#8 Highest Peak of All Time (Magic '87 wins)

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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (ends Thur 9:00 PM Pacific) 

Post#141 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Aug 17, 2012 5:29 am

ardee wrote:Looks like we have a winner :D


No we're still going.

ftr, going forward, I'll do counts as of 9 PM, which the vote that would have been the decider for was a touch late for.

With that said, as we're in tie-break mode between LeBron, Magic, and Duncan, and I feel like there's a general pull away from my vote, I'm going to take the opportunity to switch to Magic as well.

Reasoning:

I'm siding with LeBron essentially because I just can't get away from his two way impact. He's not Magic-good on offense, but he's really, really good on offense, and seriously almost DPOY worthy on defense.

I don't feel nearly as strongly about Duncan's offense. I mean I love him as a two side of the ball threat, but left only to his offense I don't see a major gap between him, and say, Elton Brand.

Magic's the offensive GOAT to me. His only limitation at all seems to be the Lakers wrongly thinking he couldn't score more...until they decided to tell him they needed him to be the focus due to Kareem's decline, and then he was dominant.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#142 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Aug 17, 2012 5:30 am

So I think that's:

Magic '87: 6
Duncan '03: 4
LeBron '09: 3

If anyone sees a mistake, speak up.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (ends Thur 9:00 PM Pacific) 

Post#143 » by colts18 » Fri Aug 17, 2012 6:02 am

drza wrote:Which brings us back to the scoring efficiencies of '03 Duncan and '04 Garnett. Part of the reason that I really wanted you guys to pay attention to the reality of Cassell's injury and what it did to the '04 Wolves on offense, is that despite the names/regular season success, by the time the '04 playoffs rolled around Garnett was back out there with casts comparable to the worst of his Wolves' offensive casts. In other words, against both the Kings and (especially) against the Lakers, he was often out there in the kind of "I have to do everything for us to have a chance" mode that leads to video game counting stats but sometimes lower efficiency.

Duncan in '03 wasn't in that situation to nearly the same extent. The support of a strong defensive cast and coach led to a unit that (led by Duncan of course) gave the Spurs a dominant force that could always keep them in the game. Especially against the level of competition found in the 2003 playoffs. More-over, as we've been discussing, even on offense the '03 Spurs' cast was generally able to offer more support to Duncan than the '04 Wolves' offense in the playoffs. Duncan was all-world, of course (which is why despite the arguments that I'm making I'm still ultra high on Duncan's peak), but when compared to '04 KG, '03 Duncan was in a position where he could more specialize on scoring efficiently than '04 Garnett was.

Shooting efficiency does NOT equal impact. And though Colts18 hates it when I mention the postseason +/- numbers, they really do help illustrate the point AND are well-supported for this last decade as far as pointing out the super-elite seasons. If you look up individual players with an on/off +/- of at least +10 in the regular season and +15 in the postseason through at least the conference Finals, you're looking at a list of the universally considered best-of-the-best of this generation...seasons like early 2000s Shaq, 2003 Duncan, 2005 Ginobili, 2006 Wade, 2011 Dirk, and 2012 LeBron. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that's the complete list outside of Garnett. It's an exclusive, exclusive club.


Saying that KG didn't have offensive talent around him 04 or that it was better than Duncan's is ridiculous. Yes duncan's cast was much better defensively, but KG's cast played better offensively. For one, Wally is a better offensive player than anyone Duncan had in 03 by a significant margin. He provided shooting and spacing. Cassell was better than Parker in the playoffs. Wally was better than Ginobili. Sprewell was better than Jackson. The rest of the Wolves cast Hassell/Hoiberg/Johnson/Madsen was on the level of the other players on the Spurs Bowen/DRob/Claxton/Rose.

