#4 Highest Peak of All Time (Wilt '67 wins)

[C-izMe]

OKC was considered a juggernaut,

But they weren't.

and they were expected by most to win,

they shouldn't have been.

and a lot of people expected them to steamroll the Heat.

i expected the Heat to steamroll them. What most think makes no sense to me. According to many people KD has already had a better career than TMac.

Their offense was being praised nonstop (for good reason). They not only had the best offense in the league, they had a top 10 defense that seemed to play better in the playoffs.

Please say your joking. Their defense was average in the regular season and I expected Miami in 4 or 5 because I knew Brooks would play Perk and Harden a lot. Perk is terrible (way worse than Collison) and Harden is one of the 25 worst defenders in the league that still get PT (I might be giving him too much credit). The defense played good against the Spurs and nobody else. LA matched up bad as long as Pau wasn't asserting himself (he didn't) and Perk handled the Bynum matchup (the only thing he's good for). Unless your suggesting that OKC didn't play Bobcats level defense in the Finals this makes no sense.

They were completely healthy and were playing better than they had in the regular season, when they were a 6.44 SRS team (3rd in the league).

And? Their was a lockout and the bad teams were terrible.

And every team the Heat played was a top 10 defense.

Boston sucked on offense, the Pacers beat on many weak teams in the regular season, Tyson and Shump were injured, and like I said OKC sucked.

The Heat (taking the playoff form with hurt Wade/Bosh) were the weakest champions of the last decade +.

[therealbig3]

Their defense was -1.4 during the regular season. That's not average exactly, that's a bit better.

They held the Mavs to a 103.2 ORating vs their regular season ORating of 103.3 (-0.1). So they played them to their averages.

They held the Lakers to a 104.2 ORating vs their regular season ORating of 106.0 (-1.8). So they actually played good defense against them.

They held the Spurs to a 108.7 ORating vs their regular season ORating of 110.9 (-2.2). Again, they played pretty good defense.

Overall, through the Western Conference playoffs, OKC had a 105.8 DRating vs an average ORating of 107.2 (-1.4).

So I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. They held every opponent until the Finals (haven't checked the numbers for the Finals) under their averages. They were top 10 during the regular season, and got better in the playoffs against their last two opponents.

OKC was a good defensive team, and was the best offensive team in the league. They were an excellent team.

[C-izMe]

Their defense was -1.4 during the regular season. That's not average exactly, that's a bit better.

They held the Mavs to a 103.2 ORating vs their regular season ORating of 103.3 (-0.1). So they played them to their averages.

They held the Lakers to a 104.2 ORating vs their regular season ORating of 106.0 (-1.8). So they actually played good defense against them.

They held the Spurs to a 108.7 ORating vs their regular season ORating of 110.9 (-2.2). Again, they played pretty good defense.

Overall, through the Western Conference playoffs, OKC had a 105.8 DRating vs an average ORating of 107.2 (-1.4).

So I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. They held every opponent until the Finals (haven't checked the numbers for the Finals) under their averages. They were top 10 during the regular season, and got better in the playoffs against their last two opponents.

OKC was a good defensive team, and was the best offensive team in the league. They were an excellent team.

LA just didn't match up well and Dallas was basically on their average. Like I said the only series where they were above average was the Spurs serie. And then they played at historic levels of defensive suck in the Finals. They were average on defense and offensively they were great but let's not act like their offense is why they lost.

[therealbig3]

You said the Heat didn't go through anyone good on their route to a championship. But OKC was elite. Forget about defense for a second, OKC was one of the best offensive teams ever.

And I don't get it, when LA struggled offensively against OKC, it's not because OKC was a good defense, but because they were simply a bad matchup...but when Miami plays very well offensively, it couldn't possibly be because they're a bad matchup, it's because OKC sucks defensively?

That's a double standard. You don't give OKC credit when they play well defensively, but you'll give them the blame when they don't play well defensively.

[C-izMe]

First off I said they played no all time good team. That OKC team was nothing special in a historical context and it's the best team they played.

