HeartBreakKid wrote:great Bird war will come soon enough.
And so it did
Colbinii wrote:
DraymondGold wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:Isn't this usually taken into account one way or another? Kobe's first few years in the NBA and his last few years hardly make a difference in his longevity as they are relatively insignificant seasons for ATG standards.
I agree, they *shouldn't be*. But to all the people saying Kobe has a clear and large longevity advantage, I believe they're being biased by these extra seasons and total games. If we discount these seasons, Kobe played only 25% more games than Bird did in an 2000s era where players overall played 43% more games than the 1980s (which is likely an overestimate for stars, but still indicative of a large difference across eras).
I'm saying the longevity advantage for Kobe is smaller than people are saying. And if we turn to the impact metrics we have of them, Bird has an overall advantage in his prime that is greater than the advantage Kobe has for longevity.
It is much simpler than you are making it out to be.
From 2000-2011, Kobe played in 35K Minutes and 903 Games in the RS and 7.4K Minutes and 180 Games in the PS. From 1980-1988, Bird played in 27K Minutes and 711 Games in the RS and 6.1K Minutes and 145 Games in the PS.
Kobe gets incremental value from 2012 and 2013 [off-prime, still all-star level]. Bird gets incremental value for 1990 and 1991 [off-prime, still all-star level]
Kobe also has 1998 and 1999 where he is a positive impact player [Missing a total of 4 games in these two seasons].
It is taken into account. The thing is the effect is nowhere near as pronounced when you filter for higher quality players: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107884176#p107884176 And you know, this is something Ben(whose opinion, not actual tracking or tracking-derived metrics is now being treated as evidence), actually went and accounted for(there's also probably an argument to be made that isn't how era-relativity actually works...)
Actually there's alot of favorable assumptions and claims Ben makes for Bird(we will get to "stat bias" later) for example...
70sFan wrote:
eminence wrote:First noting I don't do an MVP/weak MVP distinction (a rougher ATG/MVP/All-NBA/Allstar set of groupings for me), but I would probably have all of '80-'88 (9 seasons) as MVP level.
That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
Here's the thing. Ben agrees. As of 2018 he had Bird with as a strong mvp in 1980. And then he stayed as a strong MVP all the way to 1988 despite only once posting a better srs than 1980 with significantly improved casts.
Ben also pretty much agrees with all of these(not really defensible) claims:
Colbinii wrote:Larry Bird Not much to see here, the purest basketball-savant we likely have ever seen. Developed into a lethal shooter and scorer during his 1984-1986 stretch, incredible feel and instincts as a catalyst unlike anything we have ever seen [Until Jokic]. He truly was able to vitalize an offense as well as anyone, ever. The greatest impetus who ever graced the court [along with Nash].
In fact, he went so far to put Bird ahead, for his prime, over this guy:
Keep in mind -> impact consistently favors magic over bird(In fact it actually seems to like Johnson over everyone from the time period) -> Magic's is #1 in regular season winning % -> Magic is #1 in playoff winning %(Bird is not close) -> Magic has led better regular-season offenses as well as better playoff offenses(as well as a bunch of other post-merger greats in this not exhaustive list):
Despite Ben's insistence Bird is a different calibre of player, Kobe has actually led comparable offenes without shaq and with Shaq his increase in production was the driving force for a +11 psrs improvement from what the Lakers managed in 2000 as they played far better in the playoffs than the Celtics ever have. You might recall Kobe outscored and outassisted Shaq for 2 of 3 rounds while averaging more minutes all playoffs. If 1980 Larry was a {b]strong MVP[/b] losing to a non finalist(and thus define the arc of every prime bird year), what does that make 2001 Kobe?
But I digress, because ultimately, you can ignore all of this as Ben, with all these assumptions and beliefs inputted his season to season evaluations into an objective championship formila for both players and came out with...
Kobe Bryant coming out ahead.
Kobe Bryant, in a better league, playing with different co-stars in a scheme asking him to take the most ineffecient shots...
Was more valuable over his career
Now. You might be surprised. After all we have these CAREER WOWY numbers clearly saying that Larry was the more valuable player! Here's the thing. Ben, with whatever bias he carries when he insists those 2-3 weakly defended 3's a game in an era with illegal defense were defense-warping, is not a robot. He wants to evaluate all the seasons properly, including ones where Bird didn't miss time.
And a couple issues arise when trying to claim Bird was actually such an outlier Kobe's longetvity doesn't matter.
For one, we have seen the Celtics without Bird, they were...fine:
-> in 1992 bird was replaced with an all-star and...the Celtics nearly made the conference finals -> 89 with a weaker version of that replacement they played at a 45 or 44-win pace(40-games at full-strength) -> 86-88 they played at a 45-win pace, 87-88, 43-win(7 gms/szn)
For another, it's very difficult to find theoretical weaknesses with Bird's support. All of the celtics could pass. All of them could handle the ball. They had two strong isolation scorers, an excellent defensive cast with a goat-defensive guard and two bigs who were both switchable and decent to good rim-protectors and strong ball-handlers, scorers, decent floor-spacers, and capable passers...
Actually, pause. I want readers to really think about that last part.
Larry Bird, a guy with very limited ball-handling, a poor slashing game , vulnerable man defense, and weak(for a pf) rim-protection got to play with bigs who were good at at all of that...in the 80's.
While Ben presents Bird being able to play with a pf as a strength, really it is a luxury. Because if Bird was playing on a typical roster, he would not get to play power forward offensively, while being hidden as a small-forward on defense.
Bird not only had a talented team. He also had unique and hard to replicate roster construction. Fair to say then that Bird, impact extraordinaire should be expected to do alot of winning?
Well, this gets us to issue #3
WOWY is mostly looking at the regular season. And if SRS decided championships, Bird would have 5. And yeah, with 5 wins it would be alot harder to argue. The problem is he only has 3. Kobe, by srs, would only have 1 title. Instead, he has 5. You can bring up the srs and the wowyr, but that is a 6 ring delta in Kobe's favor. You also can't really put that all on Shaq, because the second Bryant got his own Kevin Mchale, he went
-> finals -> championship -> repeat championship
Bird has never won at that frequency, and frankly I think some of that is Bird's own doing(on both ends):
Spoiler:
Nope. But they are better from 3 or at the rim or are a better relative to position. Shaq can foul out frontlines, Reggie can chuck 3's at higher volume on crazy effeciency and Dirk was a center who could shoot from everywhere.
And here again, Bird runs into a problem. He doesn't protect the rim or even have the size/strength to be played at center or PF without strong rim-help. But he also doesn't have the ball-handling or slashing of a small-forward. So you need unique teammates who can handle the ball and help him a bunch defensively. And this could prove very problematic in his time with the right opponent. The Pistons guards were just torching him over and over. And he couldn't get vertical seperation from their undersized rim-deterrents. And he couldn't exploit illegal d by driving and forcing them to pick between a double or single coverage. So the end result is, with a team thats pretty good without him(45-win 86-88, 45-win 89), the Celtics are outscored by a team with half their SRS in 87 and are decisvely thumped by a team with lesser srs in 88 as their offense plummets by 13 points.
WestGOAT wrote:I have shared some of the proto-tracking but I guess I may as well provide what was done with game 1 from the same series. Was vetted by different people though(and a love of Caps Lock )...
14 POINTS FROM 22 POSSESSIONS, 1 POINT FROM A TECHNICAL HE DID NOT EARN 2 MAJOR DEFNEISVE BREAKDOWNS, 12 Normal DEFENSIVE BREAKDOWNS 1 Great Defensive play, 9 good defensive plays 4 Great OC, 8 good OC, 1 Weak OC 1 foul drawn 2 contested defensive rebounds 4 turnovers Called game, with the celtics up 15 with 3 minuites left. Zero created oppurtunities off ball, barely handled the ball, defensive breakdowns on average were alot worse than his postive defnsive plays, half his assists were replacement level plays, set three screens all game, did draw some defensive atention with off ball movement at times, woeful effiency on a not patcularly difficult selection of shots.
The original methodology:
THE OG METHOD ``CREATION`` OC's: when you're primarily responsible for the creation of a scoring oppurtunity HIGH OC's: When you create an open layup/dunk GOOD OC: When you create a 1v1 at the rim or an open three WEAK OC: EXTRA PASS, teamamte has to dribble a bit, ect.