During the 04 playoffs, 7 different TWolves players finished ahead of KG in TS% and O rating. Look at someone like Fred Hoiberg who played 24 MPG and probably just as good an offensive player than 03 Parker because of his shooting (.618 TS%). They might have not had great offensive support, but having Cassell for 4 games, Sprewell, Wally, and Hoiberg is not bad.


As far as saying the +/- its completely meaningless as a way to determine KG's impact. KG missed a total of 86 minutes in that playoff. Only 18 of them were vs. the Lakers. You do realize that adjusted plus/minus for a 1 year season has an error of like ~5-10 and this is for 2000+ minute players. What kind of error rate do you think an unadjusted plus/minus is going to have with just 86 minutes of off court data? Probably around 15-20 points. Virtually meaningless. The +2.5 on the court number is more meaningful to me because that came in almost 800 minutes of play, not the +25 net which is based on using completely meaningless sample sizes. Not to mention the guys replacing KG were Madsen and Trent/Miller, both of them in their last NBA season. Of course he is going to have a high +/-. It's the same with Shaq, he had a great impact but his +/- numbers could overstate because the Lakers never had a backup center.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#144 » by therealbig3 » Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:07 am

ElGee wrote:Garnett's also the kind of player who would do less "carrying with his scoring" on a bad team but once you have a few decent players around him his passing and shooting are really quite fantastic assets to blend with other decent to good offensive players.


Ok, but where is the evidence that he blends in with good offensive players better than Duncan?

Personally, I think KG's supporting cast earlier in his career gets underrated a touch, but realistically, when did prime KG play with a supporting cast comparable to the kind of supporting cast that Duncan's had for most of his career? 08, with the Celtics.

That team gets praised a lot, and for good reason, but let's compare their offense and defense to the 05-07 Spurs after Parker and Ginobili got really good and Duncan was still in his prime...offensively first:

08 Celtics: +2.7 (+3.3 PS)

05 Spurs: +1.4 (+4.7 PS)
06 Spurs: +1.1 (+9.0 PS)
07 Spurs: +2.7 (+2.2 PS)


Now defensively:

08 Celtics: -8.6 (-5.8 PS)

05 Spurs: -7.3 (-4.2 PS)
06 Spurs: -6.6 (+2.2 PS)
07 Spurs: -6.6 (-6.6 PS)

So I see the 05 and 07 Spurs as in the same ballpark offensively and defensively to the 08 Celtics. The 06 squad didn't play good defense at all, but they exploded offensively (probably was a strategic shift in focus, and that offensive explosion coincided with Duncan personally going off).

I could have seen the case that the 08 Celtics weren't that impressive offensively because they were focusing on defense...but you could say the same things about the 05 and 07 Spurs. And to be honest, I have a hard time seeing how Garnett's cast wasn't better in 08 than Duncan's from 05-07.

So why is KG getting the benefit of the doubt here for fitting in better offensively with better talent? It looks like when both had at the very least comparable offensive and defensive talent, Duncan's 05 and 07 teams were pretty much right there with the 08 Celtics, on either side of the ball.

It looks pretty even to me, in terms of their ability to fit into more talented offenses.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#145 » by bastillon » Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:28 am

every postseason Ginobili was turning into borderline top5 player in the league in terms of impact and Ray Allen was just a name in 2008. at one point he was airballing wide open 3s. when Ray Allen started playing well Celtics offense skyrocketed. but Duncan wasn't even team's best offensive player. Manu is such an underrated player. his 10-year RAPM is actually above Duncan's and ranks 4th overall behind only LeBron, KG and Wade. his 6-year APM is also above Duncan's and ranks #3 behind LeBron and KG.

I'd be curious to see Wolves ORtg with Garnett-Szczerbiak-Cassell playing.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (ends Thur 9:00 PM Pacific) 

Post#146 » by PTB Fan » Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:15 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
PTB Fan wrote:It goes beyond that. The Spurs won their championship similar to the '77 Blazers, expect they didn't have a No.2 All-Star option like Portland had in Maurice Lucas. They filled that weakness with playing their roles nicely, Duncan taking over games late well and him making big impact.