And it isn't a double standard. OKC had the 1 on 1 man defender neccessary to guard Bynum well and Pau is Pau (look at his PS performance in the last two years). They matched up well. Against a team without a dominant big Perk is useless and they had no size. OKC is average defensively.

[ardee]

'63 was absolutely a better playoff run than '64. He averaged 31.8 points on 57.4 percent true shooting, 13.0 rebounds and 9.0 assists. In the Eastern Division Finals against Boston, he averaged 33.4 points on 48.5 percent shooting and 58.8 percent true shooting, 12.4 rebounds and 8.6 assists, putting up a record three triple doubles in a playoff series, grabbing no fewer than 12 rebounds in each of the first six games, opening with 43 points on 71.0 percent true shooting (17-25 FG, 9-12 FT), 14 rebounds and 10 assists--which is still an NBA playoff record for most points in a game for a triple double, and ending with 43 points on 63.8 percent true shooting in the deciding Game 7.

In '64, he got shut down by Boston in the EDF: 28.2 points on 39.8 percent shooting and 49.6 percent true shooting, 9.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists after averaging 30.4 points on 53.6 percent shooting and 65.7 percent true shooting, 11.2 assists and 8.2 rebounds in the previous round against Philadelphia. Not only was he rendered inefficient, but his assists were also cut in half, so if he isn't scoring efficiently or creating offense for his teammates, then what impact is he having?

Now, of course, the '64 Celtics were perhaps the GOAT defensive team (I'm curious as to what other all-time great defensive team can be said to have utterly shut down an offensive great who was the MVP of the league to such an extent), reducing the Royals' to 93.2 points per game in the EDF from 114.7 in the regular season (-18.7%) and 118.4 in the previous round (-21.3%), and held them to 35.2 percent shooting, down from 48.4 percent in the previous round (-13.2%). But the fact remains that, no, he didn't perform well against Boston in '64, while he was brilliant in '63, extending them to seven games and scoring 43 in the decider.

Where do you get these stats from?

[Doctor MJ]

My guess is that people who are leaning LeBron see his offense close to Bird's that James' incredible defenses make it a trump card. To that end, I haven't seen a compelling argument, because I don't find it compelling to play a unipolar role on a bad offensive team and get them to a respectable level. The argument has been made that the 09 Cavs hit much higher than respectable levels, but I hope my last few posts on the matter have explained why I disagree:

(1) Those 3-point shooters were shooting at a historically good rate...they deserve some of that credit.

(2) The ensuing season, we did not see such a level of offense with very minor tweaks. From where I stand (obsessively watching analyzing games in 2010), James wasn't really "worse" (if anything, I side with those saying he was better). So this makes it strange to think of James' QBing act as leading incredible offenses, unless you happen to believe 09 James was an aberration.

I'm spending a good amount of time thinking about what you're saying. I feel like I get the gist. Theoretically, LeBron's better for bad teams, Bird's better for good teams, and Bird did amazing things on teams that were bad, and you're interested in the good teams anyway, so...Bird. It is compelling.

Where I keep getting stuck though is in your assessment of top end LeBron. I get in theory that unipolar is a problem, but what you're doing here just doesn't make sense to me.

You knock LeBron for not being able to get an offense to a respectable level, and then immediately have to do all sorts of hand waving because of course, LeBron did the Cavs to not simply respectable levels, but the kind of levels Bird's teams rarely reached.

Your hand waving rationalization amounts to saying, "but LeBron had help". Huh? Of course he had help. He didn't do it by himself, but we know what that supporting cast was and it's pretty much impossible to look at it as in the ballpark of what Bird was working with, so who cares?

In theory I understand the idea that what happened with the '09 supporting cast 3 point shooting was flukish, but see if you can spot the trend here:

'09 Cavs: 1st in 3P%, 4th in ORtg
'10 Cavs: 2nd, 6th
'11 Cavs: 23rd, 29th

And in case you're wondering, the Cavs shot less 3's in '11 than they did in the previous two years two. I haven't done a thorough analysis of the impact of a star on teammate 3-point shooting to see how this stacks up, but it's quite obvious that LeBron was having unreal impact.

