Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #15-#16 Spots

[Doctor MJ]

Pop quiz: match the following 3 year RAPM peak to LeBron's teammates (Wade/Bosh, Kyrie/Love, Davis)

3rd
5th
11th
25th
26th

Spoiler:

Answer from best to worst: 10 Wade, 24 Irving, 10 Bosh, 18 Love, 20 Davis

Kyrie that high is definitely surprising. The man is 5th in 5-year RAPM from 2021-2025.

I'm glad you pointed out specifically that Kyrie's best RAPM data comes years after playing with LeBron.

It's funny. If I say about a guy, "His game will age well", it seems like a straight forward statement, but I'd argue it tends to bake in an assumption of growing wisdom that we expect from some guys and not others.

Kyrie is basically the modern sports avatar for foolish thought, and so I have to admit I thought his longevity was going to be negatively impact by it.

But after some clear arrested development on the court to go with the off, he's becoming smarter and smarter on the court, and maybe just maybe, off it too.

All this to say that while I would have discouraged the Mavs from acquiring Kyrie, my arguments for this have been proven wrong. Might have still been better if they hadn't gotten Kyrie from a don't-let-Nico-get-overconfident perspective, but Kyrie's on-court play has been great, and he's always never not been fun to watch when he's really doing his thing.

[Cavsfansince84]

Good thoughts iggy!

Back when we did the original Retro POY, I chose to do it in reverse chronological order because I felt the community would need this - both to interest them, and to allow them a more gradual way of trying to gain comfort analyzing the deep past. I think it worked basically like I hoped, and I think it makes a lot of sense to consider generally.

I should note that after that I was always advocating that if an RPOY was done again, it should be with forward chronological order (which was how it was done). Why? Because the nature of season-by-season play means you miss information by going backwards in time. During the original RPOY I frequently had the thought "Ooh, I wish I'd really realized this thing I just learned when we did the RPOY for the year after."

But for a quarter-century block like this project is trying to do, I'd say this is considerably less of a concern.

One note regarding Davis:

A thing I think that goes on with Davis is that his intensity and focus really seems to wax and wane over the course of a season with a variance greater than most other players. I don't want to excuse this as something that shouldn't be held against him, but it does mean that I don't think RAPM generally is going to be able to capture how devastating he is at his best.

This to say that while I don't know where I'll put AD in this project, I can't dismiss him lightly. The furthest I can go really is to say that I'm uncomfortable treating his shooting in the Bubble as if it represents "peak AD" for our purposes. In one sense, it was clearly his peak, but it's also a peak in a context that most other players in history never got a chance to play in.

I reject the idea of asterisking the Lakers' Bubble championship or AD's role in that ring, but when comparing AD to players in this project, saying anything like "and AD shot the 3 too, so no biggie there" just doesn't seem right. The fact that we just never saw AD look like a 3-point shooter to fear in any normally attended season seems significant.

I agree in the sense that there's a certain amount of weirdness surrounding 2020 AD. It's a hard season to confidently pin down due to a bunch of different reasons. Whether you want to say streaky shooting, LeBron's impact, whether his defense was dpoy caliber or not and the bubble/extended season aspect of it. So I do understand why people might not be particularly high on it.

[lessthanjake]

I'm going to add one or two more things which I don't like about rapm which is that the playoffs in many way can be a different thing than the rs. You have different levels of planning and intensity which go into series. So preferring a 4 or 5 year rapm rs sample over what a guy actually did in a particular year/playoff run is a faulty way of thinking imo. Guys who are consistently leading teams deep into the playoffs just might be better than guys who don't with similar team results in the rs or better rapm.

I really feel like there’s just a balance to be struck here. Being great in the playoffs in a given year is a *really* big deal when it comes to assessing the greatness of that player’s peak year. But the playoffs isn’t the only thing that matters, and multi-year RAPM is a good way of assessing how well a player generally played in the regular season. It’s not a perfect measure for those purposes, since the longer timeframe can obscure genuine ebbs and flows in player quality over the course of several years. We should definitely try to figure out if there’s good reason to think a given peak year was actually meaningfully better than the rest of the years in a multi-year sample. But multi-year RAPM is still a major tool to get at regular-season quality.

Ultimately, because we have to balance multiple factors, I’ve had some players I voted for because their playoff run was incredible even if their RAPM numbers weren’t as impressive as other people. I spent a lot of time justifying why I was voting for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett, for instance. But I’m in this thread voting for 2016 Draymond over 2020 Anthony Davis, even though I think Anthony Davis was better in the playoffs that year than Draymond was. And part of my rationale for voting for 2016 Draymond is not *just* that his multi-year RAPM is a lot better, but also that I don’t even really think multi-year RAPM necessarily gets at how good he was in 2016 specifically, because I think he was noticeably better that year than in other years of his career.