It's interesting the conversation when in the direction it did in response to this. My first thought was:

The problem with this line of thinking, even more than the focus on the #2 option, is in equating the success of champions. Some champions face tougher hurdles, and reach higher heights.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to compare the '03 Spurs to the other Duncan Spur teams. By SRS '03 was actually the WEAKEST Spur team that prime Duncan ever played on ('99 to '07). They didn't win that title because Duncan's prime let them rise to new heights, they won that title because the rest of the league was at its absolute nadir contender-wise.

This is not to say Duncan doesn't deserve a ton of credit for the win. His team was a weak champion, but I'll get in line with you to say that it was a weak supporting cast compared to most champions. Even with the weak competition, Duncan only wins that title because he is playing fantastic, fantastic ball.

Now, as I say that, I need to also supply an obvious rebuttal, and speak to that rebuttal:

The '03 Spurs SRS might be low compared to the very high standards of the Duncan Spur era, but it's still quite good. About as good, in fact, as what the Walton Blazers achieved. If the '03 Spurs were about as good as those Blazers, and Duncan did it with less help, it would sure seem like Duncan has the edge there.

Here's where you need to remember that Walton missed a lot of time even during his "good" times. The '77 & '78 Blazers average performance in the regular season was in the 5-6 SRS range, but Walton missed about 20 games each season, and the on/off difference we see with and without Walton are mind-blowingly huge.

Bottom line, with Walton, these teams were far, FAR better than a 5-6 SRS team.

Also of note, in that era, there was a lot of parity SRS-wise. It's important to remember that talent distribution across leagues is not consistent from era to era. Suffice to say that whereas in Duncan's era, we expect multiple 6+ SRS teams in the league, in the post-merger '70s where wasn't as single 5+ SRS team other than Walton's Blazers until Bird & Magic showed up.

The gap between the quality of basketball Walton was leading his team to produce, and the quality of everyone else in the league, was just massive. And as noted, that basketball would disappear completely when Walton was out.

So yeah, for me, it's hard to imagine putting Duncan '03 over Walton '77. One more pause for a point of view though:

I only say this, because in '77 I don't see any reason to hold Walton's missed time against him. He led his team to best SRS despite his missed RS time, and in the post-season, he was healthy playing 40-ish MPG. That's fine by me.

If someone else though wants to have a more rigid perspective of value added over the course of a season, well then, I'd expect them to knock Walton significantly. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, just make sure you apply that reasoning consistently. If, for example, you voted for '77 Kareem in large part because of how amazing he looked in the playoffs that year, then you should be very careful about knocking anyone for RS issues that didn't actually change anything by playoffs' end.


Excellent points with which I agree. Though I didn't mention anywhere that the '03 Spurs were in any way better than the '77 Blazers (this Portland's team was as good as it gets). I made a comparison in the way the teams played, how were built and how they ended up winning it all in their respective seasons without taking in context strengths of competition, supporting cast and so on.

And I intend to vote '77 Walton at #10, because I still haven't decided what year should I vote in for LBJ.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#147 » by bastillon » Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:41 am

@Doc
ElGee wrote:The whole narrative around that Spurs team was that they were young and needed to come together. They did.

They had a guy in Stephen Jackson who they basically brought along behind the scenes for the 2002 season -- no one had heard of him. He played big minutes off the bench until around xmas when he became a starter, you know, because he was a pretty good player.

Tony Parker by the playoffs looks like peak Tony Parker just when his shot was on, only he was all over the place in the PS. Manu looks like an unpolished version of Manu. etc. What happened as the year progressed?