So yeah, I'm not convinced at the dire forecast for a LeBron unipolar team.

[Doctor MJ]

Been thinking quite a bit about LeBron's offensive impact on 09. Given what I've said about that team, and their 3-point shooting, how do the people voting for him see the HEAT offense? Is this a case of Miami having really crappy offensive teams in 11 and 12? Or do people think James was really that much better as a distributor/on offense in 2009?

I don't think there's any doubt that what we've seen in Miami runs smack dab into the redundancy issues you're describing. To me it starts to be come a matter of how one visualizes the bell curve of theoretical scenarios you could put LeBron, Bird, and other under.

I find myself thinking that if you simply throw LeBron & Bird on a random team, chances are Bird helps the team more. However, if you draft each guy, and have a few years to build around them, chances are LeBron gives you more than Bird.

Does that make sense to folks?
If it does, how does that fit in with your philosophy? Implicitly, I think a hyper-portability focus encourages piece-of-the-puzzle thinking rather than draft foundational thinking, which to me probably isn't quite the most productive way to think about the best of the best.

-Think about Walton's defense. Is it the closest to Russell's?

If we forget the durability & stamina issues, quite possibly.

Question back: Physically, I think Hakeem more matches Russell than Walton, but mentally I'm more sold on Walton. How do other people see this?

-Think about Hakeem and Duncan's offense in the sense that they put up nice numbers, but are they well suited to a high-level offense? Excluding Hakeem 95, isn't Kevin McHale a better post player than both of these guys? (Not a knock, but I think most people are coming in thinking of these guys as offensive superstars and I reject that in the sense of Global impact.)

Interesting point.

It's worth noting that with Hakeem, when his teams won titles, their eFG was tops in the playoffs. In '94-95, their ORtg in the playoffs despite very low offensive rebounding numbers (defensive rebounding wasn't at all the same indicating a strategy here). Whether or not Hakeem was well suited to lead high-level offenses, leading offenses playing at high-level IS the reason why he won two titles.

So to me this was either legit or fluky. And twice in row using a new strategy that now is basically the norm doesn't sound like fluky to me. Hakeem may not have been build to lead great offenses before the upgrade of role player scoring that's come with the 3, but I think he could do it now. Not going to say he's an offensive GOAT candidate, but I'm pretty reluctant to see an unreasonably low ceiling for his teams here.

[mysticbb]

But Miami wasn't a crappy offense when James/Wade played. Considering the league average over the past 2 seasons is about 106, that 115 O rating is about +9.

That better offense with those two is related to the fact that with both together on the court fastbreaks happen more often. It is actually the improved perimeter defense with James and Wade on the court which leads to more turnovers by the opponents and easier scoring opportunities for the Heat. The ORtg is not a testament to better halfcourt offense.

[colts18]

But Miami wasn't a crappy offense when James/Wade played. Considering the league average over the past 2 seasons is about 106, that 115 O rating is about +9.

That better offense with those two is related to the fact that with both together on the court fastbreaks happen more often. It is actually the improved perimeter defense with James and Wade on the court which leads to more turnovers by the opponents and easier scoring opportunities for the Heat. The ORtg is not a testament to better halfcourt offense.

Of course we have to consider that a positive for both of them. The other guys being mentioned in this thread didn't do that on the level of Wade/James.

[mysticbb]

Of course we have to consider that a positive for both of them.

Indeed. Didn't want to say the opposite.

[ElGee]

My guess is that people who are leaning LeBron see his offense close to Bird's that James' incredible defenses make it a trump card. To that end, I haven't seen a compelling argument, because I don't find it compelling to play a unipolar role on a bad offensive team and get them to a respectable level. The argument has been made that the 09 Cavs hit much higher than respectable levels, but I hope my last few posts on the matter have explained why I disagree:

(1) Those 3-point shooters were shooting at a historically good rate...they deserve some of that credit.

