RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #7 (Wilt Chamberlain)

[AEnigma]

The question that keeps coming up in my head with Steph, Shaq and Magic is:

What did Shaq and Magic do that Steph hasn't done?

Those two specifically? Well, have more than ten relevant years, consistently lead all-time playoff offences, compete for titles with more than one set core, compete for titles with more than one set coach… win Finals MVP more than once…

So long as Curry does not drop off a cliff, I could see him edging ahead of those two as soon as the next project. The desperation to catapult him ahead without that happening is more than a little off-putting though. Even among those who eschew career aggregated value (which is much of what continues to weigh down Magic and Bird), ten years is the shortest prime length among any top fifteen candidate, and that alone is already to his credit.

[AEnigma]

Oh good we finally arrived at literal OaktownWarriors argumentation. Saves me some time.

The actual best measure is road series against 6.5+ SRS teams. After all, how else are we supposed to measure adversity as opposed to just coasting via superior teams?

Lebron is 4-5 by that measure, with two titles. Jordan is 1-3 with zero titles (hm, almost like he consistently had the better team…), and that 1 was in that famous five-game series against the Cavaliers with a hampered Mark Price who was absent for their narrow Game 1 loss. Buttttttt since all injuries are inherently equal I suppose we can leave it at 1-3. Hakeem is 2-6 with one title. Steph is 1-2 with one title but no Finals MVP, and Durant is 3-3 with that same title plus Finals MVP. Bird is 0-1 and Magic is 0-2 from what I can tell; that is pretty funny. Duncan is 0-3. Russell is 1-1 (one title). Shaq and Kobe are 3-2 from 1997-04 (two titles), although they combine for 0-3 when independent of each other.

Quick count says Wilt is at 0-6 (brutal).

How is the “actual best measure” one that is so narrow that the sample size for pretty much everyone is virtually zero? And why would only “road series” matter when the point of doing well in the regular season is to avoid road series’, and these players have had huge effects on how well their teams do in the regular season?

Teams are more than one player. Sometimes you encounter adversity and need to overcome it. No one is guaranteed a good team or a favourable path, but if you are the type of player who rises to the challenge, you can give your team a shot regardless.

But I can understand why certain fanbases might prefer we bring in JordansBulls to extol the benefits of homecourt wins. Been thinking about how Dirk won a title for a franchise that had never won before; might switch my nomination up.

(Also, even using this absurd measure, your data is wrong. For instance, the only “road series” against a 6.5+ SRS team that LeBron’s teams have won were in 2011 against Chicago, 2016 against the Warriors, and 2018 against the Raptors. He did not have 4 wins in such series. Haven’t checked to see if the others are false too, since I checked the first one and it was wrong.)

Sorry, should have said 6.4. Which hey, adds one to Magic!

[SpreeS]

The question that keeps coming up in my head with Steph, Shaq and Magic is:

What did Shaq and Magic do that Steph hasn't done?

Those two specifically? Well, have more than ten relevant years, consistently lead all-time playoff offences, compete for titles with more than one set core, compete for titles with more than one set coach… win Finals MVP more than once…

So long as Curry does not drop off a cliff, I could see him edging ahead of those two as soon as the next project. The desperation to catapult him ahead without that happening is more than a little off-putting though. Even among those who eschew career aggregated value (which is much of what continues to weigh down Magic and Bird), ten years is the shortest prime length among any top fifteen candidate, and that alone is already to his credit.

Exactly. No need rush here. Curry showed that can put 50pts in the basket in game 7th. He needs only better play from Klay/Green and other teammates in PO. Minus 14.1nrtg (PO) isn't acceptable w/o Curry on the floor for highest paid team in NBA history.

[lessthanjake]

Oh good we finally arrived at literal OaktownWarriors argumentation. Saves me some time.


Quick count says Wilt is at 0-6 (brutal).

How is the “actual best measure” one that is so narrow that the sample size for pretty much everyone is virtually zero? And why would only “road series” matter when the point of doing well in the regular season is to avoid road series’, and these players have had huge effects on how well their teams do in the regular season?

Teams are more than one player. Sometimes you encounter adversity and need to overcome it. No one is guaranteed a good team or a favourable path, but if you are the type of player who rises to the challenge, you can give your team a shot regardless.

