RealGM Top 100 List 2017: #11

[Jaivl]

If you want to talk about quitting, there are numerous examples of players in this forum's top 10 that have obvious examples that would fit much more than Kobe.

Kobe never quit on his team, because "quitting" is absurd. No player ever wants to lose. "Kobe played worse" is more accurate. And still, all players, ever, do that on occasions.

But if he's your go-to player (ala Curry and KD were for GSW this year) your team is in trouble. And the actual results support this.

How would you know? He never had a decent enough cast to contend for the title before 08. (in Boston KG was the clear best player, but not on offense)

Duncan won a ring as the offensive leader, and even if you think he's better on offense I don't think you could say he's "much" better. Same with Hakeem. I don't think Isiah Thomas was much better either. Don't even get me started on the 1970s. The difference? The context surrounding the star player.

[Jaivl]

Not an official voter, but this has to be Kobe at this point, who's resume stacks up?

What do you define as "resume"?

[Senior]

not really sure if I'm the only one who feels this way but when pages and pages are devoting to explaining how bad someone's teammates were it gets old fast. at some point there's only so bad a supporting cast can be and the constant arguing about who sucks more is just a waste of time.

as far as I'm concerned all the superstars that carried garbage casts all had casts around the same level of badness - your mid 00s Kobes, mid 00s KG, 02-04 Tmac, late 80s MJ, etc. with Kobe, you could point to LO as the difference but considering the superior RS the 06/07 Lakers had over the Wolves it kind of evens out to me, especially considering that the 07 Lakers got hit by injuries quite a bit and LO missed around 30 games iirc.

those Wolves and Lakers without KG and Kobe are winning like 15 games each. that's not significant separation at all.

also, regarding 06 Game 7...Kobe gets a bad rap for quitting that game but I don't think that's true at all. Suns were up 17 after 1 quarter with Kobe scoring 4. he was trying to get Walton/LO/Kwame going but they weren't converting. Suns were making everything. Kobe had 18 in the 2nd, Suns were up 15 anyway at the half.

2nd Half: Kobe again tries to get Kwame/LO going but they can't get anything at the rim...meanwhile Suns run away with the game. they were up 25 after 3. Kobe sat with 5 mins left down 28.

Where is the quitting? He was trying the strategy that LA used to go up 3-1 (slow the game down, use their size advantage) and the strategy they used to try for Game 6 (score at will because Phoenix's defense sucks), and none of it mattered because Phoenix tore them to shreds. isn't this the approach that everyone always wanted Kobe to take? furthermore, how can you not give Kobe credit for trying to change strategies? literally every quarter he was willing to try something new because he believed it would help him team win. didn't work of course, but is this not an example of that unselfishness people argue he should've had?

[therealbig3]

Kobe never quit on his team, because "quitting" is absurd. No player ever wants to lose. "Kobe played worse" is more accurate. And still, all players, ever, do that on occasions.

Meh, I don't think he wanted to lose, but I do think he said "**** this" and stopped trying, because he had given up at that point. It just seemed really obvious to me at the time, and still does. I thought his explanation to Chuck on TNT after the series ended was weak.

I find it funny that it's the dirty little secret that his supporters don't want to talk about, but they'll bring up the fact that he led his team to 3-1 in that series ad nauseum. It's also ironic given his reputation as a guy that is ultra-competitive and never quits and has the "Mamba" mentality.

I personally don't really hold it against him too much, it's the same as if he had just played bad, but it's interesting given his reputation and the overall praise he's now getting for that series.

[therealbig3]

not really sure if I'm the only one who feels this way but when pages and pages are devoting to explaining how bad someone's teammates were it gets old fast. at some point there's only so bad a supporting cast can be and the constant arguing about who sucks more is just a waste of time.

as far as I'm concerned all the superstars that carried garbage casts all had casts around the same level of badness - your mid 00s Kobes, mid 00s KG, 02-04 Tmac, late 80s MJ, etc. with Kobe, you could point to LO as the difference but considering the superior RS the 06/07 Lakers had over the Wolves it kind of evens out to me, especially considering that the 07 Lakers got hit by injuries quite a bit and LO missed around 30 games iirc.

those Wolves and Lakers without KG and Kobe are winning like 15 games each. that's not significant separation at all.

It gets old fast that people ignore evidence and keep generalizing. It's important to note that KG's team was worse, because the fact that Kobe's teams made the playoffs in 06 and 07 and KG's teams didn't is being used as an argument for Kobe. That's why the distinction in supporting casts is important to point out.