(2) The ensuing season, we did not see such a level of offense with very minor tweaks. From where I stand (obsessively watching analyzing games in 2010), James wasn't really "worse" (if anything, I side with those saying he was better). So this makes it strange to think of James' QBing act as leading incredible offenses, unless you happen to believe 09 James was an aberration.

I'm spending a good amount of time thinking about what you're saying. I feel like I get the gist. Theoretically, LeBron's better for bad teams, Bird's better for good teams, and Bird did amazing things on teams that were bad, and you're interested in the good teams anyway, so...Bird. It is compelling.

Where I keep getting stuck though is in your assessment of top end LeBron. I get in theory that unipolar is a problem, but what you're doing here just doesn't make sense to me.

You knock LeBron for not being able to get an offense to a respectable level, and then immediately have to do all sorts of hand waving because of course, LeBron did the Cavs to not simply respectable levels, but the kind of levels Bird's teams rarely reached.

Your hand waving rationalization amounts to saying, "but LeBron had help". Huh? Of course he had help. He didn't do it by himself, but we know what that supporting cast was and it's pretty much impossible to look at it as in the ballpark of what Bird was working with, so who cares?

In theory I understand the idea that what happened with the '09 supporting cast 3 point shooting was flukish, but see if you can spot the trend here:

'09 Cavs: 1st in 3P%, 4th in ORtg
'10 Cavs: 2nd, 6th
'11 Cavs: 23rd, 29th

And in case you're wondering, the Cavs shot less 3's in '11 than they did in the previous two years two. I haven't done a thorough analysis of the impact of a star on teammate 3-point shooting to see how this stacks up, but it's quite obvious that LeBron was having unreal impact.

So yeah, I'm not convinced at the dire forecast for a LeBron unipolar team.

Well I have done some on/off analysis and James deserves tremendous credit for improving the 3-point shooters, just like Nash does in Phoenix. By my calculations, there's something like an 11% increase on average between an open 3 and a covered one (not that these role players can really take covered 3's anyway, but the point is creation boosts these percentages big time). But you still need to populate the roster with good shooters, and a 41% open shooter IS much better than a 37% open shooter.

When you say hand-waving you make it sound fairly baseless. I'm trying to put these raw team numbers into perspective (or how I view them) -- I'm a little disappointed you see them as hand-waving given your proclivity for nuance and my desire to explain why I see discrepancies where people see commonalities.

Ex 1 is Cleveland's 9 SRS and Boston's...I think I've been fairly clear at demonstrating the difference in quality in these two teams despite equal RS SRS's.

Ex 2 is Cleveland's ORtg numbers, which I'm not trying to give credit to "LeBron had help," I'm just saying it was a specific type of offense. It's an easy one to build in a sense, but the height of the offenses here seems drastically different to me: Bird's Celtics at GOAT levels, whereas James' offenses the last 4 years were very good, but I don't think it's fair to say these are heights Bird's team rarely reached. Consider:

2009 Cavs PS +7.3 (4.1 RS)
2010 Cavs PS +2.2 (3.6 RS) Granted, role players went in the TANK at times. But the series felt almost easy for the Boston defense.
2011 Heat PS +3.6 (4.5 RS)
2012 Heat PS +8.4/6.7* (2.0 RS)

*The lockout saw more dramatic shifts in offense. If we use the second-half DRtgs only for these teams, the number is +6.7. I hope no one considers this hand-waving since this seems like a giant thing to overlook.

1984 Bos PS +6.4 (3.1 RS)
1985 Bos PS +3.9/+6.3* (4.9 RS) *First 12g, pre-Bird bar fight
1986 Bos PS +8.2 4.6 RS)
1987 Bos PS +8.5 (5.2 RS)
1988 Bos PS +8.5 pre-Detroit series where Bird had bone spurs (7.3 RS)

I do buy into Miami not being a great offensive team, and the redundancy w/Wade. I buy into LeBron's ability to facilitate. I've also seen an unhealthy amount of basketball, and I'm left wondering what the best teams around James look like. Which transitions into...