``DEFENSE`` Defensive plays are when you do something that helps the prevention of a score, even if they end up scoring anyway GREAT DP: Rim contest, rim deterrence, (note: getting a block does not neccesarily mean you should get the most credit for a defensive stoppage), charge near rim, stealing during a 2 v1, denying an entry pass that leads to an easy score, a contested defensive rebound that prevents an uncontested score ect, ect, remembet ro adjust for teammates!!! If a bucnh of players are helping on a rim play its probably not a "great" play GOOD DP: Being involved in a rim stop, shot contest, stonewalling a player in the perimiter, being the primary cause of a steal, winning a contested rebound ect DECENT DP: Weaker contests, being in postion for a few secs, applying seocondary pressure, secondary help on a rebound ect, ect, Defensive errors are when you do something that hurts your team defensively: MAJOR BREAKDOWN: When you're primarily responsible for a really good scoring chance MINOR BREAKDOWN: When everyone's to blame or it doesn't lead to a really good scorng chance, ect.
90sAllDecade wrote:Also if you value Colt's opinon, he also lists Birds many playoff failures.
Larry Bird's Long List of Playoff Failures
1980- Averaged a .511 TS% in the postseason. In game 5 vs. the Sixers, he shot poorly, 5-19 with just 12 points, as the Celtics lost the game. His man (Dr. J) averaged 25 PPG in this series. His team loses in 5 games despite having HCA and winning 61 games. Had a 18.3 PER in the postseason
1981- Has a .532 TS% in the postseason. He had a bad finals where he averaged just 15 PPG on .419 shooting and .460 TS%.
1982- PPG average dropped from 22.9 PPG to 17.8 PPG. He has an embarrassing .474 TS% in the playoffs. He averaged a pedestrian 18.3 PPG against the Sixers. Averages 17 PPG in the final 2 games of the series. The Celtics lose again with HCA. The Celtics won 63 games and had the #1 SRS in the league. Has a 17.9 PER in the postseason.
1983- The Celtics get swept by the Bucks. The Celtics win 56 games and had the #2 SRS in the league and lose again with HCA. Bird plays awful again. .478 TS%. His PPG average drops 2 PPG in the playoffs. Bird missed a game in the series but that game happened to be the closest one (Celtics lose by 4). In the 3 other games, the Celtics lose by 14.3 PPG with Bird on the court.
1984- Great playoffs. Averaged 27-14-4 in the Finals and had a .607 TS% in the playoffs. First great playoff of his career. Celtics win the title over the Lakers.
1985- Celtics make the finals, but Bird's numbers drop in the playoffs. His PPG drops by 2.8 PPG, Reb by 1.2 Reb, and AST by 0.7 AST. Had an average .536 TS% in the postseason. Bird plays even worse in the finals. His PPG dropped 4.9 PPG, his Reb 1.7 Reb, and AST by 1.6 AST in the finals compared to his regular season average. His Finals TS% is just .527. Not only that, but Celtics finish with 63 wins and lose once again with HCA a constant theme in Bird's career. This is the first time in Celtics history they lost in the finals with HCA.
1986- Great year. His best year ever. Wins the title. .615 TS% in the postseason and amazing finals.
1987- I think this is his most admirable playoffs up until the finals. The Celtics were quite banged up this year. Averaged 27-10-7 in the postseason with .577 TS%. Though his numbers in the finals dropped off once again. His PPG was 3.9 PPG down from the regular season, AST down by 2.1 AST and his TS% was just .534. In game 6, Bird scored just 16 points on 6-16 (.375) shooting. In the final 3 games of this series, Bird averaged just 20 PPG on .377 shooting and .492 TS% with 3.7 TOV. This is the first time Bird has played without HCA in the playoffs and his team loses.
1988- Bird's PPG drops by 5.4 PPG, Reb by 0.5 Reb. Bird shoots an awful 40-114 (.351) against the Pistons. Has a mediocre .538 TS% and 20.2 PER in the playoffs. The Celtics had HCA and the #1 SRS in the league and you probably guessed what happened next, Larry Bird loses with HCA once again.
1989- Injured doesn't play in the postseason.
1990- Bird shoots .539 TS% and has 3.6 TOV as the Celtics once again you guessed it, lose with HCA.
1991- In the first round, his team needs to go 5 vs. the 41 win Pacers. His PPG drop by 2.3 PPG and his Rebounds and Assists also drop quite a bit. Has a .490 TS% 15.8 PER in the playoffs. Against the Pistons Bird averages 13.4 PPG on .446 TS%. His 56 win team played with you guessed it HCA and loses with it.
1992- Doesn't play in the first round as the Celtics sweep the Pacers. In round 2, his team goes 7 against the Cavs, but Bird plays in 4 games and his team was 1-3 in those games. Averages a pathetic 11.3 PPG and 4.5 Reb which are 8.4 PPG and 5.2 Reb down from his regular season average. He has a .514 TS% and 16.4 PER in the postseason.
So out of 12 years, you get 9 years under .540 TS%, 5 under .520 TS%, and 3 under .500 TS%. From 80-83, he had a 19.9 playoff PER. In that span, Johnny Moore, Franklin Edwards, Gus Williams, and Bob Lanier all had better playoff PER and WS/48. Teammates Parish, McHale, Tiny Archibald, and Cedric Maxwell had better TS% in that span. From 88-92, he had a 18.8 PER which is 25th among players with 10 playoff games played. Players who had better playoff PER's in that span include Fat Lever, Terry Cummings, Roy Tarpley, Cedric Ceballos, and Sarunas Marciulionis. His teammates Reggie Lewis and Kevin McHale had better playoff PER's in that span.
With Bird you get a nice 4 year run that had 4 straight finals appearances but outside of that you get a 4 year span of .505 TS% (80-83) and a .525 TS% span (88-92). In 12 years, you get 7 losses with HCA. Basically out of Bird's 13 year career, you have 1 injury season and 3 non-descript postseasons at the end of his plus some playoff disappointments early in his career.
By available creation metrics(Including those that give Bird credit for high era-relative 3-point volume), it's Kobe who creates more, and Kobe who has the more reselient(and versatile) scoring arsenal. There are box cases for either, but Bird is helped greatly by a high volume of defensive rebounds and a block a game...playing next to two bigger and better defenders.
Of course there are those who would argue the box-score is actually biased against Larry...
draymondgold wrote:It’s immensely valuable to be the first player to break down the defense, which leads to the best shot for the team, even when breaking down the defense does not instantly generate a fully open teammate. It’s valuable to be a good screen setter and offensive rebounder. It's valuable to be creating throughout the possession
...on aspects of the game that favor Kobe. Kobe Bryant is a strong ball-handler. So he is more frequently breaking down a defense first and creating throughout a possession. He will also get turnovers which hurt his box, but are a worthy trade-off for all this non-box creation he's offering. Moreover, that ball-handling actually makes it easier to generate more valuable passes: [spoiler]
tsherkin wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:I didn't start watching basketball until 1994 so I didn't see Bird play live, but I really, really don't understand what's special about his passing at all. I don't get it. He averaged just over 6 assists a game in a very high pace league and from watching his highlight reels it seems like he never made a difficult pass in his life. Every single "highlight" is just a basic obvious pass to a guy 3 feet away that it seems like any high schooler would find. What makes him any better of a passer than say Jimmy Butler? I really don't understand.
Timing, accuracy. His touch passing, when he only has the ball for a fraction of a second and one-hands it to someone. No-lookers, the whole range of things which might impress someone with his positional awareness and technical passing acumen. Watch more Bird and pay specific attention to his passing. I don't want to be rude, your question is fair, especially for someone who never saw him live. But there are plenty of highlights which illustrate why the fanfare exists.
In this highlight reel, none of his first four passes create wide open looks. There are still defenders the recipients have to deal with up until pass #5. You have to wait till pass #8 to see another uncontested look. Pass #10 for the 3rd.
Magic's first 7 passes here create wide open looks. 9 of his first 12. You might also notice that alot of these passes come with Magic handling the ball in traffic, allowing Johnson to filter out defenders, before he makes the pass. In some of these Magic is also leveraging rim-pressure as defenders take themselves out of the play in anticipation of what he's going to at the basket.
