Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #1-#2 Spots

[One_and_Done]

I think Lebron and Duncan's lack of weaknesses elevate them over some of the other candidates like Shaq and Jokic.

Jokic's God tier advanced and counting stats have not translated to on-court impact in the way Duncan or Lebron's numbers and skillset have. The Nuggets in the last 3 years have won 53, 57, and 50 games, with an SRS of 3, 5, and 4. They have one title in a year where the slate was extremely favourable, and were otherwise eliminated in the 2nd round twice. Once by a Wolves team that is nothing special. The results are notably worse than what Duncan did with weak support casts in 01, 02, and 03, yet Jokic's support cast has been far better.

[iggymcfrack]

Edit: Deleted mistaken post to avoid confusion

[One_and_Done]

Somehow missed that this was up. I think I saw the notification and then accidentally clicked on something else and didn't realize it was here ready to go. Anyway here are my top peaks:

1. 2009 LeBron James
This is easily the best season of all-time for me. LeBron led a team of scrubs that had a point differential of -6.2 with him on the bench to 66 wins with some of the best box score stats of all-time and then really ramped it up in the playoffs. Here are the top postseasons by BPM:

1. 2009 LeBron 17.5
2. 1991 Jordan 14.6
3. 1988 Hakeem 14.5 (4 games)
4. 2017 Kawhi 14.3
5. 1990 Jordan 13.7
6. 1976 Dr. J 13.6
7. 2010 Wade 13.5 (5 games)
8. 2023 Jokic 12.8
9. 2024 Jokic 12.8
10. 2018 LeBron 12.7

See how bunched it gets after Bron's 2009 season? It turns out that the difference between the #1 postseason and the #2 postseason is larger than the difference between #2 and #18. In addition to blowing away every statistical record, Bron finished 2nd in DPOY voting with insane defensive analytics that were way better than DPOY Dwight Howard's and also hit one of the most clutch buzzer beaters of all-time in Game 2 of his most crucial series. This as close as you can get to perfect in the game of basketball.

2. 1991 Michael Jordan
I know it's become fashionable to try to bring Jordan down, but this is him at the peak of his powers. Regular season numbers arguable with anyone ever. Playoff numbers that match anyone but LeBron. Elite defense with his effort still at 100%, and ultimately an easy cruise to a championship only losing 2 games the whole way.


3. 2023 Nikola Jokic
All-time box stats in both the regular season and postseason, the combo of which beat anyone but Bron or Jordan AND the modern advanced impact style stats are even better. The team was -8.9 with him on the bench during the regular season which is worse than even the worst LeBron Cavs team and he still led them to a relatively easy title by just going nuclear. The one series they got challenged against Phoenix, he averaged 35/13/10 on .663 TS%.

4. 1994 Hakeem Olajuwon
In what I would consider the 2nd greatest carry job of all-time, Hakeem took a team who went 7-27 without him from 1992-1996, strapped them on his back and carried them kicking and screaming to a title. A second year Robert Horry who couldn't even average 10 PPG was his second best player. In 7 games of the NBA Finals, the Knicks supporting cast outperformed the Rockets supporting cast all 7 games, but Hakeem dominated Ewing enough to narrowly steal a victory. One of the best defensive seasons in the history of the NBA combined with elite scoring where Hakeem averaged over 15 PPG more than his second leading scorer allowed the Dream to carry the Rockets to an improbable victory.

2 of the guys you picked are out of scope of the 01 to 25 period.

[TheGOATRises007]

Somehow missed that this was up. I think I saw the notification and then accidentally clicked on something else and didn't realize it was here ready to go. Anyway here are my top peaks:

1. 2009 LeBron James
This is easily the best season of all-time for me. LeBron led a team of scrubs that had a point differential of -6.2 with him on the bench to 66 wins with some of the best box score stats of all-time and then really ramped it up in the playoffs. Here are the top postseasons by BPM:

1. 2009 LeBron 17.5
2. 1991 Jordan 14.6
3. 1988 Hakeem 14.5 (4 games)
4. 2017 Kawhi 14.3
5. 1990 Jordan 13.7
6. 1976 Dr. J 13.6
7. 2010 Wade 13.5 (5 games)
8. 2023 Jokic 12.8
9. 2024 Jokic 12.8
10. 2018 LeBron 12.7

See how bunched it gets after Bron's 2009 season? It turns out that the difference between the #1 postseason and the #2 postseason is larger than the difference between #2 and #18. In addition to blowing away every statistical record, Bron finished 2nd in DPOY voting with insane defensive analytics that were way better than DPOY Dwight Howard's and also hit one of the most clutch buzzer beaters of all-time in Game 2 of his most crucial series. This as close as you can get to perfect in the game of basketball.

2. 1991 Michael Jordan
I know it's become fashionable to try to bring Jordan down, but this is him at the peak of his powers. Regular season numbers arguable with anyone ever. Playoff numbers that match anyone but LeBron. Elite defense with his effort still at 100%, and ultimately an easy cruise to a championship only losing 2 games the whole way.


3. 2023 Nikola Jokic
All-time box stats in both the regular season and postseason, the combo of which beat anyone but Bron or Jordan AND the modern advanced impact style stats are even better. The team was -8.9 with him on the bench during the regular season which is worse than even the worst LeBron Cavs team and he still led them to a relatively easy title by just going nuclear. The one series they got challenged against Phoenix, he averaged 35/13/10 on .663 TS%.

4. 1994 Hakeem Olajuwon
In what I would consider the 2nd greatest carry job of all-time, Hakeem took a team who went 7-27 without him from 1992-1996, strapped them on his back and carried them kicking and screaming to a title. A second year Robert Horry who couldn't even average 10 PPG was his second best player. In 7 games of the NBA Finals, the Knicks supporting cast outperformed the Rockets supporting cast all 7 games, but Hakeem dominated Ewing enough to narrowly steal a victory. One of the best defensive seasons in the history of the NBA combined with elite scoring where Hakeem averaged over 15 PPG more than his second leading scorer allowed the Dream to carry the Rockets to an improbable victory.

The current voting is for players from 2001 to 2025

[iggymcfrack]

I think Lebron and Duncan's lack of weaknesses elevate them over some of the other candidates like Shaq and Jokic.

Jokic's God tier advanced and counting stats have not translated to on-court impact in the way Duncan or Lebron's numbers and skillset have. The Nuggets in the last 3 years have won 53, 57, and 50 games, with an SRS of 3, 5, and 4. They have one title in a year where the slate was extremely favourable, and were otherwise eliminated in the 2nd round twice. Once by a Wolves team that is nothing special. The results are notably worse than what Duncan did with weak support casts in 01, 02, and 03, yet Jokic's support cast has been far better.