I find myself thinking that if you simply throw LeBron & Bird on a random team, chances are Bird helps the team more. However, if you draft each guy, and have a few years to build around them, chances are LeBron gives you more than Bird.

Does that make sense to folks?
If it does, how does that fit in with your philosophy? Implicitly, I think a hyper-portability focus encourages piece-of-the-puzzle thinking rather than draft foundational thinking, which to me probably isn't quite the most productive way to think about the best of the best.

Great points. I agree that implicitly, build-around makes more sense than piece-of-the-puzzle. But I don't think it makes sense to default to "drafting" these guys from their rookie year, because if I run a team, and all I care about is player goodness (which is the whole point of my evaluations), I can acquire guys through draft, free agency, or trade (I'm an aggressive trader). That means if I grab a guy, I still need to restructure the roster or still need to be concerned with the secondary and tertiary players (very important on high-level teams). Granted, this is less of an issue in a single, peak season...

So I will admit, as someone asked, that further seasons very well might subtly influence my opinion of James' portability (which matters a lot in the context of this project). But as of right now, I don't know how well he plays with a post-presence, I don't know how well he does as a "magical" distributor, and I pretty safely assume he's redundant with any ball-dominant player.

I guess that leaves a difference of how high he already took Cleveland as the big question. My GOAT offensive list look likes this (by peak):

Magic +8.0
Bird +7.5
Jordan/Nash +7.0
Barkley +6.5
Shaq/Oscar/Paul/West +6.0

I have a hard time seeing where LeBron fits on that list. IMO, if you think LeBron is as good as Chris Paul on offense, you should strongly be considering taking him as the No. 1 peak of all-time.

[bastillon]

@ElGee. I've always thought LeBron's teams were destroying weak opponents and playing mediocre against the best teams. can you verify that ?

I've really enjoyed reading this discussion so far. I do have one problem though, which I mentioned earlier and only got 1 response. why so little focus on the postseason ? Mystic responded with "RAPM includes postseason data" but my point stands, it's still not enough emphasis on the playoffs. I think we all understand that RS is far less important in terms of winning a championship than PS. RAPM covers mostly RS and then much less PS time (because the RS is longer). RS should only be used as a tie-breaker and there's really not enough thoughts regarding postseason ORTGs/DRTGs adjusted to opp's strength etc.

for now, vote for Larry Bird 86 (might change this to Hakeem 94)
I've watched him extensively and he was just so valuable. didn't need the ball in his hands to make impact, could play like Reggie on one possession only to play like Dirk on another, and if that wasn't enough, he could turn into Magic any moment. very impactful defender. horrible speed defensively but made up for it with his instincts, timing and positioning. defensive rebounding is crucial part of your defensive value, Bird was one of the greats in that regard.

I'd like to hear some argument against Hakeem because no one really said anything about the guy. I don't think people realize how impressive it was what he did in 94. the guy pushed his team over the top against far superior NYK while destroying all time center Patrick Ewing in his prime. winning against those Knicks seems almost impossible with that roster, unlike LeBron losing one vs inferior Magic team.

also one more thing about LeBron 09. Magic guarded LeBron to get his and close on the shooters. I think you'll find some evidence in the commentary during some of those games. conversely Cavs gameplan was to stop Dwight from scoring by helping inside and leaving the shooters open. for that reason it's very impressive what Dwight was able to do in that series and if LeBron gets voted in this early on, I hope people will remember that when we'll be analysing Dwight's peak value.

[bastillon]

couple more thoughts:

*Sixers 67: they had tremendous defensive potential (as proven by 68), and yet they only played -1 defense. how can Wilt's supporters defend this ?

