magicmerl wrote:Sample size is one thing, but the importance of the games matters too.
If there's a difference between 80 RS games and 20 PO games, I would say that the 20 PO games matter more. So I think that the playoffs are AT LEAST 4 times more valuable than RS game, maybe 5 or 6 times as important.
Yeah, of course playoff games are more important, that goes without saying, but not by a 4:1 ratio or more (which you implied saying that 20 PO games matter more than 80 RS games). For me it'd be 2:1 or 3:1 ratio at most (but 3:1 seems like too much, honestly).
magicmerl wrote:If RS and PO games are weighted evenly then Karl Malone is easily a top5 player of all time.
Well, Malone is probably a top 5 RS performer ever (even for a 10-year prime he could be, not to mention that he would have almost another full decade of All-Star level play...), but he's one guy who clearly wasn't the same player in the postseason as he was in the RS. Mailman played a ton of playoff games in his prime, against different opponents, and he rarely sustained his RS level of play (1992 may've been the only time). He generally had good supporting casts (even just having Stockton every year is a good deal of support...), so he had pretty favorable circumstances to perform well, and he generally didn't.
I think putting together separate lists for RS and PO would be a worthwhile exercise. There would be some pretty interesting results, I'm sure (I actually created a thread about that a year ago, or so, but it didn't receive a lot of attention).
mischievous wrote: I haven't really seen a good argument for Russell over Tim Duncan other than "ringzzzz",
No offense, but if you haven't seen one here its because you have been actively avoiding them.
And I agree Tim Duncan is a great defender, but the gap between even a great defender like Timmy and Bill Russell is enormous imo. The gap between Russell and all of his in-era peers defensively is by a large margin the biggest gap we have ever seen any player have in any element of basketball in NBA history and I'm not sure there is a close 2nd. His defensive impact alone establishes his GOAT credentials. Then you add in the fact that he's also in the discussion for greatest rebounder of all-time, as well as being one the greatest teammates and leaders we've ever seen. And despite the fact that he frequently gets killed for his offense by guys judging him by modern standards, he was a good offensive player too.
Now plenty of people are dismissive of his era and how he would translate to the modern game which has learned many of the defensive concepts he innovated. And that's fair. But to suggest that there aren't any other good arguments other than rings is pretty hard to fathom considering some of the brilliant basketball minds who have posted copiously on Russell.
But understand "top 5" does not equate to equal. The gaps between #1 and #5(or even #2) can often be substantial.
ThunderBolt wrote:I’m going to let some of you in on a little secret I learned on realgm. If you don’t like a thread, not only do you not have to comment but you don’t even have to open it and read it. You’re welcome.
mischievous wrote: I haven't really seen a good argument for Russell over Tim Duncan other than "ringzzzz",
No offense, but if you haven't seen one here its because you have been actively avoiding them.
And I agree Tim Duncan is a great defender, but the gap between even a great defender like Timmy and Bill Russell is enormous imo. The gap between Russell and all of his in-era peers defensively is by a large margin the biggest gap we have ever seen any player have in any element of basketball in NBA history and I'm not sure there is a close 2nd. His defensive impact alone establishes his GOAT credentials. Then you add in the fact that he's also in the discussion for greatest rebounder of all-time, as well as being one the greatest teammates and leaders we've ever seen. And despite the fact that he frequently gets killed for his offense by guys judging him by modern standards, he was a good offensive player too.
Now plenty of people are dismissive of his era and how he would translate to the modern game which has learned many of the defensive concepts he innovated. And that's fair. But to suggest that there aren't any other good arguments other than rings is pretty hard to fathom considering some of the brilliant basketball minds who have posted copiously on Russell.
But understand "top 5" does not equate to equal. The gaps between #1 and #5(or even #2) can often be substantial.
Quotatious wrote:Yeah, of course playoff games are more important, that goes without saying, but not by a 4:1 ratio or more (which you implied saying that 20 PO games matter more than 80 RS games). For me it'd be 2:1 or 3:1 ratio at most (but 3:1 seems like too much, honestly).
Hrmm.