So yeah, I feel like you’re probably thinking of me in the “3-5 year RAPM samples are the ultimate baseline for player goodness” camp that you mentioned in an earlier post, but I really don’t think that’s where I land. It’s a lot more complicated than that for me. Which is why I put 2006 Wade above 2004 Garnett *and* later put 2016 Draymond above 2020 Anthony Davis. I think there’s a lot of stuff to weigh together, and sometimes one factor ends up making the difference to me in one comparison while a different factor does in a different comparison (generally because the other factors don’t weigh the same in each comparison and/or the difference between the two players in the factor in question isn’t quite the same in each comparison).

[babyjax13]

Apologies for dropping off, it has been midterms and I teach at a Community College, so I had 220 exams to grade, and then 220 essays it has been a busy several weeks between that and a conference!

I am returning to my original list of honorable mentions to starter:
Giannis, 2018-2023: 2 MVPs, 1 championship, BPM from +8.5 to +11.5, 5 year VORP of 32.4
Kobe, 2005-2010: 1 MVP, 1 MVP runner up, 2 championships, BPM from +4.1 to +7.6, 5 year VORP of 30.7
Dirk, 2006-2011: 1 MVP, 1 championship, BPM from +3.4 to +8.3, 5 year VORP of 26.8
Garnett, 2003-2008: 1 MVP, 1 championship, BPM from +5.4 to +10.2, 5 year VORP of 38.0
Durant, 2009-2014: 1 MVP, 3 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +4.9 to +10.2, 5 year VORP of 38.3
Shaq, 1999-2004: 1 MVP, 3 championships, BPM from +4.8 to +9.3, 5 year VORP of 31.8
Harden, 2014-2019: 1 MVP, 3 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +6.6 to +11.0, 5 year VORP of 39.1

Other honorable mentions: Nash, Wade, SGA, Paul, Kawhi, Westbrook, AD, Kidd, Pau, Embiid, Rose

Bolded are the players that are left, so if I look at the same criteria and rule out some guys that don't seem to quite compete (AD, Pau, Rose):
Harden, 2014-2019: 1 MVP, 3 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +6.6 to +11.0, 5 year VORP of 39.1
Nash, 2003-2008: 2 MVPs, 1 MVP runner up, 0 championships, BPM from +2.5 to +5.9, 5 year VORP of 22.6
Westbrook, 2014-2019: 1 MVP, 0 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +4.7 to +9.3, 5 year VORP of 32.7
Kidd, 2001-2006: 0 MVP, 1 MVP runner up, 0 championships, BPM from +4.5 to +6.6, 5 year VORP of 25.3
Embiid, 2018-2023: 1 MVP, 2 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +4.9 to +9.2, 5 year VORP of 23.0

Players I neglected to compare that I will go through later:
Luka
Dwight
Draymond
Manu

Other names that seem to be on the edges based on these criteria: Rose, Pierce, Davis, Pau, McGrady, Manu, Butler, Lillard, Irving, Tatum

We also run into the issue that there seems to be a pretty dramatic increase in BPM and VORP in the post-2010 era, likely a product of systems that leverage the advantages of teams best players better, so I don't think the differences between these players are as large as these metrics make them appear to be.

But I feel like I need to deal with the era issue with Nash and Kidd, because from a subjective standpoint I would have both over Westbrook.

I think something that is happening here is I am seeing the deficiencies of RAPM and other +/- and box score statistics for capturing the totality of a player's impact across different eras of basketball (and, IMO, makes LeBron and Duncan even more impressive). I think this specifically affects Nash, but makes comparison across a 20 year span a bit more difficult. But, given that he has so many accolades, I think it is fair to offset that a bit and recognize his greatness relative to peers. That said, I think I have a clear top three based on the discussion: Embiid, Nash, and Luka. For fourth I am going with Harden, but debated Westbrook and Kidd.

1. Embiid, 2018-2023: 1 MVP, 2 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +4.9 to +9.2, 5 year VORP of 23.0 (voting for 2022-23)
2. Nash, 2003-2008: 2 MVPs, 1 MVP runner up, 0 championships, BPM from +2.5 to +5.9, 5 year VORP of 22.6 (voting for 2004-2005)
3. Harden, 2014-2019: 1 MVP, 3 MVP runner ups, 0 championships, BPM from +6.6 to +11.0, 5 year VORP of 39.1 (voting for 2017-18)
4. Luka, 2020-2025: 0 MVP, 0 runner-up, 0 championships, BPM from +6.7 to +8.4, 5 year VORP of 31.0 (voting for 2023-24)

EDIT: came back to move Harden above Luka. Harden perhaps should be even higher, but hopeful that if I am completely wrong that gets washed out. We've hit a point where parsing differences is much less straightforward, IMO. Really interesting discussion throughout.

