Peaks Project #14

[Dr Spaceman]

Here's where I'm at with Wade currently: he's a guy who shouldered a tremendous load in terms of raw production in his prime. The problem is that his team's were bad. I'm not talking about his supporting casts either; Wade's teams were really bad with him on the floor. In terms of actual lift, there's no (numerical) reason to believe his impact was any higher than other contemporary superstars. Guys like Curry, Dirk, etc. have similar or higher on/off scores on teams that accomplished way more than Wade's ever did.

So you kind of get stuck in this thing where you can't have it both ways: we're really impressed with Wade's raw production around a terrible cast because we think it signifies huge impact. But if his team isn't terrible, were forced to consider that either his numbers wouldn't look so impressive because there are more talented players to produce those numbers, or he'd continue putting up those same numbers but his impact would be lessened because now he's cannibalizing.

Is this really the route were going to travel? I'd argue that you can't have your argument both ways. The years Wade actually did have a good team it was typically guaranteed a deep trip into the playoffs, title in 06, FInals run in 2011 where he was 1b. You can't look at his raw numbers as empty because his team was bad, then when he does have a championship caliber team create a myth about how his impact is diminished even though he's still putting up excellent numbers.

Let's talk about Wade's 2006 run. Look at the numbers of his team's offensive performance: they were bad! Miami's offense was awful in the playoffs; their defense was superlative, so they just had to be good enough on offense, and Wade posting crazy numbers enabled that.

Who cares how good their offense was? They won a title mainly due to Wade's greatness, and that is the goal of teams, to win a title not put up highly ranked offenses. I'm pretty sure if you asked Wade he wouldn't trade in his 06 ring for a top 3 offense.

But we've literally never seen Wade lead even a decent offense as a first option.

Well it's pretty strange to not only ignore the trash Wade played with in 09 & 10, but to also ignore that Spo is a defensive minded coach that had the Heat playing at a slow pace.

Miami was 20th on offense in his peak season. Was his 2009 cast really that much worse than Dirk's?

are you serious? When in Dirk's prime did he ever have a cast where a Rookie pot-head Beasley averaging 13.9 ppg was his best player? Wade only got 27 games out of Jermaine who wasn't that good at that point, half a season from Marion who was never that good at creating his own shot. Who else is worth mentioning? They had terrible point guard play, no depth at any position,no bench, no one that could create their own shot other than WADE. That was a terribly flawed and structured roster, Dirk has ALWAYS had better teams than that especially in the years he was contending.

FWIW: Dirk's career on-court ORTG is higher than Wade's single season best (2006)

ORTG isn't gospel. And one stat doesn't make Dirk better. I can pull up something arbitrary like, Wade's career PER over 12 seasons is higher than all but 4 of Dirk's seasons.

I think Curry and Dirk in particular just give your team a way higher ceiling and are more likely to scale with a team to championship levels.

Wade won with a team much worse than Curry's so this statement makes no sense sorry.

I'm just going to leave this alone because I don't like the way you're trying to splice up my post into smaller sentences that you can tear down individually. That post was a cogent thought process, but you're choosing not to respond to the main idea and anyway it seems like you have a significant emotional investment in this.

[PaulieWal]

Honestly, how much does it matter who the opponents were? This is a decade-large sample of Dirk kicking everyone's asses in the playoffs repeatedly. Just in 2006 he posted essentially the same ORTG against the Spurs as he did the Suns. He's had some bad series, but here you are looking at a literal decade of offensive performances that would make Mike D'Antoni smile, and you want more information about the opponents.

This is with Nash. This is without Nash. This is with Avery. This is with Carlisle. This is with Finley, J-Ho, Marion, Kidd, Harris, Van Excel, Don Nelson, Desngana Diop, against the Spurs, Lakers, Suns, Kings, Blazers. Literally every possible context changed around Dirk.

There are two constants in this equation: Dirk and elite team offense. Do with that what you will.

But Wade has shown that his career on-court ORTG is right in the mix with his peers.

And what about KG and his team's mediocre DRTGs?

Dirk wasn't playing with world beaters either but I'd say all things given it was talent suited to his needs as a player.