Surely it should be possible to put together a ratio that passes the 'smell test'? For example, I don't really understand win shares but looking at who it gives credit to it seems about right (other than overrating Stockton/Malone due to Jerry Sloan's coaching style to go 100% in every game rather than plan to go on deep playoff runs).
So for example, if you're looking at a player's per100 stats for the season, you can infer their composite score as being (for example) compositePTS/100 = (rsPTS/100 * rsMinutes + poPTS/100 * POmultiplier * poMinutes) / (rsMinutes + POmultiplier * poMinutes)
And then you can see which value for POmultiplier makes more sense, 3, 4, 5 or whatever.
Purch wrote:[Vine][YouTube][/YouTube][/Vine] Completely disagree. In the grand scheme of things regular seasons match ups are relatively irrelevant. Coaches have readily admitted to saving plays and defenses for when it matters in the post season. It doesn't matter if David Robinsn can outplay Hakeem in the regular season ..., if Hakeem out plays him in a 7 game series that has coaches game planning different defenses to limit them over the course of every game.. Has them increasing their minutes.. Has their role players being limited by tougher defenses... Then that's what's most relevant. The only thing the regular season is really significant for is determine seeding. And even then regardless of you seedlings, it's up to you to elevate your play despite facing tougher defenses, and evolving defenses over the course of the series.
When ranking players regular season performance barley factors in for me. When you ask me how I view a player the first thing I think about is how they perform in the post season.
I agree. RS, you have players and teams that coast...teams that experiment with line ups, strategies...you have a lot of player trades, coaching staff changes, some teams tanking etc..
PO teams are generally already settled on there line up, conditioned to play at there maximum with more rest and more at stake. PO is when the real season starts...so not sure why not put more value in it?
Because there's much less data, because there's vast discrepancies in quality of competion faced (iirc 80s Lakers were routinely facing a route of roughly league -RS- average quality opponents, whereas the East then, or the West now likely means running a gauntlet of plausible champions -- right now Cleveland are considered the favourites to win the title, not because they are the best team but because the teams with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th best odds all play in the same conference so only one can get to the final) because an 82 game season doesn't leave teams or players well rested and because (due to small samples and the role of luck) playoffs are (as I recall) a poor indicator of future performance in future RS and PS, whereas RS is better (at team and individual levels) and this is because playoff performance is less reliably indicative of (team or player) quality which in turn is because of aforementioned small samples, disparity in quality of competition, matchups etc. The reason American sports have playoffs (apart from travel distances making equal schedules a massive pain) is the anyone can win, keep you watching to the end, which is fine but you can't pretend it doesn't significantly increase the role of luck.
In the NBA playoffs, 7 game series, everyone having enough rest in between games, able to have HC games for both teams with the better RS team having HC advantage.....it diminishes the role of luck don't you think?. Let's not pretend they are playing a one game series.
You say the RS is a good indicator? You have about 4-5 teams in each conference fighting for the bottom spot to get better drafts. You have teams that rest there good players on B2B games. You have many teams that acquire or trade players to become optimum when it comes to the real part of the season (playoffs).
I think the ONLY real reason people put weight on RS are the people that love to compare stats due to sample size. I see a lot of RS games where players and teams coast....no intensity. In the playoffs, the intensity from players and even fans rises. Too bad that doesn't show on the stats.
mysticOscar wrote:I'm not really a stats person...but when i do i generally subtract a bit of weight in using the TS% of current perimeter players when comparing from previous era's. It favors todays perimeter players too much in comparison to yesteryears (more FT taken, easier driving lanes, greater 3pt shots)
This sounds like someone has a bias against the modern era and maybe doesn't even watch or pay attention to the games.
Chuck Texas wrote: And I agree Tim Duncan is a great defender, but the gap between even a great defender like Timmy and Bill Russell is enormous imo. ]
"Enormous" gap, is hyperbole right off the bat. What is the evidence to this? And you can't really just point to what Russel's teams did, or what their defensive ratings were. Totally different era. Too many variables to consider like competition, teammates etc.
Chuck Texas wrote: But to suggest that there aren't any other good arguments other than rings is pretty hard to fathom considering some of the brilliant basketball minds who have posted copiously on Russell.
