Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #5-#6 Spots

[migya]

A transition merchant who somehow led his team to a title.

Everything I said was true, plus Giannis had best team in the league. That long mid-range from KD was really a 3, so refs helped Giannis not get rid of in the 2nd round, but oh well.

I'd take Curry and Durant before Giannis in 2021, and there are arguments to be made for Luka, Jokic, and Embiid as well.

I seriously don't think Giannis has ever been top 2 in the league at any point in his career. He isn't top 35 offensively, and maybe not top 40. Better defensively than offensively, yet has been mid on defense ever since 2023.

He's also dropped in every single playoffs other than 2021, and we can't be blaming this on injuries unlike Embiid. Giannis is just horrible at basketball no matter what way you want to look at it.

We are seeing RealGM put Giannis as high as top 3 2001-25 peaks ever, showing that RealGM is clearly Giannis FC, and as shown in image, they bow down to Giannis. Glazers are wild.



I hereby declare realGM PC as Giannis FC

I think Giannis has a strong argument to be a top 2 player in the league every single year from 2019 to 2022

Why not now and the last two years? He is probably the best defensively, among the biggest carriers and best two way player.

[lessthanjake]

My Vote

1. 2001 Shaquille O’Neal

2. 2006 Dwyane Wade

3. 2004 Kevin Garnett

4. 2011 Dirk Nowitzki

The first two are just the last two guys on my ballot in the last thread. I’ve talked about them a fair bit already so I won’t spend too much time discussing them.

Shaq didn’t have his best regular season in 2001, but he and the Lakers were totally dominant in the playoffs, and honestly I just think he’s also just the greatest player left here and this is in the heart of his greatest years.

As for 2006 Wade, I spoke a lot about him in the last thread. Basically, I think he had one of the best playoffs ever, dragging a team that really had no business winning a title to a title. He faced really good teams and just eviscerated them. In the regular season, he wasn’t clearly the best player in the league, but he was in the running. And I’m so impressed by his incredible playoff performance that he goes in this spot. In a sense, I think if Wade had been on a better team then I probably wouldn’t have him this high. What really does it for me that is that I just really feel like that team was not at all championship level, and so going crazy in the playoffs and winning a title with them anyways is just super high on the greatness scale.

2004 Garnett goes next for me. Basically, I just think he was a more impactful player than anyone else left at this point (probably including even 2001 Shaq). He didn’t get past the conference finals, and I do think he dipped a bit in quality in the playoffs, but I also think he was at a level during the season that probably was more impactful than anyone left. On this front, I am admittedly convinced by multi-year impact data, which tends to be extremely high on Garnett. Multi-year data doesn’t exactly get to the question of someone’s peak quality, but this is an example of a guy with amazing multi-year data and a single year that was his clear box peak, so I’m quite convinced he was tremendously impactful that year. The fact that he didn’t win a title is a hit on his “greatness” compared to a lot of the other years I’m considering, but at a certain point I do just have to bite on the guy I think played the best in general.

The final vote on my ballot is currently going to 2011 Dirk, but I am really torn on this and am not at all opposed to changing my vote after reading things from others. The bottom line is basically that I’m most convinced by his combination of regular season and playoff performance, especially given the strength of the teams he faced in the playoffs. The other candidates here for me are 2009 Kobe, 2025 SGA, 2019 Kawhi, and 2021 Giannis. Looking at some impact data, I think Dirk was probably a little better than all but SGA during the regular season, and I think he was clearly better than SGA in the playoffs and not outdone by any of the other guys in the playoffs. I do think that Dirk wasn’t amazing in the Finals. 2021 Giannis was for sure much better in the Finals. But Giannis missed games in the conference finals, which seems important to me, and also just wasn’t as good before the Finals, while I think Dirk was also better in the regular season (note: I think Giannis’s best regular seasons are above 2011 Dirk’s regular season, but 2021 was a down year for Giannis in the regular season). I’m open to 2009 Kobe over 2011 Dirk, but I guess I’m just guided by a general notion that Dirk looks more impactful in multi-year data than Kobe and I don’t think Kobe was actually better in the big moments than Dirk was in 2011 (note: I earlier posted some stats on how these guys all did in the biggest moments of their playoff runs, and 2011 Dirk looked second only to 2006 Wade IMO). I think I could get 2025 SGA over 2011 Dirk if I weighed regular season more highly. It’s a tempting conclusion, to be honest. But I do just feel like the accomplishment of winning a title with the stacked 2025 OKC team is pretty far from the achievement of winning a title with the deep-but-not-overly-talented 2011 Mavs team, especially given the gauntlet the Mavs faced and the relative ease with which they dispatched their opponents. As for Kawhi, I kind of think Kawhi was maybe even a better player in a vacuum than Dirk, but he did miss 22 regular season games, so that seems like as good a tiebreaker as any.