The 2023 Nuggets had a net rating of +12.0 in the regular season and +9.0 in the playoffs with Joker on the floor.

The 2003 Spurs had a net rating of +9.1 in the regular season and +9.1 in the playoffs with Duncan on the floor.

Are you really going to say Joker can't be in the top tier because the bench units don't perform well enough in the regular season? In what world is that Joker's fault? If the Nuggets' **** bench is costing them 7 wins, whose fault is that? Is it more reflective of them having a childish coach and GM and San Antonio having Pop, or Joker failing to teach his backups how to play better?

[iggymcfrack]

Somehow missed that this was up. I think I saw the notification and then accidentally clicked on something else and didn't realize it was here ready to go. Anyway here are my top peaks:

1. 2009 LeBron James
This is easily the best season of all-time for me. LeBron led a team of scrubs that had a point differential of -6.2 with him on the bench to 66 wins with some of the best box score stats of all-time and then really ramped it up in the playoffs. Here are the top postseasons by BPM:

1. 2009 LeBron 17.5
2. 1991 Jordan 14.6
3. 1988 Hakeem 14.5 (4 games)
4. 2017 Kawhi 14.3
5. 1990 Jordan 13.7
6. 1976 Dr. J 13.6
7. 2010 Wade 13.5 (5 games)
8. 2023 Jokic 12.8
9. 2024 Jokic 12.8
10. 2018 LeBron 12.7

See how bunched it gets after Bron's 2009 season? It turns out that the difference between the #1 postseason and the #2 postseason is larger than the difference between #2 and #18. In addition to blowing away every statistical record, Bron finished 2nd in DPOY voting with insane defensive analytics that were way better than DPOY Dwight Howard's and also hit one of the most clutch buzzer beaters of all-time in Game 2 of his most crucial series. This as close as you can get to perfect in the game of basketball.

2. 1991 Michael Jordan
I know it's become fashionable to try to bring Jordan down, but this is him at the peak of his powers. Regular season numbers arguable with anyone ever. Playoff numbers that match anyone but LeBron. Elite defense with his effort still at 100%, and ultimately an easy cruise to a championship only losing 2 games the whole way.


3. 2023 Nikola Jokic
All-time box stats in both the regular season and postseason, the combo of which beat anyone but Bron or Jordan AND the modern advanced impact style stats are even better. The team was -8.9 with him on the bench during the regular season which is worse than even the worst LeBron Cavs team and he still led them to a relatively easy title by just going nuclear. The one series they got challenged against Phoenix, he averaged 35/13/10 on .663 TS%.

4. 1994 Hakeem Olajuwon
In what I would consider the 2nd greatest carry job of all-time, Hakeem took a team who went 7-27 without him from 1992-1996, strapped them on his back and carried them kicking and screaming to a title. A second year Robert Horry who couldn't even average 10 PPG was his second best player. In 7 games of the NBA Finals, the Knicks supporting cast outperformed the Rockets supporting cast all 7 games, but Hakeem dominated Ewing enough to narrowly steal a victory. One of the best defensive seasons in the history of the NBA combined with elite scoring where Hakeem averaged over 15 PPG more than his second leading scorer allowed the Dream to carry the Rockets to an improbable victory.

2 of the guys you picked are out of scope of the 01 to 25 period.

Oops, LOL. I knew KG was supposed to be in there somewhere. Will fix it now.

[iggymcfrack]

Official list:

1. 2009 LeBron James
This is easily the best season of all-time for me. LeBron led a team of scrubs that had a point differential of -6.2 with him on the bench to 66 wins with some of the best box score stats of all-time and then really ramped it up in the playoffs. Here are the top postseasons by BPM:

1. 2009 LeBron 17.5
2. 1991 Jordan 14.6
3. 1988 Hakeem 14.5 (4 games)
4. 2017 Kawhi 14.3
5. 1990 Jordan 13.7
6. 1976 Dr. J 13.6
7. 2010 Wade 13.5 (5 games)
8. 2023 Jokic 12.8
9. 2024 Jokic 12.8
10. 2018 LeBron 12.7

See how bunched it gets after Bron's 2009 season? It turns out that the difference between the #1 postseason and the #2 postseason is larger than the difference between #2 and #18. In addition to blowing away every statistical record, Bron finished 2nd in DPOY voting with insane defensive analytics that were way better than DPOY Dwight Howard's and also hit one of the most clutch buzzer beaters of all-time in Game 2 of his most crucial series. This as close as you can get to perfect in the game of basketball.

2. 2023 Nikola Jokic
All-time box stats in both the regular season and postseason, the combo of which beat anyone but Bron or Jordan AND the modern advanced impact style stats are even better. The team was -8.9 with him on the bench during the regular season which is worse than even the worst LeBron Cavs team and he still led them to a relatively easy title by just going nuclear. The one series they got challenged against Phoenix, he averaged 35/13/10 on .663 TS%.

3. 2004 Kevin Garnett
Best season by Englemann's RAPM, best season by Haralabob's database, and just generally an eye-popping season any way you look at it. The Wolves were a ridiculous -10.9 with KG on the bench in the regular season and yet he still carried them to the 1 seed. Even with a coaching staff that very poorly utilized his defensive skills, he still managed an all-time defensive impact season while also leading the league in points scored, and averaging 5 assists per game. In the playoffs, the team dropped off to -24.2 when he was on the bench, and he still looked like he might be on track to beat prime Shaq and Kobe and go to the Finals until his only good teammate (a 34 year old Sam Cassell) was injured as well.

4. 2003 Tim Duncan
This was the 4th most difficult carry job ever and the 2nd most over the time we're looking at. Duncan took an almost retired Robinson, some very young players who didn't know what they were doing yet, some journeymen, and put them on his back. In the playoffs, over 24 games he put up a 10.2 BPM and a .279 WS/48 while making as many smart defensive plays that don't show up in the box score as any big men ever. He beat his nearest competition for this spot plus near peak Kobe with a weak supporting cast by putting up an insane +/- of +50 in a series where the Spurs got outscored by 25 in the 47 mintues he was on the bench. Despite being thought of as a defense-first player, he scored 10 PPG more than San Antonio's second leading scorer in the playoffs. Incredible individual season.

[One_and_Done]

I think Lebron and Duncan's lack of weaknesses elevate them over some of the other candidates like Shaq and Jokic.