[/quote]
I still think it boils down to semantics, and how you choose to rank players. I think giving Russell a bonus because he was more dominant in his era than another player, really isn't fair. It ignores so much context, and basically penalizes those who played in leagues with more competition among teams, individual players etc.
To me, i think Duncan is a better basketball player in a vacuum. That's why i rate him higher. Better offense, comparable defender, better longevity. His accolades are equally impressive if you rate them on a curve compared to Russell's, for example winning a ring in the early-mid 60s isn't the equivalent of winning one in say 2005, shorter playoffs, less teams etc.
I don't have a problem if someone ranks Russell over Tim Duncan, but for me to be convinced he was a better player i'd have to be shown that he is a much better defender as you say. I do think he's a better defender but not much better.
magicmerl wrote:Sample size is one thing, but the importance of the games matters too.
If there's a difference between 80 RS games and 20 PO games, I would say that the 20 PO games matter more. So I think that the playoffs are AT LEAST 4 times more valuable than RS game, maybe 5 or 6 times as important.
Yeah, of course playoff games are more important, that goes without saying, but not by a 4:1 ratio or more (which you implied saying that 20 PO games matter more than 80 RS games). For me it'd be 2:1 or 3:1 ratio at most (but 3:1 seems like too much, honestly).
magicmerl wrote:If RS and PO games are weighted evenly then Karl Malone is easily a top5 player of all time.
Well, Malone is probably a top 5 RS performer ever (even for a 10-year prime he could be, not to mention that he would have almost another full decade of All-Star level play...), but he's one guy who clearly wasn't the same player in the postseason as he was in the RS. Mailman played a ton of playoff games in his prime, against different opponents, and he rarely sustained his RS level of play (1992 may've been the only time). He generally had good supporting casts (even just having Stockton every year is a good deal of support...), so he had pretty favorable circumstances to perform well, and he generally didn't.
I think putting together separate lists for RS and PO would be a worthwhile exercise. There would be some pretty interesting results, I'm sure (I actually created a thread about that a year ago, or so, but it didn't receive a lot of attention).
For players like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the upcoming regular season and the stats that they will put up has little weight on how we should evaluate their report card for the year. Unless something catatrosphic happens, the Clippers will make the playoffs and then they will face plethora of good teams from round 1 and onward (if they are lucky to make it). CP3 can try to give his 100% in the regular season, put up enormous stats, and lead his team to a #1 seed but if he underperforms in the playoffs, then it should be considered a poor season. Now, he can save his strength, put up ok numbers, but if he does magnificently well in the playoffs, then it should be considered a successful season. I am thinking that you will disagree with my assessment on CP3's hypothetical seasons and this is where I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.
That said, I will say this. If the playoff series were single elimination format, then I will grant that sample size becomes too small for one to make much sense of the playoff run (especially if the team is one and done). However in the long drawn out series where you play multiple games against the same team, then we can be more confident about evaluting their performance and throw out luck. And in evaluating the entire career of a person, all the PO games (150-200 for most superstars) becomes a meaningful sample size, imo.
mysticOscar wrote:I'm not really a stats person...but when i do i generally subtract a bit of weight in using the TS% of current perimeter players when comparing from previous era's. It favors todays perimeter players too much in comparison to yesteryears (more FT taken, easier driving lanes, greater 3pt shots)
This sounds like someone has a bias against the modern era and maybe doesn't even watch or pay attention to the games.
The last four years have been a drought in terms of free throws per field goals. And go look at Jerry West's stats. He was a free throw machine.
Look at my keyword above. I stated perimeter player. Compare Jerry West's FTA per 100 compared to LBJ, Durant, WB, Harden etc..
Even Jordan (accounting for only the Bulls) has the same FTA than LBJ per 100. And Jordan took more shots.
Yes there were more FTA before in general, but these came from post players in the prior era.
Using b-ref's season totals and their positions, the ratio of free throws attempted to field goals attempted from PGs and SGs from 1967 to 1969 was 0.345.
From 2011 to 2015? 0.259.
For the 80's the ratio was 0.299.
Generally, free throw rates were huge in the early years of the league and then softened in the 70's and gradually fell. But the last four or so years have been a mini drought in free throw attempts.
The last four years have been a drought in terms of free throws per field goals. And go look at Jerry West's stats. He was a free throw machine.
