spacing has allowed for more passing angles than ever before to be available to guys. Ruled favor offensive players more in regards to how they draw fouls and also the dribble moves that are allowed. Teams have more analytics staff in their offices and therefore tell the players of their optimal spots on the floor (this goes both ways as defenses are more prepared but I think good offense can often beat good defense with how the rules are).

That being said, I think it can be said offensive stars are on creating more separation because offenses are more dependent on them. However, this could perhaps prove harmful to their defensive value.

Anyways, the following is someone who conducted Scaled RAPM calculations for seasons since 01 and Giannis doesn't have a season in the top 30. At the same time you see offensive impact that is greater generally in more recent years.
http://www.cryptbeam.com/rapm/

Great post and touches on some things I’ve been wondering about.

Isn’t Giannis in at #7? Also, this doesn’t include 2020, 2021, or 2022.

The entire list is littered with KG, James, and Dirk—crazy.

I meant in terms of defense, so Giannis doesn't have a top 30 season defensively.

Also yeah I am now realizing thr message only goes up to the 2019 season.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think potentially part of the reason why the best 2 way bigs of today might not have the predecessors could be the increased offensive load and therefore having less energy to expend on defense (defense that requires you to be more mobile than ever). Box-score stats are sexier thsn ever because more offense is run through stars than ever before. Ben Taylor has his video on "heliocentrism," where offenses have decided to maximize themselves by giving the ball to the star more than ever and this is possible because teams purposely flanks stars with more spacing and therefore it opens up room for stars to perhaps to attack as they would like as the punishment for helping incorrectly can be quite severe.
https://youtu.be/r0934lGZ4dw

Heck, stars are better able in the PS to attack weak defenders by drawing a switch too. More spacing has allowed for more passing angles than ever before to be available to guys. Ruled favor offensive players more in regards to how they draw fouls and also the dribble moves that are allowed. Teams have more analytics staff in their offices and therefore tell the players of their optimal spots on the floor (this goes both ways as defenses are more prepared but I think good offense can often beat good defense with how the rules are).

That being said, I think it can be said offensive stars are on creating more separation because offenses are more dependent on them. However, this could perhaps prove harmful to their defensive value.

Anyways, the following is someone who conducted Scaled RAPM calculations for seasons since 01 and Giannis doesn't have a season in the top 30. At the same time you see offensive impact that is greater generally in more recent years.
http://www.cryptbeam.com/rapm/

Great post and touches on some things I’ve been wondering about.

Isn’t Giannis in at #7? Also, this doesn’t include 2020, 2021, or 2022.

The entire list is littered with KG, James, and Dirk—crazy.

I meant in terms of defense, so Giannis doesn't have a top 30 season defensively.

Also yeah I am now realizing thr message only goes up to the 2019 season.

This is PI RAPM right? Odoms results only make sense if that

This is a bit more of a complex way to get the standard dev basically right? (Like a bit more of a full proof way for the offenses and defenses separately?)

Did he separate calculate RAPM data for the whole thing? Or did he use JE’s dataset for most of it?

Giannis being as high as he is in 2019 is a bit odd, the best I’ve seen him in NPI RAPM for 2019 had him 5th place that year, and 2018 wasn’t particularly good in that regard for him either

[jalengreen]

Great post and touches on some things I’ve been wondering about.

Isn’t Giannis in at #7? Also, this doesn’t include 2020, 2021, or 2022.

The entire list is littered with KG, James, and Dirk—crazy.

I meant in terms of defense, so Giannis doesn't have a top 30 season defensively.

Also yeah I am now realizing thr message only goes up to the 2019 season.

This is PI RAPM right? Odoms results only make sense if that

This is a bit more of a complex way to get the standard dev basically right? (Like a bit more of a full proof way for the offenses and defenses separately?)

Did he separate calculate RAPM data for 2017-2019v

Bottom of the page says a prior of previous season's RAPM is used for each player