;start=25[/url] Kobe creates 5 wide-open looks in his first 10 possessions(for clarity, i am not[b] counting something like the Walton pass). As you might expect he is not anticipating or making reads as early as the other two are but he is able to leverage both his pressure at the rim and penetration to compensate for his disadvantage in raw-skill. Bryant is also, like Magic, taking defenders out of the play pre-pass [/quote][/quote]
You keep citing Ben's [b]opinion, as opposed to addressing these points, so I'll just reiterate what I said the last time "Ben Says" was brought up:
Spoiler:
OhayoKD wrote:
70sFan wrote:Sure, but there's no inherent bias here. It is certainly possible that all the stuff not shown would actually lean bird's direction but it's also possible vice versa. It's the acknowledgement that bias can swingway which makes film-tracking useful. If Ben with his hundreds of possessions was laying out for us how many wide-open looks one player created and how many wide-open looks another player created or how many times player a took out 3 defenders and player b took out 3 defenders, then yeah, I'd trust that film-tracking more too. But he's not. He just vaguely says "this is a high quality read" without a clear standard and then says a metric which he designed based on his own film-tracking likes Steph Curry is biased because it doesn't appreciate what Bird brings off-the-ball.
He also doesn't address or comment on Bird's limited ball-handling and he never contemplates what his limited slashing might mean for how defenses react to him. Like...
He entered the league as a polished, 22-year old rookie, spearheading one of the biggest turnarounds ever (a 32-win improvement). It wasn’t all Larry — Boston brought in a new coach (Bill Fitch), Tiny Archibald’s health improved and poor-rep players like Marvin Barnes and Bob McAdoo were replaced on the bench.4 But it all centered around Bird. He took 19 percent of the team’s scoring attempts, the exact same number as MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in LA.5 He handled the brunt of the creation and the result was an offense 4.2 points better than league average (rORtg), the 15th-best ever at that point in time
Where do I even start here.
-> +4.2 is being treated like "historically good" here when countless players have hit that mark over and over again -> Only looks at scoring and creation -> Doesn't comment on how his team literally never matches that srs outside of when their defense spikes in 1986(the offense does not improve) when he literally makes that same type of comment for players generating much better offense who do eventually exceed those marks with better help("+21 year old leading a +6 offense without 3-point specialists in 2006 is probably a fluke!")
"Bird is one of the greatest creators ever because of reasons x, y, z, w ben brings up" is fine and dandy.
But telling me "bird is one of the greatest creators ever because ben says so" is not a good justification. You're not citing film-tracking here, you're citing an opinion. That's not the same thing.
Knowing and watching ball =/ creating coherent and internally consistent frameworks with said knowledge. Ben may be top-tier at the former, but he's not an expert in the latter so you shouldn't just cite a stance as a rebuttal to a metric literally built on ben's own film-tracking which happens to correlate better with offensive-rating than the alternatives.
If we're going to appeal to Ben's film-tracking...why don't we actually check out this film-tracking:
;t=29s For context here is how this is introduced:
Bird was also the best off-ball forward ever, so much so that I’d classify his game as primarily off-ball. Watching him without the rock, particularly in the first (1980-83) and second trimester (1984-88) of his career is a study in advantageous positioning. Here’s a 30-second sample of Bird spinning, cutting, banging, boxing and constantly threatening the defense with his high-motor perpetual motion
Okay, so, yeah Bird is moving perpetually and he is threatening...his defender. But besides getting a guy not directly involved to look at him momentarily...what is Bird actually creating? Here's what a friend(currently film-tracking game 1 of the 86 finals) had to say:
For those who are curious, a half into the final round of 86, Bird is having a fantastic scoring game(16 points with 7 possessions, 1 technical)
He is offering creative value but it's limited(2 Great OC, 12:40, 28:50)but he seems limited here(and thus far not much of anything seems to be happening off-ball):
His defense(1 Decent DP, 46:30, 5 Minor Breakdowns, 53:20, 41:55, 26:55, 26:40, 12:30, 2 Moderate Breakdowns, 20:10, 20:35) isn't great
Here's the game for those who want to vet/comment:
For those who are curious on the justification for a certain classification, there are notes attached to all of these. Ask(with a time-stamp), and I can pull it up.
For posterity here were some examples of things that were not counted:
-> 44:15 ("empty-ish assist") -> 48:10 ("i hope that didn't get an assist")
Anyway...
I responded to your full post, and broadened your highly specific criteria for creation.
Nope:
Should be obvious what's going on here but I'll let posterity decide
So no, I don't think we should just look at when teammates were exclusively wide open. The criteria you set are too specific and miss most of the game.
I have no idea why you assumed we only looked at wide-open looks. I specifically brought that up to make a point about creative efficiency. With game 5 of the 87 ECF we credited Bird with a decent OC after he set a pick even though it is somewhat atypical to give players creations when they only affect one defender. We are not "only" looking for wide-open looks, but when we are discussing passer-rating, a metric that tracks creative effeciency, the quality of look created matters.
The rest has been discussed ad-nauseum so I'm going to post this, start my tracking of Hakeem, and sleep. If you are only planning to reference Ben's opinions, replying is probably not going to be too productive.
lessthanjake wrote:Vote for #12: Larry Bird Alternate Vote: Kobe Bryant Nomination: Moses Malone
I have to say I don’t feel strongly between Bird and Kobe (so could even be persuaded to change my vote actually). My main reasons for going for Larry Bird are twofold:
First, I think Bird has a much cleaner case for having been the best player in the league for an extended period of time than Kobe does. Bird was pretty clearly the NBA’s best player in the mid-1980s. And, while a lot of people considered Kobe the league’s best player in the mid-2000s, I didn’t think he was at the time and I still don’t. There was always some combination of one or more of Duncan, Garnett, LeBron, Nash, and maybe even Dirk that were better than him in that time period (and of course his own teammate Shaq was better than him in his earlier years). To me, Kobe was top 5 in the vast majority of years for a long time, but was never really the best, and Larry Bird actually was. So I just think Bird peaked meaningfully higher.
Second, I think the impact signals we have from Bird are better. Kobe doesn’t do great in impact metrics in general. We don’t have nearly as much of that data for Bird, but I think the overall picture looks better. Bird does better in WOWY. He does better in the Moonbeam stuff. They’re essentially the same in WOWYR. Meanwhile, we know that Kobe doesn’t do great in RAPM, which is a strike against Kobe to at least some small degree in this comparison even though we don’t have RAPM for Bird (it’s still part of the data picture for Kobe). So, while I don’t have a high degree of certainty regarding the level of Bird’s impact, my baseline assumption using the data we have is that it was superior to Kobe’s.
My biggest concern with Bird is that he had some real playoff struggles sometimes. But Kobe did too, so I don’t find that a particularly meaningful differentiator. The other potential differentiator is that Kobe has 5 titles and Bird has 3. But it’s hard to really give Kobe too much of an edge there, since he was the #2 guy on three of those teams.
Anyways, as for the nomination, I’ve explained why Moses in prior posts in earlier threads, so I’d just refer back to those.
Well he was a #1 when he made 3-straight finals and won back to back with pau gasol.
For someone who says they value championships in a short period of time, Kobe should have a very clear advantage. There is also that rather inconvenient bit of the "kobe was only the best player for 2 championship teams" story where it was Kobe's jump in production that saw, by far the best playoff performance of either Shaq or Bird's career...
Okay? What’s your point? The point I was making is that the gap in titles isn’t necessarily very meaningful when Kobe was the #2 guy on three of his and Bird was not the #2 guy for any of his. It’s perhaps still a point in Kobe’s favor, but I find it hard to really score it as a major one, given the radically different circumstances. Not sure what your last sentence is even referring to, but I *think* you’re referring to Kobe doing really well in 2001? In which case I’ll note that I quite like that Kobe was a huge part of one of the best teams ever (the 2001 Lakers), but being the 2nd best player on one of the best teams ever (Kobe on the 2001 Lakers) is not actually as impressive to me as being the best player on one of the best teams ever (Bird on the 1986 Celtics).
Except Kobe was also the best player on one of the best teams ever.
They also featured THE most dominant trio of the post Jordan era outside of peak GS (Kobe/Pau/Odom posted a +17.1 net rating over the regular season and postseason) That tops anything from Manu/Tony/Duncan or KG/Pierce/Allen or LBJ/Love/Irving etc
The 09 Lakers were not even close to one of the best teams ever, they wouldn't have even beat the Celtics if KG hadn't suffered an injury. These ridiculous takes to try and grasp at stats that show the Lakers as some all time team are silly. They wouldn't be a top 25 team in the last 10 years. They wouldn't even be a top 4 team in any year from 2016 to 2018.
They didn't even beat anyone good. The Magic were nor some legendary opponent. They faced a bunch of solid to good teams and won. Today's league is far stronger than 2009.