And I know you don't want to use LeBron era Heat but in 2011 Wade was right there as 1a/1b.

Mischievous touched on it but Spo was a defensive minded coach and even in 2011 all he did was practice defense with the team. In his own words the goal was to defend well and "let the offense take care of itself". It's clear that he had the same philosophy in 09/10 while Dirk was playing with coaches who worked on offense.

I don't get this obsession with ORTGs of some on this board. For one it's not a perfect stat and secondly, I am happy with a top 10 offense/defense to win the title. The rest is just gravy.

FWIW, Wade has always ranked well with RAPM and especially ORAPM.

Wade has one of the best RAPMs from 01-14 and IIRC better than Dirk.

[mischievous]

Here's where I'm at with Wade currently: he's a guy who shouldered a tremendous load in terms of raw production in his prime. The problem is that his team's were bad. I'm not talking about his supporting casts either; Wade's teams were really bad with him on the floor. In terms of actual lift, there's no (numerical) reason to believe his impact was any higher than other contemporary superstars. Guys like Curry, Dirk, etc. have similar or higher on/off scores on teams that accomplished way more than Wade's ever did.

So you kind of get stuck in this thing where you can't have it both ways: we're really impressed with Wade's raw production around a terrible cast because we think it signifies huge impact. But if his team isn't terrible, were forced to consider that either his numbers wouldn't look so impressive because there are more talented players to produce those numbers, or he'd continue putting up those same numbers but his impact would be lessened because now he's cannibalizing.

Is this really the route were going to travel? I'd argue that you can't have your argument both ways. The years Wade actually did have a good team it was typically guaranteed a deep trip into the playoffs, title in 06, FInals run in 2011 where he was 1b. You can't look at his raw numbers as empty because his team was bad, then when he does have a championship caliber team create a myth about how his impact is diminished even though he's still putting up excellent numbers.

Let's talk about Wade's 2006 run. Look at the numbers of his team's offensive performance: they were bad! Miami's offense was awful in the playoffs; their defense was superlative, so they just had to be good enough on offense, and Wade posting crazy numbers enabled that.

Who cares how good their offense was? They won a title mainly due to Wade's greatness, and that is the goal of teams, to win a title not put up highly ranked offenses. I'm pretty sure if you asked Wade he wouldn't trade in his 06 ring for a top 3 offense.

But we've literally never seen Wade lead even a decent offense as a first option.

Well it's pretty strange to not only ignore the trash Wade played with in 09 & 10, but to also ignore that Spo is a defensive minded coach that had the Heat playing at a slow pace.

Miami was 20th on offense in his peak season. Was his 2009 cast really that much worse than Dirk's?

are you serious? When in Dirk's prime did he ever have a cast where a Rookie pot-head Beasley averaging 13.9 ppg was his best player? Wade only got 27 games out of Jermaine who wasn't that good at that point, half a season from Marion who was never that good at creating his own shot. Who else is worth mentioning? They had terrible point guard play, no depth at any position,no bench, no one that could create their own shot other than WADE. That was a terribly flawed and structured roster, Dirk has ALWAYS had better teams than that especially in the years he was contending.

FWIW: Dirk's career on-court ORTG is higher than Wade's single season best (2006)

ORTG isn't gospel. And one stat doesn't make Dirk better. I can pull up something arbitrary like, Wade's career PER over 12 seasons is higher than all but 4 of Dirk's seasons.

I think Curry and Dirk in particular just give your team a way higher ceiling and are more likely to scale with a team to championship levels.

Wade won with a team much worse than Curry's so this statement makes no sense sorry.

I'm just going to leave this alone because I don't like the way you're trying to splice up my post into smaller sentences that you can tear down individually. That post was a cogent thought process, but you're choosing not to respond to the main idea and anyway it seems like you have a significant emotional investment in this.

Thats fine. I'm just getting tired of the attempts to knock down Wade as an offensive player. The team offense, and ORTG arguments are getting tiresome. I simply don't agree with those approaches so i guess we'll have to leave it alone and move forward.

[Dr Spaceman]

But Wade has shown that his career on-court ORTG is right in the mix with his peers.

Right, but what happens if we don't include the years he played with the player who was just voted in at #3 in this project? It's disingenuous to do this when none of his other peers played with a GOAT candidate.