Jokic's God tier advanced and counting stats have not translated to on-court impact in the way Duncan or Lebron's numbers and skillset have. The Nuggets in the last 3 years have won 53, 57, and 50 games, with an SRS of 3, 5, and 4. They have one title in a year where the slate was extremely favourable, and were otherwise eliminated in the 2nd round twice. Once by a Wolves team that is nothing special. The results are notably worse than what Duncan did with weak support casts in 01, 02, and 03, yet Jokic's support cast has been far better.

The 2023 Nuggets had a net rating of +12.0 in the regular season and +9.0 in the playoffs with Joker on the floor.

The 2003 Spurs had a net rating of +9.1 in the regular season and +9.1 in the playoffs with Duncan on the floor.

Are you really going to say Joker can't be in the top tier because the bench units don't perform well enough in the regular season? In what world is that Joker's fault? If the Nuggets' **** bench is costing them 7 wins, whose fault is that? Is it more reflective of them having a childish coach and GM and San Antonio having Pop, or Joker failing to teach his backups how to play better?

Some of us aren't basing 100% of our evaluation on advanced stats, whereas you've been very clear that you are, to the point you've admitted it wouldn't even be necessary for you to watch the games.

[iggymcfrack]

I feel like the discussion on here must be tough for outsiders sometimes. There are these long posts replying to each other with 10 formulas, and replies with another 8 formulas and discussion of variance or standard deviations or whatever. I’m not saying stats don’t have their uses, and aren’t of interest, but I don’t think various advanced stats (or plus minus ones) should be a meaningful argument for why one player is better than another (and I say this as someone whose top 2 guys are god tier by most advanced stats).

There are so many reasons advanced stats can be wrong, and even the most ardent stats zealot would tell you as much. It can be due to superior/inferior back-ups, or match-ups, or the style/game-plan of teams, or it could just be random variance that happens in basketball games. It’s an interesting data point, but to my mind that’s all it should be; a data point, where we say “hmm, that’s interesting, it might hint at these broad conclusions”, but not “it means X”. too often advanced stats ARE the argument.

I’m more interested in a nuanced analysis of the context, and whether what happened really bears out the numbers. In the case of KG, the best example is the comparison between 2002 KG and Tim Duncan. KG and Duncan were both basically at their peak in 02. Most will say it was 03 for Duncan, and 04 for KG, because of team success, but really they weren’t meaningfully different in 02.

If you look at the Wolves, they had a clearly superior support cast that year. KG’s robin was Brandon at first, who was an all-star calibre point guard in the vein of Mike Conley. He didn’t put up big numbers, but he was a big-time player. Then when he went down with injury, Billups took over and proceeded to play like an all-star. Most didn’t realise how good Billups was yet, and obviously he got a little better in future years, but I feel comfortable to say he was playing at an all-star calibre level this year. Then KG had Wally, who actually made the all-star team. In addition, the Wolves had Joe Smith who was a fantastic starter, and rounded out the starting 5 with Rasho. Rasho was a decent 5 man. His help D was good, his man D wasn’t so good, and he had a decent midrange shot most times. Then off the bench KG had other decent role players like Peeler, Gary Trent, etc. It was a solid support cast, especially for that period.

If we look at Duncan, his support cast was nothing like that strong in 2002. He didn’t have anyone even remotely resembling an all-star calibre player. D.Rob was a shell of himself. Parker was an inconsistent rookie who a year later would lose his minutes in the finals to a journeyman point guard named Speedy Claxton. Steve Smith was washed. All he could do was hit open 3s and nothing else. Bruce Bowen was an elite perimeter defender (in the 59 games he played), but he could do nothing but shoot open corner 3s on offense. Given the era, he would have been unplayable if Duncan wasn’t opening up space for him with double teams. The bench has trash players like Malik Rose, Charles Smith, and Antonio Daniels.

Yet despite that clear difference in team quality, Duncan’s Spurs won 58 and had an SRS of 6.28, compared to the Wolves who won only 50 and had an SRS of 3.58. The Wolves were swept in the 1st round by the Mavs by a large margin, while the Spurs had a much closer than it looks 4-1 loss to the champs in round 2 despite D.Rob basically missing the series with injuries (and being almost useless when he did play). The Spurs lose game 1 by 6 points (led going into the 4th), game 3 by 10 points (down 3 going into the 4th), game 4 by 2 points (up 8 heading into the 4th), and game 5 by 6 points (down 1 heading into the 4th). Duncan did all he could that series, but in crunch time his complete lack of support was too much. Stat lines can be misleading, but I think the closing game one speaks loudly as to what I was seeing. Duncan has 34-25 in 45 minutes, as the Spurs ran almost every play through him while he spent much of the game (and series) matching up with Shaq. Meanwhile D.Rob had 0 points and 3 rebounds in 18 minutes, and was worse than even those numbers suggest.

KG could never carry a team in the way peak Duncan showed he could. He certainly wouldn’t be limiting Shaq the way Duncan did in the 02 series. KG was a great player, but his impact just wasn’t the same as Duncan. If it was we would have seen it in years when his team wasn’t good, the same as we often did for guys like Duncan, Lebron, etc. And before anyone tries to explain it away with the coaching, Flip was a great coach. Pop is obviously a historically better coach, but at the time Pop was just running every other play to Duncan in the post. It was a very simplistic offense compared to what Flip could do. It’s also a players league. Coaches just put players in a position to succeed, they don’t make bad players good. KG had all the coaching he needed to succeed, and he couldn’t to the level of the absolute top guys like Duncan and Lebron. His skillset wasn't suited to it.

This is a pretty weak argument. Any way you look at it, box score, impact, team success, KG was nowhere near where he was in 2004 in 2002. It's like someone saying well SGA was basically the same player in 2023 he was in 2025 so I'm going to judge his peak based on the 2023 season.

[iggymcfrack]

I think Lebron and Duncan's lack of weaknesses elevate them over some of the other candidates like Shaq and Jokic.

Jokic's God tier advanced and counting stats have not translated to on-court impact in the way Duncan or Lebron's numbers and skillset have. The Nuggets in the last 3 years have won 53, 57, and 50 games, with an SRS of 3, 5, and 4. They have one title in a year where the slate was extremely favourable, and were otherwise eliminated in the 2nd round twice. Once by a Wolves team that is nothing special. The results are notably worse than what Duncan did with weak support casts in 01, 02, and 03, yet Jokic's support cast has been far better.

The 2023 Nuggets had a net rating of +12.0 in the regular season and +9.0 in the playoffs with Joker on the floor.

The 2003 Spurs had a net rating of +9.1 in the regular season and +9.1 in the playoffs with Duncan on the floor.