Teams are more than one player, but in essentially every case, a team would not have home court advantage against a 6.5+ SRS team without their superstar player playing extremely well during the regular season. Getting home court advantage in such a series therefore essentially always reflects really well on the regular-season play of the players we’re discussing.

(Also, even using this absurd measure, your data is wrong. For instance, the only “road series” against a 6.5+ SRS team that LeBron’s teams have won were in 2011 against Chicago, 2016 against the Warriors, and 2018 against the Raptors. He did not have 4 wins in such series. Haven’t checked to see if the others are false too, since I checked the first one and it was wrong.)

Sorry, should have said 6.4. Which hey, adds one to Magic!

Lol, the “actual best measure” gets altered further to be as favorable as possible to a specific player who the person declaring it the “actual best measure” likes to argue in favor of. It’s obviously just a measure narrowly tailored to make a specific argument. The result of a conclusion in search of a measure. And, to make that argument, that tailoring has to be so narrow that the sample size of data becomes almost zero for pretty much everyone. Unlike that, the line of looking at series’s against 5+ SRS teams was not narrowly tailored to positively portray any particular player (indeed, I had little idea exactly how players would rank in the measure until I was compiling the info while writing the post) and the sample sizes of data are substantially larger (except for Russell).

Anyways, from this data, we see that Jordan, Magic, Shaq, Steph, and Kobe have genuinely distinguished themselves as beating 5+ SRS teams in the playoffs more often than not (Russell too sort of, but with a sample size of 3 series, it doesn’t really tell us much for him). I think that can help inform the vote in this round. And it’s also perhaps a point in Kobe’s favor in the nomination race (though I’m still sticking with Bird, for now—albeit am also still open to changing it).

[AEnigma]

Yeah forgive me for being skeptical of someone repeating the exact process of one of the most notorious Golden State flairs and Lebron denigrators on this board, such that Lebron is just coincidentally penalised for only having 5 wins after 5-SRS opponents… with literally all of those wins being against opponents 6.4-SRS or higher.

Yes, I am cherrypicking. My point is so are you. 5-SRS is no less arbitrary than 6.4 SRS, it just has a rounder number and happens to better conform to what you want to push.

[Dooley]

Have a 14 year prime? Be valuable on both ends? Curry is in my top 10, but let's not act like he has a comparable case to Shaq. That's going a little too far I think.

See, this is good and interesting to me, because I definitely wouldn't have said that Shaq had a 14 year prime!

Probably I'm lower on Shaq in the back half of his career? I definitely would call the Miami years post-prime. He was still v v v good but he clearly was not the same player that he had been and he was clearly fading pretty fast. That's still real value ofc. But I wouldn't call it prime. Similarly my instinct was definitely not that Shaq added a *ton* more value on defense. I don't think he was a huge liability or anything but then I don't think Steph was either.

Those two specifically? Well, have more than ten relevant years, consistently lead all-time playoff offences, compete for titles with more than one set core, compete for titles with more than one set coach… win Finals MVP more than once…

I think "same core" is kind of... ambitious. Given how much Klay had declined by 2022, I think the core that's the same from 2015 to 2022 is literally exactly Draymond. And I'm not really compelled by the Finals MVP thing (not like all of those awards were unquestionable in the first place).

As to the quality of the all-time playoff offenses - I don't think there's necessarily a huge difference in the quality of postseason offenses for Shaq and Curry taking into account team context. To me, when I look at their careers, they both had elite playoff offenses with other stars (Curry's squads with Durant, Shaq's squads with Kobe and with Penny), and very good playoff offenses with less help. The one exception to me is really the '98 Lakers team where that offense was really good with Shaq and a bunch of good shooters who weren't non-superstars. And that's a difference but, is it a seismic difference?

And (as I said in an earlier post) there are also things that go to Curry's advantage against Shaq - better and more consistent regular season player, mostly, and a less disruptive teammate. And I think Curry has pretty much won as much as you could reasonably ask him to win.

It's totally possible that the back half of Shaq's career, and some of the numbers that Shaq put up before Kobe really got into gear, differentiate Shaq and Curry. It's also possible to just be lower on Curry and give more credit to Draymond and/or Durant. At the same time, I worry that I - personally - might fall into the trap of supporting Shaq or Magic just because those are the guys that are historically "supposed" to go in those spots, because that's the conventional wisdom.

