Peaks project update: #6

[euroleague]

Scoring at a huge volume, way above the average scoring efficiency when your team has no other elite scorers yet (McHale hadn't become a star yet) is obviously valuable. You're criticizing me for using scoring as a metric,

No I'm criticizing you for using scoring as your only metric. I used scoring as a metric in my post too, it just wasn't the only one used.

then using TEAM SCORING to argue Magic was better. Magic's TEAM was way better.... doesn't mean Magic was better.

Well see that's the positives of posts, people can include multiple arguments in them at one time so people can read more than one piece of supporting evidence for a claim in a post. Try doing that next time you look at my posts, you'll be in for a treat!

Michael Cooper
James Worthy
post-prime Bob McAdoo
Kareem Abdul Jabbar

vs

Dennis Johnson
Cedric Maxwell
pre-prime Kevin McHale
Robert Parish

The problem with analysis like this is that you're just listing names with no analysis of the players which allows you to do something super misleading like list James Worthy without mentioning pre-prime as he was in his 2nd season and put up the worst numbers he ever had playing next to Magic, while at the same time saying McHale in a year where he was 6MOTY, and an All Star was "pre-prime". This is a clear slanted post, and you know if you were focusing on adding to the discussion instead of just trying to "win" you wouldn't have posted this.

Kareem is far better than anyone on the Celtics team. Kareem had a higher playoff PER than Magic, and was All-NBA 1st team and All-defensive 2nd. Going by PER, the next 3 best players are on the Lakers.

Magic was a team-first player, but acting like him being better than Bird is the reason his team was better than the Celtics is rather ridiculous.

Well his team wasn't better in 84 (less wins, way lower SRS, and lost to them in the Finals, no argument there) if we're still discussing 84 and Magic wasn't better than him in 84 either. I said he outplayed him in the 84 Finals or that it was at least close enough to be a toss up. Magic improved a lot in 85 and with it that toss up in 84 turned into Magic clearly outplaying him in 85 and 87.

Bird as a whole outplayed Magic. I had a long counter argument typed up, but somehow deleted it while formatting.

Bird dominated in scoring, but also rebounding - he led both teams at 14rpg as he outrebounded Kareem.

Kareem was 36 years old and averaging 7.3 rpg in the regular season (the same as Magic) this wasn't any type of accomplishment.

The Celtics outrebounded the Lakers on the offensive boards by 35 over the series. Bird impacted the series far more in scoring and rebounding than Magic did in those areas. Comparing Bird's assist numbers as a PF to Magic's as a PG seems ridiculous considering their roles in the offense, but obviously Magic was playmaking more often.

And I can easily say the same about rebounding and scoring. What's more unique/what adds more value than expected by a replacement a PG averaging 7.7 rpg and 13.6 apg or a PF averaging 14.0 rpg and 3.6 apg? So if you're going to disregard the impact of an extra 10 assists a game because they play different positions don't turn around and act like 14 rebounds a game is particularly impressive (it's great, but not particularly impressive).

Looking at their 3 best players, the scoring was about 5ppg apart. However, McAdoo had better offensive stats than anyone on the Celtics except Bird.

Kareem + Magic + James Worthy vs Bird + Dennis Johnson + Robert Parish

The disparity is really large there.

If it's large it's in favor of the Celtics. James Worthy was a 2nd year player that played extremely well because he was getting the rock from the GOAT PG. How much of Boston's decreased production outside of Bird had to do with his vastly descreased playmaking. He averaged 6.6 apg in the regular season and 6.9 apg in the playoffs prior to the Finals. If he's not creating buckets for them of course their efficiency will drop. Now he still played great overall because he scored well but I wouldn't say he played clearly better than Magic with that large playmaking edge Magic

On ORTG:
ORTG is one of many stats trying to equate box score numbers into possession ranking.

No it isn't it's a measure of efficiency like TS% and TOV% are, it just incorporates ALL possessions including turnovers, saved possessions (ORBs), shooting possessions, and turned over possessions. It's the single best measurement of efficiency on the boxscore. I think you're the one that needs to understand what ORTG is before commenting on it.

However, the way it's done leaves many variables unclear and often inflates the offensive values of low volume hyper-efficient scorers who also stuff the box score in other ways. Magic did that in this series.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/off_rtg_season.html

Most of those guys aren't great offensive players.

I guess we shouldn't use these stats either then?