Are you really going to say Joker can't be in the top tier because the bench units don't perform well enough in the regular season? In what world is that Joker's fault? If the Nuggets' **** bench is costing them 7 wins, whose fault is that? Is it more reflective of them having a childish coach and GM and San Antonio having Pop, or Joker failing to teach his backups how to play better?

Some of us aren't basing 100% of our evaluation on advanced stats, whereas you've been very clear that you are, to the point you've admitted it wouldn't even be necessary for you to watch the games.

OMG, I'm so sick of this made up bull you parrot about me any time you quote any of my posts even when I'm not using advanced stats at all! I used no advanced stats in that post!!! I just said that the 2023 Nuggets played much better with Jokic on the floor than the Spurs played with Duncan on the floor so who cares if the Spurs better bench allowed them to win more games? You're the one who brought up regular season success. I'm just limiting it to things that the player can possibly control.

[-Luke-]

Hmm.

My early thoughts for top-4 would be 09 Lebron, 00 Shaq, 23 Jokic and some version of Duncan, 02 or 03. I need a minute to think and I'm mid-set, so I don't have time for a thoughtful post, but I'll drop something over the weekend.

Just a quick note before you make your final decision: 2000 Shaq wouldn't qualify for this project, only 2001 Shaq.

[f4p]

So I would guess this is a reference to my post without a quote.

At the margins I will grant that my phrasing was somewhat unclear ... that part is (as is developed as the topic within the paragraph) with regard to box-metrics and refers to methodology, to input-process-output. The same stats in the same league context will get the same math done and the same output. If the output changed it's because the input changed. I don't know that that can be applied to +/- as that's just scorekeeping ... but that's same process same for everyone and ditto on-off. As noted more sophisticated impact models get more opaque and it would be tougher to claim.

It's not output consistency. And in impact stuff this is noted with regard to the need for larger samples (paragraph 6).

And it should be clear it's not about player output numbers necessarily stay the same over the years ... because it explicitly highlights an instance where this is not the case primarily looking on the box-side (for Garnett '02 compared to '04) ... and that's the more stable side.

You can also quantify the number of times you scored while the temperature was 30 degrees outside, or while the moon was in the transit of Venus, I'm just not sure it's telling us anything reliable.

Does the number of times someone scored while the moon was in the transit of Venus correlate quite well with RAPM? If not, then it’s certainly not meaningfully comparable to something like BPM.

I know you’ll say that you don’t like RAPM either. At a certain point, though, “I don’t trust advanced box data or RAPM-based data” basically just ends up amounting to “My approach is to decide who I think was the best player in a given time period, and then I will cobble together whatever qualitative narrative I can to support that player in any argument regarding that time period.” Which I guess is fine and not super different from what the general layperson’s approach is to these discussions, but it does basically amount to starting at a conclusion and working your way there while explicitly refusing to consider hard data that might disagree.

i mean to be fair, that's what RAPM people do also. when it says the right person is at the top or the right person is at the bottom it's great. when it slays a few kings or raises up some paupers, then it's noisy and a small sample size and who can even say what we're looking at.

[lessthanjake]

You can also quantify the number of times you scored while the temperature was 30 degrees outside, or while the moon was in the transit of Venus, I'm just not sure it's telling us anything reliable.

Does the number of times someone scored while the moon was in the transit of Venus correlate quite well with RAPM? If not, then it’s certainly not meaningfully comparable to something like BPM.

I know you’ll say that you don’t like RAPM either. At a certain point, though, “I don’t trust advanced box data or RAPM-based data” basically just ends up amounting to “My approach is to decide who I think was the best player in a given time period, and then I will cobble together whatever qualitative narrative I can to support that player in any argument regarding that time period.” Which I guess is fine and not super different from what the general layperson’s approach is to these discussions, but it does basically amount to starting at a conclusion and working your way there while explicitly refusing to consider hard data that might disagree.

i mean to be fair, that's what RAPM people do also. when it says the right person is at the top or the right person is at the bottom it's great. when it slays a few kings or raises up some paupers, then it's noisy and a small sample size and who can even say what we're looking at.

Yeah, I think that’s sometimes right. That said, I think it’s very possible to put significant weight on RAPM data without starting at one’s conclusion. I’m not a total RAPM-is-king guy, but at least for me my view of players has often materially changed as a result of looking at their RAPM data. Like I’m much higher on guys like Draymond, Stockton, Chris Paul, and Kevin Garnett than I was before I knew how good their impact data looked. On the flip side, I’m pretty certain I’m lower on guys like Kevin Durant and Domantas Sabonis than I would be without RAPM data. I genuinely find that RAPM data guides my view of a player quite a lot. As you note, it is possible for it to be the opposite (i.e. for one’s view of RAPM data to be guided by one’s view of a player). But the causal chain can at least go the other way (and I think often does for many people). In contrast, if you reject all data in favor of squishy personal assessments of players, then you’re basically refusing to look at any information that might be contrary to your priors. Under that approach, nothing can materially change one’s view of players, because one basically won’t allow themselves to consider anything that might cause such a change. Basically, I think either approach *could* end up resulting in starting at your conclusion and working backwards, but one of them is such a squishy approach that it almost *has* to.

[f4p]

....

yeah, but if we say those steph underperformances didn't happen, then it's just all good games from him. i mean, it doesn't feel like a coincidence that steph fell off in the 2015 playoffs, and especially the finals, with a lot of pressure. then fell off a cliff in 2016 with a lot of pressure. then fell off a nearly equally high cliff in 2018 with a lot of pressure. and then fell off in 2019 at about a 2015 level with a lot of pressure. and then soared and had his best playoffs ever with no pressure and a cruise title (apparently it was only KD who had it easy). but apparently it actually was just a huge coincidence.

Hey f4p -- we've been round this before, so I'll keep it brief, but I think this misses a lot.

so i appreciate the engagement but you're going to have to miss me with a lot of this.

-2015: This was his first deep playoff run, where he faced Tony Allen (who many consider on the short list of best point guard defenders ever, with Kobe and Durant both saying he was one of the best to ever guard them) and the first time he faced the 'Curry rules' against the Cavs. Many players struggle more in their first deep playoff run, learn a ton, then come back better.

it was still a fairly significant drop. 307th out of 416 playoff runs in my resiliency spreadsheet. and right after tony allen, he faced 37 year old jason terry backed up by 37 year old pablo prigioni. and tore them up. that feels like that balances out. and "curry rules"? he was getting guarded by delly. part of the issue (and this comes up when people pretend steph is doubled so much) is that the warriors won't just iso curry. they keep telling us the offense can't work any other way and it's better. but like, curry could have just iso'd delly all day and destroyed him (or at least should have destroyed him). instead, either because they don't think curry can do that or whatever, they always bring other defenders to the ball for screens, either on-ball screens or off ball screens because curry can't physically separate from defenders by himself. which leads to "curry rules" because now the defense has to choose what to do with the extra defenders. but curry could just do what lebron or harden or luka would do and massacre someone like delly and there would be no curry rules to worry about. i've rarely if ever seen a team just run an extra defender at curry when he's iso'ing. even usually letting him go at people like kevin love one on one being preferred to an open court double.

and just to get back to "he faced tony allen" and not to always make it about harden, but since i have the data. here's what harden faced from the 2015 WCF through the 2nd round of 2020.

