Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #10 - 1986-87 Magic Johnson

[70sFan]

I want to apologize for not responding to all wonderful replies to my posts in the latest thread. I'm leaving for a few days to academic conference and although I probably will find time to vote, I'm not sure I will respond to all the questions again.

I just let you know that I read them all and I took them into consideration in my future votes.

[jalengreen]

Why was he worse in the 2017 Regular Season? Unlike any other player in the top... 20 peaks? 30 peaks?... Curry had an all-time player join his team during his 2ish-year peak. Do people really not expect there to be an adjustment period? I've provided in-depth statistical evidence and film evidence that showed that Curry was just as good a player in 2017 Regular season. He just lost value. Why? He intentionally took a step back to prioritize making KD comfortable. This is the kind of Cultural Leadership advantage that also puts Curry >> Kawhi, Moses Malone, Julius Erving, KG, David Robinson, Giannis, and Oscar, to name other players who have been voted in this thread.
Evidence that 2017 Regular Season Curry was just as good of a player as 2016 Regular Season Curry (just with a slump from taking a step back to help KD) here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100321960#p100321960, here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100359184#p100359184, and here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100017661#p100017661.

Through the first 20 games of the 2017 regular season, Curry averaged 26.9 PPG on 66.5% TS% and the Warriors were 17-3, a bonkers 70-win pace. In this same stretch, Durant averaged 27.3 PPG on 68.0% TS%.

I'm not convinced that there was much need for a season-long adjustment period. They had an electric start and Durant clearly seemed to be comfortable. And then Curry decided to take a step back for whatever reason. I get the perspective of saying "he took a step back for KD, so he's a great leader," but I can't help but think that there was no need for him to have taken a step back. I'd go as far as saying that it's a negative that he took a step back, not a positive because of it being indicative of strong leadership, although I understood the other perspective.

I think we have to ask ourselves: Why does Curry consistently create better shots for his teammates and improve his teammates' efficiency more than older LeBron, Harden, Jokic, Luka, Westbrook, and older Chris Paul, whether we're looking at a 1-year peak or a 5 Year prime? Where does this playmaking come from?
1 Year Peak: Curry +7.3% (1st in league) >> older LeBron +3.9% (2nd in league) > peak Westbrook +2.5% (3rd in league)
[Metric: teammates' shooting percentage improvement when a star is on court vs when they're off. Sample: among top players in 2017]
5 Year Peak: Curry +0.07 (1st in league) > Trae Young +0.06 (2nd in league) > Nikola Jokic +0.06 (3rd in league) > LeBron James +0.05 (4th in league)
[Metric: teammates' increased pts/shot when a star is on vs off, aided by tracking data. Sample: 2018-2022]

Just to add to this:



While Curry is certainly up there and arguably the best of the pack, I'm not sure he appears to be consistently ahead of the rest by this metric.

[DraymondGold]

For people voting for Giannis, do you have any resilience concerns?

In literally every prime playoff, Giannis has had a scoring decline, and scoring is his best offensive trait:
in 2019 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2020 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -1.4% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2021 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-0.5 pts/75 drop, -3.3% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2022 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-1.3 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)

Context: Giannis did have injuries at the end of a few playoff series for example. But it still concerns me that Giannis' postseason scoring consistently declines after his best regular seasons in 2019 and 2020, even if we just look at playoff games where he was healthy. In 2021 when he supposedly "figured it out," he still had an overall drop and performed worst in his hardest series against the (injured) Nets. Even after "figuring it out" in 2021, he went right back to dropping in 2022 (and this decline persists even if we account for the opponent's defensive rating or just look at the 1st round).

I worry we're overrating Giannis' offense solely because of a memorable Finals, while forgetting... most of his other playoff performances. He's often had extreme declines against "build a wall" defenses and league-leading defenses. The best counterargument might be something akin to Bird or Curry or LeBron's resilience argument, where we say his scoring declines but he makes up for it in creation / gravity / off-ball play. But I'm not sure the eye test supports that (at least mine doesn't -- though I might have a particular bias against some of the head-scratching decisions he made earlier on... those early shot-clock 3s make me want to pull my hair out ).

And I will say team performance does correlate with this poor (offensive) resilience. Take the 2019 and 2020 regular season: the Bucks had fantastic margin of victory numbers, but they over-performed against bad teams and underperformed against good teams more than other all-time teams did. They had these numbers while surrounding Giannis with other all-stars who are good on offense (he had 2 other all-stars with him in 21), and he also had just about the perfect fitting big next to him, stretching the floor on offense while providing a second rim protector on defense.

[jalengreen]

2021 Giannis

...

Super informative and making me consider whether I should have Giannis higher.

Regarding Giannis recently ramping up his defense in the playoffs, I thought the 2022 postseason was a great example of that and a pretty absurd performance from Giannis. Lopez coming back was a boost (and the rim protection of Lopez+Giannis lineups was absurd) but the Bucks also maintained a defensive rating of 100.23 with Giannis on and Lopez off the floor.

[homecourtloss]

While Curry is certainly up there and arguably the best of the pack, I'm not sure he appears to be consistently ahead of the rest by this metric.