[Cavsfansince84]

I really feel like there’s just a balance to be struck here. Being great in the playoffs in a given year is a *really* big deal when it comes to assessing the greatness of that player’s peak year. But the playoffs isn’t the only thing that matters, and multi-year RAPM is a good way of assessing how well a player played in the regular season. It can’t be the only thing we use, since the longer timeframe can obscure genuine ebbs and flows in player quality over the course of several years.

Ultimately, because we have to balance multiple factors, I’ve had some players I voted for because their playoff run was incredible even if their RAPM numbers weren’t as impressive as other people. I spent a lot of time justifying why I was voting for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett, for instance. But I’m in this thread voting for 2016 Draymond over 2020 Anthony Davis, even though I think Anthony Davis was better in the playoffs that year than Draymond was. And part of my rationale for voting for 2016 Draymond is not *just* that his multi-year RAPM is a lot better, but also that I don’t even really think multi-year RAPM necessarily gets at how good he was in 2016 specifically, because I think he was noticeably better that year than in other years of his career.

So yeah, I feel like you’re probably thinking of me in the “3-5 year RAPM samples are the ultimate baseline for player goodness” camp that you mentioned in an earlier post, but I really don’t think that’s where I land. It’s a lot more complicated than that for me. Which is why I put 2006 Wade above 2004 Garnett, and then later put 2016 Draymond above 2020 Anthony Davis. I think there’s a lot of stuff to weigh together, and sometimes one factor ends up making the difference to me in one comparison while a different factor does in a different comparison (generally because the other factors don’t weigh the same in each comparison and/or the difference between the two players in the factor in question isn’t quite the same in each comparison).

Luka is another example of this though imo, where w/e you make of his rapm, he consistently elevates his play and his team's play in the playoffs. From the near knock off of the Clippers when no one thought they had any chance at like age 20 or various other playoffs, then in 2024 he finally becomes a strong 3 pt shooter(which more than held up in the playoffs) and leads his team to the finals, while injured. I don't think that's a season that should be dismissed on the basis of 'low 5 year rapm'. He is a guy whose size/skill combo makes him very hard to beat in a 7 game series whereas other guys become harder to stop or may rely too much on one thing that might get taken away or leave them in the playoffs. The rs and the ps are not the same thing.

[lessthanjake]

I really feel like there’s just a balance to be struck here. Being great in the playoffs in a given year is a *really* big deal when it comes to assessing the greatness of that player’s peak year. But the playoffs isn’t the only thing that matters, and multi-year RAPM is a good way of assessing how well a player played in the regular season. It can’t be the only thing we use, since the longer timeframe can obscure genuine ebbs and flows in player quality over the course of several years.

Ultimately, because we have to balance multiple factors, I’ve had some players I voted for because their playoff run was incredible even if their RAPM numbers weren’t as impressive as other people. I spent a lot of time justifying why I was voting for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett, for instance. But I’m in this thread voting for 2016 Draymond over 2020 Anthony Davis, even though I think Anthony Davis was better in the playoffs that year than Draymond was. And part of my rationale for voting for 2016 Draymond is not *just* that his multi-year RAPM is a lot better, but also that I don’t even really think multi-year RAPM necessarily gets at how good he was in 2016 specifically, because I think he was noticeably better that year than in other years of his career.

So yeah, I feel like you’re probably thinking of me in the “3-5 year RAPM samples are the ultimate baseline for player goodness” camp that you mentioned in an earlier post, but I really don’t think that’s where I land. It’s a lot more complicated than that for me. Which is why I put 2006 Wade above 2004 Garnett, and then later put 2016 Draymond above 2020 Anthony Davis. I think there’s a lot of stuff to weigh together, and sometimes one factor ends up making the difference to me in one comparison while a different factor does in a different comparison (generally because the other factors don’t weigh the same in each comparison and/or the difference between the two players in the factor in question isn’t quite the same in each comparison).

Luka is another example of this though imo, where w/e you make of his rapm, he consistently elevates his play and his team's play in the playoffs. From the near knock off of the Clippers when no one thought they had any chance at like age 20 or various other playoffs, then he in 2024 he finally becomes a strong 3 pt shooter(which more than held up in the playoffs) and leads his team to the finals, while injured. I don't think that's a season that should be dismissed on the basis of 'low 5 year rapm'. He is a guy whose size/skill combo makes him very hard to beat in a 7 game series whereas other guys become harder to stop or may rely too much on one thing that might get taken away or leave them in the playoffs.