2015 WCF - #1 defense warriors (lots of switchable defenders, and maybe best or 2nd best perimeter defender of his generation in iggy)
2016 1st - #6 defense warriors again (#6 defense, but obviously still elite)
2017 1st - #10 defense OKC (similar to tony allen, had andre roberson playing 37 mpg to guard harden even though he might be the worst perimeter shooter of the past 15 years)
2017 2nd - #1 defense spurs
2018 1st - #28 defense wolves
2018 2nd - #1 defense utah
2018 WCF - #1 playoff defense warriors (not using their regular season numbers, lol)
2019 1st - #2 defense utah
2019 2nd - #11 defense warriors (admittedly not as good as other year, basically just as mid in the playoffs, but still lots of good defenders for harden)
2020 1st - #7 defense OKC (lu dort plays 29 mpg vs 23 mpg in the regular season despite having 31/18/44 shooting splits before game 7)
2020 2nd - #3 defense lakers

look at that! 11 series, 4 are against the warriors defensive dynasty, 2 more are against the #1 defense, 2 more are against #2/#3 defenses, and other than the wolves, harden's "chill" series are against top 10 defenses with andre roberson and lu dort to hound harden all over. that's as nasty as it gets. something like that would convince me to grade steph differently than just one series each against tony allen and the raptors.

-2016: yeah, playing while injured isn't good for one's impact.

when he drops 40 and screams "i'm back", he's healthy. when he sucks, he's injured.

Even still, he performed great under pressure while injured in the last few games of the OKC series, against a historically good non-title team in OKC. Curry clearly played like the best player in game 7. While fatigue and injury would add up by the end of the Cavs series, he was still able to show some positives in 2016.

so he was great in games 5 thru 7 and then was injured again afterwards? 2016 is 412th out of 416 in resiliency. like practically dead last. with only KD from the same year, 2 embiid years, and 1972 kareem lower. with a negative on/off. even with draymond around. that's hard to paint as a positive. i mean the cavs should theoretically be as easy as it gets as a matchup. his primary defender is kyrie irving and he's got a nice switchable option with kevin love. 35 year old richard jefferson played huge minutes in that series. like how much better is it going to get?

-2017: yeah, they cruised to a title, but as has been shown many times in this thread alone -- they only cruised to a title on the back of Curry's impact.

they went from almost losing to an injured lebron team in 2015 and going 15-9 in the playoffs in 2016 to 16-1 and one of the most dominant playoffs ever, right after adding KD. i'm just not going to accept that that change was because of a guy already on the team. and then they fell to a negative net rating in the 2019 finals without KD but it wasn't about KD. KD who has a higher playoff RAPM than curry. too many parts of this equation don't add up.

As years of data shows, the Warriors weren't nearly a dynasty team without Curry. Yes, KD made it somewhat easier for Curry, but yes Curry made a bigger difference in helping KD.

somewhat easier? by far curry's best playoff numbers are from 2017. like it's not close. and apparently he made steph so good y'all want to make 2017 his peak. again, this is where the "steph was doubled 60 times, KD 3 times" stuff comes in. yeah, because the warriors start tons of possessions with non-shooters setting screens for steph specifically so there will be a double. it's not like teams were just running up to steph to double him 60 times during an iso. and of course, the warriors don't put KD in those same actions (which he admittedly wouldn't be as good at). unless you can show me that steph was really doubled 60 times in non-PnR trap situations.

-2018:
Yes, Curry struggled in the early part of the Rockets series. Returning from injury and facing fantastic opponents in those Rockets I might add! That Rockets team was one of the best ever to not win the title, and worse yet for the Warriors, they were a bad matchup -- D'Antoni has talked about how they specifically built the team to be a bad matchup for the Warriors, designing their offense to take away the Warriors' switching defense, and designing their defense to take away Curry's offense.

i've never really understood this "the rockets were built to matchup with the warriors" argument. i mean, of course the rockets built themselves to match up with the best team. it's not like they were going to build a team and wake up and go "wait, KD and steph are on the same team now?". and it's not like the rockets build some warriors specific team that sucked against the rest of the league but was just a revenge fantasy team to mess with the warriors. the rockets slaughtered everybody else, so it was apparently a bad matchup for everybody.

And yet if you watch the end of the series, I'm scratching my head wondering how you could come away from game 6 and 7 not thinking Curry was the best player on the court. The Warriors won that series -- against a significantly better opponent than peak Duncan, Garnett, or Jokic faced -- largely on the back of performing well under pressure. Yes game 7 was winnable for the Rockets, with them missing many shots. But the Warriors were significantly ahead by Margin of Victory when both teams were healthy, and in the end The Warriors won through Curry, and it's pretty clear on film.

ignoring the fact that steph, in what i'm sure is a huge coincidence, got better right after cp3 got hurt, by pressure i'm not talking about specific games. i'm talking about playoff runs where there was a chance the warriors would lose, like 2015/16/18/19. taking the first 5 games of the series off but playing well in games 6 and 7 is not what i'm talking about. this is like kobe going 1/7 in the 4th and then hitting a big shot with 30 seconds left and his fans being like "he hit the one that counted". like no, they all counted, his team just kept him in it while he shot 1/7. i'm sure guys like KG and hakeem would love to chill for 5 games at a time in the playoffs. but most of their series would have already been over.

-2019:
I'm again not really seeing how this is Curry struggling with the pressure. The pressure was highest once KD went down.