One aporoach that seems popular is to talk about 'the number of 50 win teams' they beat, or the 'combined SRS', and act like that tells us anything. It obviously doesn't. Firstly it doesn't for common sense reasons; if you have to beat 4 teams with an SRS of 4, in theory you beat a total SRS of 16. But those 4 teams were all average and beating them might be nothing special. In contrast, if you play a first round dud with a minus 1 SRS, a 3 SRS team in round 2, and then 2 teams with 60+ wins and an SRS of 7 each, in theory you might be beating the same cumulative SRS, or the same number of '50 win teams'. It is obviously much tougher to beat those 2 high end opponents though. That's where context comes in.
Some more context might include stuff like 'oh, team X wasn't healthy, etc', so you didn't really beat a team witg XTZ SRS. *coughRocketscough*
A teams rating is also only relevant to the league they were in. A team with an 8 SRS today is obviously going to be much tougher than a team with an 8 SRS in 1957.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
eminence wrote:First noting I don't do an MVP/weak MVP distinction (a rougher ATG/MVP/All-NBA/Allstar set of groupings for me), but I would probably have all of '80-'88 (9 seasons) as MVP level.
That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
A lot feels like an understatement. It's a strong contender for the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and was led by Bird to a larger degree than most such turnarounds are led by any one player.
I agree that he struggled a bit in the playoffs, emphasis on a bit, I don't think he suffered some major letdown. Also agreed that early Bird wasn't particularly valuable as a scorer (useful, but well well below elite).
And in spite of that, I still have him as my pick for MVP and DPOY in 1980*.
*Kareem/DrJ doing enough in the POs to pass him for a POY style award.
One_and_Done wrote:The 09 Lakers were not even close to one of the best teams ever, they wouldn't have even beat the Celtics if KG hadn't suffered an injury. These ridiculous takes to try and grasp at stats that show the Lakers as some all time team are silly. They wouldn't be a top 25 team in the last 10 years. They wouldn't even be a top 4 team in any year from 2016 to 2018.
But they were statistically.
And, let's not forget, the 2009 Celtics were clearly better than the 2008 Celtics when KG was healthy. The 2009 Lakers losing to the 2009 Celtics [with healthy KG] doesn't actually support anything you are saying here about the level the 2009 Lakers played at.
One_and_Done wrote:I wouldn't be saying that after your hyperselective comparison of years between KD and Kobe (playoffs only, but exclude KDs best years, and initially focusing only on Kobe's best ones).
Yeah, except I compared:
2012-16 KD vs 2006-10 Kobe 2010-16 KD vs 2006-12 Kobe 2010-23 KD vs 2000-13 Kobe
Sorry that you feel offended, but you can't really call my comparisons "hyperselective".
OhayoKD wrote:Well the back to back is an advantage here. There is also immediacy but "much" for that specific sample was wrong. Feel free to extend the sample, that only hurts Bird(maaaybe not if you count the years where one of the two got injured before the playoffs?).
I don't know, 1984-87 vs 2008-11 doesn't really look better for Kobe in my opinion.
One_and_Done wrote:I wouldn't be saying that after your hyperselective comparison of years between KD and Kobe (playoffs only, but exclude KDs best years, and initially focusing only on Kobe's best ones).
Yeah, except I compared:
2012-14 KD vs 2006-10 Kobe 2010-16 KD vs 2006-12 Kobe 2010-23 KD vs 2000-13 Kobe
Sorry that you feel offended, but you can't really call my comparisons "hyperselective".
OhayoKD wrote:Well the back to back is an advantage here. There is also immediacy but "much" for that specific sample was wrong. Feel free to extend the sample, that only hurts Bird(maaaybe not if you count the years where one of the two got injured before the playoffs?).
I don't know, 1984-87 vs 2008-11 doesn't really look better for Kobe in my opinion.
Maybe, they are certainly close. One thing to remember about Bird--he wasn't a dynamo from the start as a shooter.
Colbinii wrote:Bird's career TS% is going to be lower because of the breadth of shots he took from the start of his rookie season [averaging 17.8 FGA/G at slightly above league average efficiency with 102 eFG+] but didn't get to the line enough [80 FTr+]. Essentially, he was a basketball savant but not a scoring savant yet. In fact, his 2nd season he actually had a negative TS+ due to a horrific FTr+. Aside from watching the games, we can easily explain this--Bird was playing the most optimized basketball he could [at the time] in part because he was the player on the team who wasn't clogging the lane. He was soaking up the teams possession in the mid-range and long mid-range, allowing his team to cut and move between him [12-20 feet out from the rim] and the rim. Bird generated an efficient offense this way [2nd, 4th and 5th during his first 3 seasons in the NBA] despite being a league average scorer based on the numbers.
As Bird aged, he never truly became great [or good, or average] at producing free throws [Career high 90 FT+ in 1986] but he developed a healthy and all-time great shooting touch [peaking at 120 FG+] and midrange shot.
Something to think about and chew on:
During Bird's first 2 seasons, he was at 48% and 49% on 2P shots. During 1987 and 1988, Bird was up to 54.6% on 2P Shots. Before you assume he was taking more shots at the rim, his Free Throw Rate during his first 2 seasons was 23.2% and in 1987/1988 it was only 28.7%.
For Reference, Curry this season is at 26.6 FTR and shoots just 10% of his shots at the rim. LeBron James is somehow at 27.8 FTR this season but shooting an absurd 30% of his shots at the rim [This is a massive outlier in terms of FGA at rim and FTR]. Looking at a handful of other players, it's safe to assume Bird was posting 54.7% on 2PA when shooting somewhere between 15-30% of his shots at the rim.
eminence wrote:First noting I don't do an MVP/weak MVP distinction (a rougher ATG/MVP/All-NBA/Allstar set of groupings for me), but I would probably have all of '80-'88 (9 seasons) as MVP level.
That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
A lot feels like an understatement. It's a strong contender for the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and was led by Bird to a larger degree than most such turnarounds are led by any one player.
I agree that he struggled a bit in the playoffs, emphasis on a bit, I don't think he suffered some major letdown. Also agreed that early Bird wasn't particularly valuable as a scorer (useful, but well well below elite).
And in spite of that, I still have him as my pick for MVP and DPOY in 1980*.
*Kareem/DrJ doing enough in the POs to pass him for a POY style award.
Yeah, I disagree with how much you give Bird credit for that turnaround. We have seen Bird missing games across various parts of his career and he never replicated anything close to that level. 1979 Celtics were in a terrible situation, but I doubt they would finish nearly as low if you simulate the situation 10 times.
I don't know, he disappointed in the last 3 games of the Sixers series big time. It wasn't an all-time "choke", but I would describe it as a major underperformance. It's nothing strange, he was a rookie and he faced excellent team but that's my point - I don't think he was ready to call him MVP.
It seems that we view his defense much different if you think he was ever legit DPOY, let alone in his rookie year...
Voting post: So, I would quote my post from the other time but I'm not sure how to do it and also it's different now that we can vote for Oscar. Basically we have mikan bird oscar west bryant. I feel like bird oscar west and kobe aren't that far apart. Still I think that kobe doesn't have an argument over west and oscar. A bit of modernism, a bit of longevity, a bit of ring count don't do it for me. I'm going to be really honest with you guys. Kobe doesn't have a good case over these two guys, that's it basically. West does everything better than kobe. Vastly better defender, playmaker, shooter era relative, better scorer at the rim, just as good of an athlete era relative, better playoff performances. The longevity difference isn't that much, era relative. Oscar has a huge advantage in everything on the offensive side, kobe should probably be considered the better defender but it's nothing impactful. Bird vs Kobe I could entertain it because kobe could close most of the gap with the longevity.
So it's clearly between west and oscar to me. West clearly has a big defensive advantage and fares better as far as how much worse/better they played in the playoffs compared to rs. Oscar has the offensive edge (obviously, vastly better playmaker, and also better scoring efficiency even tho west should probably be considered the better overall scorer. Oscar was more durable. They both have underwhelming team success. I really don't know man, I think I'll vote for west just because I think he has more chances of winning? And i just love him more?
So, vote: West Alternate: Robertson
Nominate: David Robinson Alternate nomination: Karl Malone
BTW, I'm not a big durant guy but thinking about it, he has a good case over everybody that's not been nominated. Malone, he's a good bit better as a player. David Robinson, I have him above kd but kd may already have longevity and clearly is a much better offensive player. Erving, you know, the aba is iffy and also not the best era, and beside that they are similar in value. Nowitzki, I have kd as a better player, don't know if nowitzki surpass him for longevity. Pettit was better prime impact to prime impact but, you know, era, longevity etc. I have him above moses, barkley, cp3. Yeah, I think that I have kd around 17-18, and in my book his range is 15 to 20.