Yeah, my view of it is that we should take all of that into account. It is simultaneously true that Luka has had some very impressive playoff performances *and* his RAPM numbers aren’t all that great. Both of those things are part of the picture. Conceptually, I think of him as being in a pretty similar bucket as Anthony Davis in that regard (who I almost voted for this thread, and am almost certainly going to have on my ballot next thread).

I think one thing that hurts Luka from my perspective in this is that I don’t really think his deepest playoff run is the year where his individual playoff performance actually was the best. In the run to the finals in 2024, he was genuinely great in the WCF, but the rest of those playoffs was actually below what we normally have seen from him in the playoffs IMO. The net result is that, even though I think he’s a playoff riser in general, I don’t feel like his playoff performance in the Finals run is a big positive for him at this point in the project. So then we could maybe look at other Luka years where his playoff performance was better? But it feels pretty hard to weigh the playoffs for any of those individual years super highly for him either, because they’re all either just one round (there’s surely a real limit to how much we can/should weigh performance in one playoff round), or a year where he missed 3 playoff games and then lost in the conference finals. So I end up with something like 2020 Anthony Davis ahead of Luka, because I feel like it’s a much more complete one-year example of a guy whose impact data might not look amazing but who rose to the playoffs and played fantastically in a deep run (not to mention that AD won the title that year—though obviously that weighs less than if Luka had won it in 2024, since AD had LeBron).

I think the best argument for Luka would be to take 2024 as the peak year and argue that even if his playoff run that year wasn’t transcendent, it was still good. And then one could look at shorter-time-horizon RAPM data and argue that he seems to actually be a high-impact player at this point, and may well have always been one but just have been lowered by having Jalen Brunson as a backup/sidekick. It’s probably how I’ll think about it when I ultimately put him on my ballot, but it’s not a case I’m as convinced by as I am the players I’ve got on my ballot now.

[Cavsfansince84]

Yeah, my view of it is that we should take all of that into account. It is simultaneously true that Luka has had some very impressive playoff performances *and* his RAPM numbers aren’t all that great. Both of those things are part of the picture. Conceptually, I think of him as being in a pretty similar bucket as Anthony Davis in that regard (who I almost voted for this thread, and am almost certainly going to have on my ballot next thread).

I think one thing that hurts Luka from my perspective in this is that I don’t really think his deepest playoff run is the year where his individual playoff performance actually was the best. In the run to the finals in 2024, he was genuinely great in the WCF, but the rest of those playoffs was actually below what we normally have seen from him in the playoffs IMO. The net result is that, even though I think he’s a playoff riser in general, I don’t feel like his playoff performance in the Finals run is a big positive for him at this point in the project. So then we could maybe look at other Luka years where his playoff performance was better? But it feels pretty hard to weigh the playoffs for any of those individual years super highly for him either, because they’re all either just one round (there’s surely a real limit to how much we can/should weigh performance in one playoff round), or a year where he missed 3 playoff games and then lost in the conference finals. So I end up with something like 2020 Anthony Davis ahead of Luka, because I feel like it’s a much more complete one-year example of a guy whose impact data might not look amazing but who rose to the playoffs and played fantastically in a deep run (not to mention that AD won the title that year—though obviously that weighs less than if Luka had won it in 2024, since AD had LeBron).

I think the best argument for Luka would be to take 2024 as the peak year and argue that even if his playoff run that year wasn’t transcendent, it was still good. And then one could look at shorter-time-horizon RAPM data and argue that he seems to actually be a high-impact player at this point, and may well have always been one but just have been lowered by having Jalen Brunson as a backup/sidekick. It’s probably how I’ll think about it when I ultimately put him on my ballot, but it’s not a case I’m as convinced by as I am the players I’ve got on my ballot now.

I think there is added context to 2024 though makes pretty clearly the best. Such as teams/defenses faced, to him being injured, to beating Okc even while Kyrie sucked and Shai was great. They beat 2 of the top 3 teams by srs and Luka was obviously the driving force behind all of it. Winning is the goal, no matter how we try to frame that from the perspective of an individual in a team sport. Had Luka been healthier and Boston lost one of its big 4 leading to a 7 game series or Dallas title it would be one of the best playoff runs of all time imo. Keep in mind they didn't have hca in any series. The idea of dismissing all of this with 5 year rapm is borderline crazy to me tbh.

[lessthanjake]

Yeah, my view of it is that we should take all of that into account. It is simultaneously true that Luka has had some very impressive playoff performances *and* his RAPM numbers aren’t all that great. Both of those things are part of the picture. Conceptually, I think of him as being in a pretty similar bucket as Anthony Davis in that regard (who I almost voted for this thread, and am almost certainly going to have on my ballot next thread).