When KD went down against the Rockets, the general consensus was that the Rockets would win. Instead, in game 6, the Warriors win the second half against again strong opponents, largely on the back of the Curry pick and roll: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-warriors-finished-the-rockets/ . Going into the 4th quarter, without Durant, with pretty bad depth for a championship-level team, behind to a score of 82–87, the Warriors went on to run 10 Curry-Draymond pick and rolls, resulting in 20 points, 15 from Curry himself -- facing a defense that had experience facing playoff Curry and was focused entirely on stopping playoff Curry. Seems like great performance under pressure.

and again, all the games count. through 5.5 games, steph was at 20.0 ppg, 4 apg, and 4 rpg on 48 TS%. those aren't typos. if a meteor struck and the series ended there, it would probably be the worst playoff series by a top 20 player ever. and steph's team was up 3-2 and tied at halftime of game 6! he did **** all for 92% of the series and his team kept him in it. yes he was great in the 2nd half of game 6 but he was basically just putting out the fire that he himself started.

Against the Blazers, many expected the Warriors to fail, and they went on to have an utterly dominant performance.

as already shown by someone else, they were heavy favorites over a "meh" portland team. just like they were -900 against the spurs in 2018 without steph. i mean most players don't miss as many playoff games as steph, but has any team ever not had a superstar available for a series and even approached -900? against a 48 win team? when people try to claim the warriors weren't really that impressive without steph, i point to this. because it's not even a result (the warriors crushed the spurs), but even before the series people were putting real money on the warriors just working over a 48 win team without steph. that's how good the warriors were.

Against the Rockets (statistically one of the best playoff defenses of the century), a team with an innovative coach again focused entirely on stopping Curry, facing some of the most defensive attention a star has ever faced (literally facing a box and one!)... Curry looked again like one of the GOAT offensive players, again under historic amounts of pressure.

Watch on YouTube

"years from now, or maybe days, it will be cited as a playoff failure by critics, but rarely will you ever see a player influence an offense more than Curry did in game 2 of the finals". Just because they lost doesn't mean Curry wasn't dominant under pressure.

yes, he was not disappointing against a very good defense like the raptors. as someone else pointed out though, he wasn't exactly inspiring either. with lots of bad shooting in the final 3 games.

-2022:
... do I really have to explain this one?

that's actually a playoffs where his numbers went up, though from a very poor regular season. and he was good against a very good celtics defense. probably not getting out of the west on most of the other rosters given his first 3 rounds, but still a good playoffs.

in the 3 series before KD joined the warriors, they went in PSRS:

+6.5 (only the 2 games with steph to be fair to steph)
+6.1
+4.9

that's about +6.

in the 2 series after KD, they went in PSRS:
+14.0
-0.4

that's +5.3 (+4.6 without KD's 1 quarter in the finals).

in between for 10 series with KD, they averaged +14.3 (didn't weight by games), which includes a series without steph.

but somehow all the 2017 on/off numbers say it was all steph. i mean did steph just really ramp up the impact for 10 series and then ramped back down after KD got hurt? how can the numbers tell us the warriors were so mid without steph but there is just a massive jump as soon as KD joins and the warriors look great in the playoffs even without steph.

and the 2017 warriors certainly weren't a lot better than the 2001 lakers in the playoffs. i think the lakers have the higher PSRS (static, don't know about dynamic but dynamic is also kind of useless).

Again we've been round this before... but if you look in detail series by series at the games missed/played injured/played, Curry pretty clearly had large positive impact. See our past discussion here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107616471#p107616471

yes, i'm sure he had a lot of impact. he's very good. an mvp playing like an mvp for a 5 year stretch. no one is denying this. but the warriors took a huge leap forward after adding KD, who has a higher playoff RAPM than steph, but somehow it wasn't the new guy but it was mostly just the old guy, the old guy who didn't show anything like that one year before or one year after, just doesn't pass the smell test.

[lessthanjake]

And yet if you watch the end of the series, I'm scratching my head wondering how you could come away from game 6 and 7 not thinking Curry was the best player on the court. The Warriors won that series -- against a significantly better opponent than peak Duncan, Garnett, or Jokic faced -- largely on the back of performing well under pressure. Yes game 7 was winnable for the Rockets, with them missing many shots. But the Warriors were significantly ahead by Margin of Victory when both teams were healthy, and in the end The Warriors won through Curry, and it's pretty clear on film.

ignoring the fact that steph, in what i'm sure is a huge coincidence, got better right after cp3 got hurt, by pressure i'm not talking about specific games. i'm talking about playoff runs where there was a chance the warriors would lose, like 2015/16/18/19. taking the first 5 games of the series off but playing well in games 6 and 7 is not what i'm talking about. this is like kobe going 1/7 in the 4th and then hitting a big shot with 30 seconds left and his fans being like "he hit the one that counted". like no, they all counted, his team just kept him in it while he shot 1/7. i'm sure guys like KG and hakeem would love to chill for 5 games at a time in the playoffs. but most of their series would have already been over.

I’ve never understood this “pressure” thing you often raise about Steph. It’s so obviously a circular and conclusory argument. It’s basically “We should discount the year he played the best in the playoffs because that was the year his team did the best in the playoffs.” Well duh! A big part of the reason that was the Warriors best playoffs was obviously because it was Steph’s best playoffs! This is just a self-evidently bad argument IMO.

And I am extremely certain that if Steph had had that 2017 playoff performance in the 2016 playoffs, you’d be saying that they had no chance of losing that year and would be discounting it on that basis, but of course we know in reality that they did have a chance of losing. You’re basically just making an argument that is systematically designed to give reason to ignore his best playoff performances and focus on his lesser ones. If Steph plays particularly well and the team therefore does well, then they never could’ve lost and Steph’s good performance wasn’t in a “pressure” situation. If Steph doesn’t play particularly well and the team struggles more, then that was a “pressure” situation and should be the performances from Steph that we solely focus on.

[Djoker]

1. 2009 Lebron James
2. 2003 Tim Duncan
3. 2001 Shaquille O'Neal
4. 2017 Stephen Curry

This is not an easy exercise but after looking at it from all angles, I'm happy with this top 4.

Basically with Lebron, I see him as either the #3 or #4 greatest peak ever (behind 1991 Jordan, 1977 Kareem, and possibly 2000 Shaq). Considering this is a 21st century list, Shaq's peak season just narrowly misses out from being considered. He's almost as good in 2001 but with greatest 1-year peak a little drop is all that is needed to slot down clearly below.

I came close to putting Duncan #1. A lot of posts in this and other threads have made me appreciate his peak more and I think he has an outside case for GOAT peak. 2003 Duncan is #1 in playoffs AuPM, #1 in peak DARKO-DPM. 2009 Lebron has him in Engelmann RAPM, RAPTOR, and several other metrics. It's very very close and while I do believe Timmy completely obliterates Lebron in terms of defensive impact, Lebron also obliterates him in offensive impact. At the end of the day, I do find Lebron's regular season in 2009 to be slightly more impressive and while he didn't lead his team to a title, I can't really criticize him much for his performance. 2009 is pretty much un-criticisable looking at it through a lens of a single year. For what it's worth, if this was a 3-year peak comparison, I'd probably go with 2001-2003 Duncan over any of Lebron's stretches.