70sFan wrote:That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
A lot feels like an understatement. It's a strong contender for the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and was led by Bird to a larger degree than most such turnarounds are led by any one player.
I agree that he struggled a bit in the playoffs, emphasis on a bit, I don't think he suffered some major letdown. Also agreed that early Bird wasn't particularly valuable as a scorer (useful, but well well below elite).
And in spite of that, I still have him as my pick for MVP and DPOY in 1980*.
*Kareem/DrJ doing enough in the POs to pass him for a POY style award.
Yeah, I disagree with how much you give Bird credit for that turnaround. We have seen Bird missing games across various parts of his career and he never replicated anything close to that level. 1979 Celtics were in a terrible situation, but I doubt they would finish nearly as low if you simulate the situation 10 times.
I don't know, he disappointed in the last 3 games of the Sixers series big time. It wasn't an all-time "choke", but I would describe it as a major underperformance. It's nothing strange, he was a rookie and he faced excellent team but that's my point - I don't think he was ready to call him MVP.
It seems that we view his defense much different if you think he was ever legit DPOY, let alone in his rookie year...
I'm factoring all that in in saying it's only arguably MVP level.
If I weren't upping the '79 Celtics, downgrading for playoffs, and scaling Bird down based on later results - it'd be a strong contender for GOAT RS, easily outstripping anything we've seen from plenty of great players and lapping anything we've seen from Oscar/West/Kobe (pre key change Mikan is a different beast) on this ballot.
70sFan wrote:That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
I think 80-83 all are Weak/fringe-MVP seasons; 1984 is when he made a substantial offensive leap Imo, though he showed signs of doing so before
I have been wondering recently if anyone would call these years MVP level had he not know that it's Bird playing there. I mean, I don't think 1980 Bird would ever be a legit choice for MVP in any NBA season.
Yeah, and I have a lot of concerns with his playoff performance in that time frame at that. 1983 would have been his best shot (had he not contracted flu), but I much rather prefer the high-ends of performance from Erving, Moses, Magic, and Kareem in that time span (not saying all 4 would be better than Bird as players in aggregate, of course).
Mogspan wrote:I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.
With so many people talking about being swayed by West’s defence, thought I should dig up some commentary on Oscar’s.
lorak wrote:
Dipper 13 wrote:
lorak wrote:Some people were asking about Oscar's defense. I recently did video with Russell's passes from all available playoffs games with him and that includes 2 games against Royals with Robertson. Overall that's just 29 defensive plays for Royals, but if you don't want or don't have time to watch whole games that's good starting point:
3:00 good double and then recover, Sigfried unable to drive by Oscar and then his shot is blocked by Robertson 3:15 next play, again double and recover and KC is unable to drive by Oscar 5:21 after the switch Oscar guards Russell and Bill is unable to post up Robertson! 7:05 transition D, he defends two players and contest the shot very well
Overall he looks like very smart and fundamentally sound defender, almost always in position to help (and often he was main helper on his team), doesn't buy on fakes, even bigger players can't back him down and smaller aren't fast enough to drive by him even when he isn't in perfect position after recovering from double teaming. That all actually suggest that he was very good defensively, the only "problem" was that he wasn't (just like on offense) flashy player, so for example didn't have a lot of blocks or steals and maybe that's why so many people underrate him on defense?
I recall a Sonny Hill story on his radio show of how Earl Monroe told him after his rookie year he had to bulk up in the off season after playing against Oscar, who could physically control him on the defensive end to the point where he couldn't do anything effectively. In 1971, Bullets coach Gene Shue even picked him as the Finals MVP. His defense, which is badly underrated, was a big reason for the easy sweep. Bucks coach Larry Costello said he was on par with Frazier defensively.
He did this while remaining a high level offensive player.
1971 Finals:
23.5 pts, 5.0 rbs, 9.5 ast, 52.3% FG, 59.4% TS
April 26, 1971
Oscar Robertson seemed to be everywhere as the Milwaukee Bucks crushed the Baltimore Bullets 102-83 Sunday and took a 2-0 lead in the National Basketball Association's best-of-7 title series.
Under the policing of Robertson, Monroe only made 4 of 18 from the field.
"Oscar has helped us on defense as much this year as on offense," Milwaukee coach Larry Costello said. "He plays defense as well as Walt Frazier of New York."
"He's as good as Frazier, and stronger. You didn't see Monroe get the ball in low like he did against the Knicks."
"Oscar should have been on the league's all-defense team," said Baltimore coach Gene Shue. "He got my vote. Oscar is strong, and he holds a little - let me get that in."
May 1, 1971
Oscar, still unstoppable at 32 years of age and giving perhaps the finest defensive effort of his career, pumped in 21 of his 30 points in the first half of the nationally televised finale as the Bucks surged ahead 60-47 by intermission, and never looked back.
Although the 7-3 Lew Alcindor was selected the Most Valuable Player in the championship series, Robertson had his own backers.
"The MVP? Oscar," said Coach Gene Shue of the Bullets, without hesitation. "He was the leader, he controlled the offense, he hit the open man and he played tremendous defense. I said when they got him they would be the best team in basketball."
I haven't watched whole series (1971 finals), so I don't know what were defensive matchups, but both Bullets guards shot terrible (Monroe 34.7 FG%, Loughery 37.3 FG%), so seems like Bucks backcourt did very good job and of course Oscar was big part of that backcourt.
Youtube evidently removed that clip compilation, but the commentary still has value.
I am not saying that Oscar was as good defensively as Jerry West, but I think it is important to remember that for all the glowing talk about how Jerry West was “the best defensive player in basketball” there is only so much meaningful impact disparity between an excellent defensive guard and a good one. For all that defensive advantage, West has not been the guy who comes across as more impactful to his teams. Now, people can favour West regardless because of lesser ball dominance and whatever, but looking at two contemporary guards, I would not automatically conclude that the better guard defender was outpacing the better offensive engine without some stronger overall indicators.
HeartBreakKid wrote:great Bird war will come soon enough.
And so it did
Colbinii wrote:
DraymondGold wrote: I agree, they *shouldn't be*. But to all the people saying Kobe has a clear and large longevity advantage, I believe they're being biased by these extra seasons and total games. If we discount these seasons, Kobe played only 25% more games than Bird did in an 2000s era where players overall played 43% more games than the 1980s (which is likely an overestimate for stars, but still indicative of a large difference across eras).
I'm saying the longevity advantage for Kobe is smaller than people are saying. And if we turn to the impact metrics we have of them, Bird has an overall advantage in his prime that is greater than the advantage Kobe has for longevity.
It is much simpler than you are making it out to be.
From 2000-2011, Kobe played in 35K Minutes and 903 Games in the RS and 7.4K Minutes and 180 Games in the PS. From 1980-1988, Bird played in 27K Minutes and 711 Games in the RS and 6.1K Minutes and 145 Games in the PS.
Kobe gets incremental value from 2012 and 2013 [off-prime, still all-star level]. Bird gets incremental value for 1990 and 1991 [off-prime, still all-star level]
Kobe also has 1998 and 1999 where he is a positive impact player [Missing a total of 4 games in these two seasons].
It is taken into account. The thing is the effect is nowhere near as pronounced when you filter for higher quality players: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107884176#p107884176 And you know, this is something Ben(whose opinion, not actual tracking or tracking-derived metrics is now being treated as evidence), actually went and accounted for(there's also probably an argument to be made that isn't how era-relativity actually works...)
Actually there's alot of favorable assumptions and claims Ben makes for Bird(we will get to "stat bias" later) for example...
70sFan wrote:
eminence wrote:First noting I don't do an MVP/weak MVP distinction (a rougher ATG/MVP/All-NBA/Allstar set of groupings for me), but I would probably have all of '80-'88 (9 seasons) as MVP level.
That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
Here's the thing. Ben agrees. As of 2018 he had Bird with as a strong mvp in 1980. And then he stayed as a strong MVP all the way to 1988 despite only once posting a better srs than 1980 with significantly improved casts.
Ben also pretty much agrees with all of these(not really defensible) claims:
Colbinii wrote:Larry Bird Not much to see here, the purest basketball-savant we likely have ever seen. Developed into a lethal shooter and scorer during his 1984-1986 stretch, incredible feel and instincts as a catalyst unlike anything we have ever seen [Until Jokic]. He truly was able to vitalize an offense as well as anyone, ever. The greatest impetus who ever graced the court [along with Nash].