Nobody is really addressing the Phil Jackson vs Dwyane Casey aspect, because nobody really can. There's no way to pretend like that wasn't a significant difference that had nothing to do with either KG or Kobe. That explains the difference in wins way more than Kobe simply being a much better player than KG at the time.

[Doctor MJ]

Two totally different things here. The numbers clearly say KG was better, but the eye test favors Kobe by a landslide. Maybe not to you or I, but we're weirdos who look for different things than the average fan, to the vast majority of fans and former players Kobe is among the greatest ever, Garnett is not.

The eye test isn't a statement of what casual fans see. It's a personal thing.

Casual fans don't actually see anything other than the ball.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Sure, but the ball is the most important thing to see. That's one of the first things they teach you when you learne defensive fundamentals.

And if we're going to put stock in what you admit is a personally subjective matter, perhaps it's best to differ to the democratic process over the emminintley flawed single opinion. (Too small a sample size)

That was my point.

I put absolutely zero stack in the "eye test" of the vast majority of people, and would suggest that all others use the same skepticism.

I also think that people who have never seriously evaluated methods for improving their ability to watch the game should basically refrain from relying on their eye test as something meaningful in and of itself.

Basketball is a very, very hard game to watch and understand in real time.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't be watching and making observations. That's how you learn. But jumping to conclusions about overall player value from eye test is something humans basically just don't do well. Much more effective is to use observation to scout specific abilities and tendencies, and in a particular context can be used to infer vectors of actual team impact. Identifying casual sources and attaching a numerical value to those things are two very different things. The former is what you need to be doing if you're remotely serious in your endeavor, the latter is something you will never, ever be able to do with precision.

[JoeMalburg]

The eye test isn't a statement of what casual fans see. It's a personal thing.

Casual fans don't actually see anything other than the ball.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Sure, but the ball is the most important thing to see. That's one of the first things they teach you when you learne defensive fundamentals.

And if we're going to put stock in what you admit is a personally subjective matter, perhaps it's best to differ to the democratic process over the emminintley flawed single opinion. (Too small a sample size)

That was my point.

I put absolutely zero stack in the "eye test" of the vast majority of people, and would suggest that all others use the same skepticism.

I also think that people who have never seriously evaluated methods for improving their ability to watch the game should basically refrain from relying on their eye test as something meaningful in and of itself.

Basketball is a very, very hard game to watch and understand in real time.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't be watching and making observations. That's how you learn. But jumping to conclusions about overall player value from eye test is something humans basically just don't do well. Much more effective is to use observation to scout specific abilities and tendencies, and in a particular context can be used to infer vectors of actual team impact. Identifying casual sources and attaching a numerical value to those things are two very different things. The former is what you need to be doing if you're remotely serious in your endeavor, the latter is something you will never, ever be able to do with precision.

Can't say I disagree much. I'm not arguing for the superiority of the eye test, in fact the opposite. I'm just suggesting that if someone wants to use that as a criteria, they should defer to the popular opinion, rather than their own.

Obviously if one is making the case for one player over another, they prefer that player. Saying ones personal eye test favors a player is essentially just saying "I think player A is better than player B because I think that player A is better than player B."

I'll always take the more informed, more well researched and supported opinion, but if a thousand sets of novice eyes see something a few sets of experts disagree with, I'm more inclined to look deeper than accept either at face value.

[Doctor MJ]

To make it clear, my issue here is not KG's teams spiralling downwards during those years in terms of wins/losses. It was a specific inquiry on his defensive stuff during that 3 year stretch. Whole lot of fluctuations that don't really make sense to me. 07's Wolves sucked also, yet KG's defensive stuff spikes. Again, I did not watch much of KG during those days and I was seeking clarification on it. The answer: his team sucked. Which to me doesn't hold up for our purposes here.

And re peak... was using your ORAPM scaled stuff that DRZA put me on. From what I remember, Kobe's 06-09 all rank higher than 04 KG as does Dirk in 07 & 11. And then there is Wade in 07 (injured though), 09 & 10 etc who also finished higher than peak KG. Unless I'm misreading stuff.

From what I gather, things like RAPM only tell you that shifts are ongoing with a player on/off the court, adjusting for teammates, opponent strength etc. It says nothing about what is actually happening on the court. On offense, I find this to be not too troublesome, as an elite offensive player tends to exhibit either direct or indirect control on their entire teams offense when they are on the court. But defense to me is qualitatively different. Even for anchoring bigs. There's only so much control they can have. And KG 05-07 to me illustrates this point. That despite the near consensus here that he actually was still playing very good D, he was not able to mitigate his teams defensive woes like he was in his previous years. His team was barely shifting on D with him on and off during these years. Which is why in this case, I am troubled with attributing defensive shifts to KG's actual defensive footprint like I would attribute offensive shifts to a Dirk Nowitzki.

