#16 Highest Peak of All Time (Robinson '95 wins)

[thizznation]

Not yet for Dwight Howard.

An Unbiased Fan,
I don't like the narrative that Dwight carried the team to exceed all expectations...

That 09' Magic team was a very solid team, the team was also well built around him. When you look back at the players now they don't seem that impressive but a lot of those guys had their last hurrah with increasing age (Rashard Lewish and Turkoglu) or just had career years like in the case for Jameer Nelson. Also Pietrus was hitting 3's, playing well and was a great perimeter defender.


Not to take away from Dwights amazing play or the heavy lifting he was doing with this team(no pun intended)...It just doesn't compare to the impact that Wade had in 09.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Miami's strength was defense, not offense, and while Wade had a great year offensively, it only yielded a #20 Ortg. Other than RAPM, what case does Wade have over Dwight in 2009?

As usual, you base individual performance on what the team does as a whole (here, it's team ortg). DocMJ and I have provided individual box/on-off/RAPM numbers that show Wade was 1) a dominant force offensively for his squad and 2) played with inept offensive talent, which reflects in the team ortg.

It's not worth debating this with you if you continue to make the same fallacy over and over in your posts.

Huh? I just said in the quote you posted, that Wade had a great year offensively. The point is that Miami was a weak team, and the lion share of their success came on defense in 2009. I would make the same point about a team like the 2011 Bulls.

And RAPM numbers don't sway me. Wade's utility on offense for Miami is fairly obvious looking at his backups. The major problem is that his offensive box score numbers didn't yield a good offense. Dwight's defense however, DID carry the Magic to an elite record, and the Finals.

I'm just going by the standard set throughout this project. We have one guy playing DPOY level defense AND rebounding like no one else, while putting up 21 ppg on 60% TS. Wade was great in 2009, but his impact was 4th that year during the RS, and in the PS he came up short against a mediocre Hawks team.

Was Wade's offense in 2009, greater than Dwight's defense & rebounding? Who was more impactful in the 2009 PS?

[thizznation]

Was Wade's offense in 2009, greater than Dwight's defense & rebounding? Who was more impactful in the 2009 PS?

Yes. Wade.

Dwight had the better circumstances that year.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Not yet for Dwight Howard.

An Unbiased Fan,
I don't like the narrative that Dwight carried the team to exceed all expectations...

That 09' Magic team was a very solid team, the team was also well built around him. When you look back at the players now they don't seem that impressive but a lot of those guys had their last hurrah with increasing age (Rashard Lewish and Turkoglu) or just had career years like in the case for Jameer Nelson. Also Pietrus was hitting 3's, playing well and was a great perimeter defender.


Not to take away from Dwights amazing play or the heavy lifting he was doing with this team(no pun intended)...It just doesn't compare to the impact that Wade had in 09.

Well, I would agree that the Magic had the proper offensive talent around Dwight to be dangerous. I also want to make clear that Dwight clearly had better players around him than Wade.

However, the talent around Dwight was almost all offensive. Dwight was clearly the sole reason for that #1 defense. He did carry that defense on his back. Also, he had to control the boards like a madman, and put up 21 ppg on 60% TS.

And when the playoffs came around, Dwight was the better player. He came up short in the FInals, but his eastern conference performance was far ahead Wade's in 2009. Let's not forget about guys like Dirk & Barkley too.

[MisterWestside]

Huh?

Yeah. This is what I said:

As usual, you base individual performance on what the team does as a whole (here, it's team ortg).

and this is what you said in your reply:

The major problem is that his offensive box score numbers didn't yield a good offense. Dwight's defense however, DID carry the Magic to an elite record, and the Finals.

Your lines of logic? "The Heat didn't rank high offensively; therefore Wade didn't help his team alot of that end." Which is wrong. Refer to my posts and DocMJ's posts.

Also, Dwight was a force defensively. But you once again give him the entire credit for the team's performance:

Dwight was clearly the sole reason for that #1 defense.

The team featured capable defenders at several positions, but instead of focusing on what Dwight did, you commit the same fallacy you've been making since you entered this thread.

And RAPM numbers don't sway me. Wade's utility on offense for Miami is fairly obvious looking at his backups.

I know you don't like using on-off data, but even if you want to discount it, look at Wade's teammates box production in their respective roles (featuring more open looks) with Wade creating a lion's share of the team's offense at high efficiency. I posted this on the previous page. Does that suggest depth/talent to you?

Either you're being obtuse on purpose, or you fail to grasp the basic concept of team performance =/= player performance. Wisen up.