In fact, he went so far to put Bird ahead, for his prime, over this guy:
Keep in mind -> impact consistently favors magic over bird(In fact it actually seems to like Johnson over everyone from the time period) -> Magic's is #1 in regular season winning % -> Magic is #1 in playoff winning %(Bird is not close) -> Magic has led better regular-season offenses as well as better playoff offenses(as well as a bunch of other post-merger greats in this not exhaustive list):
Despite Ben's insistence Bird is a different calibre of player, Kobe has actually led comparable offenes without shaq and with Shaq his increase in production was the driving force for a +11 psrs improvement from what the Lakers managed in 2000 as they played far better in the playoffs than the Celtics ever have. You might recall Kobe outscored and outassisted Shaq for 2 of 3 rounds while averaging more minutes all playoffs. If 1980 Larry was a {b]strong MVP[/b] losing to a non finalist(and thus define the arc of every prime bird year), what does that make 2001 Kobe?
But I digress, because ultimately, you can ignore all of this as Ben, with all these assumptions and beliefs inputted his season to season evaluations into an objective championship formila for both players and came out with...
Kobe Bryant coming out ahead.
Kobe Bryant, in a better league, playing with different co-stars in a scheme asking him to take the most ineffecient shots...
Was more valuable over his career
Now. You might be surprised. After all we have these CAREER WOWY numbers clearly saying that Larry was the more valuable player! Here's the thing. Ben, with whatever bias he carries when he insists those 2-3 weakly defended 3's a game in an era with illegal defense were defense-warping, is not a robot. He wants to evaluate all the seasons properly, including ones where Bird didn't miss time.
And a couple issues arise when trying to claim Bird was actually such an outlier Kobe's longetvity doesn't matter.
For one, we have seen the Celtics without Bird, they were...fine:
-> in 1992 bird was replaced with an all-star and...the Celtics nearly made the conference finals -> 89 with a weaker version of that replacement they played at a 45 or 44-win pace(40-games at full-strength) -> 86-88 they played at a 45-win pace, 87-88, 43-win(7 gms/szn)
For another, it's very difficult to find theoretical weaknesses with Bird's support. All of the celtics could pass. All of them could handle the ball. They had two strong isolation scorers, an excellent defensive cast with a goat-defensive guard and two bigs who were both switchable and decent to good rim-protectors and strong ball-handlers, scorers, decent floor-spacers, and capable passers...
Actually, pause. I want readers to really think about that last part.
Larry Bird, a guy with very limited ball-handling, a poor slashing game , vulnerable man defense, and weak(for a pf) rim-protection got to play with bigs who were good at at all of that...in the 80's.
While Ben presents Bird being able to play with a pf as a strength, really it is a luxury. Because if Bird was playing on a typical roster, he would not get to play power forward offensively, while being hidden as a small-forward on defense.
Bird not only had a talented team. He also had unique and hard to replicate roster construction. Fair to say then that Bird, impact extraordinaire should be expected to do alot of winning?
Well, this gets us to issue #3
WOWY is mostly looking at the regular season. And if SRS decided championships, Bird would have 5. And yeah, with 5 wins it would be alot harder to argue. The problem is he only has 3. Kobe, by srs, would only have 1 title. Instead, he has 5. You can bring up the srs and the wowyr, but that is a 6 ring delta in Kobe's favor. You also can't really put that all on Shaq, because the second Bryant got his own Kevin Mchale, he went
-> finals -> championship -> repeat championship
Bird has never won at that frequency, and frankly I think some of that is Bird's own doing(on both ends):
Nope. But they are better from 3 or at the rim or are a better relative to position. Shaq can foul out frontlines, Reggie can chuck 3's at higher volume on crazy effeciency and Dirk was a center who could shoot from everywhere.
And here again, Bird runs into a problem. He doesn't protect the rim or even have the size/strength to be played at center or PF without strong rim-help. But he also doesn't have the ball-handling or slashing of a small-forward. So you need unique teammates who can handle the ball and help him a bunch defensively. And this could prove very problematic in his time with the right opponent. The Pistons guards were just torching him over and over. And he couldn't get vertical seperation from their undersized rim-deterrents. And he couldn't exploit illegal d by driving and forcing them to pick between a double or single coverage. So the end result is, with a team thats pretty good without him(45-win 86-88, 45-win 89), the Celtics are outscored by a team with half their SRS in 87 and are decisvely thumped by a team with lesser srs in 88 as their offense plummets by 13 points.
WestGOAT wrote:I have shared some of the proto-tracking but I guess I may as well provide what was done with game 1 from the same series. Was vetted by different people though(and a love of Caps Lock )...
14 POINTS FROM 22 POSSESSIONS, 1 POINT FROM A TECHNICAL HE DID NOT EARN 2 MAJOR DEFNEISVE BREAKDOWNS, 12 Normal DEFENSIVE BREAKDOWNS 1 Great Defensive play, 9 good defensive plays 4 Great OC, 8 good OC, 1 Weak OC 1 foul drawn 2 contested defensive rebounds 4 turnovers Called game, with the celtics up 15 with 3 minuites left. Zero created oppurtunities off ball, barely handled the ball, defensive breakdowns on average were alot worse than his postive defnsive plays, half his assists were replacement level plays, set three screens all game, did draw some defensive atention with off ball movement at times, woeful effiency on a not patcularly difficult selection of shots.
The original methodology:
THE OG METHOD ``CREATION`` OC's: when you're primarily responsible for the creation of a scoring oppurtunity HIGH OC's: When you create an open layup/dunk GOOD OC: When you create a 1v1 at the rim or an open three WEAK OC: EXTRA PASS, teamamte has to dribble a bit, ect.
``DEFENSE`` Defensive plays are when you do something that helps the prevention of a score, even if they end up scoring anyway GREAT DP: Rim contest, rim deterrence, (note: getting a block does not neccesarily mean you should get the most credit for a defensive stoppage), charge near rim, stealing during a 2 v1, denying an entry pass that leads to an easy score, a contested defensive rebound that prevents an uncontested score ect, ect, remembet ro adjust for teammates!!! If a bucnh of players are helping on a rim play its probably not a "great" play GOOD DP: Being involved in a rim stop, shot contest, stonewalling a player in the perimiter, being the primary cause of a steal, winning a contested rebound ect DECENT DP: Weaker contests, being in postion for a few secs, applying seocondary pressure, secondary help on a rebound ect, ect, Defensive errors are when you do something that hurts your team defensively: MAJOR BREAKDOWN: When you're primarily responsible for a really good scoring chance MINOR BREAKDOWN: When everyone's to blame or it doesn't lead to a really good scorng chance, ect.
90sAllDecade wrote:Also if you value Colt's opinon, he also lists Birds many playoff failures.
Larry Bird's Long List of Playoff Failures
1980- Averaged a .511 TS% in the postseason. In game 5 vs. the Sixers, he shot poorly, 5-19 with just 12 points, as the Celtics lost the game. His man (Dr. J) averaged 25 PPG in this series. His team loses in 5 games despite having HCA and winning 61 games. Had a 18.3 PER in the postseason
1981- Has a .532 TS% in the postseason. He had a bad finals where he averaged just 15 PPG on .419 shooting and .460 TS%.
1982- PPG average dropped from 22.9 PPG to 17.8 PPG. He has an embarrassing .474 TS% in the playoffs. He averaged a pedestrian 18.3 PPG against the Sixers. Averages 17 PPG in the final 2 games of the series. The Celtics lose again with HCA. The Celtics won 63 games and had the #1 SRS in the league. Has a 17.9 PER in the postseason.
1983- The Celtics get swept by the Bucks. The Celtics win 56 games and had the #2 SRS in the league and lose again with HCA. Bird plays awful again. .478 TS%. His PPG average drops 2 PPG in the playoffs. Bird missed a game in the series but that game happened to be the closest one (Celtics lose by 4). In the 3 other games, the Celtics lose by 14.3 PPG with Bird on the court.
1984- Great playoffs. Averaged 27-14-4 in the Finals and had a .607 TS% in the playoffs. First great playoff of his career. Celtics win the title over the Lakers.
1985- Celtics make the finals, but Bird's numbers drop in the playoffs. His PPG drops by 2.8 PPG, Reb by 1.2 Reb, and AST by 0.7 AST. Had an average .536 TS% in the postseason. Bird plays even worse in the finals. His PPG dropped 4.9 PPG, his Reb 1.7 Reb, and AST by 1.6 AST in the finals compared to his regular season average. His Finals TS% is just .527. Not only that, but Celtics finish with 63 wins and lose once again with HCA a constant theme in Bird's career. This is the first time in Celtics history they lost in the finals with HCA.