[One_and_Done]

It's a little early for Wade IMO. He did have an incredible peak, but he would also be somewhat less effective today with his relatively poor 3pt shooting.

[ReggiesKnicks]

I am happy to see some love for Dirk. He has an incredible impact profile and, while his prime is more impressive than his peak, his peak is still incredibly valuable.

The most unique offensive player ever, in my opinion. Not a high-volume 3P shooter, passer/playmaker, or rim pressure, yet his offense is still some of the best. Truly unique in his skill set.

[Cavsfansince84]

I guess I will post a ballot now. I've had more trouble with this one because I think once you get past the first two on my ballot there's a group of about 5-7 guys who are all very close. I've been giving it thought and here is where I stand currently:

1. 01 Shaq(02). I had him near the top of my last ballot and will just reiterate the 6orpg and 14ftapg during that playoff run. rs is still mvp caliber. Near peak Shaq at least in the playoffs.
2. 04 KG(03). 33/19/7 per100, plays 40mpg and leads a 58 win team that had no other stars on it though Cassell had a career year.
3. 2017 Kawhi(19). To me the semi freakness of the injury and what he did before then is enough. Top 3 in mvp&dpoy vote. 53% from 3 & 8.2 ftapg at 94% during that playoff run. I think he's the most complete player left and is legitimately elite at 3pt shooting, half court scoring and defense. Also plays a career high 74g's and led the Spurs to 61 wins. So its a great season in every way and for all we know may have taken the goat team to 6-7 games.
4. 2025 SGA(24). This is very hard but I'm giving it to SGA mainly for his consistency during the rs, leading the #3 ORtg and #1DRtg/12.7srs team that also won the title. Plus factoring in only 2 teammates played over 2000 minutes besides him and so it's not surprising he sort of ran out of gas in the playoffs. He did well to close out Denver after they took the 2-1 series lead and had many thinking it was over. The finals overall was sort of disappointing but they got the job done. Comparing it to 08 Kobe where his team loses the 25 pt lead then gets crushed by 35 in game 6. That is why we end up going with 09 Kobe instead. SGA's team got it done in the end so I'm putting him here. Giannis, Harden, Dirk, and Wade also have arguments but I'm going with Shai for now.

[lessthanjake]

It's a little early for Wade IMO. He did have an incredible peak, but he would also be somewhat less effective today with his relatively poor 3pt shooting.

You’re free to care about how effective you think someone would be in today’s NBA, but that’s just not something I’m concerned about at all. For one thing, how someone would translate to a different era is completely speculative—we have no idea what would happen in that scenario, because it’s complete fiction. I care about what actually happened, not some speculative fictional exercise. Furthermore, if we *were* to talk about translation to another era, I don’t really see translation to today’s NBA as being particularly more important than translation to a different era, because any era (including the current one) is just a snapshot in time that is influenced heavily by the specific rule set in place at the time. I don’t see one rule set as being inherently more important to translate to than another. Also, I’ll note that part of the rationale for splitting the peaks project up into eras was to avoid this era-translation thing being a major topic of discussion. That doesn’t mean it can’t legitimately be a basis for your vote (and the timeframe here is big enough that it’s definitely not all one era in terms of ruleset and style of play), but I don’t think it’s at the core of what people in general are most interested in discussing in this project.