Look at my keyword above. I stated perimeter player. Compare Jerry West's FTA per 100 compared to LBJ, Durant, WB, Harden etc..
Even Jordan (accounting for only the Bulls) has the same FTA than LBJ per 100. And Jordan took more shots.
Yes there were more FTA before in general, but these came from post players in the prior era.
Using b-ref's season totals and their positions, the ratio of free throws attempted to field goals attempted from PGs and SGs from 1967 to 1969 was 0.345.
From 2011 to 2015? 0.259.
For the 80's the ratio was 0.299.
Generally, free throw rates were huge in the early years of the league and then softened in the 70's and gradually fell. But the last four or so years have been a mini drought in free throw attempts.
Would you like to try again?
Are you really going to do this?
Please grab your best top 10 or 15 "perimeter" (doesn't necessarily mean SG,PG i.e. Durant, LBJ) players today....look at there FTA/FGA....now compare it to the best top 10 or 15 perimeter players regarded as perimeter in the 80s and early 90's.
Wow, I can't believe how successful fpliii's been in getting people to air their dirty laundry.
Well, let's see.....as this is the "PC board edition", I'll state a few that are unpopular here (though not necessarily in the world at large):
1) Karl Malone is a top 15 (perhaps even fringe top 12) player all-time.
2) John Stockton ranks ahead of Nash, Wade, Ewing, Pettit, Mikan.
3) Tony Parker recently is not as bad as the hot dog-**** he's made out to be by many here, and is a top 75 player all-time.
4) Adrian Dantley was not near as offensively impactful as his numbers suggest, and was at least marginally overrated to even be in the top 55 (much less #51).
5) Alonzo Mourning is not a top 50 player all-time.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Purch wrote:[Vine][YouTube][/YouTube][/Vine] Completely disagree. In the grand scheme of things regular seasons match ups are relatively irrelevant. Coaches have readily admitted to saving plays and defenses for when it matters in the post season. It doesn't matter if David Robinsn can outplay Hakeem in the regular season ..., if Hakeem out plays him in a 7 game series that has coaches game planning different defenses to limit them over the course of every game.. Has them increasing their minutes.. Has their role players being limited by tougher defenses... Then that's what's most relevant. The only thing the regular season is really significant for is determine seeding. And even then regardless of you seedlings, it's up to you to elevate your play despite facing tougher defenses, and evolving defenses over the course of the series.
When ranking players regular season performance barley factors in for me. When you ask me how I view a player the first thing I think about is how they perform in the post season.
I agree. RS, you have players and teams that coast...teams that experiment with line ups, strategies...you have a lot of player trades, coaching staff changes, some teams tanking etc..
PO teams are generally already settled on there line up, conditioned to play at there maximum with more rest and more at stake. PO is when the real season starts...so not sure why not put more value in it?
Because there's much less data, because there's vast discrepancies in quality of competion faced (iirc 80s Lakers were routinely facing a route of roughly league -RS- average quality opponents, whereas the East then, or the West now likely means running a gauntlet of plausible champions -- right now Cleveland are considered the favourites to win the title, not because they are the best team but because the teams with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th best odds all play in the same conference so only one can get to the final) because an 82 game season doesn't leave teams or players well rested and because (due to small samples and the role of luck) playoffs are (as I recall) a poor indicator of future performance in future RS and PS, whereas RS is better (at team and individual levels) and this is because playoff performance is less reliably indicative of (team or player) quality which in turn is because of aforementioned small samples, disparity in quality of competition, matchups etc. The reason American sports have playoffs (apart from travel distances making equal schedules a massive pain) is the anyone can win, keep you watching to the end, which is fine but you can't pretend it doesn't significantly increase the role of luck.
mysticOscar wrote:In the NBA playoffs, 7 game series, everyone having enough rest in between games, able to have HC games for both teams with the better RS team having HC advantage.....it diminishes the role of luck don't you think?. Let's not pretend they are playing a one game series.