Shaq in 2001... his regular season just isn't good compared to most top guys on here. The postseason is amazing putting up basically the same numbers as in 2000 despite the team not really needing it. Also very consistent from game to game. I think Kobe being so darn good in 2001 (IMO even a slightly better PS than Shaq) gives me pause but not really.

Steph as lessthanjake and several others said suffers from never putting together a GOAT-level RS (2016) with a GOAT-level PS (arguably 2017). I think if he did, I would strongly consider him for #1. Leading a 73-win team and then having an unassailable PS sounds like the best ever. But it never happened. Steph's 1-year peak when it comes down to it gives me less than the three guys in front of him. Compared to Shaq, Curry lacks a little bit of playoff resilience. In years outside of 2017, the Golden State offenses haven't looked as good in the playoffs whereas Shaq's Lakers looked really good.

HM #1: 2023 Nikola Jokic

As a fellow Serb, saying that I love Nikola would be an understatement. But still, if I'm going to be objective, I don't see him being higher than #5 on this list and see him as a rung below the other offensive GOAT's. Why? Quite simply, his postseason offenses have been underwhelming.

Nikola Jokic ON Court ORtg (rORtg) Regular Season / Playoffs

2016: 107.6 (+1.2) / -------
2017: 117.7 (+8.9) / -------
2018: 115.8 (+7.2) / -------
2019: 114.7 (+4.3) / 115.8 (+4.9)
2020: 115.0 (+4.4) / 115.5 (+7.6)
2021: 121.4 (+9.1) / 116.3 (+2.6)
2022: 118.8 (+6.8) / 110.9 (+4.0)
2023: 125.6 (+10.8) / 120.9 (+7.4)
2024: 123.9 (+8.6) / 114.3 (+2.1)
2025: 127.1 (+12.6) / 111.7 (+2.8)

2016-2025: +7.4/+5.7

We can excuse 2021 and 2022 due to Murray's injury but it's a consistent trend throughout his career. From 2021-2025, his ON-Court rORtg is +9.6 in the regular season but just +4.5 in the postseason. Big drops every postseason suggests that there may be something to the Denver offense that good teams in the playoffs "solve". Nikola himself is almost impossible to stop individually but team playoff resiliency is super important and this is one area he lacks in.

HM #2: 2008 Kobe Bryant

Impact metrics don't really love Kobe. For instance, he looks a good deal lower than everyone else in terms of RAPM, DARKO, RAPTOR etc. That said, I love the malleability in his skill set and his teams have usually been better than the sum of their parts. Shaq for all his greatness only led truly great teams alongside Kobe. Kobe also maximized Gasol and role players after Shaq left with those teams playing at 60+ win pace and dominating in the PS with Kobe carrying big loads.

For instance, despite being a clearly lesser player by individual metrics, Kobe's ON-Court offensive ratings post-Shaq have looked outright better than Jokic's in the postseason and roughly on Curry's level. And that does matter. It makes me think his team's offense built around him is difficult to neutralize in a playoff setting. That doesn't necessarily show up on the stat sheet but it matters a ton. Or I should say it matters enough to earn him an HM and a swift inclusion on future ballots.

Kobe Bryant ON Court ORtg (rORtg) Regular Season / Playoffs

1997: 104.1 (-2.6) / 112.9 (+9.2)
1998: 110.8 (+5.8) / 106.3 (+2.5)
1999: 106.3 (+4.1) / 100.8 (-3.2)
2000: 108.3 (+4.2) / 109.9 (+8.5)
2001: 110.2 (+7.2) / 113.0 (+13.4)
2002: 110.8 (+6.3) / 106.4 (+5.3)
2003: 108.3 (+4.7) / 107.8 (+6.0)
2004: 107.9 (+5.0) / 101.1 (+4.0)
2005: 108.9 (+2.8) / -------
2006: 111.3 (+5.1) / 105.1 (-0.7)
2007: 109.7 (+3.2) / 105.7 (-0.7)
2008: 114.4 (+6.9) / 111.3 (+7.9)
2009: 116.1 (+7.8) / 113.4 (+8.4)
2010: 111.6 (+4.0) / 114.3 (+8.4)
2011: 113.8 (+6.5) / 110.0 (+4.9)
2012: 106.7 (+2.1) / 106.3 (+1.6)
2013: 110.4 (+4.5) / -------
2014: 99.7 (-7.0) / -------
2015: 103.5 (-2.1) / -------
2016: 101.1 (-5.3) / -------

2001-2010 Average: +5.3/+6.9

[lessthanjake]

I’m curious if anyone has any insight as to why DPM is so high on Duncan. For essentially every other statistical measure—whether it’s a box metric, a RAPM metric, or a box-impact hybrid—Duncan comes out looking really good but not really in the running for the best. However, for DPM, he has 4 of the top 5 seasons on record (including #1), and there’s a pretty big drop off from any of Duncan’s top 4 seasons and anything but 2004 Garnett. By DPM, 2002-2007 Duncan is the very clear GOAT of the play-by-play era.

I don’t really put much weight on DPM since it is meant to be a predictive measure rather than a retrospective one. But I’m still curious if anyone has insight into why it’s so uniquely high on Duncan.

[DraymondGold]

I’m curious if anyone has any insight as to why DPM is so high on Duncan. For essentially every other statistical measure—whether it’s a box metric, a RAPM metric, or a box-impact hybrid—Duncan comes out looking really good but not really in the running for the best. However, for DPM, he has 4 of the top 5 seasons on record (including #1), and there’s a pretty big drop off from any of Duncan’s top 4 seasons and anything but 2004 Garnett. By DPM, 2002-2007 Duncan is the very clear GOAT of the play-by-play era.

I don’t really put much weight on DPM since it is meant to be a predictive measure rather than a retrospective one. But I’m still curious if anyone has insight into why it’s so uniquely high on Duncan.

Yeah I've wondered that too!

I think we can say DPM's high on:
-Duncan's defense
-Duncan's on/off signal for his defense particularly (rather than his box defense).

You can see this by going to the DARKO website, then looking at the Historical career trajectory page. On Offense, he's clearly below LeBron and Curry, roughly even with Garnett (as people usually think)... although he's pretty close to Shaq and Jokic offensively (not clear to me how much this is Darko being a little low on their offense, a little high on Duncan's, a little of both, or having trouble accurately splitting up offensive vs defensive value).