[C-izMe]

VOTE: 95 DRob

As much as I'd love to see Wade get voted in this soon, I gotta stick with my guns. The whole "DRob isn't a 1st option" is garbage to me. We had no problem voting in KG despite similar playoff shortcomings. And whether or not you think DRob was a good one, I don't know how you can say he wasn't a #1 option when he clearly was the best player and the go-to scorer for the Spurs (pre-Duncan era).

KG wasn't as bad in the PS as Robinson. At all. And at least in the year we picked KG dominated BOTH ENDS in the PS. DRob still put in a weak offensive PS.

[thizznation]

However, the talent around Dwight was almost all offensive. Dwight was clearly the sole reason for that #1 defense. He did carry that defense on his back. Also, he had to control the boards like a madman, and put up 21 ppg on 60% TS.

Rashard is small and soft at the 4 but after that...

Michael Peitrus, Courtney Lee are solid defenders who played lots of minutes on that team. Jameer and Rafer are average, but point guard D doesn't really matter much. Call me crazy but Turkoglu isn't useless at the 3 while playing zone...

I don't buy your narrative.

[Josephpaul]

who won?

[C-izMe]

who won?

I think DRob. How he placed over Dirk we'll never know...

[LikeABosh]

VOTE: 95 DRob

As much as I'd love to see Wade get voted in this soon, I gotta stick with my guns. The whole "DRob isn't a 1st option" is garbage to me. We had no problem voting in KG despite similar playoff shortcomings. And whether or not you think DRob was a good one, I don't know how you can say he wasn't a #1 option when he clearly was the best player and the go-to scorer for the Spurs (pre-Duncan era).

KG wasn't as bad in the PS as Robinson. At all. And at least in the year we picked KG dominated BOTH ENDS in the PS. DRob still put in a weak offensive PS.

How was DRob's offensive game any weaker than KG's when DRob got to the FT line more, scored more, had a better TS% and FG%, and attacked the offensive glass more? I'm not seeing it. help me out here

[MisterWestside]

VOTE: 95 DRob

As much as I'd love to see Wade get voted in this soon, I gotta stick with my guns. The whole "DRob isn't a 1st option" is garbage to me. We had no problem voting in KG despite similar playoff shortcomings. And whether or not you think DRob was a good one, I don't know how you can say he wasn't a #1 option when he clearly was the best player and the go-to scorer for the Spurs (pre-Duncan era).

KG wasn't as bad in the PS as Robinson. At all. And at least in the year we picked KG dominated BOTH ENDS in the PS. DRob still put in a weak offensive PS.

How was DRob's offensive game any weaker than KG's when DRob got to the FT line more, scored more, had a better TS% and FG%, and attacked the offensive glass more? I'm not seeing it. help me out here

If he means their games in the playoffs I actually agree with C-izMe http://bkref.com/tiny/2Eho6

[C-izMe]

VOTE: 95 DRob

As much as I'd love to see Wade get voted in this soon, I gotta stick with my guns. The whole "DRob isn't a 1st option" is garbage to me. We had no problem voting in KG despite similar playoff shortcomings. And whether or not you think DRob was a good one, I don't know how you can say he wasn't a #1 option when he clearly was the best player and the go-to scorer for the Spurs (pre-Duncan era).

KG wasn't as bad in the PS as Robinson. At all. And at least in the year we picked KG dominated BOTH ENDS in the PS. DRob still put in a weak offensive PS.

How was DRob's offensive game any weaker than KG's when DRob got to the FT line more, scored more, had a better TS% and FG%, and attacked the offensive glass more? I'm not seeing it. help me out here

Relative to league average they were about even efficency wise. I'll say they were about equal scorers, but KG was an amazing passer. Robinson wasn't close to that.

[Doctor MJ]

His single/single performance in that 2010 series was unimpressive box score wise, BUT he still has a massive impact on the defensive end. Dwight had 5 bpg in that series, and only played 26.5 mpg.

But were talking about 2009, where Dwight was fairly spectacular, including leading the Magic over the Cavs with no Jameer. I have to ask, what about Wade was more impactful than Dwight? How did Wade outperform Dwight in 2009? Especially in the PS.

-Howard still did stuff, but the offense torched a strong defense largely without him typical help. I understand that you can always say, "Howard's presence...", but NONE of that worked the next year.

-Re: "We're talking 2009". I think people are getting confused with this whole seasonal focus. It only makes sense to ignore other year performances if you're prepared to give a reason distinguishing the player in those two years. All you're doing is defending 2010 Howard, and then you come back with "but he wasn't the same guy anyway". Why wasn't he the same guy? Explain it.