Point one, we haven't always had 7 game series, we've had best of 1, 3 and 5 game series at various points, for early rounds. Also seedings and the playoff format have often been arbitrary with playoff format experimentation (e.g. 1v3, 2v4; whatever happened in '77 to allow a 36 win team in the playoffs over a 40 win team) division champions getting the two seed (regardless of absolute performance) and massive conference imbalance. Again historically it hasn't been the case that there has been "enough rest", there have been finals games where they played back-to-backs in different cities (just looking up randomly, for instance, games 2 and 3 in the '55 finals), back to backs in the finals (a cursory glance suggests in '65, in '80, '81) some in eras with substantially worse transport. But that's somewhat besides the point. A seven game series versus a one game series, yes that diminishes the role of luck. Which is why I'm not saying it's mostly luck. Still a roughly 20ish game sample, for the teams who play longest, often much smaller (less in earlier eras) versus an 82 game sample (70ish in earlier eras). One gets influenced by luck and circumstance and factors outside of individuals control far more than the other.
mysticOscar wrote:You say the RS is a good indicator? You have about 4-5 teams in each conference fighting for the bottom spot to get better drafts. You have teams that rest there good players on B2B games. You have many teams that acquire or trade players to become optimum when it comes to the real part of the season (playoffs).
This is where basics come in. I didn’t say one regular season game is a good indicator. I said the Regular Season as a whole is a good indicator. So yes you do have back to back games versus fresh teams, but all the teams play 82 games over a near identical span so it evens out. Five teams in each conference fighting for the bottom spot. That’s ludicrous. Tanking doesn’t happen on that scale and you know it. Teams don’t try to lose (for the vast, vast, vast majority of the time; a rare exception for a tiny sample of games might occur where picks are protected a la the Warriors). The most you could argue is that there are teams that aren’t building rosters with the intent to compete for a title this year and this is unimportant because (a) record against good teams has not been shown to have a greater correlation with titles than general record or record against poor teams and (b) the schedule roughly evens out over the season anyhow (though by preference would be for an even schedule -- in any case there are metrics to account for this) and is in any case true in all competitive sports. Regarding trades we all mentally account for this when evaluating teams and players but the amount of major transactions with contending teams is fairly minimal anyhow and this has relatively small impact on individual players which was the primary (though not only) focus of the discussion. The reality is small samples are much more likely to be strongly influenced by temporary circumstances like injuries, illnesses etc than larger ones.
And at the margins RS’s importance (in terms of indicative power) has decreased recently, particularly for specific teams. But you don’t throw out basketball history’s entire data set, just because the Spurs are going to their bench more and protecting their stars. Historically teams have thought nothing of playing their stars circa forty minutes a night in the “fake” (I assume if playoffs is “real”) season. For 82 games. Still lets ignore performance in those games.
All of which is besides the point. It doesn’t matter “why”, the RS is better indicative of future performance (and thus real/normal ability/performance levels), especially on a player level (because of the much smaller samples for an individual player), but for teams too.
mysticOscar wrote:I think the ONLY real reason people put weight on RS are the people that love to compare stats due to sample size. I see a lot of RS games where players and teams coast....no intensity. In the playoffs, the intensity from players and even fans rises. Too bad that doesn't show on the stats.
If it doesn’t show in the stats how is it making any kind of a difference? “They’re all playing much harder in the playoffs, it just looks the same.” What? Then too “lots” of coasting games? Enough to tilt a whole season’s worth of data? How many games? One in ten, one in five, a quarter? Point them out. There’s thousands of games on the internet, show me some where teams or even significant numbers of players aren’t trying for large portions of the game.
magicmerl wrote:Sample size is one thing, but the importance of the games matters too.
If there's a difference between 80 RS games and 20 PO games, I would say that the 20 PO games matter more. So I think that the playoffs are AT LEAST 4 times more valuable than RS game, maybe 5 or 6 times as important.
Yeah, of course playoff games are more important, that goes without saying, but not by a 4:1 ratio or more (which you implied saying that 20 PO games matter more than 80 RS games). For me it'd be 2:1 or 3:1 ratio at most (but 3:1 seems like too much, honestly).
magicmerl wrote:If RS and PO games are weighted evenly then Karl Malone is easily a top5 player of all time.