*Hakeem's offensive portability: Rockets 97 seemed to have amazing offense with Barkley/Drexler/Olajuwon playing. they were 32-8 (66W pace) and it wasn't because of their defense. they also had playoff best 113.3 ORTG (+5.9). they played Wolves (15th RS DRTG), Sonics (6th) and Jazz (9th). against the Jazz, their offense performed better than Bulls offense in the finals. also, Rockets seemed to have big playoff outbursts on offense in 94-95 as Doc MJ mentioned. when Hakeem had help, he delivered. but usually his teams were starving for some talent.

[drza]

-Think about Walton's defense. Is it the closest to Russell's?

"He can beat a rival team with passing, his speed, his shot-blocking, his rebounding, or simply his overall defense. Only ex-Celtics Bill Russell in recent years has intimidated rival shooters more often than Walton. Also, like Russell, Bill often makes better players of his teammates."
- Christian Science Monitor, Jun. 7, 1977

One of the things that I really enjoy about these projects is that spending months with other obsessive basketball nerds leads to further evaluation of aspects of the game that maybe haven't gotten the due that they deserve. And I think this is another potential area of amplification, with players like Russell, Walton and Garnett as prime examples of some of the best.

I hear talking heads say often in passing that "he makes his teammates better", but I've never seen that seriously examined or any attempt to quantify it. Usually it's point guards that are talked about in this way, as they are the ones tha have the ball in their hands and can theoretically maximize the use of the offensive talent on the team by the way they orchestrate things. Sometimes you'll hear of dominant scorers making the game easier for their teammates by drawing defensive attention, which allows their teammates to score easier. Similarly, traditional low-post bigs are said to open up the court for teammates on offense because defenses have to collapse on them, leading to open jumpers. And finally "spacing" has become a new offensive area getting attention, because a good long-range shooter pulls defenders out of the paint and opens up lanes for teammates to score easier.

While these are all useful things to look at on offense, it shouldn't be forgotten how much easier a dominant big man can make the game for his teammates on defense as well. A dominant defensive big can erase so many mistakes that it allows his teammates to go army and be all they can be. A terrible defender who might be good on offense can be played next to a great defender. A perimeter player can afford to take more chances and be more aggressive when he has help behind him. A slow-footed post defender can afford to just concentrate on his own man if he's playing next to another big that covers lots of ground. And the other players are able to spend more energy on offense or other aspects of their games, when they don't have to expend quite as much on defense or hitting the boards.

A great defensive big can be so valuable at making their teammates better...but ironically, because of the lack of defensive statistics (there's no such thing as a defensive "assist", for example) it is often somewhat overlooked. People know that a defensive anchor can be great for a defense...but maybe don't pay as much attention to how it might help the offense as well because it allows them to focus. I've seen that argument made for how Dirk's (or other high-efficiency offensive players') offense might help the defense, but I haven't seen it mentioned how a dominant defensive teammate can help the offense. But in a very real since, dominant defenders make their teammates better. And all of the historic-level defensive big men from Thurmond to Hakeem to DRob to Mutombo to Ben Wallace to Dwight Howard can make that claim.

But what separates Russell, Walton and Garnett from some of their dominant defensive brethren in the concept of "making their teammates better" is that they can help all aspects of their teammates' games, with offensive emphasis as well due to their passing and unselfishness. All are excellent passers for bigs and can run an offense from the high post, giving them an aspect of that PG-make-teammates'-offense-better contribution. Russell and Walton were noted for their outlet passing, which literally jump-started the offense and allowed their teammates to get easier buckets in a time period when the fast break was hugely important. And for Garnett in this era, he actually does all of the offensive "make teammates better" things that I mentioned above...he's run offenses like a PG, while provided a primary scoring threat, while acting as a strong post threat to collapse defenses, while also providing spacing as a big with 20-foot range. Duncan also fits in this category to an extent in my opinion, because while he never showed the ability to play full-time "point-big man" the way the other three have, he is also a very good passer with a versatile offensive game who can draw the defense but is seemingly completely unselfish in his desire to set up his teammates.