First 32 games: 3.2 SRS
Last 50 games: 7.2 SRS

Keep in mind they lost David Robinson for 16 of those final 50 games and didn't miss a beat (~9 SRS without him). What changed?? The offense! The final 50 games of the year, the Spurs were a +5.4 oRtg team BECAUSE of the development of the "cast by committee." Averaging GmSc of the cast was 49.3 in those first 32...then up to 56.3 in the last 50g. It was exactly what would happen in the PS, although I think Parker was more inconsistent in the PS, and maybe Jackson.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#148 » by colts18 » Fri Aug 17, 2012 1:31 pm

ElGee wrote:The whole narrative around that Spurs team was that they were young and needed to come together. They did.

They had a guy in Stephen Jackson who they basically brought along behind the scenes for the 2002 season -- no one had heard of him. He played big minutes off the bench until around xmas when he became a starter, you know, because he was a pretty good player.

Tony Parker by the playoffs looks like peak Tony Parker just when his shot was on, only he was all over the place in the PS. Manu looks like an unpolished version of Manu. etc. What happened as the year progressed?

First 32 games: 3.2 SRS
Last 50 games: 7.2 SRS

Keep in mind they lost David Robinson for 16 of those final 50 games and didn't miss a beat (~9 SRS without him). What changed?? The offense! The final 50 games of the year, the Spurs were a +5.4 oRtg team BECAUSE of the development of the "cast by committee." Averaging GmSc of the cast was 49.3 in those first 32...then up to 56.3 in the last 50g. It was exactly what would happen in the PS, although I think Parker was more inconsistent in the PS, and maybe Jackson.


The big part of that change was Duncan

First 32 games: 23-13-3.5, .531 TS%, 13.5 TOV%, 105 O Rating

Last 50 games: 24-14-4, .586 TS%, 12.5 TOV%, 117 O rating

Thats a big difference. They Spurs would have gained 2.4 PPG in the first 32 games just by Duncan shooting his last 50 games average. So over half that difference is explained by Duncan being more efficient.

It's amazing the Spurs were even a 3.2 team in that first 32 games. Ginobili had a .474 TS% and 86 O rating, Parker was .506 TS% and 101 O rating. Jackson had a 98 O rating in that span and a 98 O rating in the last 50 games.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#149 » by SDChargers#1 » Fri Aug 17, 2012 2:58 pm

I went with Lebron '09 in the last vote, but the more I think about it, the more I like Duncan in '03. Mostly because his playoffs were just as off the charts as Lebron's except he was also a defensive beast and his team won the title with one of the weakest casts (to win a title) in history.

Vote: Duncan '03

P.S Unfortunately during the week I have work and can't give full explanations. I will have more time on the weekend.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#150 » by ElGee » Fri Aug 17, 2012 3:14 pm

@Bastillon -- I think Magic 87 is the GOAT offensive season. The question is, does LeBron's defense make up the difference. To me, the answer is "essentially," so I'm left in tie-break mode. I respect the 87 seasons a touch more in terms of competition than the 09 seasons, so that's part of it. I also had a big issue voting 09 LeBron when I think he was better in 2012. Not saying that would prevent 09 LBJ > 87 Magic, but that's why I voted Magic.

Frankly, I haven't heard anything compelling about any of the Sacred Peak players left on the board to feel comfortable with where I rank them.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#151 » by C-izMe » Fri Aug 17, 2012 5:46 pm

I really hoped Lebron would land top ten but it seems like he's dropped from where I expected (6-9). Hopefully he still takes 9 but I'm not too sure (Ducan still has my vote though).
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#152 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:58 pm

C-izMe wrote:I really hoped Lebron would land top ten but it seems like he's dropped from where I expected (6-9). Hopefully he still takes 9 but I'm not too sure (Ducan still has my vote though).


Going to be interesting to see. No surprise to me if he doesn't make the Top 10, but I do imagine it likely that people looking back on the project years from now will be shocked at how LeBron is.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#153 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:28 pm

bastillon wrote:@Doc
ElGee wrote:The whole narrative around that Spurs team was that they were young and needed to come together. They did.

