LukaTheGOAT wrote:I'm not going to touch on the Bird stuff because it has been echoed to death how Ben feels like his game was scalable for his own era, not just in the modern era. He even show's the Celtics results with and without Bird, to show how Bird's skillset as a ceiling-raiser. In his video he talks about the Celtics being a good/great offense without Bird but being all-time with him, which is what makes him special. That is a scalable skilset, and how valuable you think that is will vary.
Also, Hakeem not being portable is used against him. He said Hakeem never played on a great team or great RS offense, so he has some questions about just how good he would do with better players; never the less the PS portfolio is impressive.
Also this is multi-year peaks, and while Shaq might've not been the player he was in 00 in 01, he actually scored better I believe in 01 and came out more impressive in certain PS metrics. I think it is more than fair to say the drop off isn't big.
In the series intro he said he would assume all people have 100% health, but I don't know if he stuck to that for this final vid. That might help to address the Steph point with regards to durability.
And he gives a range for a reason; I mean he puts an order in the video because that is who he would pick if he had to guess. Yet the ranges are indredibly large because the players are all very good. It is a rarity on this board for anyone to have the same top 5 peaks ever let alone the same top 10 in exact order. The point about Kareem over Hakeem is solved, by the fact that he sees them both being able to be as high as 3, but he chose Hakeem. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. Stephen Curry over Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett is who he would pick with a gun to his head, but once again their low-ranges and high-ranges mean they could be in any order.
First, I want thank you for talking about the points.
- Scalability argument is thrown around way too much to the point people lost why there's an argument around it, including Taylor himself.
His sense of offensive portability is "a player gets better on a better team". The issue here is, Bird already played for a great team. We know how great Bird was on a great team. As you said, he himself also showcased how great Bird was in that sense. But I don't see the point of doubling down on that road. It's like using a squared value out of nowhere in an additive process.
And without applying any sort of modernism, there's no point in using scalability argument in a different way. The only ways to say Bird would scale better/further are saying "if Bird played in the modern era" or "if Bird (or Bird's coaches) had modern evaluation tools in his era".
In his video he talks about the Celtics being a good/great offense without Bird but being all-time with him, which is what makes him special.
This part was partly interesting because on the other side of the coin, the very same approach was a negative thing for Duncan's case in his eyes with the Spurs being a solid defensive team without Duncan.
- Among his top 10 selections, Olajuwon and Duncan are the only players with negative offensive portability according to his evaluations. Olajuwon's portability was even worse than Duncan, we know that, he knows that. And compared to Duncan, Olajuwon's portability issues were rarely mentioned/addressed and they were definitely less of an issue, a tiebreaker even though competition was close enough. Seriously, why offensive portability was not a tiebreaker between Kareem and Hakeem like it was between KG and Timmy if he's that big on that concept?
- Shaq's scoring numbers in 2001 are almost identical to his 2000 numbers.
2000; 29.7 pts per game, 38.1 pts per 100 on +5.5 rts (+2.55 ts add per 36) in r. season & 30.7 pts per game, 37.6 pts per 100 on +4.8 rts (+2.23 ts add per 36)
2001; 28.7 pts per game, 38.0 pts per 100 on +5.6 rts (+2.58 ts add per 36) in r. season & 30.4 pts per game, 37.6 pts per 100 on +6.7 rts (+3.04 ts add per 36)
Curious about that postseason metrics which 2001 version was better than 2000 version. Other than relative ts, I couldn't find a single individual metric that had 2001 playoffs Shaq over 2000 playoffs Shaq. Even though I'm not a fan of using postseason raw +/- data, I even checked on/off number changes and Shaq had +32.6 on/off NRtg swing in 2000 playoffs and had +4.8 swing in 2001 playoffs.
- In the way he presented, I took it as Hakeem was closer to a clear #3 Shaq than #5 Bird and #6 Kareem. He said "much like positions 5 through 8 on this list I could flip a coin between third and fourth", I interpreted it as jumping a tier.
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Djoker wrote:Apart from the inconsistency Oddin21 pointed out regarding KG and Duncan, there is another one IMO.
One argument Ben used to justify not ranking Duncan's offense over Garnett's is that both guys needed offensive heavy lifters around them. Did they though? Duncan won 2 rings with his 2nd options being an older Robinson and a super young Tony Parker. Duncan is definitely not in the defensive force and offensive #2 mold that Ben put him in. Duncan was the best offensive player on 4 titles teams. 2 by a huge margin (1999 and 2003) and two more by a smaller but still clear margin IMO (2005 and 2007). Unlike KG, Robinson etc. Duncan clearly proved that he's good enough to be an offensive anchor on a championship team. Like proved it without any doubt...
Yeah, Duncan is proven in that sense. We usually take "championship level offense" as 2000-02 Lakers per se and it's obvious that Duncan couldn't create such an effective offense. OTOH, for a team that can reach championship level defense; Duncan was the best offensive weapon the Spurs had in hard carrying roles in 1999 and 2003, and he was the centrepiece of a trio based offense in the mid '00s and the Spurs were a top 5 offensive team when Duncan was healthy from 2005 to 2007. Heck, when Duncan went all out on offense in 2006 playoffs, in a similar way to Olajuwon did in 1995, Timmy scored 25.8 pts per game, 37.1 pts per 100 on +9.9 rts (+3.89 ts add per 36) and the Spurs had +9.6 rORtg.