Ah, okay.

Re: Using my stuff. Cool. It's funny how I don't expect people to be using my stuff and still talk the way I did in discussions before the spreadsheet caught. Do keep in mind though that my fix is a hack. I'm adjusting for X by doing Y, but Y isn't literally undoing X. What I did makes the assumption that variance of player impact is constant from one year to the next, which I did because the RAPM data we were getting had some major variance inconsistencies that were totally reasonable given the techniques used, but I felt made it harder to analyze across seasons. It's not reasonable to simply assert though that such varying variance never exists.

If a player has the top ORAPM in a given year, that's not something I brush aside lightly.

Re: defense & control. Well you do have less control as a defender. As ElGee has pointed out in the past, offense dictates action, which means the defensive weakest link can be targeted in a way that the offensive weakest link can't be.

Does that means a DRAPM of X could be seen as considerably less valuable than a ORAPM of X? I would say no for a specific reason.

All APM analysis makes an assumption known to be false: That you can separate each player on the court as having independent impact that can be summed with other players' impact to figure out what happened. This isn't an individual sports, and it's not baseball. The efficacy of two players together is more about how they play together than what they can apart.

The whole is not more or less than the sum of its parts, it is a different animal altogether.

Now, as you know, I'm not against using APM. I've championed it from the start. I've also though been outspoken about the weaknesses of RAPM, and I might be the loudest critic on RealGM of Englemann, the guy who came up with XRAPM which then in the shadows got turned into ESPN's RPM. There's a lot to this stuff, and it's important to see the strengths and weaknesses. +/- data gave us an orthogonal statistical window into player impact analysis, and APM gave us a metric that had a legit claim be theoretically valid. But the game is more than these stats could every capture.

Anyway, we get into to trouble when try to make tiebreakers where we reward players for the skills that work without team cooperation in a team game. Many people fundamentally judge superstars in the end by how good of an iso player they are, and that's just not a reasonable way to judge team athletes.

But let me get you something more concrete to ponder:

If X & Y have the same average magnitude, but X is X no matter what, and Y degrades in ultra unhealthy situations doomed to failure, then how is it that Y manages match the average of X? By having a superlinear effect in healthy situations, such as those that win titles.

So no, the dependence of defensive impact on teammates doesn't make me think less of it. If anything, it makes me think more of it.

[RCM88x]

Vote: Jerry West

Don't have time to provide much of an explanation here but:

Jerry is most certainly the unluckiest star in NBA history, always going up against the Celtics or dealing with injuries and poor performances by his teammates despite often heroic performances by himself. To me, I think a lot of the argument against West and for Russell over the years has simply been titles... which by and large are often more a function of supporting cast than actual performance by the star player, especially when West usually played at an elite level and far exceeded what should have been asked of him to win.

He ranks 11th in RS WS/48 and a very impressive 7th in PS WS/48. He was also extremely efficient for his time and position, posting a career TS% of .55 in the RS and .541 in the PS, and also ranks in the top 25 all time for both RS and Playoff PER, a feat rare among perimeter players of his era.

To me, Jerry was the guy that made LA the great team they were in the late 60s and early 70s, Wilt was great still, but often times was not as productive as his younger self and at times was not able to lead teams like he once did. Jerry was the constant, reliable performer for that team and despite his efforts more often than not came up short due to simply playing against better team to little fault of his own.

2nd Vote: Kobe Bryant

[Doctor MJ]

Sure, but the ball is the most important thing to see. That's one of the first things they teach you when you learne defensive fundamentals.

And if we're going to put stock in what you admit is a personally subjective matter, perhaps it's best to differ to the democratic process over the emminintley flawed single opinion. (Too small a sample size)

That was my point.

I put absolutely zero stack in the "eye test" of the vast majority of people, and would suggest that all others use the same skepticism.

I also think that people who have never seriously evaluated methods for improving their ability to watch the game should basically refrain from relying on their eye test as something meaningful in and of itself.

Basketball is a very, very hard game to watch and understand in real time.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't be watching and making observations. That's how you learn. But jumping to conclusions about overall player value from eye test is something humans basically just don't do well. Much more effective is to use observation to scout specific abilities and tendencies, and in a particular context can be used to infer vectors of actual team impact. Identifying casual sources and attaching a numerical value to those things are two very different things. The former is what you need to be doing if you're remotely serious in your endeavor, the latter is something you will never, ever be able to do with precision.

Can't say I disagree much. I'm not arguing for the superiority of the eye test, in fact the opposite. I'm just suggesting that if someone wants to use that as a criteria, they should defer to the popular opinion, rather than their own.