And what about KG and his team's mediocre DRTGs?

That was forgiven for the most part when he anchored (note: "anchored", meaning he was the #1 guy) the arguable GOAT defense and then proceeded to follow that up with several more historically dominant defensive seasons while approaching the age of 36. Wade has never played on, let alone anchored, the best offense in the league let alone of all time.

Mischievous touched on it but Spo was a defensive minded coach and even in 2011 all he did was practice defense with the team. In his own words the goal was to defend well and "let the offense take care of itself". It's clear that he had the same philosophy in 09/10 while Dirk was playing with coaches who worked on offense.

Honest question: How much do you know about Avery Johnson as a coach?

I don't get this obsession with ORTGs of some on this board. For one it's not a perfect stat and secondly, I am happy with a top 10 offense/defense to win the title. The rest is just gravy.

This is actually the thing I take issue with most. We're comparing GOAT-level players, and you're saying the difference between the #10 offense and the #1 offense is "gravy"? Seriously??

Assuming equal defense, the team with the better offense is more likely to win a title. Do you agree or disagree?

FWIW, Wade has always ranked well with RAPM and especially ORAPM.

Wade has one of the best RAPMs from 01-14 and IIRC better than Dirk.

Right, my argument is that Wade's RAPM would decrease steadily as he played with more and more talented teammates. And that did happen in real life, FWIW.

[PaulieWal]

snip....

Yeah, he "anchored" the GOAT defense with plus defenders at almost every position. That's some great anchoring right there.

And obviously you want your offense to be as good as possible but again a top 3-4 ORTG and a top ranked defense is far more important than a GOAT level offense with a mediocre defense. The reality in life is that all things are never equal so you can't really play that card.

And again, you are conflating his injury issues with diminishing play/impact on the court. He did pretty well in raw/advanced stats in 2011, 2013 RS and 2012 to an extent. You have shown this tendency before as well when you were talking about the Spurs having their way with a crippled Wade in the 13 Finals. That doesn't mean he's not portable, my man.

[Dr Positivity]

Ballot 1 - Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 2 - Patrick Ewing 1990

Ballot 3 - Oscar Robertson 1964

Voted Curry and Ewing last thread. With Oscar it was between, Paul and Dirk for me. Although I know slightly less what I'm getting with Oscar vs modern competition his stats and impact is too dominant

[bastillon]

Wade has shown in 2011-2014 that his portability is an issue. I'd still take Kobe 2008 over any version of Wade. It's simply much easier to build a dominant team around Kobe. He doesn't need spacing as much as Wade does. Wade has to play with shooters around him because he's mediocre from 18 feet out.

I'm also surprised that Duncan got voted in based on the narrative that he carried some scrubs to the title, and Dirk is still left out. Meanwhile, Dirk's 2011 Mavs are actually worse supporting cast than Duncan had (if you take defense into account) and has beaten highly impressive competition. Dirk 2011 is the best offensive player of this generation, better than Nash, LeBron and Kobe. That dude was a monster.

To me legit candidates right now are:
Oscar (late 60s)
West (late 60s)
Dirk 2011
Kobe 2008
Nash 2006
Ewing 1990 (who was far better than any version of Duncan and D-Rob, who are already voted in)

[RebelWithACause]

For the Wade supporters:

Who is the best offensive player out of Wade, Bryant, McGrady and Durant?
Would like to see a breakdown of these 4 guys.
Unfortunately don't have the time to do it myself.


For the Curry/ Paul supporters:

How close do you think Nash and Penny are to those 2?
Why do you prefer Curry or Paul?

[bastillon]

Ballot 1 - Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 2 - Patrick Ewing 1990

Ballot 3 - Oscar Robertson 1964

Voted Curry and Ewing last thread. With Oscar it was between, Paul and Dirk for me. Although I know slightly less what I'm getting with Oscar vs modern competition his stats and impact is too dominant

Curry over Nash? I'd say Curry had some really rough stretches in the playoffs, didn't he? I've never seen Nash being contained in a playoff series. I understand that Curry's a better defender, but this is of marginal significance when one of them lacks consistency in the playoffs.