Anyway, this post maybe fits more in the lines of "things that I think about when making my evaluations" than it is a pure post on who I think the 4th best peak ever has been. But similar to the "portability" discussions, I think that it is an aspect of the game beyond box score stats that really does play a tangible part in producing championship caliber play.

[ronnymac2]

But Bowen was there up until 2009, along with Kurt Thomas/Oberto, and the defense still slipped, while the offense actually got worse since 07. In 2010, they no longer had Bowen, but they had Hill/McDyess. The defense still got worse, and the offense was still only around 9th.

It wasn't until 2011 and 2012 that SA was trotting out elite offenses, and I do understand the stylistic change, but the defensive personnel were still very similar, and guys like Splitter and Leonard have been added, and yet, the defense still isn't anywhere close to what it was in earlier years when Duncan was in his prime, even though the supporting cast of defensive players are still pretty strong.

And looking at with/without numbers, it seems that despite Popovich and supporting cast of defensive role players, the Spurs in Duncan's prime depended on Duncan. The defense is nowhere close to elite without Duncan in 05, for example.

Incremental declines in '08 and '09, that can easily be explained by Bowen's decreased minutes (in '09 at least), the start of putting more emphasis on offense, and a gradual decline in Duncan's ability to defend.

This isn't providing context for a Peak vs. Peak debate.



You know how the playoff lineup of Terry-Marion-Dirk-Chandler-Kidd produced elite offenses in 2011 (especially in the playoffs), but then weren't as great in 2012 because Tyson Chandler wasn't there? Chandler is an elite-level role player on offense, but he's still a role-player who creates nothing with the ball in his hands.

You know how Kobe's pre-'09 Lakers thrived offensively with the Space Cadet in the lineup because of his stretch shooting ability? Vlad Rad never created anything in his NBA career, but his spacing effect was crucial.

Kobe and Dirk were the all-time great offensive Constants on these teams, but the pieces around them had rather large effects on their respective team's offenses. Chandler and Vlad Rad are obviously clearly worse offensive players, and Kobe and Dirk are in general more valuable offensive players because they can create for themselves and others, but they aren't the be-all-end-all for an offense.

Defense is the same way. If you have one guy who always misses an assignment on getting back to corner 3-point shooters, eventually, the other wing, a smart defender, on that side of the floor is going to try and cover for his poor defensive teammate. Perhaps that smart wing does everything right usually, but because his teammate sucks, the smart wing begins "making mistakes"; he goes to cover for his teammate, the corner shooter makes a simple swing pass to the smart wing defender's man, and that guy shoots a 3 and makes it.

Now the team gets a replacement for their poor defender. They obtain another smart defender who has the quickness and the motor to get to the corner 3-point shooter. Original smart wing defender gets to look his best again night in and night out.

My point is that an incremental lineup change can have huge effects per possession on both sides of the floor. "Fit" has so many details surrounding it when it comes to basketball that it's kind of disheartening for myself as a basketball nerd, on this board in particular where individual player comparisons are so prevalent.

It's disheartening, challenging, and motivating to know that a dumbass scrub like Vlad Rad can mess with my interpretation of Kobe Bryant's offensive skills, production, and impact.

Jumping back to Duncan...I think his ridiculously awesome defensive teammates, his great defensive coach, and the slow-as-molasses, defensive-oriented, "Stack two interior bigs in the paint" era he played his defensive peak in were a huge benefit to Duncan.

Duncan may have seen just as much defensive usage as Hakeem did, but only because that was SA's strategy. It was always to funnel players into Duncan and/or Robinson. And the Spurs had the personnel to do it. I don't think Hakeem's teams ever had that. I'm not saying he was out there freelancing the whole time, but he wasn't in the structured system Tim was.

And no, creating such a system is not easy. If it were, why wouldn't everybody do it? Nobody in Minny ever did it with KG. It took a freaking eventual COY and recognized defensive genius in Thibs to get that right.

[JordansBulls]

for now, vote for Larry Bird 86 (might change this to Hakeem 94)

Hey Bastillon you gonna have to ask DoctorMJ if you can get on the list of the panel.