Well, Malone is probably a top 5 RS performer ever (even for a 10-year prime he could be, not to mention that he would have almost another full decade of All-Star level play...), but he's one guy who clearly wasn't the same player in the postseason as he was in the RS. Mailman played a ton of playoff games in his prime, against different opponents, and he rarely sustained his RS level of play (1992 may've been the only time). He generally had good supporting casts (even just having Stockton every year is a good deal of support...), so he had pretty favorable circumstances to perform well, and he generally didn't.
I think putting together separate lists for RS and PO would be a worthwhile exercise. There would be some pretty interesting results, I'm sure (I actually created a thread about that a year ago, or so, but it didn't receive a lot of attention).
For players like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the upcoming regular season and the stats that they will put up has little weight on how we should evaluate their report card for the year. Unless something catatrosphic happens, the Clippers will make the playoffs and then they will face plethora of good teams from round 1 and onward (if they are lucky to make it). CP3 can try to give his 100% in the regular season, put up enormous stats, and lead his team to a #1 seed but if he underperforms in the playoffs, then it should be considered a poor season. Now, he can save his strength, put up ok numbers, but if he does magnificently well in the playoffs, then it should be considered a successful season. I am thinking that you will disagree with my assessment on CP3's hypothetical seasons and this is where I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.
That said, I will say this. If the playoff series were single elimination format, then I will grant that sample size becomes too small for one to make much sense of the playoff run (especially if the team is one and done). However in the long drawn out series where you play multiple games against the same team, then we can be more confident about evaluting their performance and throw out luck. And in evaluating the entire career of a person, all the PO games (150-200 for most superstars) becomes a meaningful sample size, imo.
mysticOscar wrote: I agree. RS, you have players and teams that coast...teams that experiment with line ups, strategies...you have a lot of player trades, coaching staff changes, some teams tanking etc..
PO teams are generally already settled on there line up, conditioned to play at there maximum with more rest and more at stake. PO is when the real season starts...so not sure why not put more value in it?
Because there's much less data, because there's vast discrepancies in quality of competion faced (iirc 80s Lakers were routinely facing a route of roughly league -RS- average quality opponents, whereas the East then, or the West now likely means running a gauntlet of plausible champions -- right now Cleveland are considered the favourites to win the title, not because they are the best team but because the teams with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th best odds all play in the same conference so only one can get to the final) because an 82 game season doesn't leave teams or players well rested and because (due to small samples and the role of luck) playoffs are (as I recall) a poor indicator of future performance in future RS and PS, whereas RS is better (at team and individual levels) and this is because playoff performance is less reliably indicative of (team or player) quality which in turn is because of aforementioned small samples, disparity in quality of competition, matchups etc. The reason American sports have playoffs (apart from travel distances making equal schedules a massive pain) is the anyone can win, keep you watching to the end, which is fine but you can't pretend it doesn't significantly increase the role of luck.
mysticOscar wrote:In the NBA playoffs, 7 game series, everyone having enough rest in between games, able to have HC games for both teams with the better RS team having HC advantage.....it diminishes the role of luck don't you think?. Let's not pretend they are playing a one game series.
Point one, we haven't always had 7 game series, we've had best of 1, 3 and 5 game series at various points, for early rounds. Also seedings and the playoff format have often been arbitrary with playoff format experimentation (e.g. 1v3, 2v4; whatever happened in '77 to allow a 36 win team in the playoffs over a 40 win team) division champions getting the two seed (regardless of absolute performance) and massive conference imbalance. Again historically it hasn't been the case that there has been "enough rest", there have been finals games where they played back-to-backs in different cities (just looking up randomly, for instance, games 2 and 3 in the '55 finals), back to backs in the finals (a cursory glance suggests in '65, in '80, '81) some in eras with substantially worse transport. But that's somewhat besides the point. A seven game series versus a one game series, yes that diminishes the role of luck. Which is why I'm not saying it's mostly luck. Still a roughly 20ish game sample, for the teams who play longest, often much smaller (less in earlier eras) versus an 82 game sample (70ish in earlier eras). One gets influenced by luck and circumstance and factors outside of individuals control far more than the other.
mysticOscar wrote:You say the RS is a good indicator? You have about 4-5 teams in each conference fighting for the bottom spot to get better drafts. You have teams that rest there good players on B2B games. You have many teams that acquire or trade players to become optimum when it comes to the real part of the season (playoffs).