[PaulieWal]

Wade has shown in 2011-2014 that his portability is an issue. I'd still take Kobe 2008 over any version of Wade. It's simply much easier to build a dominant team around Kobe. He doesn't need spacing as much as Wade does. Wade has to play with shooters around him because he's mediocre from 18 feet out.

I'm also surprised that Duncan got voted in based on the narrative that he carried some scrubs to the title, and Dirk is still left out. Meanwhile, Dirk's 2011 Mavs are actually worse supporting cast than Duncan had (if you take defense into account) and has beaten highly impressive competition. Dirk 2011 is the best offensive player of this generation, better than Nash, LeBron and Kobe. That dude was a monster.

To me legit candidates right now are:
Oscar (late 60s)
West (late 60s)
Dirk 2011
Kobe 2008
Nash 2006
Ewing 1990 (who was far better than any version of Duncan and D-Rob, who are already voted in)

You have made some great posts but I am also having a hard time looking past your obvious agenda.

For all their portability issues the Heat were 2 games away from beating the Mavs and if LeBron doesn't have a meltdown of epic proportions the Heat probably win that series easily.

In 2013 RS we saw the Heat reach it's peak and if Wade wasn't 50% of himself that team would have repeated a lot easier IMO.

To add Kobe is a better shooter than Wade but he's not some great 3 point shooter. I am not sure that building a team around him is easier, though it could be but then when I see you not list Wade 09 or 06 at all is a bit bizarre.

[theonlyclutch]

snip....

Yeah, he "anchored" the GOAT defense with plus defenders at almost every position. That's some great anchoring right there.

And obviously you want your offense to be as good as possible but again a top 3-4 ORTG and a top ranked defense is far more important than a GOAT level offense with a mediocre defense. The reality in life is that all things are never equal so you can't really play that card.

And again, you are conflating his injury issues with diminishing play/impact on the court. He did pretty well in raw/advanced stats in 2011, 2013 RS and 2012 to an extent. You have shown this tendency before as well when you were talking about the Spurs having their way with a crippled Wade in the 13 Finals. That doesn't mean he's not portable, my man.

And when was Wade anchoring top 3-4 ranked ORTGs pre-Lebron? The closest he got was in '05, but that was very clearly concurrently with MVP-candidate Shaq on the team...

Anyways, given that Wade from '12 onwards was playing very differently from how he was playing pre-LBJ, I don't see much particular relevance in citing the portability of Wade's game at that time as a reference to his portability playing in an entirely different way in '09...

[bastillon]

For the Wade supporters:

Who is the best offensive player out of Wade, Bryant, McGrady and Durant?
Would like to see a breakdown of these 4 guys.
Unfortunately don't have the time to do it myself.

I rate players based on how they can perform vs. high level competition and in multiple team environments. Wade lacks portability. He has issues meshing well with other ball dominant players. McGrady had stretches in the playoffs where he disappears. Tayshaun Prince destroyed TMac in 2003 (ever since Prince was inserted, Magic had no chance, they were losing by huge blowouts). Durant had significant issues in the playoffs vs. high level defenses, in particular Tony Allen basically embarrassed him. Bryant had some huge letdowns in the playoffs as well (2004 comes to mind but with a pending rape case it is somewhat understandable he wasn't 100%), but we know what Kobe gives you vs high level opponents and that he meshes very well with talent. On top of that, Kobe-led 2008 offense had an insane ceiling, basically GOAT level offense.

[mischievous]

That was forgiven for the most part when he anchored (note: "anchored", meaning he was the #1 guy) the arguable GOAT defense and then proceeded to follow that up with several more historically dominant defensive seasons while approaching the age of 36.

This is exact proof that you need the proper supporting cast , right fit of players and right coach to accomplish such a thing. You can't do it alone, that's why i don't get how team offense argument is used to attack Wade.

[PaulieWal]

For the Wade supporters:

Who is the best offensive player out of Wade, Bryant, McGrady and Durant?
Would like to see a breakdown of these 4 guys.
Unfortunately don't have the time to do it myself.

I rate players based on how they can perform vs. high level competition and in multiple team environments.

Do you really now?

Well prime Wade has always done extremely well against the best defenses FWIW.