So long as Curry does not drop off a cliff, I could see him edging ahead of those two as soon as the next project. The desperation to catapult him ahead without that happening is more than a little off-putting though. Even among those who eschew career aggregated value (which is much of what continues to weigh down Magic and Bird), ten years is the shortest prime length among any top fifteen candidate, and that alone is already to his credit.

I don't think I'm being desperate to catapult anyone ahead by talking about Curry, Shaq and Magic. If you find it off-putting to talk about, there's not much I can do about that, I guess.

[AEnigma]

So long as Curry does not drop off a cliff, I could see him edging ahead of those two as soon as the next project. The desperation to catapult him ahead without that happening is more than a little off-putting though. Even among those who eschew career aggregated value (which is much of what continues to weigh down Magic and Bird), ten years is the shortest prime length among any top fifteen candidate, and that alone is already to his credit.

I don't think I'm being desperate to catapult anyone ahead by talking about Curry, Shaq and Magic. If you find it off-putting to talk about, there's not much I can do about that, I guess.

Not really referring to you. You asked a question and I answered: ten years (nine postseasons) of Curry does not cut it for me against thirteen years and postseasons of Magic and fourteen years and thirteen postseasons of all-NBA-level Shaq (2005 is definitely a prime year; 2006 is not, but he was still first-team all-NBA and a #2 on a title team).

[One_and_Done]

If Durant's toe isn't on a line in 2021, he would be getting discussed here. If he wins the title next year (very possible) he would be getting discussed here. Instead we are pretending KD belongs 10 spots lower, yet people are also busy nominating Kobe. I feel like I'm on crazy pills here.

On page 3 I went through the stat comparison between Kobe and KD. I have never seen a player who the stats are so overwhelmingly telling me should be ahead not get traction. Not only do the stats tell us KD is better, the eye test does too. KD is a 7 foot super freak who can physically do things Kobe never could. He showed he is a higher impact player too, he just didn't have the same favourable contexts as Kobe for most of his career. It's truly baffling to me that nobody else is discussing him.

If a GM told me in earnest that he would draft Kobe over KD I would fire him, because he's clearly not objective.

[AEnigma]

Alternatively, if Durant decides not to join a 73-win team that just finished coming back down 1-3 against him, you are probably not taking him above Karl Malone.

It may shock you, but my eye test, as well as the eye test of many people here (and in general), has always been more impressed by playoff Kobe than by playoff Durant.

[One_and_Done]

Alternatively, if Durant decides not to join a 73-win team that just finished coming back down 1-3 against him, you are probably not taking him above Karl Malone.

It may shock you, but my eye test, as well as the eye test of many people here (and in general), has always been more impressed by playoff Kobe than by playoff Durant.

Just won over by his 2004 Finals? No? Maybe it was game 7 in 2006 vs the Suns. Or the 2008 or 2010 finals?

[AEnigma]

Won over by the 2013 conference semifinals? By the 2016 conference finals? Maybe it was the 2022 first round?

Productive, huh.

[homecourtloss]

It is how RAPM works. If Kyrie spends the vast majority of his minutes with LeBron, and in his minutes with LeBron he is not adding essentially any impact compared to when LeBron is on and Kyrie is off, then, even if he has high impact in the non-LeBron minutes, RAPM models will overall chalk Kyrie down as not being a particularly positive-impact player and therefore will give him little credit for impact in the Lebron on Kyrie on minutes. And in a sense that’s not wrong, when the team does as well in LeBron on Kyrie off minutes as it does in LeBron on Kyrie on minutes. But it obscures that Kyrie is capable of having much more impact and did have more impact in the LeBron off minutes (and also did have more impact in minutes both with and without Durant on the Nets). By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect on what RAPM thinks about LeBron’s impact. RAPM can’t really figure out that someone’s impact is being cannibalized.

It’s kind of funny this discussion is happening knowing the stretch of games Kyrie played best in his career in the highest pressure situations. Anyway.

It seems pointless to continue our discussion when you do not have a fundamental understanding about how RAPM works or is calculated which seems to be the case judging by these comments you’ve made, i.e., “by playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from having much impact.” Kyrie is a consistently Plus offensive player with a moderate peak and mostly negative defensive player. He has proven this in multiple contexts, in hundreds and hundreds of lineup variations that he’s been in, and it is all captured very succinctly in the RAPM data that we have. He will never have the impact a that much superior player like Draymond Green does. If you understand the fundamental nature of how you calculate RAPM numbers you might understand this. LeBron, playing with Kyrie adds offensive impact. Kyrie’s poor defense prevents a higher ceiling being reached along with mediocre playmaking. Adding to +10 is incredibly difficult, especially if it’s not going to be on defense that is much more portable. Kyrie also has opportunities when he is not playing with James to show his impact, something players like Draymond do without Curry, but Kyrie hasn’t been able to do it at the same level.