This is where basics come in. I didn’t say one regular season game is a good indicator. I said the Regular Season as a whole is a good indicator. So yes you do have back to back games versus fresh teams, but all the teams play 82 games over a near identical span so it evens out. Five teams in each conference fighting for the bottom spot. That’s ludicrous. Tanking doesn’t happen on that scale and you know it. Teams don’t try to lose (for the vast, vast, vast majority of the time; a rare exception for a tiny sample of games might occur where picks are protected a la the Warriors). The most you could argue is that there are teams that aren’t building rosters with the intent to compete for a title this year and this is unimportant because (a) record against good teams has not been shown to have a greater correlation with titles than general record or record against poor teams and (b) the schedule roughly evens out over the season anyhow (though by preference would be for an even schedule -- in any case there are metrics to account for this) and is in any case true in all competitive sports. Regarding trades we all mentally account for this when evaluating teams and players but the amount of major transactions with contending teams is fairly minimal anyhow and this has relatively small impact on individual players which was the primary (though not only) focus of the discussion. The reality is small samples are much more likely to be strongly influenced by temporary circumstances like injuries, illnesses etc than larger ones.
And at the margins RS’s importance (in terms of indicative power) has decreased recently, particularly for specific teams. But you don’t throw out basketball history’s entire data set, just because the Spurs are going to their bench more and protecting their stars. Historically teams have thought nothing of playing their stars circa forty minutes a night in the “fake” (I assume if playoffs is “real”) season. For 82 games. Still lets ignore performance in those games.
All of which is besides the point. It doesn’t matter “why”, the RS is better indicative of future performance (and thus real/normal ability/performance levels), especially on a player level (because of the much smaller samples for an individual player), but for teams too.
mysticOscar wrote:I think the ONLY real reason people put weight on RS are the people that love to compare stats due to sample size. I see a lot of RS games where players and teams coast....no intensity. In the playoffs, the intensity from players and even fans rises. Too bad that doesn't show on the stats.
If it doesn’t show in the stats how is it making any kind of a difference? “They’re all playing much harder in the playoffs, it just looks the same.” What? Then too “lots” of coasting games? Enough to tilt a whole season’s worth of data? How many games? One in ten, one in five, a quarter? Point them out. There’s thousands of games on the internet, show me some where teams or even significant numbers of players aren’t trying for large portions of the game.
I appreciate your response. However i'm lost to what your point is about this topic. I'm not saying to disregard the RS stats, what i'm telling you is that the playoffs has more weight. You would be completely out of touch if you think otherwise.
Sure the RS can indicate how dominant a player is, but you can't just ignore the playoffs.....on the contrary, playoffs (if there is enough sample size of course) should be viewed higher than a RS stats....especially if we are comparing BEST PLAYERS IN THE GAME.
To me, saying RS is enough...is like measuring runners soley on the heats or measuring tennis players stats only on the early rounds of grand slams. It's crazy talk.
The last four years have been a drought in terms of free throws per field goals. And go look at Jerry West's stats. He was a free throw machine.
Look at my keyword above. I stated perimeter player. Compare Jerry West's FTA per 100 compared to LBJ, Durant, WB, Harden etc..
Even Jordan (accounting for only the Bulls) has the same FTA than LBJ per 100. And Jordan took more shots.
Yes there were more FTA before in general, but these came from post players in the prior era.
Using b-ref's season totals and their positions, the ratio of free throws attempted to field goals attempted from PGs and SGs from 1967 to 1969 was 0.345.
From 2011 to 2015? 0.259.
For the 80's the ratio was 0.299.
Generally, free throw rates were huge in the early years of the league and then softened in the 70's and gradually fell. But the last four or so years have been a mini drought in free throw attempts.
Would you like to try again?
1. Three pointers
2. Yeah freethrow attempts were common among perimeter guys in the 60s because they got the snot beat out of them. Good thing that's not the modern NBA. Compare the 90-04 period to 05-15.
3. Compare only high volume scorers. You'll see a major difference.
Quotatious wrote:Yeah, of course playoff games are more important, that goes without saying, but not by a 4:1 ratio or more (which you implied saying that 20 PO games matter more than 80 RS games). For me it'd be 2:1 or 3:1 ratio at most (but 3:1 seems like too much, honestly).