[bastillon]

snip....

Yeah, he "anchored" the GOAT defense with plus defenders at almost every position. That's some great anchoring right there.

Are you questioning that KG anchored Celtics defense in 2008? You realize that they completely collapsed defensively after KG went down with an injury in 2009, right? That Celtics were below average defense without KG, and all-time great with him?

[Dr Spaceman]

And obviously you want your offense to be as good as possible but again a top 3-4 ORTG and a top ranked defense is far more important than a GOAT level offense with a mediocre defense. The reality in life is that all things are never equal so you can't really play that card.

This line of argumentation doesn't have any relevance here unless you believe one of two things: 1. Wade makes it very likely you will have a "top defense" or 2. Dirk makes it very unlikely you will have a "top defense".

If you can't support one of those two premises, then your argument here reads as "It doesn't matter that Wade led worse offenses than Dirk, because teams need to be good at defense too". Does that strike you as logical?

[RebelWithACause]

Anyone already down to mention Barkley?

Would you say 93 was his peak?
I'm inclined to say 89 or 90 was his peak, because he tried a lot more on D and was a almost a neutral defender back then.

Thoughts?

[PaulieWal]

snip....

Yeah, he "anchored" the GOAT defense with plus defenders at almost every position. That's some great anchoring right there.

And obviously you want your offense to be as good as possible but again a top 3-4 ORTG and a top ranked defense is far more important than a GOAT level offense with a mediocre defense. The reality in life is that all things are never equal so you can't really play that card.

And again, you are conflating his injury issues with diminishing play/impact on the court. He did pretty well in raw/advanced stats in 2011, 2013 RS and 2012 to an extent. You have shown this tendency before as well when you were talking about the Spurs having their way with a crippled Wade in the 13 Finals. That doesn't mean he's not portable, my man.

And when was Wade anchoring top 3-4 ranked ORTGs pre-Lebron? The closest he got was in '05, but that was very clearly concurrently with MVP-candidate Shaq on the team...

Anyways, given that Wade from '12 onwards was playing very differently from how he was playing pre-LBJ, I don't see much particular relevance in citing the portability of Wade's game at that time as a reference to his portability playing in an entirely different way in '09...

Why not? In 09 he had to do everything on his own, he can't really show "portability".

He actually showed whenever healthy post-2011 that he could be extremely portable, move off the ball completely to let LeBron or another ball handler take over and still be pretty damn effective whenever those knees weren't creaking.

What year was he supposed to anchor this top defense? Please do tell. Was this in 09 when a rookie Spo came in with a defensive mindset? Or in 05, 06 when he was taking over the team from Shaq gradually while the Heat continued to focus on defense under Riley? The two prime years he was the #1 option in 09 and 10 he was playing with horrible supporting casts with a defensive minded coach.

---------------------------


Either way, people around here know my thoughts on Wade. I would like to see more talk about him not focused on ORTG.

[mischievous]

Wade lacks portability. He has issues meshing well with other ball dominant players.

Now wait, isn't this at least somewhat of an issue with all ball dominant players? How would Nash or CP3 fit with someone like Lebron? How would Kobe mesh with a Nash or a Lebron? The examples go on and on.

This seems false anyhow since the Heat made 4 straight finals and won 2 rings with Wade supposedly "not meshing" with Lebron James.

[PaulieWal]

And obviously you want your offense to be as good as possible but again a top 3-4 ORTG and a top ranked defense is far more important than a GOAT level offense with a mediocre defense. The reality in life is that all things are never equal so you can't really play that card.

This line of argumentation doesn't have any relevance here unless you believe one of two things: 1. Wade makes it very likely you will have a "top defense" or 2. Dirk makes it very unlikely you will have a "top defense".

If you can't support one of those two premises, then your argument here reads as "It doesn't matter that Wade led worse offenses than Dirk, because teams need to be good at defense too". Does that strike you as logical?

No, the line of argument is actually very simple.

Nothing in life of the NBA is "equal".

That point had nothing to do with Wade or Dirk.

Ideally you want a good defense and good offense. Wade has shown he can be a part of good enough offenses to make deep playoff runs. Easy enough to understand or it should be...