2015-2017 Bron and Kyrie

Kyrie on, no Bron: -2.35 (108.8 ORtg, 111.2)
Bron on, no Kyrie: +10.01 (113.3 ORtg, 103.3 DRtg)
Bron+Kyrie: +10.39 (118.8 ORtg, 108.5) [better offense but worse defense— is that LeBron’s fault?]

Is LeBron playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from playing defense that hurts the Kyrie defensive lineups? How exactly is LeBron playing in a way that’s preventing Kyrie from adding impact? They are creating better offense (all time type) but worse defense. As far as the narrative of LeBron, controlling the ball or holding onto the ball, well, Kyrie dribbled the ball more and held the ball longer than LeBron did.

Regular Season seconds per touch, dribbles per touch

2015:
LeBron, 4.75, 3.62
Kyrie, 4.90, 4.68

2016:
LeBron, 4.11, 3.06
Kyrie, 4.99, 4.84

2017:
LeBron, 4.36, 3.26
Kyrie: 5.07, 4.87

By the way, the discrepancy was even more pronounced in the playoffs, the playoffs that produced two of the greatest postseason offenses in NBA history. Additionally, Kyrie spent more time with the ball in his hands per touch and also more dribbles per touch in Cleveland than he did in Boston and in Brooklyn. So, for all the talk of LeBron holding onto the ball or dribbling too much and not allowing Kyrie, or others to play, well that it doesn’t prove that.

As for more impact in Brooklyn, Kyrie continue to improve as a player and came into what most would consider his prime in Boston and in Brooklyn. Regardless, RAPM (NBAShot charts) doesn’t really agree when you look at all the lineups. Kyrie’s impact is consistently positive, but capped due to defense with his highest offensive highs in Cleveland.

+2.09, 2023, +1.69 ORAPM, +.4 DRAPM
+2.00, 2019, +1.44 ORAPM, +.56 DRAPM
+1.99, 2015, +2.18 ORAPM (second highest of career), -.19 DRAPM
+1.91, 2017, +2.76 ORAPM (highest of career), -85 DRAPM (435th)
+1.69, 2022, +1.93 ORAPM, -.25 DRAPM

Luck adjusted

+1.75, 2017, +2.29 ORAPM, -.54 DRAPM
+1.73, 2015, +2.07 ORAPM, -.34 DRAPM
+1.69, 2019, +1.35 ORAPM, +.34 DRAPM
+1.49, 2021, +1.79 ORAPM, -.3 DRAPM
+1.43

3 year has a range +3.73 to +2.51 for 2020-2023, 2016-2019, 2015-2018, 2019-2022, with ORAPM favoring later years, Luck adjusted favoring 2014-2017, 2015-2018 years.

Englemann’s 1997-2019 set has it at 2017, 2019, 2015, 2018, 2016 with 2017 and 2016 having the highest ORAPM by far. He has RAPM seasons in the 800th—1000th range.

Cheema’s set has it at:

2017-2021: +2.52
2015-2019: +2.41
2014-2018: +2.07
2016-2020: +1.97
2013-2017: +1.23

[OhayoKD]

Yeah I think we've lost track of the cieling bit of cieling raising

Having a teammate improve the team by +9 net rating without you and improve the team’s net rating by essentially zero with you is not “very impressive ceiling raising from LeBron.”

Let's say this is true. It's not relevant. "Vultered" has nothing to do with cieling raising. The distinction between floor and cieling is not about how you get there. It is about where you get. Portability is about your ability to retain value. And in this context, it is about how much value you retain on really good teams. Or, in the context this was originally coined, teams that win championships. Teams like the 2016 Cavs. Lebron can cannabalize the whole league, if he provides a shitton of value to teams that, with him, play title-level basketball in the rs(all-time alongside co-stars in 2015) and then turn all-time-great in the postseason....Lebron is an all-time ceiling raiser.