[One_and_Done]

If Wade had a 3pt shot he'd be much more impactful, either today or in general. It's objectively easier to stop a guard with no 3pt shot.

[lessthanjake]

If Wade had a 3pt shot he'd be much more impactful, either today or in general. It's objectively easier to stop a guard with no 3pt shot.

Yep, I agree. And if Wade had had a great three-point shot in his own era, then maybe he’d have been so good that I’d have voted him #1 in this project, or at least higher than I’m voting him now. Even without a good three-point shot, he was absolutely outstanding in 2006.

[migya]

If Wade had a 3pt shot he'd be much more impactful, either today or in general. It's objectively easier to stop a guard with no 3pt shot.

Jimmy Buckets has done well until this point.

[One_and_Done]

If Wade had a 3pt shot he'd be much more impactful, either today or in general. It's objectively easier to stop a guard with no 3pt shot.

Jimmy Buckets has done well until this point.

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

[lessthanjake]

If Wade had a 3pt shot he'd be much more impactful, either today or in general. It's objectively easier to stop a guard with no 3pt shot.

Jimmy Buckets has done well until this point.

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

Jimmy Butler has a 34.4% three-point shooting percentage in the playoffs, and Dwyane Wade has a 33.8% three-point shooting percentage in the playoffs. And it was 37.8% in 2006 specifically, which was higher than Butler’s playoff three-point percentage in any year in the last 7 years and in any year in his career in which he got out of the second round. If we expand out Wade’s sample to include 2006-2010 (generally considered his peak five-year timeframe), then he shot 36.4% from three in the playoffs, including shooting the most threes per game in the playoffs in two of those years. That 36.4% number over multiple years is again higher than Butler shot in any single playoff run in the last 7 years and higher than in any year in his career in which he got out of the second round.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Jimmy Buckets has done well until this point.

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

Jimmy Butler has a 34.4% three-point shooting percentage in the playoffs, and Dwyane Wade has a 33.8% three-point shooting percentage in the playoffs. And it was 37.8% in 2006 specifically, which was higher than Butler’s playoff three-point percentage in any year in the last 7 years and in any year in his career in which he got out of the second round. If we expand out Wade’s sample to include 2006-2010 (generally considered his peak five-year timeframe), then he shot 36.4% from three in the playoffs, including shooting the most threes per game in the playoffs in two of those years. That 36.4% number over multiple years is again higher than Butler shot in any single playoff run in the last 7 years and higher than in any year in his career in which he got out of the second round.

You guys are arguing about 3.5 attempts/game in the postseason for Butler and 1.7 attempts/game for Wade.

Citing Wade's 1.8 3PA/G in 2006 isn't really meaningful in any measurable way; whether he shot 20% or 40% on 37 attempts shouldn't be of importance.

Regarding Butler, a majority of his 3PA are open or wide-open; again, very little impact on the grand scheme of things here.

[ReggiesKnicks]

If Wade had a 3pt shot he'd be much more impactful, either today or in general. It's objectively easier to stop a guard with no 3pt shot.

Jimmy Buckets has done well until this point.

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

Statistically, Butler's efficiency doesn't change a meaningful amount whether he hits his 3's or not. His 3P attempts weren't warping defenses, and I doubt teams were accounting for his 3PA, given the percentage of open or wide-open shots he took.

[One_and_Done]

Jimmy Buckets has done well until this point.

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

Statistically, Butler's efficiency doesn't change a meaningful amount whether he hits his 3's or not. His 3P attempts weren't warping defenses, and I doubt teams were accounting for his 3PA, given the percentage of open or wide-open shots he took.

For all 3 of his epic playoff runs, in 20, 21, and 23, he shot the 3ball well. He doesn't warp the defence, but playoff Butler is hitting big shots, even when contested, which was baffling to see to be honest.

[ReggiesKnicks]

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

Statistically, Butler's efficiency doesn't change a meaningful amount whether he hits his 3's or not. His 3P attempts weren't warping defenses, and I doubt teams were accounting for his 3PA, given the percentage of open or wide-open shots he took.