1986- Great year. His best year ever. Wins the title. .615 TS% in the postseason and amazing finals.
1987- I think this is his most admirable playoffs up until the finals. The Celtics were quite banged up this year. Averaged 27-10-7 in the postseason with .577 TS%. Though his numbers in the finals dropped off once again. His PPG was 3.9 PPG down from the regular season, AST down by 2.1 AST and his TS% was just .534. In game 6, Bird scored just 16 points on 6-16 (.375) shooting. In the final 3 games of this series, Bird averaged just 20 PPG on .377 shooting and .492 TS% with 3.7 TOV. This is the first time Bird has played without HCA in the playoffs and his team loses.
1988- Bird's PPG drops by 5.4 PPG, Reb by 0.5 Reb. Bird shoots an awful 40-114 (.351) against the Pistons. Has a mediocre .538 TS% and 20.2 PER in the playoffs. The Celtics had HCA and the #1 SRS in the league and you probably guessed what happened next, Larry Bird loses with HCA once again.
1989- Injured doesn't play in the postseason.
1990- Bird shoots .539 TS% and has 3.6 TOV as the Celtics once again you guessed it, lose with HCA.
1991- In the first round, his team needs to go 5 vs. the 41 win Pacers. His PPG drop by 2.3 PPG and his Rebounds and Assists also drop quite a bit. Has a .490 TS% 15.8 PER in the playoffs. Against the Pistons Bird averages 13.4 PPG on .446 TS%. His 56 win team played with you guessed it HCA and loses with it.
1992- Doesn't play in the first round as the Celtics sweep the Pacers. In round 2, his team goes 7 against the Cavs, but Bird plays in 4 games and his team was 1-3 in those games. Averages a pathetic 11.3 PPG and 4.5 Reb which are 8.4 PPG and 5.2 Reb down from his regular season average. He has a .514 TS% and 16.4 PER in the postseason.
So out of 12 years, you get 9 years under .540 TS%, 5 under .520 TS%, and 3 under .500 TS%. From 80-83, he had a 19.9 playoff PER. In that span, Johnny Moore, Franklin Edwards, Gus Williams, and Bob Lanier all had better playoff PER and WS/48. Teammates Parish, McHale, Tiny Archibald, and Cedric Maxwell had better TS% in that span. From 88-92, he had a 18.8 PER which is 25th among players with 10 playoff games played. Players who had better playoff PER's in that span include Fat Lever, Terry Cummings, Roy Tarpley, Cedric Ceballos, and Sarunas Marciulionis. His teammates Reggie Lewis and Kevin McHale had better playoff PER's in that span.
With Bird you get a nice 4 year run that had 4 straight finals appearances but outside of that you get a 4 year span of .505 TS% (80-83) and a .525 TS% span (88-92). In 12 years, you get 7 losses with HCA. Basically out of Bird's 13 year career, you have 1 injury season and 3 non-descript postseasons at the end of his plus some playoff disappointments early in his career.
By available creation metrics(Including those that give Bird credit for high era-relative 3-point volume), it's Kobe who creates more, and Kobe who has the more reselient(and versatile) scoring arsenal. There are box cases for either, but Bird is helped greatly by a high volume of defensive rebounds and a block a game...playing next to two bigger and better defenders.
Of course there are those who would argue the box-score is actually biased against Larry...
draymondgold wrote:It’s immensely valuable to be the first player to break down the defense, which leads to the best shot for the team, even when breaking down the defense does not instantly generate a fully open teammate. It’s valuable to be a good screen setter and offensive rebounder. It's valuable to be creating throughout the possession
...on aspects of the game that favor Kobe. Kobe Bryant is a strong ball-handler. So he is more frequently breaking down a defense first and creating throughout a possession. He will also get turnovers which hurt his box, but are a worthy trade-off for all this non-box creation he's offering. Moreover, that ball-handling actually makes it easier to generate more valuable passes:
tsherkin wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:I didn't start watching basketball until 1994 so I didn't see Bird play live, but I really, really don't understand what's special about his passing at all. I don't get it. He averaged just over 6 assists a game in a very high pace league and from watching his highlight reels it seems like he never made a difficult pass in his life. Every single "highlight" is just a basic obvious pass to a guy 3 feet away that it seems like any high schooler would find. What makes him any better of a passer than say Jimmy Butler? I really don't understand.
Timing, accuracy. His touch passing, when he only has the ball for a fraction of a second and one-hands it to someone. No-lookers, the whole range of things which might impress someone with his positional awareness and technical passing acumen. Watch more Bird and pay specific attention to his passing. I don't want to be rude, your question is fair, especially for someone who never saw him live. But there are plenty of highlights which illustrate why the fanfare exists.
In this highlight reel, none of his first four passes create wide open looks. There are still defenders the recipients have to deal with up until pass #5. You have to wait till pass #8 to see another uncontested look. Pass #10 for the 3rd.
Magic's first 7 passes here create wide open looks. 9 of his first 12. You might also notice that alot of these passes come with Magic handling the ball in traffic, allowing Johnson to filter out defenders, before he makes the pass. In some of these Magic is also leveraging rim-pressure as defenders take themselves out of the play in anticipation of what he's going to at the basket.
;start=25[/url] Kobe creates 5 wide-open looks in his first 10 possessions(for clarity, i am not[b] counting something like the Walton pass). As you might expect he is not anticipating or making reads as early as the other two are but he is able to leverage both his pressure at the rim and penetration to compensate for his disadvantage in raw-skill. Bryant is also, like Magic, taking defenders out of the play pre-pass
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You keep citing Ben's [b]opinion, as opposed to addressing these points, so I'll just reiterate what I said the last time "Ben Says" was brought up:
OhayoKD wrote:
70sFan wrote:Sure, but there's no inherent bias here. It is certainly possible that all the stuff not shown would actually lean bird's direction but it's also possible vice versa. It's the acknowledgement that bias can swingway which makes film-tracking useful. If Ben with his hundreds of possessions was laying out for us how many wide-open looks one player created and how many wide-open looks another player created or how many times player a took out 3 defenders and player b took out 3 defenders, then yeah, I'd trust that film-tracking more too. But he's not. He just vaguely says "this is a high quality read" without a clear standard and then says a metric which he designed based on his own film-tracking likes Steph Curry is biased because it doesn't appreciate what Bird brings off-the-ball.
He also doesn't address or comment on Bird's limited ball-handling and he never contemplates what his limited slashing might mean for how defenses react to him. Like...
Where do I even start here.
-> +4.2 is being treated like "historically good" here when countless players have hit that mark over and over again -> Only looks at scoring and creation -> Doesn't comment on how his team literally never matches that srs outside of when their defense spikes in 1986(the offense does not improve) when he literally makes that same type of comment for players generating much better offense who do eventually exceed those marks with better help("+21 year old leading a +6 offense without 3-point specialists in 2006 is probably a fluke!")
"Bird is one of the greatest creators ever because of reasons x, y, z, w ben brings up" is fine and dandy.
But telling me "bird is one of the greatest creators ever because ben says so" is not a good justification. You're not citing film-tracking here, you're citing an opinion. That's not the same thing.
Knowing and watching ball =/ creating coherent and internally consistent frameworks with said knowledge. Ben may be top-tier at the former, but he's not an expert in the latter so you shouldn't just cite a stance as a rebuttal to a metric literally built on ben's own film-tracking which happens to correlate better with offensive-rating than the alternatives.
If we're going to appeal to Ben's film-tracking...why don't we actually check out this film-tracking:
;t=29s For context here is how this is introduced:
Bird was also the best off-ball forward ever, so much so that I’d classify his game as primarily off-ball. Watching him without the rock, particularly in the first (1980-83) and second trimester (1984-88) of his career is a study in advantageous positioning. Here’s a 30-second sample of Bird spinning, cutting, banging, boxing and constantly threatening the defense with his high-motor perpetual motion
Okay, so, yeah Bird is moving perpetually and he is threatening...his defender. But besides getting a guy not directly involved to look at him momentarily...what is Bird actually creating? Here's what a friend(currently film-tracking game 1 of the 86 finals) had to say:
For those who are curious, a half into the final round of 86, Bird is having a fantastic scoring game(16 points with 7 possessions, 1 technical)
He is offering creative value but it's limited(2 Great OC, 12:40, 28:50)but he seems limited here(and thus far not much of anything seems to be happening off-ball):
His defense(1 Decent DP, 46:30, 5 Minor Breakdowns, 53:20, 41:55, 26:55, 26:40, 12:30, 2 Moderate Breakdowns, 20:10, 20:35) isn't great
Here's the game for those who want to vet/comment:
For those who are curious on the justification for a certain classification, there are notes attached to all of these. Ask(with a time-stamp), and I can pull it up.