-Re: "How did Wade outperform Dwight in the playoff?". Well dude, he barely got a chance. I mean if you want to take 1st round performance super-seriously, then join the Wade' 10 bandwagon. I'm on the '09 bandwagon because I don't overreact to situations like that (or I try not to at least).

I don't see how Dwight's defensive is overrated when it carried Orlando to the #1 ranking, a 6.49 SRS, and a NBA Finals appearance. And again, let's not forget that Dwight was also the Rebound champ and creating tons of possessions for Orlando by controlling those boards.

The regression data shows Howard to be a great players...who still gets overrated.

First and foremost it's not a box score stat vs a regression thing that much, because people DRASTICALLY overrate Howard's shotblocking impact for no good reason. He doesn't block that many shots, the one's he does block are disproportionately like to go right back to the opponent, all he's really got going for him are those great team numbers, but you just saw this year how they collapsed with Howard still pretty much doing his thing. No player makes a #1 defense by yourself, and until you realize that, you'll probably overrate Howard.

Also with rebounding, the regression data is telling us he's getting overrated there too specifically because are defensive rebounding stat is so misleading. You don't want your defensive rebounder to max out his individual numbers, you want him to block out.

Miami's strength was defense, not offense, and while Wade had a great year offensively, it only yielded a #20 Ortg. Other than RAPM, what case does Wade have over Dwight in 2009?

I'm not sure what you mean, other than team results what case does Dwight have over Wade? Wade's comparable or better by any general individual metric I look at.

[LikeABosh]

How was DRob's offensive game any weaker than KG's when DRob got to the FT line more, scored more, had a better TS% and FG%, and attacked the offensive glass more? I'm not seeing it. help me out here

If he means their games in the playoffs I actually agree with C-izMe.

Hey, I'm all for 04 KG. Of course I think that season was better than Rob's 95 season, but we can stop with this silly idea that Kg is a #1 option and Drob is not. It's ridiculous. When has DRob ever missed the playoffs as a #1 option? When he missed the last 14 games of the season? And how about KG?

Syaing 08 kg > 95 robinson is even more ridiculous. I would love to see what robinson could do with just ray allen

[Doctor MJ]

@Doctor MJ

Why are you so sold on 68 West over 09 Wade (or whatever year you think is peak Wade)? Not saying I think that's off-base, because West was a monster, but...so is Wade. Where do you see the separation?

Making teammates better, as cliched as it sounds. Until '68, West's basically a Wade type of guy who looks most impressive when everyone just gets out of his way. In '68, the team offense took the quantum leap forward that LeBron-Wade have never done, and the evidence says it really all depended on West. This is a big deal because I can't ignore the fact that as stupid as Baylor played, a better offensive player would have been able to make use of that talent. Well, in '68, the team moves to the Princeton, and all of a sudden performs like you'd expect an offense with 2 super-talented scorers to perform. So now you've got West, who's already a better scorer and defender than his rival Oscar Robertson beginning to act like a transformative distributor too. Yikes!

[Doctor MJ]

Looks to me that Robinson '95 has it. 'Grats to the Admiral.

[MisterWestside]

Hey, I'm all for 04 KG. Of course I think that season was better than Rob's 95 season, but we can stop with this silly idea that Kg is a #1 option and Drob is not. It's ridiculous. When has DRob ever missed the playoffs as a #1 option? When he missed the last 14 games of the season? And how about KG?

Syaing 08 kg > 95 robinson is even more ridiculous. I would love to see what robinson could do with just ray allen

You're right about the "top dog" nonsense I see around here.

And yes, if looking at the whole season, I'd go with '95 Robinson as well. He played over 300 minutes of basketball more than KG while maintaining his high level offense with more shot-creation.

[C-izMe]

KG was a first option in the 08 playoffs with Pierce and Ray on the team. He led them in usage % in the regular and post season (completely ignoring the fact that Pierce and Ray's went up in the games without him).

And I don't see how the 08 KG > 95 DRob thing is ridiculous. It's KG's third best year (to 03 and 04) and he definetly had a better PS. His regular season was amazing too.

[Doctor MJ]

I think DRob. How he placed over Dirk we'll never know...

Personally, I wouldn't have thought Dirk even had a prayer before Dallas won the title and people flipped their opinions on him. I can certainly see Dirk's case, but Robinson was one hell of a player on both ends of the floor.

[thizznation]

I like Drob at this spot honestly.