[JordansBulls]

3) Re: Duncan and KG vs LeBron

When comparing across years for players at the very top, I'm not sure how much we can rely purely on numbers (be they RAPM, SPM, PER, whatever) as our separating factors. To some extent we can, but if we look at the rankings for several of these stats in the regular and postseason for these players, we see:

2003 Duncan - 3rd in PER (26.9), 2nd in postseason PER (28.4), 2nd in RAPM (+5.0), +24 playoffs on/off

2004 Garnett - 1st in PER (29.4), 2nd in postseason PER (25), 1st in RAPM (+8.0), +25 playoffs on/off

2009 LeBron - 1st in PER (31.7), 1st in postseason PER (37.4!), 1st in RAPM (+9.3), +11 playoffs on/off

I mean, in all 3 cases we're talking clearly at the top of the league in every measure. LeBron's postseason PER was crazy, but on the whole once you get to the top I'm not sure that there's enough info in his boxscore domination to say for sure that this was more valuable than the huge 2-way impacts that Duncan and Garnett were having. In the end, once the stats agree essentially that these guys are "best of best" caliber statistically, from there I think the discussion moves more to situational analysis, scouting, discussions like the "portability" issue, and things of that nature.

To me these are the three most impressive peak seasons of the past decade, with Dirk, Wade, Nash and Kobe a step back. I'm just not as convinced as some that LeBron is clearly (or at all) better than Duncan and KG. I think he'd be third among the three on my ballot.

The postseason +/- is all but meaningless because the SSS of off court data (only 18 minutes of off court data vs. Lakers). But the on court data does have some meaning. KG played at least 42 Minutes in every playoff game but 2. I'll compare KG with LeBron first then I'll add Duncan.

LeBron 35-9-7, .399 WS/48, .618 TS%, 128 O rating-100 D rating
KG 24-14-5, .163 WS/48, .513 TS%, 100 O Rating-95 D rating

LeBron's WS/48 was over 2x higher and his TS% is 10 points higher. That efficiency gap is huge. If KG shot at LeBron's efficiency, he would have scored 90 more points which would add up 5 PPG extra.

On Court +/-:
LeBron 09: +15.0
KG 04: +2.5

Massive difference

avg Game score:
KG 19.2
LeBron 29.9



KG's team was outscored for the whole playoffs despite having HCA throughout. They +3.1 defensively compared to the average in those playoffs while the Cavs were -5.0. Cavs were +4.9 offensively compared to TWolves +3.1.

Again you are comparing 2004 when KG, Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, Tmac, Dirk were all in there primes. In 2009 who was in there primes? Not to mention KG, Manu, Yao, Tmac, Nleson were all out for the playoffs.

[JordansBulls]

What I have seen thus far


1. ardee - Wilt 67
2. Doctor MJ - Lebron 09 (haven't seen official vote yet)
3. C-izeMe - Hakeem 94
4. colts18 - Lebron 09
5. DavidStern - Lebron 09
6. Dr Positivity - Wilt 67
7. drza - ???
8. ElGee - Wilt 67
9. JordansBulls - Kareem 71
10. Rapcity_11 - ???
11. Vinsanity420 - ???
12. therealbig3 - Lebron 09
13. Josephpaul - Kareem 71
14. ThaRegul8r - Wilt 67
15. PTB Fan - Wilt 67

[colts18]

Again you are comparing 2004 when KG, Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, Tmac, Dirk were all in there primes. In 2009 who was in there primes? Not to mention KG, Manu, Yao, Tmac, Nleson were all out for the playoffs.

What the **** does that have to do with the stats I posted? Nothing. Why not mention that Kobe, Wade, CP3, Howard were in their primes in 2009?

Did you know that T-Mac was also out of the 2004 playoffs? Who cares about Duncan, Dirk, T-Mac if KG didn't face them in the playoffs. I'm pretty sure that your post is some backdoor way to prop up MJ since I'm guessing he beat a lot of players in their prime so thats one of your criteria for picking a player.