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ts_pct_season.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/tov_pct_season.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/fg3_pct_season.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/fg_pct_season.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ft_pct_season.html

And if it seems like I'm being condescending with this part of the post it's because we've been through this 50 million times before and you still for some reason can't grasp that ORTG is a measurement of efficiency.

You don't seem condescending. You just seem like an egocentric idiot, acting condescending. You criticize me, and not my post - and I truly couldn't care less about most of your comments, as your post seems to have no point or address any of my statements.

In terms of your small addendum regarding percentages: I explicitly argue that TS isn't a good metric for scoring. That is my argument in favor of Wilt, in the very first page. If you actually are capable, please try to read what I say. Copying my arguments and using them to call me an idiot demonstrates a truly impressive lack of self-awareness

FG% and TS%, without scoring volume, is something I never used and explicitly mention as a bad metric in my argument. I use volume combined with efficiency, to determine their scoring. I then list multiple metrics Bird excels in, as opposed to one that Magic does, with the obvious implication (which seems to have gone over your head) that excelling in multiple facets of the game is clearly having a higher impact in the finals. You use a strawman to argue that Magic's assists are more impactful than Bird's rebounding - while ignoring his scoring, which was Bird's largest impact. Cool story, you're still not even addressing my point.

ORTG, meanwhile, is something you back up with feeble arguments about team points scored, which I address as faulty and you should realize is obviously so. Saying 'oh look, kareem was 36! obviously he can't have been good!' while ignoring that MJ/Wilt/every other player on this list at 36 dominated is just more ignorance.

If nothing else, your ability to ignore address multiple of my criticisms - ORTG, team talent, multi-faceted impact, use of points scored to determine single player impact in a series, etc. - while still commenting 'Well see that's the positives of posts, people can include multiple arguments in them at one time so people can read more than one piece of supporting evidence for a claim in a post. Try doing that next time you look at my posts, you'll be in for a treat!' has impressed me with the level of hypocrisy you have.

Congratulations on being a giant douche. No need to reply.

[E-Balla]

You don't seem condescending. You just seem like an egocentric idiot. You criticize me, and not my post - and I truly couldn't care less about most of your comments, as your post seems to have no point or address any of my statements.

Well no I addressed all your points and I addressed how you seemed to be more concerned with trying to win than actually making accurate points (again, you said McHale was pre-prime but 2nd year James Worthy wasn't). I directly responded to every little point you made in each of your past 2 posts. As a response you've completely ignored my points, and instead attempted to boil down my whole argument to one small mention in one of my sentences (you said Magic didn't take over the offense when Kareem struggled, I said he did using his performance in Kareem's 2 bad games and the overall offense as evidence, you pretended my whole post didn't exist and my previous 2 posts didn't and my whole argument for Magic over Bird was the team ORTG). You can ignore it but stop the blatant lying at least.

In terms of your small addendum regarding percentages: I explicitly argue that TS isn't a good metric for scoring. That is my argument in favor of Wilt, in the very first page. If you actually are capable, please try to read what I say. Copying my arguments and using them to call me an idiot demonstrates a truly impressive lack of self-awareness

FG% and TS%, without scoring volume, is something I never used and explicitly mention as a bad metric in my argument. I use volume combined with efficiency, to determine their scoring. I then list multiple metrics Bird excels in, as opposed to one that Magic does, with the obvious implication (which seems to have gone over your head) that excelling in multiple facets of the game is clearly having a higher impact in the finals. You use a strawman to argue that Magic's assists are more impactful than Bird's rebounding - while ignoring his scoring, which was Bird's largest impact. Cool story, you're still not even addressing my point.

No one used a strawman here's what you literally posted:

In '86, Bird outplayed Magic quite obviously. In '84, he did as well -
Bird: 28ppg on 60% TS
Magic: 18ppg on 61% TS

They were both efficient scorers, but Bird absolutely dominated in volume. Magic refused to take over when kareem was struggling, and as a result his team suffered. James Worthy and Kareem were arguably the 3rd and 4th best players in the series, but the Celtics won it. Bird also outrebounded Magic.

Now did I not respond to every point being made there previously?

ORTG, meanwhile, is something you back up with feeble arguments about team points scored,

I'm officially convinced you read my post and didn't understand a single word of it.

which I address as faulty and you should realize is obviously so. Saying 'oh look, kareem was 36! obviously he can't have been good!' while ignoring that MJ/Wilt/every other player on this list at 36 dominated is just more ignorance.