For all 3 of his epic playoff runs, in 20, 21, and 23, he shot the 3ball well. He doesn't warp the defence, but playoff Butler is hitting big shots, even when contested, which was baffling to see to be honest.

Wade also was, considering he shot nearly 40% in 2006

[One_and_Done]

Statistically, Butler's efficiency doesn't change a meaningful amount whether he hits his 3's or not. His 3P attempts weren't warping defenses, and I doubt teams were accounting for his 3PA, given the percentage of open or wide-open shots he took.

For all 3 of his epic playoff runs, in 20, 21, and 23, he shot the 3ball well. He doesn't warp the defence, but playoff Butler is hitting big shots, even when contested, which was baffling to see to be honest.

Wade also was, considering he shot nearly 40% in 2006

On how many attempts and how contested/difficult were they.

[70sFan]

For some inexplicable reason playoff Jimmy hits 3s. If he didn't he'd be much less effective. Also Butler has alot more size and defensive chops than Wade. We should be talking more about Butler than guys like Kobe, and yes even more than Wade.

Statistically, Butler's efficiency doesn't change a meaningful amount whether he hits his 3's or not. His 3P attempts weren't warping defenses, and I doubt teams were accounting for his 3PA, given the percentage of open or wide-open shots he took.

For all 3 of his epic playoff runs, in 20, 21, and 23, he shot the 3ball well. He doesn't warp the defence, but playoff Butler is hitting big shots, even when contested, which was baffling to see to be honest.

I think you mistaken 2021 with 2022, because 2021 is a first round exit, while 2022 is probably his most consistent postseason run.

Anyway, this narrative of Butler carrying horrible teams surprised me. It wasn't that long ago, people should remember what actually happened. The Heat weren't bad at all, it was well oiled machine carried mostly by Eric's coaching brilliance, but it's not like they didn't have solid talent. The Heat went 73-48 with Butler and 24-19 without him in 2022 and 2023, that's not remotely close to the suggested lifts.

Of course they overachieved in the playoffs, but I definitely wouldn't put it all on Butler. There were quite a few series when the Heat managed to win even without Butler's heroics (most notably 2020 vs Celtics and 2023 vs Knicks).

Jimmy is great and I believe I will vote for him at some point, but it's way too early for now. He never had a true MVP-level RS and he's not ultra-consistent in the playoffs.

[One_and_Done]

Statistically, Butler's efficiency doesn't change a meaningful amount whether he hits his 3's or not. His 3P attempts weren't warping defenses, and I doubt teams were accounting for his 3PA, given the percentage of open or wide-open shots he took.

For all 3 of his epic playoff runs, in 20, 21, and 23, he shot the 3ball well. He doesn't warp the defence, but playoff Butler is hitting big shots, even when contested, which was baffling to see to be honest.

I think you mistaken 2021 with 2022, because 2021 is a first round exit, while 2022 is probably his most consistent postseason run.

Anyway, this narrative of Butler carrying horrible teams surprised me. It wasn't that long ago, people should remember what actually happened. The Heat weren't bad at all, it was well oiled machine carried mostly by Eric's coaching brilliance, but it's not like they didn't have solid talent. The Heat went 73-48 with Butler and 24-19 without him in 2022 and 2023, that's not remotely close to the suggested lifts.

Of course they overachieved in the playoffs, but I definitely wouldn't put it all on Butler. There were quite a few series when the Heat managed to win even without Butler's heroics (most notably 2020 vs Celtics and 2023 vs Knicks).

Jimmy is great and I believe I will vote for him at some point, but it's way too early for now. He never had a true MVP-level RS and he's not ultra-consistent in the playoffs.

Yes, that is obviously a typo. As for those Heat teams, they were very average. Absolutely nobody expected the results Butler produced. In 23 their playoff starters aside from Jimmy and Bam were Gabe Vincent, Max Struss, and a washed Kevin Love. Many acted like these guys, along with bench vets like Duncan Robinson and Caleb Martin, were secretly underrated studs, but history has disproven that theory. It was as it appeared at the time; Butler was carrying these guys.