For posterity here were some examples of things that were not counted:
-> 44:15 ("empty-ish assist") -> 48:10 ("i hope that didn't get an assist")
Anyway...
I responded to your full post, and broadened your highly specific criteria for creation.
Nope:
Should be obvious what's going on here but I'll let posterity decide
So no, I don't think we should just look at when teammates were exclusively wide open. The criteria you set are too specific and miss most of the game.
I have no idea why you assumed we only looked at wide-open looks. I specifically brought that up to make a point about creative efficiency. With game 5 of the 87 ECF we credited Bird with a decent OC after he set a pick even though it is somewhat atypical to give players creations when they only affect one defender. We are not "only" looking for wide-open looks, but when we are discussing passer-rating, a metric that tracks creative effeciency, the quality of look created matters.
The rest has been discussed ad-nauseum so I'm going to post this, start my tracking of Hakeem, and sleep. If you are only planning to reference Ben's opinions, replying is probably not going to be too productive.
i wanna see how bird voters respond to this. especially those callin him dpoy and an offensive goat
I just put ShaqAttack's copying a full page of posts for a 1 line response in a spoiler. We are getting a lot of long, content heavy posts. Please don't copy the 100 lines of text to make a one line response. Use the spoiler button, or edit to just the sections you wish to respond to. This is not aimed at ShaqAttack, I have mentioned this to two other posters this week as well.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
OhayoKD wrote:Well he was a #1 when he made 3-straight finals and won back to back with pau gasol.
For someone who says they value championships in a short period of time, Kobe should have a very clear advantage. There is also that rather inconvenient bit of the "kobe was only the best player for 2 championship teams" story where it was Kobe's jump in production that saw, by far the best playoff performance of either Shaq or Bird's career...
Okay? What’s your point? The point I was making is that the gap in titles isn’t necessarily very meaningful when Kobe was the #2 guy on three of his and Bird was not the #2 guy for any of his. It’s perhaps still a point in Kobe’s favor, but I find it hard to really score it as a major one, given the radically different circumstances. Not sure what your last sentence is even referring to, but I *think* you’re referring to Kobe doing really well in 2001? In which case I’ll note that I quite like that Kobe was a huge part of one of the best teams ever (the 2001 Lakers), but being the 2nd best player on one of the best teams ever (Kobe on the 2001 Lakers) is not actually as impressive to me as being the best player on one of the best teams ever (Bird on the 1986 Celtics).
Except Kobe was also the best player on one of the best teams ever.
They also featured THE most dominant trio of the post Jordan era outside of peak GS (Kobe/Pau/Odom posted a +17.1 net rating over the regular season and postseason) That tops anything from Manu/Tony/Duncan or KG/Pierce/Allen or LBJ/Love/Irving etc
Okay, first of all, I watched the 2009 Lakers and the 1986 Celtics, and I’m just not going to be convinced that the 2009 Lakers were in the same league.
To put some meat on that, I think you really just need to take a real look at the Lakers’ playoff run. The 2009 Lakers had an all-time cakewalk draw and did not dominate their way through it. They lost 7 playoff games. That’s despite not actually really playing a single very good team. I suppose the Jazz were decent for a first-round opponent, but didn’t have their 2nd leading scorer for most of the series. The Lakers dominated them pretty easily (though they did drop a game that the Jazz were shorthanded in), so that’s fine but doesn’t really tell us much either way. Crucially, though, the Lakers then struggled mightily with a *completely hobbled* Rockets team (who weren’t even *that* great a team to begin with). The Rockets did not have Tracy McGrady, and Yao Ming missed most of the series, and yet they took the Lakers to 7 games, despite being led for most of the series by Luis Scola and Aaron Brooks. That series by itself renders the 2009 Lakers not “one of the best teams ever” and certainly miles away from the 1986 Celtics. The Lakers then proceeded to face a pretty weak conference finals opponent in the Nuggets, and struggled with them too, only having a +4 net rating in a 6-game series that the Nuggets looked like they definitely could’ve won if they’d just executed better in a couple very late-game situations. Then the Lakers get to the finals, and there they were facing a pretty good team in the Magic, and the Lakers did take care of them pretty easily. But the Magic’s 2nd best player (Jameer Nelson—who was an all-star that year) was completely hobbled by injury and played utterly terribly—and we’re not talking your garden-variety bad, but rather 3.8 PPG on 38.4% TS% bad. Overall, this is just not the playoff run of a “best team ever” candidate. And that’s especially important when most of your above relies heavily on their playoff SRS—which is very misleading compared to the actual reality that they struggled a good deal despite facing injured and/or mediocre teams.
That said, the 2009 Lakers did have a great regular season, winning 65 games. But it wasn’t quite in the best-team-ever category there either if you look at SRS.
[Sidenote: I’ll also note that I don’t understand this “healthy” adjustment here. Kobe and Gasol missed a grand total of 1 game, and Odom missed 4. Those were their three best players. Fisher and Ariza missed a grand total of 1 game. So this adjustment appears to be about requiring Andrew Bynum to be playing in order for the team to be considered “healthy”? A player who was probably only their 5th or 6th best player and had a -1.87 on-off that year in RS+playoffs. That’s just a silly adjustment IMO and just lowers the sample size to a sample where I suppose the Lakers happen to look artificially better than in the full sample, without the actual adjustment being for something that’s particularly meaningful. It probably doesn’t matter *that* much, since I doubt the “healthy” adjustment gets you that far here (and even with it the 1986 Celtics are above the 2009 Lakers), but it still strikes me as a silly adjustment to make]
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
eminence wrote:First noting I don't do an MVP/weak MVP distinction (a rougher ATG/MVP/All-NBA/Allstar set of groupings for me), but I would probably have all of '80-'88 (9 seasons) as MVP level.
That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
A lot feels like an understatement. It's a strong contender for the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and was led by Bird to a larger degree than most such turnarounds are led by any one player.
I agree that he struggled a bit in the playoffs, emphasis on a bit, I don't think he suffered some major letdown. Also agreed that early Bird wasn't particularly valuable as a scorer (useful, but well well below elite).
And in spite of that, I still have him as my pick for MVP and DPOY in 1980*.
*Kareem/DrJ doing enough in the POs to pass him for a POY style award.
Bird was never even the best defender on his team. Probably not top 2. And if we're going of impact one-offs, I prefer the ones that happen in the playoffs(cough 2001 cough)
70sFan wrote:That's very interesting. To me putting rookie Bird on MVP level is a level too much. Although he certainly showed a lot of impact, let's not forget that he was still relatively inefficient scorer, low volume creator who regressed in the playoffs and I don't think he was in his defensive prime yet either.
A lot feels like an understatement. It's a strong contender for the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and was led by Bird to a larger degree than most such turnarounds are led by any one player.
I agree that he struggled a bit in the playoffs, emphasis on a bit, I don't think he suffered some major letdown. Also agreed that early Bird wasn't particularly valuable as a scorer (useful, but well well below elite).
And in spite of that, I still have him as my pick for MVP and DPOY in 1980*.
*Kareem/DrJ doing enough in the POs to pass him for a POY style award.
Bird was never even the best defender on his team. Probably not top 2. And if we're going of impact one-offs, I prefer the ones that happen in the playoffs(cough 2001 cough)
Do you think Kobe was top 2 Lakers defender in 2001 playoffs?
eminence wrote: A lot feels like an understatement. It's a strong contender for the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and was led by Bird to a larger degree than most such turnarounds are led by any one player.
I agree that he struggled a bit in the playoffs, emphasis on a bit, I don't think he suffered some major letdown. Also agreed that early Bird wasn't particularly valuable as a scorer (useful, but well well below elite).
And in spite of that, I still have him as my pick for MVP and DPOY in 1980*.
*Kareem/DrJ doing enough in the POs to pass him for a POY style award.
Bird was never even the best defender on his team. Probably not top 2. And if we're going of impact one-offs, I prefer the ones that happen in the playoffs(cough 2001 cough)
Do you think Kobe was top 2 Lakers defender in 2001 playoffs?
Probably not. Doesn't really need to be when he was much better offensively. Speaking of...
I invite anyone under the impression that Bird was one of the best creators ever because of what he did off-the-ball to point out to me what exactly is being created in this clip Ben chooses in order to highlight what Bird offers as an off-ball playmaker
)...