Again you didn't understand a single word of what I wrote and I know you don't lack reading comprehension so it's just coming off as a bad attempt at trolling at this point. You said Bird outrebounded Kareem like that was impressive. I responded by mentioning his RPG average and mentioning that Kareem was old at that point and not rebounding well.

If nothing else, your ability to ignore address multiple of my criticisms - ORTG, team talent, multi-faceted impact, use of points scored to determine single player impact in a series, etc. - while still commenting 'Well see that's the positives of posts, people can include multiple arguments in them at one time so people can read more than one piece of supporting evidence for a claim in a post. Try doing that next time you look at my posts, you'll be in for a treat!' has impressed me with the level of hypocrisy you have.

Congratulations on being a giant douche. No need to reply.

Imagine not reading a single post anyone else types and trying to claim the moral high ground when people call you out for not addressing their points, not being 100% honest in your analysis, and basically trying to win an argument instead of trying to contribute to discussion in a project.

There's a reason this has happened to you twice already in this project with 2 different posters and it's not because every other poster on the board randomly hates you.

[euroleague]

Regarding the scoring comparison: that was multiple posts ago. I elaborated further regarding rebounding and team talent, which E-balla proceeded to ignore and reference without any context.

That being said: The point of passing is to score, and Bird was the best scorer on either team, so he's the one you want taking most shots. Which he did.

The Celtics had a high ball-movement offense, where most of the starters had the same assists:
Bird - 3.6
DJ - 4.7
Maxwell - 3.3
Henderson - 4
Parish - 1.3

Despite Bird taking far more shots, he still had near the highest assist rate of his team. His team had only Maxwell as an elite finisher in the starting line-up.

The Lakers ran Showtime:
Magic - 13.6
Cooper - 5.3
Kareem - 4.4
Worthy - 2.3
Rambis - .6

Magic clearly was primarily an on-ball player. He was also a pass-first player, and so he is expected to have higher assists because he isn't taking shots. The players who he pass it to include all time great scorers like Kareem - who scores at a lower rate than Bird.

To discount scoring in any analysis of playmaking is strange. I mention numbers which show Bird had a clear scoring edge over anyone in the series. This is relevant because scoring, ORB, and passing are ultimately all offensive skills designed to facilitate getting points.... which Bird did at a rate superior to Magic's team, despite more talent on Magic's team. You counter this by saying the Celtics won more games, therefor Bird's team was better - ignoring that they likely won more games because Bird was better.

The most ironic part of all of this:
Larry Bird 84 ORTG/DRTG: 120/107
Magic Johnson 84 ORTG/DRTG: 116/107

[70sFan]

I don't have enough time now to make good post, but with Kareem in (finally) my main candidates are:

2003 and 2002 Duncan
1993 and 1994 Hakeem
1962 and 1965 Russell

I have to decide how to rank them. Maybe I should have KG among them, but I think that Garnett's peak is just below the rest.

[Colbinii]

FWIW, I rank the peaks Duncan, Russell, KG then Hakeem. All are close and in the same tier.

[cecilthesheep]

1. 2003 Duncan
2. 1964 Russell
3. 1965 Russell

2003 is Duncan's clear peak to me. He seems to be a cut above everyone else left imo; I don't think any of the remaining candidates has put together the total two-way dominance he achieved that year, and most advanced stats seem to bear that out. Next two votes are Russell just because I think he was probably the single most revolutionary, ahead-of-his-time player ever, and the impact that had on winning is obvious.

Hakeem and KG are next in some order, I think.

[pandrade83]

Strong candidates are:

Olajuwon ('93 or '94)
Bird ('86)
Magic ('87)
Russell ('65)
Duncan ('03)

You could put these 5 seasons in a hat & pull out the order & I would be hard pressed to say you're wrong. But someone has to go in.

#1 - '94 Olajuwon - I think he checks more boxes than anyone.

-Anchor of a defense that held Phx (#1 offense) to -7/100 below season average, Utah -3/100 below season average and the Knicks -5/100 below their season average. Duncan achieved something comparable - but the Dallas figure is skewed by Dirk missing 1/2 the series & that coupled with the Nets being a historically bad Finals team leads me to believe that Olajuwon overcame greater obstacles. It's also fair to put Russell in the defensive anchor category, but Olajuwon had the offensive array Russell never could/would.