I think one thing that hurts Luka from my perspective in this is that I don’t really think his deepest playoff run is the year where his individual playoff performance actually was the best. In the run to the finals in 2024, he was genuinely great in the WCF, but the rest of those playoffs was actually below what we normally have seen from him in the playoffs IMO. The net result is that, even though I think he’s a playoff riser in general, I don’t feel like his playoff performance in the Finals run is a big positive for him at this point in the project. So then we could maybe look at other Luka years where his playoff performance was better? But it feels pretty hard to weigh the playoffs for any of those individual years super highly for him either, because they’re all either just one round (there’s surely a real limit to how much we can/should weigh performance in one playoff round), or a year where he missed 3 playoff games and then lost in the conference finals. So I end up with something like 2020 Anthony Davis ahead of Luka, because I feel like it’s a much more complete one-year example of a guy whose impact data might not look amazing but who rose to the playoffs and played fantastically in a deep run (not to mention that AD won the title that year—though obviously that weighs less than if Luka had won it in 2024, since AD had LeBron).

I think the best argument for Luka would be to take 2024 as the peak year and argue that even if his playoff run that year wasn’t transcendent, it was still good. And then one could look at shorter-time-horizon RAPM data and argue that he seems to actually be a high-impact player at this point, and may well have always been one but just have been lowered by having Jalen Brunson as a backup/sidekick. It’s probably how I’ll think about it when I ultimately put him on my ballot, but it’s not a case I’m as convinced by as I am the players I’ve got on my ballot now.

I think there is added context to 2024 though makes pretty clearly the best. Such as teams/defenses faced, to him being injured, to beating Okc even while Kyrie sucked and Shai was great. They beat 2 of the top 3 teams by srs and Luka was obviously the driving force behind all of it. Winning is the goal, no matter how we try to frame that from the perspective of an individual in a team sport. Had Luka been healthier and Boston lost one of its big 4 leading to a 7 game series or Dallas title it would be one of the best playoff runs of all time imo. Keep in mind they didn't have hca in any series. The idea of dismissing all of this with 5 year rapm is borderline crazy to me tbh.

I’m not dismissing it! That’s the entire point of my post! I’m looking at all the information as a whole and not dismissing any of it. The playoff performance, team achievement, and RAPM data *all* matter to me (as do other factors beyond those things). I think you’re asserting that I’m taking an approach that I’m categorically telling you I’m not (and that my voting history in this project is definitely not consistent with—see for instance me arguing at length for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett).

I’ll also note that one significant thing here is that I think I’m just not as high on Luka’s performance in those playoffs as it sounds like you are. Maybe it’s in part because it sounds like you’re curving it up due to him being banged up, while my position on that stuff is that I take how the player played as given and am not going to curve up the greatness of anyone’s year because of a notion that if they had been more healthy then they might’ve played even better. Reasonable minds can differ on the approach to that, but that’s how I approach it.

[Cavsfansince84]

I’m not dismissing it! That’s the entire point of my post! I’m looking at all the information as a whole and not dismissing any of it. The playoff performance, team achievement, and RAPM data *all* matter to me (as do other factors beyond those things). I think you’re asserting that I’m taking an approach that I’m categorically telling you I’m not.

I will also note that one thing here is that I think I’m just not as high on Luka’s performance in those playoffs as it sounds like you are. Maybe it’s in part because it sounds like you’re curving it up due to him being banged up, while my position on that stuff is that I take how the player played as given and am not going to curve the greatness of anyone’s up because of a notion that if they had been more healthy then they might’ve played even better.

I don't think the injury is that much of a curve for me, but it also shows how resilient he is due to other factors if we are conflating other years which is exactly what rapm is doing. It just seems like to some degree you are working backwards from what rapm tells you to such a degree that a lot of what actually happened doesn't mean much. Luka led a team as a big underdog, over the #2/3 teams by srs which also had the #4/1 defenses by DRtg, in 6 games and 5 games, without hca and with Luka having 57 & 63 ts% while Kyrie had 53 & 59 ts% in those two series. So it's not a case of where the high scoring co star next to him just lit the other team up. Some of the role players stepped up obviously but it was pretty much in every way possible a tremendous run from Luka in terms of both individual and team play. Then lost in 5 after it seemed like they ran out of gas against one of the most dominant teams of this century.
I also thought it was you who made a comment earlier in this thread that Luka's 5 year rapm by itself excluded him from consideration yet(it may have been someone else but it was stated).

[lessthanjake]

I’m not dismissing it! That’s the entire point of my post! I’m looking at all the information as a whole and not dismissing any of it. The playoff performance, team achievement, and RAPM data *all* matter to me (as do other factors beyond those things). I think you’re asserting that I’m taking an approach that I’m categorically telling you I’m not.