People here have short memories. Butler was hitting crazy shots, putting up huge numbers, and having incredible games. He wasn't even healthy by the finals in 23, and in the 22 ECFs he wasn't 100% by the end either.

[-Luke-]

5. Shaquille O'Neal 2001
6. Kevin Garnett 2004
7. Dwyane Wade 2006
8. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 2025

Shaq and KG were in consideration for the first four spots since thread one for me and I have explained my reasoning there. No change in the ranking here. Shaq had a slower start to the 2000-01 season and wasn't quite as dominant as in 1999-2000. He needed longer to get in shape and in the first 39 games of the regular season (before he missed six games in a row with a foot injury) he hit 41.2% of his free throws (61.5% for the rest of the regular season). However, a drop in performance in the first few months of the regular season isn't enough to punish him too much. In the playoffs he was dominating and lead his Team to a 15-1 playoff run while averaging 30/15/3/2.5. I have KG relatively close, but like I said in the other threads, the slight drop-off from Shaq isn't enough to drop him below KG.

Wade at 7. 2006 hurt. It still hurts a bit when I think about it now. But you gotta respect what Wade did here. This is the 'youngest' peak so far on my list, meaning the youngest player at he time I consider his peak. He was fantastic in 2009, but due to a lack of playoff data (because of a mediocre to bad team he had to carry) I cannot put that season ahead of the title run in '06. In 2006 the Heat had a big name team on paper, but with almost everybody out of their prime, in some cases way out. It was 24-year old D-Wade who lead this Team to the title. A lot has been said about his finals performance (goddammit...), but his series against the Pistons in the semis was equally impressive, if not more. 26.7 ppg on 68.4 TS% against a Pistons team that was still very good defensively.

SGA at 8. Very strong MVP season (deserved MVP over a player who I'd probably have in my top 3 if it was five-year peak/prime), leading a team to 68 wins that was very deep and has high quality players, but was still pretty young and inexperienced. Drop in the playoffs, yes. But a bit overblown in my mind.

There are a lot of good choices here and I could have put Giannis, Dirk, Kawhi or Durant at the #7 or #8 spot. But I don't really understand why Ben Taylor had SGA so low on his list. He doesn't really narrow it down to one year and mostly mentions multiple years, so he's probably looking at three-year peaks instead of one, and wants more data on SGA before he puts him higher.

[lessthanjake]

For all 3 of his epic playoff runs, in 20, 21, and 23, he shot the 3ball well. He doesn't warp the defence, but playoff Butler is hitting big shots, even when contested, which was baffling to see to be honest.

Wade also was, considering he shot nearly 40% in 2006

On how many attempts and how contested/difficult were they.

From 2006-2010 (i.e. Wade’s best five-year period), Wade shot 36.4% from three in the playoffs, on 3.3 attempts per game. Meanwhile, in his Miami years, Butler shot 34.3% from three in the playoffs, on 3.2 attempts per game. And in those timeframes, only 29.8% of Wade’s threes in the playoffs were assisted, while 57.1% of Butler’s playoff threes in Miami were assisted. And it’s surely notable that, during that period, Wade was able to scale up his three-point volume to be the highest of any player in the playoffs in two straight playoffs, while maintaining a high percentage. The sample size for that isn’t big (he lost in the first round both those years), but we’ve literally never seen Butler shoot threes in any playoff series at the volume that Wade did in 2009 and 2010. The idea that, in their best years, Butler stepped it up from three more than Wade is genuinely the opposite of true.

That said, Wade’s three-point percentage in the 2006 playoffs specifically was good, but his volume was lower than his average for that timeframe. It’s perhaps not a surprise that his volume was lower back then, since he was so unstoppable at getting to the rim at that point. However, an argument could potentially be made that he became a better three-point shooter in 2009 & 2010 than he was in 2006. Even then, though, the playoff three-point volume was not meaningfully different than Butler’s playoff three-point volume in Butler’s first Finals run (and with a better three-point percentage). Trying to draw a meaningful distinction between Butler and Wade in three-point shooting that is in favor of Butler is pretty silly IMO.