But On Defense, and specifically in the version of the stat that uses on/off data and box data (D-DPM, not Box D-DPM), Duncan looks like an outlier, a clear level better than basically any other defender of the pbp era including Garnett, older Mutombo/Robinson, Ben Wallace, Draymond, Gobert, etc. I think even people who think Duncan's the best defender of this era wouldn't say he has quite that much separation over the competition.

The Spurs are obviously a defensive dynasty, so there's more defensive value go go around, and DARKO's predicting that defensive dominance comes more from Duncan than most other stats (including e.g. RAPM, or common perception). As for why it's high on Duncan's defense, it's hard to say. It's possible he really is that good on defense (although taking this interpretation from DARKO blurs the line between prediction and description... and DARKO tries to predict how well a player will play from a certain point going forward, not describe how well they're actually playing at that point).

Another option is that the defensive things Duncan is good at are especially stable and unweighted in the predictive algorithm, or alternatively that the defensive things Duncan's teammates are good at are more unstable and get downweighted in the predictive algorithm. I can't find the exact weightings for different box stats and on/off stats, but if that were available, that might be a first place to look at. E.g. is DARKO really high on the predictiveness on team defensive rating (to ascribe lots of value to the Spurs cast), the correlation between height/minutes and team defensive rating (to ascribe lots of the Spurs' value to Duncan specifically), and the stability of things like low foul rates (or one of Duncan's other defensive specialties)?
(side note -- the weightings of different box stats and on/off stats change with era, aging, part of the season, how far back in the players' past you're using to predict the players future, etc... so it may be more complicated than I'm telling).

In sum: It likes his defense more than any other stat, and I think more than the average poster here, but I'm not super clear why.

[lessthanjake]

I’m curious if anyone has any insight as to why DPM is so high on Duncan. For essentially every other statistical measure—whether it’s a box metric, a RAPM metric, or a box-impact hybrid—Duncan comes out looking really good but not really in the running for the best. However, for DPM, he has 4 of the top 5 seasons on record (including #1), and there’s a pretty big drop off from any of Duncan’s top 4 seasons and anything but 2004 Garnett. By DPM, 2002-2007 Duncan is the very clear GOAT of the play-by-play era.

I don’t really put much weight on DPM since it is meant to be a predictive measure rather than a retrospective one. But I’m still curious if anyone has insight into why it’s so uniquely high on Duncan.

Yeah I've wondered that too!

I think we can say DPM's high on:
-Duncan's defense
-Duncan's on/off signal for his defense particularly (rather than his box defense).

You can see this by going to the DARKO website, then looking at the Historical career trajectory page. On Offense, he's clearly below LeBron and Curry, roughly even with Garnett (as people usually think)... although he's pretty close to Shaq and Jokic offensively (not clear to me how much this is Darko being a little low on their offense, a little high on Duncan's, a little of both, or having trouble accurately splitting up offensive vs defensive value).

But On Defense, and specifically in the version of the stat that uses on/off data and box data (D-DPM, not Box D-DPM), Duncan looks like an outlier, a clear level better than basically any other defender of the pbp era including Garnett, older Mutombo/Robinson, Ben Wallace, Draymond, Gobert, etc. I think even people who think Duncan's the best defender of this era wouldn't say he has quite that much separation over the competition.

The Spurs are obviously a defensive dynasty, so there's more defensive value go go around, and DARKO's predicting that defensive dominance comes more from Duncan than most other stats (including e.g. RAPM, or common perception). As for why it's high on Duncan's defense, it's hard to say. It's possible he really is that good on defense (although taking this interpretation from DARKO blurs the line between prediction and description... and DARKO tries to predict how well a player will play from a certain point going forward, not describe how well they're actually playing at that point).

Another option is that the defensive things Duncan is good at are especially stable and unweighted in the predictive algorithm, or alternatively that the defensive things Duncan's teammates are good at are more unstable and get downweighted in the predictive algorithm. I can't find the exact weightings for different box stats and on/off stats, but if that were available, that might be a first place to look at. E.g. is DARKO really high on the predictiveness on team defensive rating (to ascribe lots of value to the Spurs cast), the correlation between height/minutes and team defensive rating (to ascribe lots of the Spurs' value to Duncan specifically), and the stability of things like low foul rates (or one of Duncan's other defensive specialties)?
(side note -- the weightings of different box stats and on/off stats change with era, aging, part of the season, how far back in the players' past you're using to predict the players future, etc... so it may be more complicated than I'm telling).

In sum: It likes his defense more than any other stat, and I think more than the average poster here, but I'm not super clear why.

Yeah, wow I just looked it up and Duncan has the top 11 seasons in D-DPM, and 14 of the top 16. That’s pretty wild. I mean, theoretically it *is* possible that it’s not totally off. After all, Duncan anchored the most consistently great defensive team of the play-by-play era (and probably 2nd all time in that regard, behind the Russell Celtics). I tend to give Duncan significantly more credit for that than any of his teammates, but it’s a little hard to square exactly how high DPM is on it. Like, was 2016 Duncan really better defensively than any year from guys like Garnett, Draymond, Ben Wallace, etc? The 2016 Spurs were an amazing team defensively, but he retired and the Spurs proceeded to still be a -5.3 rDRTG team the next year, so it’s safe to say there were some other very impactful defenders on the team.

If DPM is at all in the right ballpark on Duncan’s defense, then it certainly would reflect extremely well on how high Duncan peaked, since peak Duncan was actually a genuinely great offensive player (albeit not at the level of the very top offensive guys).

[Cavsfansince84]

Yeah, wow I just looked it up and Duncan has the top 11 seasons in D-DPM, and 14 of the top 16. That’s pretty wild. I mean, theoretically it *is* possible that it’s not totally off. After all, Duncan anchored the most consistently great defensive team of the play-by-play era (and probably 2nd all time in that regard, behind the Russell Celtics). I tend to give Duncan significantly more credit for that than any of his teammates, but it’s a little hard to square exactly how high DPM is on it. Like, was 2016 Duncan really better defensively than any year from guys like Garnett, Draymond, Ben Wallace, etc? The 2016 Spurs were an amazing team defensively, but he retired and the Spurs proceeded to still be a -5.3 rDRTG team the next year, so it’s safe to say there were some other very impactful defenders on the team.

If DPM is at all in the right ballpark on Duncan’s defense, then it certainly would reflect extremely well on how high Duncan peaked, since peak Duncan was actually a genuinely great offensive player (albeit not at the level of the very top offensive guys).

All metrics have blind spots. This is most likely just another case of that. This is also why we don't run around with one stat/metric and then build entire arguments around it.