-Anchored a "meh" supporting cast to a title. I avoided the carry word there. Olajuwon & Duncan both check this box and elevated their teams to heights that were probably above their stations. Olajuwon had just one other player above a 15 PER on his team (Otis Thorpe) and the trio of Phoenix, Utah & the Knicks is a pretty solid stack of teams to go through to close the deal.

-Although Houston had a pedestrian regular season offense, Olajuwon elevated them in the playoffs to posting Offensive Ratings north of 110 throughout the entire Western Conference playoff run.

#2 - '03 Duncan. If I'm picking Olajuwon #1, the most intellectually consistent position would be to put Duncan right behind him. He checks basically every box Olajuwon does.

#3 - '86 Bird. Anchor of the 2nd best (imo) team ever while being a dynamo at both ends.

[penbeast0]

Let's keep the discussion about basketball and not about other posters; even if you think they are consistently wrong or biased.

[Gibson22]

I'm back in the bulding

[Dr Positivity]

I'm having a hard time picking here. I guess I'll go with

1. 2003 Duncan
2. 2002 Duncan
3. 1994 Hakeem

Duncan is not as good as a player like Bird on offense but his defense gives him a high baseline of value, and his supporting cast was decent but on the weak side for champions. I prefer his intangibles to Hakeem. Curry has the arguable best regular season but I don't trust him in the playoffs as much.

[tihsad]

Hakeem Olajuwon 94': I had to hold off and think twice on 93', because that might be his peak, but in 1994 did it all and won. 1995 might have been sexier with the destruction of David Robinson, but 1994 was his peak, won it all with little to nothings, and killed it all through the playoffs

Tim Duncan 2003: I could easily switch this pick with the one above. Killed it during the regular season, then went HAM in the playoffs. Won it all with a cast of nobodies (Parker and Ginobili where nobodies in 03', the former a net negative, and Hedo, well yeah), dethroned the 3 time champs, and just got ugly on everybody.

Larry Bird 1986: His offensive Apex was coming the next couple years, when he started hitting those 3s, but this is the 3 time MVP (in a row) at his best. Still had his (ahem) athleticism, was the straw that stirred an all time great team, and did it all. You saw how sexy all the other Celts looked, but that was because of this guy, oh, and he'd still rip your heart out and leave it on the floor - and tell you just before he did it.

[Mavericksfan]

‘03 Duncan

Probably the greatest carry job in NBA history. Managed a top 10 offense with little help on that end while anchoring a -3.9 relative defense.

Went through Lakers with peak Shaq and one of Kobe’s greatest years. They were 45-22 when Shaq played which would’ve equated to 55-27 over the course of the season. Beat one of the best Mavs teams. Dirk for hurt but Duncan was already going off. One of the most unstoppable series I’ve ever seen.

1965 Russell-
Not much needs to be said. GOAT defensive player (imo GOAT overall). Remarkably consistent. I chose this year due to level of competition going through West/Wilt (the two best 60s players after Russell)

1986 Bird
Another perfect season and the only thing keeping it from being at the top is that he had an absolutely stacked supporting cast.
This was during Bird’s historic 3 straight MVPs as he was the catalyst for one the best teams of all

[DatAsh]

1. 1964 Russell - By far his most dominant year defensively. Celtics were -11.5 relative to league average. He was 29 years old, which is about the time that most players are peaking. So I have this as his peak. I have he and Wilt as neck and neck that year.

2. 1965 Russell - Second most dominant defensive year. Celtics were -9.9 relative to league average. He was noticeably better than Wilt this year, but that had more to do with Wilt falling off a bit.

3. 1962 Russell - Fourth best defensive year, and arguably his best offensive showing.

Other candidates were Duncan and Hakeem. They were less dominant than Russell, but their dominance was displayed against a larger talent pool, but ultimately, it wasn't enough for me.

[Bel]

1. 03 Duncan
2. 64 Russell
3. 86 Bird

Have explained rationale previously

[penbeast0]

1. 03 Duncan
2. 64 Russell
3. 86 Bird

Have explained rationale previously

And you probably remember it, but most of the rest of us don't so can you just cut and paste it in or summarize it?

[Gibson22]

Ok, sorry guys for the absence. Duncan 03 won easily. I'm going to open the next and take over. Thank you LAbird