I will also note that one thing here is that I think I’m just not as high on Luka’s performance in those playoffs as it sounds like you are. Maybe it’s in part because it sounds like you’re curving it up due to him being banged up, while my position on that stuff is that I take how the player played as given and am not going to curve the greatness of anyone’s up because of a notion that if they had been more healthy then they might’ve played even better.

I don't think the injury is that much of a curve for me, but it also shows how resilient he is due to other factors if we are conflating other years which is exactly what rapm is doing. It just seems like to some degree you are working backwards from what rapm tells you to such a degree that a lot of what actually happened doesn't mean much. Luka led a team as a big underdog, over the #2/3 teams by srs which also had the #4/1 defenses by DRtg, in 6 games and 5 games, without hca and with Luka having 57 & 63 ts% while Kyrie had 53 & 59 ts% in those two series. So it's not a case of where the high scoring co star next to him just lit the other team up. Some of the role players stepped up obviously but it was pretty much in every way possible a tremendous run from Luka in terms of both individual and team play.

I’m not working backwards at all! I watched those games and it wasn’t long ago! And if my approach was to work backwards from multi-year RAPM, do you think I would’ve been leading a pretty lone charge for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett? Like, I feel like it’s obvious I don’t take the approach you’re saying you think I take. And if there was any doubt, it’s made completely clear by me categorically saying it’s not my approach. You and I can look at the same information and just weigh/value it differently and get to different conclusions. It doesn’t mean I must be completely ignoring the things that drive you to your conclusion. I’m certain you get this, since you’re the same person who made the good analogy that all of us in a sense are our own metric, since we look at the same information and come to different conclusions!

[Cavsfansince84]

I’m not working backwards at all! I watched those games and it wasn’t long ago! And if my approach was to work backwards from multi-year RAPM, do you think I would’ve been leading a pretty lone charge for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett? Like, I feel like it’s obvious I don’t take the approach you’re saying you think I take. And if there was any doubt, it’s made completely clear by me categorically saying it’s not my approach. You and I can look at the same information and just weigh/value it differently and get to different conclusions. It doesn’t mean I must be completely ignoring the things that drive you to your conclusion. I’m certain you get this, since you’re the same person who made the good analogy that all of us in a sense are our own metric, since we look at the same information and come to different conclusions!

I know you aren't working solely off of rapm but you and a few others often do give the impression of working backwards from rapm. This was also a post you made earlier in this same thread:

To me, Luka is basically like Anthony Davis in the “Box numbers look good but multi-year RAPM says he shouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion” kind of way. But while Anthony Davis won a title with a great playoff performance, Luka has not done so. Of course, Davis having prime LeBron on his team is a huge factor there, but Luka did actually struggle a fair bit in the series’s that his team lost in the years one might actually vote for (i.e. 2022 and 2024). He’ll make my ballot eventually, but I think there’s several people I’d put in before him. Like, for instance, I’m pretty sure I’ll be voting for Jimmy Butler over Luka.

So it does give the impression of rapm being a major reason by itself to not consider him and to me tacking on the part about how he lost in the finals is a huge disservice to what he and his team accomplished before getting there, more so with the context of an injury that likely worsened and him still likely being the best player in that finals. While knowing how low you currently are on AD as well who you lumped in with him. Plus, I would actually say his rs was easily mvp level on top of it.

[lessthanjake]

I also thought it was you who made a comment earlier in this thread that Luka's 5 year rapm by itself excluded him from consideration yet(it may have been someone else but it was stated).

If you’re referring to what I think you’re referring to, then I think you way misunderstood what I was saying. I said “multi-year RAPM says [Luka and Anthony Davis] shouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion” while then saying that Luka will eventually make my ballot and that Anthony Davis will make it even sooner. The whole point of my post was that RAPM would tell us they shouldn’t be voted for at all but other factors weigh in their favor such that I will vote for them!

[Cavsfansince84]

I also thought it was you who made a comment earlier in this thread that Luka's 5 year rapm by itself excluded him from consideration yet(it may have been someone else but it was stated).

If you’re referring to what I think you’re referring to, then I think you way misunderstood what I was saying. I said “multi-year RAPM says [Luka and Anthony Davis] shouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion” while then saying that Luka will eventually make my ballot and that Anthony Davis will make it even sooner. The whole point of my post was that RAPM would tell us they shouldn’t be voted for at all but other factors weigh in their favor such that I will vote for them!