For you to successfully push "lebron doesn't cieling raise" comparatively you need to do two things that no one in this round of the top 100 has done or really even attempted

1. Justify and establish a threshold of team-performance that counts as where providing value is "ceiling raising". Ideally that threshold will be justified in a manner that ties it to winning championships

2. Establish that Lebron will typically be less valuable on that calibre of team

Taking a terrible team to bad is floor-raising. Taking a bad team to championship-lvl and then all-time-great is ceiling raising. What you have actually established is that Lebron is great at both. If we take this data at face value, kyrie is the guy who isn't portable. Because Kyrie Irving was unable to retain high-value when the team was really **** good and only was valuable when the team was bad. When Lebron-Wade lineups match Jordan/Pippen lineups from their 69-win 97 side, that is ceiling raising regardless of who is "vultured". Unless that impact is just a byproduct of Wade(what Lebron's team looks like in games and lineups without Wade and then without Kyrie would strongly suggest otherwise)

And no, Lebron did not cannibalize Kyrie's RAPM...

Nor did he cannibalize Wade's...

2009 Wade: 8th (+4.05)
2010 Wade: 3rd (+5.22)
2011 Wade: 10th (+3.66) (btw Bosh had a career high, finishing 7th)
2012 Wade: 7th (+4.2)

Because that is not how RAPM works. Wade's RAPM falls off in 2013 as he breaks down. Players benefit in these artificially scaled from sharing minutes with guys who are super valuable no-matter what. They are hurt when players stagger(like Lebron did with Bosh and Wade).

When various teammates of Duncan's show up there in a way that does not reflect what actually happens over substantial samples, they are probably feeding off Duncan. Especially when they are playing far less minutes. Indeed in 2003(and yes i brain-farted counting that as a non-manu chip) we see this play out with Manu Ginobli who was not a big loss over a large rs sample, did not up anything dramatically in the playoffs(or at least something anyone has been willing to point out) yet sees his plus-minus skyrocket. Did Manu secretly break basketball? No, he just played alot with better teammates while Duncan played more with worse ones:

Manu played a whopping 93 minutes without Duncan that postseason. Duncan played 400 minutes without many. He(duncan) also played 200 more minutes without D-Rob.

WOWY takes rotations out of the equation and lets us see how the Spurs do with Manu out(they do fine). I also do not know why you're bringing up Durant. I was and have been(and as fp4 has been) referring to 2016 where the Warriors obliterated a .500 team(+0.35 by rs) in the first round and then were potentially going to beat a 2nd one(+0.9 srs in the regular season). You might note those are full-games without Steph, not simply a smattering of minutes.

Not going to go to deeply into the rest but

-> I said "he has won a title with a team that would not go .500 without him", no idea why you're brining up career-wide wowy.
-> The basic tenet of team-sports is helping your team win. Trying to give Steph undue credits for what his teammates do because he isn't as good at helping his teams win is very much against the spirit of "team".

Honestly kind of amazing that Lebron was voted in 6 rounds ago and we're still trying to push "Lebron cannot lead great teams!"

[lessthanjake]

Yeah forgive me for being skeptical of someone repeating the exact process of one of the most notorious Golden State flairs and Lebron denigrators on this board, such that Lebron is just coincidentally penalised for only having 5 wins after 5-SRS opponents… with literally all of those wins being against opponents 6.4-SRS or higher.

Yes, I am cherrypicking. My point is so are you. 5-SRS is no less arbitrary than 6.4 SRS, it just has a rounder number and happens to better conform to what you want to push.

I literally don’t know who the poster you are talking about is, nor have I ever seen such analysis before. As I said, I didn’t even know how the various players would rank until I compiled the data while writing the post. And there’s a lot more data there than just relating to LeBron James—in fact, it’s really less directed towards LeBron than it is about the various current nominees and potential new nominees, who are the people under discussion now. Just because LeBron doesn’t look good in something doesn’t mean it’s about him.

And yes, as I said in my initial post on it, any line is arbitrary and is both under-inclusive and over-inclusive. But it does seem like a sensical and reasonable line to draw, especially as 5 SRS generally corresponds to about 55 expected wins, which seems to me like a pretty good line to denote a really good team. And it’s certainly less arbitrary than narrowing so much as to also add a further filter for “road series” and get the sample of relevant series’ down to an essentially meaningless number for virtually everyone.

[70sFan]

If you take a look at Durant's trajectory without Warriors years (not fair, but I will come back to it), the he doesn't belong to top 15 conversations. He's an amazing scorer who can fit well next to talented teammates (that he always has) but his playmaking game is the worst among top 20 perimeter players and his defense doesn't move the needle at all. On top of that, his famous scoring wasn't sustainable in the playoffs.