Well, Malone is probably a top 5 RS performer ever (even for a 10-year prime he could be, not to mention that he would have almost another full decade of All-Star level play...), but he's one guy who clearly wasn't the same player in the postseason as he was in the RS. Mailman played a ton of playoff games in his prime, against different opponents, and he rarely sustained his RS level of play (1992 may've been the only time). He generally had good supporting casts (even just having Stockton every year is a good deal of support...), so he had pretty favorable circumstances to perform well, and he generally didn't.
I think putting together separate lists for RS and PO would be a worthwhile exercise. There would be some pretty interesting results, I'm sure (I actually created a thread about that a year ago, or so, but it didn't receive a lot of attention).
For players like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the upcoming regular season and the stats that they will put up has little weight on how we should evaluate their report card for the year. Unless something catatrosphic happens, the Clippers will make the playoffs and then they will face plethora of good teams from round 1 and onward (if they are lucky to make it). CP3 can try to give his 100% in the regular season, put up enormous stats, and lead his team to a #1 seed but if he underperforms in the playoffs, then it should be considered a poor season. Now, he can save his strength, put up ok numbers, but if he does magnificently well in the playoffs, then it should be considered a successful season. I am thinking that you will disagree with my assessment on CP3's hypothetical seasons and this is where I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.
That said, I will say this. If the playoff series were single elimination format, then I will grant that sample size becomes too small for one to make much sense of the playoff run (especially if the team is one and done). However in the long drawn out series where you play multiple games against the same team, then we can be more confident about evaluting their performance and throw out luck. And in evaluating the entire career of a person, all the PO games (150-200 for most superstars) becomes a meaningful sample size, imo.
Just curious, why Chris Paul?
Well, if you are asking if I have any animosity against him, the answer is no. But he's one of those players that needs to perform at a very high level for multiple playoff series to really push himself up in the all time ranking.
mtron929 wrote: For players like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the upcoming regular season and the stats that they will put up has little weight on how we should evaluate their report card for the year. Unless something catatrosphic happens, the Clippers will make the playoffs and then they will face plethora of good teams from round 1 and onward (if they are lucky to make it). CP3 can try to give his 100% in the regular season, put up enormous stats, and lead his team to a #1 seed but if he underperforms in the playoffs, then it should be considered a poor season. Now, he can save his strength, put up ok numbers, but if he does magnificently well in the playoffs, then it should be considered a successful season. I am thinking that you will disagree with my assessment on CP3's hypothetical seasons and this is where I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.
That said, I will say this. If the playoff series were single elimination format, then I will grant that sample size becomes too small for one to make much sense of the playoff run (especially if the team is one and done). However in the long drawn out series where you play multiple games against the same team, then we can be more confident about evaluting their performance and throw out luck. And in evaluating the entire career of a person, all the PO games (150-200 for most superstars) becomes a meaningful sample size, imo.
Just curious, why Chris Paul?
Well, if you are asking if I have any animosity against him, the answer is no. But he's one of those players that needs to perform at a very high level for multiple playoff series to really push himself up in the all time ranking.
1) Peak LeBron (2008-09) was the greatest single-season peak of all time, slightly ahead of 1999-00 Shaq and 1990-91 MJ. 2) Steve Nash's impact on those Suns teams, while significant, is severely overstated. 3) Chris Paul is a top 5 PG of all time. 4) While Anthony Davis will undoubtedly dominate the league for years to come, he as a player right now is slightly overrated, especially when people say that he's already the best player in the league. 5) Bill Russell isn't a top 5 player of all time. 6) Michael Jordan was a phenomenal 1-on-1 perimeter defender, but I believe his actual defensive impact is a little overrated. 7) The Miami Heat look much better on paper than they'll actually be on the court; I don't think they'll even be a top 4 team in the East. 8) Prime Andre Drummond will be closer to last year's Deandre Jordan than prime Dwight Howard. 9) Giannis Antetokounmpo will never develop into a player who can be one of the top 2 best players on a championship team. 10) The Sixers' rebuilding strategy is actually respectable in my opinion.