Obviously if one is making the case for one player over another, they prefer that player. Saying ones personal eye test favors a player is essentially just saying "I think player A is better than player B because I think that player A is better than player B."

I'll always take the more informed, more well researched and supported opinion, but if a thousand sets of novice eyes see something a few sets of experts disagree with, I'm more inclined to look deeper than accept either at face value.

Sounds like we can come together on some stuff, and your post is reasonable in general, but I gotta say to me "eye test" has always been an individual's argument. The guy I associate with it is Colin Cowherd who basically likes to think he can just see things better than most people, and likes to use that argument specifically when he's out of his depth to justify his hot take.

It's caught on because everyone uses their eyes and so they each have their eye test, but historically using your eyes to do serious analysis is called scouting, and it's used to evaluate granular details rather than holistic assessment.

So yeah, to me there is no consensus eye test about anything, and if someone uses "eye test" as an explanation of their opinion without really, really impressing me with the richness of what they see, I basically stop taking them seriously about more than just the game of basketball.

[JoeMalburg]

Sounds like we can come together on some stuff, and your post is reasonable in general, but I gotta say to me "eye test" has always been an individual's argument. The guy I associate with it is Colin Cowherd who basically likes to think he can just see things better than most people, and likes to use that argument specifically when he's out of his depth to justify his hot take.

It's caught on because everyone uses their eyes and so they each have their eye test, but historically using your eyes to do serious analysis is called scouting, and it's used to evaluate granular details rather than holistic assessment.

So yeah, to me there is no consensus eye test about anything, and if someone uses "eye test" as an explanation of their opinion without really, really impressing me with the richness of what they see, I basically stop taking them seriously about more than just the game of basketball.

Again, we agree. It's largely a cop out when used as an individual argument. Akin, as I see it, to the logical fallacy, argument from personal experience. Which is why I insist on popular opinion.

I used the term consensus, you're right to be skeptical such a thing exists. A better word would be majority or pluarality opinion. To bring things full circle, I'd say more fans, addicts, pundits and former players would tell you that Kobe is a superior to KG than vice versa. That was my initial point.

Doesn't mean I think the argument ends there, just that it's the fairest way to use an inherently unfair criteria.

PS: Ditch the Herd. There is better anaylsis out there as you obviously well know.

[RoyceDa59]

Not an official voter, but this has to be Kobe at this point, who's resume stacks up?

What do you define as "resume"?

Career accolades, accomplishments, stats, records and achievements.

[Arman_tanzarian]

Thru post #116:

Kobe - 10
Garnett - 7
Mikan - 2
Erving - 2
Karl - 1


Thread will be open until this afternoon sometime. Get your contributions in before then....

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I thought I alrrady did but I have

Option 1: Kobe
Option 2: KG

[ardee]

Thru post #116:

Kobe - 10
Garnett - 7
Mikan - 2
Erving - 2
Karl - 1


Thread will be open until this afternoon sometime. Get your contributions in before then....

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I thought I alrrady did but I have

Option 1: Kobe
Option 2: KG

I think you nees to explain the votes.

Sent from my SM-J700F using RealGM mobile app

[Doctor MJ]

Sounds like we can come together on some stuff, and your post is reasonable in general, but I gotta say to me "eye test" has always been an individual's argument. The guy I associate with it is Colin Cowherd who basically likes to think he can just see things better than most people, and likes to use that argument specifically when he's out of his depth to justify his hot take.

It's caught on because everyone uses their eyes and so they each have their eye test, but historically using your eyes to do serious analysis is called scouting, and it's used to evaluate granular details rather than holistic assessment.

So yeah, to me there is no consensus eye test about anything, and if someone uses "eye test" as an explanation of their opinion without really, really impressing me with the richness of what they see, I basically stop taking them seriously about more than just the game of basketball.

Again, we agree. It's largely a cop out when used as an individual argument. Akin, as I see it, to the logical fallacy, argument from personal experience. Which is why I insist on popular opinion.

I used the term consensus, you're right to be skeptical such a thing exists. A better word would be majority or pluarality opinion. To bring things full circle, I'd say more fans, addicts, pundits and former players would tell you that Kobe is a superior to KG than vice versa. That was my initial point.

Doesn't mean I think the argument ends there, just that it's the fairest way to use an inherently unfair criteria.

PS: Ditch the Herd. There is better anaylsis out there as you obviously well know.

Heh, I know. The analysis in this thread is better than anything Cowherd could even say.

[THKNKG]

.

You have had problems with RAPM and KG for 05-07, but how do you've interpret the dramatic drop off for Kobe in 04-05?