They had a guy in Stephen Jackson who they basically brought along behind the scenes for the 2002 season -- no one had heard of him. He played big minutes off the bench until around xmas when he became a starter, you know, because he was a pretty good player.

Tony Parker by the playoffs looks like peak Tony Parker just when his shot was on, only he was all over the place in the PS. Manu looks like an unpolished version of Manu. etc. What happened as the year progressed?

First 32 games: 3.2 SRS
Last 50 games: 7.2 SRS

Keep in mind they lost David Robinson for 16 of those final 50 games and didn't miss a beat (~9 SRS without him). What changed?? The offense! The final 50 games of the year, the Spurs were a +5.4 oRtg team BECAUSE of the development of the "cast by committee." Averaging GmSc of the cast was 49.3 in those first 32...then up to 56.3 in the last 50g. It was exactly what would happen in the PS, although I think Parker was more inconsistent in the PS, and maybe Jackson.


Thanks for sharing, and yes, that is a good post.

I should be clear that when I talk about that team's low SRS compared to other Spur teams, I'm not really fixated on the idea that this particular team is the worst of Duncan's prime so much as I just want people not to elevate it simply because they won the title. Duncan's career should be used as an educational case study so that people understand what happens when you consistently have championship-worthy but not all-time-great level teams. Those teams didn't fail to repeat out of some laziness or choke-iness, they just weren't good enough to expect to come out on top every time.

I will say though that while the SRS improvement over the course of the year is a great argument to make if you want to show that by the time it mattered, the '03 Spurs were a dominant team. I don't know how to reconcile that with what I observed in the playoffs. This is a team who got to play 3 teams that won less than 50 games, and didn't manage to look dominant against any of them.

I get what ElGee is saying about various guys stepping up - and it's entirely possible that I focused too much on the mistakes guys were making, and not enough on the step up - but I don't know how this Spur run qualifies as at all strong by champion standards given the struggles they had.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#154 » by PTB Fan » Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:21 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
C-izMe wrote:I really hoped Lebron would land top ten but it seems like he's dropped from where I expected (6-9). Hopefully he still takes 9 but I'm not too sure (Ducan still has my vote though).


Going to be interesting to see. No surprise to me if he doesn't make the Top 10, but I do imagine it likely that people looking back on the project years from now will be shocked at how LeBron is.


I still think LBJ will get voted in before Dr J and Walton..
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#155 » by therealbig3 » Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:22 pm

bastillon wrote:every postseason Ginobili was turning into borderline top5 player in the league in terms of impact and Ray Allen was just a name in 2008. at one point he was airballing wide open 3s. when Ray Allen started playing well Celtics offense skyrocketed. but Duncan wasn't even team's best offensive player. Manu is such an underrated player. his 10-year RAPM is actually above Duncan's and ranks 4th overall behind only LeBron, KG and Wade. his 6-year APM is also above Duncan's and ranks #3 behind LeBron and KG.

I'd be curious to see Wolves ORtg with Garnett-Szczerbiak-Cassell playing.


Yes, Ginobili was awesome...but he actually didn't play all that great in the 07 playoffs. Parker didn't play all that great until the 07 playoffs. So only one of them was stepping up at a time, it seemed.

Ray Allen had one bad series in 08 playoffs, the Cleveland series. Other than that, he shot well against Atlanta, Detroit, and especially LA. He was still pretty good. Not Ginobili good, but good.

And don't forget Paul Pierce. Same as Allen, he only really struggled against Cleveland, but he played really well against everyone else, especially LA. And even against Cleveland, he came up huge in game 7, when Garnett scored 13 points on 13 shots.

To me, Ginobili and Pierce were about equal, while Allen was a little better than Parker.
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Re: #8 Highest Peak of All Time (tiebreak - Fri 9:00 PM Paci 

Post#156 » by Doctor MJ » Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:18 am

Okay folks, Magic '87 takes it.
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