Ok but think about the logic you are using by making that post in the way that you wrote it. Working backwards from something doesn't mean you base something entirely on it but that you rely on it to a large degree. To where you felt the need to mention that by rapm neither guy should even be mentioned right now, as though that in itself should carry large weight in a peaks project and where playoff performance is a huge part of it. Saying that you factor in other things and plan to eventually vote for Luka & AD doesn't exactly disprove what I am saying here. What I am saying is that 5 year rapm is not a good starting point at all for a single year peaks project. Maybe for something like a 5 year/prime/career project I could see it. In something like this, I think its just one thing to throw out there, not something that should keep getting repeated to death in every single thread as though the onus is on everyone else to overcome what 5 yr rapm is telling us.

[lessthanjake]

I’m not working backwards at all! I watched those games and it wasn’t long ago! And if my approach was to work backwards from multi-year RAPM, do you think I would’ve been leading a pretty lone charge for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett? Like, I feel like it’s obvious I don’t take the approach you’re saying you think I take. And if there was any doubt, it’s made completely clear by me categorically saying it’s not my approach. You and I can look at the same information and just weigh/value it differently and get to different conclusions. It doesn’t mean I must be completely ignoring the things that drive you to your conclusion. I’m certain you get this, since you’re the same person who made the good analogy that all of us in a sense are our own metric, since we look at the same information and come to different conclusions!

I know you aren't working solely off of rapm but you and a few others often do give the impression of working backwards from rapm. This was also a post you made earlier in this same thread:

To me, Luka is basically like Anthony Davis in the “Box numbers look good but multi-year RAPM says he shouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion” kind of way. But while Anthony Davis won a title with a great playoff performance, Luka has not done so. Of course, Davis having prime LeBron on his team is a huge factor there, but Luka did actually struggle a fair bit in the series’s that his team lost in the years one might actually vote for (i.e. 2022 and 2024). He’ll make my ballot eventually, but I think there’s several people I’d put in before him. Like, for instance, I’m pretty sure I’ll be voting for Jimmy Butler over Luka.

So it does give the impression of rapm being a major reason by itself to not consider him and to me tacking on the part about how he lost in the finals is a huge disservice to what he and his team accomplished before getting there, more so with the context of an injury that likely worsened and him still likely being the best player in that finals. While knowing how low you currently are on AD as well who you lumped in with him. Plus, I would actually say his rs was easily mvp level on top of it.

Yeah, so I just addressed this above. I think you completely misunderstood what I said. Saying that one factor would tell us those guys don’t belong anywhere near this discussion and then saying that they’ll both get voted for by me makes extremely clear that other factors are extremely important to me! I could just as easily say that box-metrics tell us that Nash doesn’t belong anywhere near this discussion. That’d be true too, and I’m voting for him! A guy looking weak in one type of data or one particular area is not a bar to voting for him, and stating the obvious fact that the guy looks weak in that data is just stating fact.

Also, how am I currently low on AD? He didn’t make my ballot this time, but I obviously spent my entire voting post talking about why I took Draymond over him because AD is the main other guy I was considering for that spot!

Anyways, I just want to reiterate that I am a bit perplexed about being told that it seems like I’m working backwards from multi-year RAPM when I was basically out there alone voting for 2006 Wade over 2004 Garnett. That position is completely incompatible with working backwards from multi-year RAPM!

[lessthanjake]

I also thought it was you who made a comment earlier in this thread that Luka's 5 year rapm by itself excluded him from consideration yet(it may have been someone else but it was stated).

If you’re referring to what I think you’re referring to, then I think you way misunderstood what I was saying. I said “multi-year RAPM says [Luka and Anthony Davis] shouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion” while then saying that Luka will eventually make my ballot and that Anthony Davis will make it even sooner. The whole point of my post was that RAPM would tell us they shouldn’t be voted for at all but other factors weigh in their favor such that I will vote for them!

Ok but think about the logic you are using by making that post in the way that you wrote it. Working backwards from something doesn't mean you base something entirely on it but that you rely on it to a large degree. To where you felt the need to mention that by rapm neither guy should even be mentioned right now, as though that in itself should carry large weight in a peaks project and where playoff performance is a huge part of it. Saying that you factor in other things and plan to eventually vote for Luka & AD doesn't exactly disprove what I am saying here. What I am saying is that 5 year rapm is not a good starting point at all for a single year peaks project. Maybe for something like a 5 year/prime/career project I could see it. In something like this, I think its just one thing to throw out there, not something that should keep getting repeated to death in every single thread as though the onus is on everyone else to overcome what 5 yr rapm is telling us.