[cpower]

Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson..these seem to be the next possible candidates (not by order). I think Jerry West might be the most underrated one from the group as he is the most portal combo guard from the squad. KG peaked in a weaker time between the end of previous GOAT and the rise of next GOAT, although he had the impact, it wasn't like shaq or TD so I wouldn't give full credit to that. I like Erving and West in these spots before KG and Kobe in general.

[andrewww]

Phil Jackson vs Dwyane Casey can be the difference between putting a mediocre talent in position to do well vs a mediocre talent being a complete non-factor. Popovich does this every year. And this isn't theoretical, this is actually what happened with the Lakers vs the Timberwolves at the time.

You're just going to dismiss all the objective evidence because they all have flaws, so that you can continue your narrative that the Lakers supporting cast (including the coaching) was just as bad as the Wolves, when it's just not true. Kobe was in a much better situation based on coaching alone.

You're also basing my supposed criticism if he came out guns blazing on absolutely nothing, because I thought he was absolutely brilliant in game 6 when he dropped 50 points, and that the criticisms of him that game were baseless. I'm saying he quit in game 7, because he was noticeably more passive and seemed to have checked out (he took like 3 shots and scored 1 point in that second half, lol come on), as the game got way out of hand and they got blown off the court. It was a 15 point deficit at half time...that is NOT an insurmountable deficit whatsoever, and I've always heard how Kobe never quits, has a killer mentality, is an assassin, and he can singlehandedly will teams back into it by going on insane scoring runs...and then he scores 1 point with 3 shot attempts, is noticeably not looking to attack at all, and the Lakers end up losing by like 30.

That's quitting if I've ever seen it. KG never did that.

I'd say you would notice a bigger difference between Phil and Casey if its a team with top end talent.

Regarding game 7, if thats how you feel there's really nothing I can do to change your mind either way since its not opinion based nothing to prove for or against that narrative you feel.

And no I strongly disagree with the notion that the Wolves cast was much worse. Most people agree other than the pro-KG crowd.

[Xherdan 23]

Vote: Jerry West

Don't have time to provide much of an explanation here but:

Jerry is most certainly the unluckiest star in NBA history, always going up against the Celtics or dealing with injuries and poor performances by his teammates despite often heroic performances by himself. To me, I think a lot of the argument against West and for Russell over the years has simply been titles... which by and large are often more a function of supporting cast than actual performance by the star player, especially when West usually played at an elite level and far exceeded what should have been asked of him to win.

He ranks 11th in RS WS/48 and a very impressive 7th in PS WS/48. He was also extremely efficient for his time and position, posting a career TS% of .55 in the RS and .541 in the PS, and also ranks in the top 25 all time for both RS and Playoff PER, a feat rare among perimeter players of his era.

To me, Jerry was the guy that made LA the great team they were in the late 60s and early 70s, Wilt was great still, but often times was not as productive as his younger self and at times was not able to lead teams like he once did. Jerry was the constant, reliable performer for that team and despite his efforts more often than not came up short due to simply playing against better team to little fault of his own.

2nd Vote: Kobe Bryant

I'd like to say that watching early '60s gameplay shows West was ahead of his time.
He was the only guy on the court to dribble with his left and shows great handles for that era and his jumper is so clean and modern.
He looks like a very capable athlete and defender too and I have no doubt he would be great in any era.

Watch on YouTube

[andrewww]

If you want to talk about quitting, there are numerous examples of players in this forum's top 10 that have obvious examples that would fit much more than Kobe.

Kobe never quit on his team, because "quitting" is absurd. No player ever wants to lose. "Kobe played worse" is more accurate. And still, all players, ever, do that on occasions.

But if he's your go-to player (ala Curry and KD were for GSW this year) your team is in trouble. And the actual results support this.

How would you know? He never had a decent enough cast to contend for the title before 08. (in Boston KG was the clear best player, but not on offense)

Duncan won a ring as the offensive leader, and even if you think he's better on offense I don't think you could say he's "much" better. Same with Hakeem. I don't think Isiah Thomas was much better either. Don't even get me started on the 1970s. The difference? The context surrounding the star player.

Duncan wasnt much better, yes.

Hakeem however WAS much better. His production increased against tougher competition in the playoffs, and he combined that with a near simultaneous offensive and defensive peak that resulted in rings against elite competition at his position, perhaps the strongest era of centers ever.

How would I know KG wasnt capable of being the lead dog offensively? None of his Boston teams had him as the go-to scorer. Nothing wrong with that as he instilled a defensive culture along with Thibodeau, but all signs point towards him being best suited as a 2nd or 3rd scorer.