Now, some may argue that Durant peaked in Warriors and he was indeed much superior than in other years. Then you have to keep in mind, that by most metrics he was only 3rd most important (which doesn't mean 3rd best) player on that team and they made the finals without him before and after (as well as when he was injured). These years doesn't give us a good idea of how Durant could work as the leader of elite teams, because he wasn't the leader and the Warriors did just fine without him.

Durant should be in conversation with players like Moses, Harden, Nash etc. not among top 10 candidates.

About Kobe comparison - I don't support Kobe for top 10 talks, but the idea that Kobe's 2008 and 2010 finals performances held him down below Durant is absurd. These two years were significantly more impressive than anything Durant did outside of Golden State. I also don't understand these takes:

"... KD is a 7 foot super freak who can physically do things Kobe never could."

Like what exactly? Shoot contested midrange shots? Durant isn't a better functional athlete than Kobe in basketball sense.

"He showed he is a higher impact player too, he just didn't have the same favourable contexts as Kobe for most of his career."

When did he show that and how do you measure it?

How Durant didn't have the same favorable contexts as Kobe? Durant literally played on some of the most talented teams in the league history. He had an absurdly talented team in 2012 when they made the finals. He played with top 7 player in the league for the whole OKC career. Then he traded himself to the most talented team ever. Then he traded himself to a team full of talent that was supposed to contend, but never did. Finally, he traded himself again to another contending team and so far, he didn't make any impact on them. Durant doesn't have any 2005-07 stretches in his career, he always played on good teams. Durant never built another mini-dynasty without any superstar on his team like Kobe did in 2008-10 period.

I am shocked I have to defend Kobe on this board, but the argumentation is absurd. Now you are free to call me unobjective.

[70sFan]

Won over by the 2013 conference semifinals? By the 2016 conference finals? Maybe it was the 2022 first round?

Productive, huh.

Don't forget how he dominated supposedly overrated Nuggets last playoffs by showing no sign of this amazing impact...

[One_and_Done]

Won over by the 2013 conference semifinals? By the 2016 conference finals? Maybe it was the 2022 first round?

Productive, huh.

See this is yet more evidence that either I'm on crazy pills or everyone else is. Your big clap back is to reference 3 series where KD was better than the examples listed for Kobe.

In the 2013 Grizzlies KD's numbers were 28.8ppg, 10.4rpg and 6.6apg on 531 TS%. He didn't have Westbrook, it's hardly surprising he lost.

In 2016 in the WCFs he has 30-8-3 on 539 TS% playing one of the GOAT teams of all time in a narrow 7 game series loss.

Even 2022, where KD was 33 years old, he put up 26-6-6 on 526 TS%. That's a better shooting percentage than when Kobe was 33 in the series where he was eliminated, crushed by a young KD.

If those are KDs lowlights sign me up. In the 2004 finals Kobe was 22-3-4 on 456 TS%! In the 2010 finals Kobe was 28-8-4 on 528 TS%. In the 2008 finals Kobe was 26-5-5 on 505 TS%. His numbers are worse!

Crazy pills.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I know Doc MJ is crying looking at what this project has become

[OhayoKD]

Alternatively, if Durant decides not to join a 73-win team that just finished coming back down 1-3 against him, you are probably not taking him above Karl Malone.

It may shock you, but my eye test, as well as the eye test of many people here (and in general), has always been more impressed by playoff Kobe than by playoff Durant.

Just won over by his 2004 Finals? No? Maybe it was game 7 in 2006 vs the Suns. Or the 2008 or 2010 finals?

Better than being outplayed by Westbrook at b2b at your alleged peak.

Like to be clear, the impressive two things durant has done in the playoffs are

-> a far worse version of what Kobe did in 2001(2017)
-> a worse version of what Luka did in 2021(2021, 1-3 vs 3-4)

Maybe there's some absolute case for him, but his game is chalk-full of holes. Some of which directly inhibit his strength(scoring). He's not really a viable candidate for top 2 of the 10's and as far as peaks/primes go has a pretty difficult case for top 5. He's not even a top 2 playoff scorer among contemporaries. You really have to go modernist to get KD in this conversation

[One_and_Done]

Modernist meaning look at the stats and realise he's a clearly more impactful player?