Yeah, so again, I think I probably don’t even weigh multi-year RAPM as much as most people here. Which is why I was off on my own voting for Wade over Garnett. I definitely don’t completely discount it, though. If you largely do discount it, then that’s fine. I’ve talked at very considerable length about the competing issues of validity and reliability, so I think it should be obvious why I think multi-year RAPM is worth looking at even in a peaks project. If you disagree, then that’s fine. But I’m obviously not all that anchored to it. The fact that I’ve talked about it a lot with regards to Manu and Nash is largely an artifact of people specifically wanting to go back and forth about that particular issue. I’ve cited plenty of other types of data about those guys beyond just multi-year RAPM. And I’ve also made clear repeatedly that there’s a significant eye-test component to my views about them, since I watched a particularly huge amount of those two players and was extremely impressed by them. If my view of those players is anchored in anything, it’s actually the eye test! It’s just that no one has responded to me to talk about that.

[lessthanjake]

I do also just want to note that a few threads ago, there was a whole big discussion in which I was criticized at length for citing to single-year playoff EPM because that was purportedly not as good of information as RAPM over larger samples/timeframes. And of course, while I wouldn’t characterize it as criticism of me (since the discussion was cordial), there was a lot of discussion prior to that in which people basically asserted that my reliance on what happened in the 2006 playoffs in voting for Wade was probably just relying on noise because the sample is small and Garnett looks better in RAPM over larger timeframes. And I’ve also been criticized in this project for being too focused on rings, and have been characterized as the person most focused on that.

So yeah, I feel a bit whiplashed here. It feels like over time I’ve been criticized/critiqued as being too focused on a whole host of different things—including for being too focused on multi-year RAPM *and* for not being focused enough on it. And I think that should perhaps be a really good sign to people that maybe when I say that I’m aiming to weigh a whole host of different factors/information, that may *actually* be exactly what I’m doing!

[Cavsfansince84]

I do also just want to note that a few threads ago, there was a whole big discussion in which I was criticized at length for citing to single-year playoff EPM because that was purportedly not as good of information as RAPM over larger samples/timeframes. And of course, while I wouldn’t characterize it as criticism of me (since the discussion was cordial), there was a lot of discussion prior to that in which people basically asserted that my reliance on what happened in the 2006 playoffs in voting for Wade was probably just relying on noise because the sample is small and Garnett looks better in RAPM over larger timeframes. And I’ve also been criticized in this project for being too focused on rings, and have been characterized as the person most focused on that.

So yeah, I feel a bit whiplashed here. It feels like over time I’ve been criticized/critiqued as being too focused on a whole host of different things—including for being too focused on multi-year RAPM *and* for not being focused enough on it. And I think that should perhaps be a really good sign to people that maybe when I say that I’m aiming to weigh a whole host of different factors/information, that may *actually* be exactly what I’m doing!

I think everyone is doing the best they can within their own frame of reference/criteria etc and I understand why you say you are feeling whiplashed a bit. Keeping in mind that epm is basically the cousin of rapm afaik. So it feels almost like the same argument being made to some degree. Personally, I would just to see more discussion which is not based entirely on on/off or +/-. Because it seems like a lot of your pro Wade argument was based in epm.

[trelos6]

RE: Kyrie being 5th in 5 year RAPM.

Look at his games played over the last 5 seasons. 54, 29, 60, 58, 50. His sample size is a lot smaller than others for 5 year period. Going back to 20-24 5 year period, he was in 17k possessions. The top Lebron / KG 5 year RAPM seasons were at 33k possessions.

[Cavsfansince84]

Ok, let's get this done.

15. 2024 Luka(22). I've already stated his case a few times but to me its mvp+ rs, knocks off the #7/2/3 srs teams, #4/1 DRtg without hca. Lights up both of those defenses and with Kyrie only showing up for one series. Good argument for best player in the finals while losing and while going against an atg perimeter defensive team. Also has his best 3pt shooting season which held up in the playoffs.
16. 2018 Harden(19). Not much left to be said. Huge part of a 65 win team that almost beat the Warriors. Playoff resiliency is still a bit of a question mark but also a mvp+ type rs.
17. 2005 Nash(06). I know some people just don't get what makes Nash great but he qb'd a top 2 offense most every year of his prime including some that were #1 by the biggest margins ever. Strong playoffs that can't really be held against him.
18. 2020 AD(18). I was swayed enough by some of the anti AD talk to knock him down a bit but re AD's defense not being that great the best I could find is raptor having him as top 11 5 times and top 5 a few times. So take it fwiw. Also, it's worth questioning to what degree LeBron's atg pg season propped him up though at the end of the day he was still the one knocking down the shots. I think they were both extremely determined to accomplish something that season and the rest of the team followed their lead which led to a 16-5 playoff record/title.

[One_and_Done]

Really unclear to me how Embiid can garner votes at this stage with his injury issues. It's almost as odd as the votes for Draymond/Manu. Like, nice players, but healthy MVP players with deep playoff runs are talking.