Harden’s wild stretch there scoring 32 ppg on 62% TS while creating absurdly good looks at the rim and corner threes for teammates is so highly underrated.

Also, Lakers with a bottom 10 offense last year with LeBron scoring 30 ppg on 62% TS while creating good looks for teammates…

PG’s playmaking skills gradually improving gives hope for other wings like him who were seen as athletic players who could shoot and possibly one day create for themselves but not really for others.

[falcolombardi]

For people voting for Giannis, do you have any resilience concerns?

In literally every prime playoff, Giannis has had a scoring decline, and scoring is his best offensive trait:
in 2019 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2020 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -1.4% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2021 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-0.5 pts/75 drop, -3.3% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2022 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-1.3 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)

Context: Giannis did have injuries at the end of a few playoff series for example. But it still concerns me that Giannis' postseason scoring consistently declines after his best regular seasons in 2019 and 2020, even if we just look at playoff games where he was healthy. In 2021 when he supposedly "figured it out," he still had an overall drop and performed worst in his hardest series against the (injured) Nets. Even after "figuring it out" in 2021, he went right back to dropping in 2022 (and this decline persists even if we account for the opponent's defensive rating or just look at the 1st round).

I worry we're overrating Giannis' offense solely because of a memorable Finals, while forgetting... most of his other playoff performances. He's often had extreme declines against "build a wall" defenses and league-leading defenses. The best counterargument might be something akin to Bird or Curry or LeBron's resilience argument, where we say his scoring declines but he makes up for it in creation / gravity / off-ball play. But I'm not sure the eye test supports that (at least mine doesn't -- though I might have a particular bias against some of the head-scratching decisions he made earlier on... those early shot-clock 3s make me want to pull my hair out ).

And I will say team performance does correlate with this poor (offensive) resilience. Take the 2019 and 2020 regular season: the Bucks had fantastic margin of victory numbers, but they over-performed against bad teams and underperformed against good teams more than other all-time teams did. They had these numbers while surrounding Giannis with other all-stars who are good on offense (he had 2 other all-stars with him in 21), and he also had just about the perfect fitting big next to him, stretching the floor on offense while providing a second rim protector on defense.

If he didnt have those drop offs in the playoffs + his defense he would be a contender for #1 peak

His regular season floor and his playoffs impact floor thanks to defense are already so high that he is still a top peak regardless

Kinda likr curry is a top playoffs offensive force even when his shot is not falling so much

[DraymondGold]

Why was he worse in the 2017 Regular Season? Unlike any other player in the top... 20 peaks? 30 peaks?... Curry had an all-time player join his team during his 2ish-year peak. Do people really not expect there to be an adjustment period? I've provided in-depth statistical evidence and film evidence that showed that Curry was just as good a player in 2017 Regular season. He just lost value. Why? He intentionally took a step back to prioritize making KD comfortable. This is the kind of Cultural Leadership advantage that also puts Curry >> Kawhi, Moses Malone, Julius Erving, KG, David Robinson, Giannis, and Oscar, to name other players who have been voted in this thread.
Evidence that 2017 Regular Season Curry was just as good of a player as 2016 Regular Season Curry (just with a slump from taking a step back to help KD) here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100321960#p100321960, here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100359184#p100359184, and here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100017661#p100017661.

Through the first 20 games of the 2017 regular season, Curry averaged 26.9 PPG on 66.5% TS% and the Warriors were 17-3, a bonkers 70-win pace. In this same stretch, Durant averaged 27.3 PPG on 68.0% TS%.

I'm not convinced that there was much need for a season-long adjustment period. They had an electric start and Durant clearly seemed to be comfortable. And then Curry decided to take a step back for whatever reason. I get the perspective of saying "he took a step back for KD, so he's a great leader," but I can't help but think that there was no need for him to have taken a step back. I'd go as far as saying that it's a negative that he took a step back, not a positive because of it being indicative of strong leadership, although I understood the other perspective.

Hiya jalengreen! We discussed this at length in the links above (which was quite a fun conversation btw!), so I won't repeat too much.

In short: Teams adjust strategies throughout the regular season. It's not realistic to expect teams to have zero changes to their offense or defense as the year goes on, particularly if they suddenly add an MVP-level player. So despite their hot start, it's not crazy to think it takes time to adjust to playing with an all-time player, even if you think it should have taken less time then it did.

1. Does the reason for having a worse regular seasons matter? Players have been voted in already who did not combine their best regular season and playoffs in one year (LeBron, Kareem, Russell, Hakeem, possibly Shaq/others). Players are currently being voted over Curry who also didn't combine their best regular season with their best postseason (Giannis, Kawhi, Garnett, Robinson). If the context for Curry is that his regular season was worse because he was adjusting to a new team fit (regardless if you think the fit adjustment should have been quicker), while other players (e.g. 21 Giannis/17 Kawhi/95 Robinson) had worse regular seasons because they were intentionally coasting / lost regular season motor... that seems relevant and a point in favor of Curry, al least to me.

2. Who cares about a regular season slump if he's still just as good or better than the competition? I've shown 17 Curry's basically universally better than 87 magic in the postseason metrics we have. Even if 17 Curry's regular season is worse than 16 Curry's, I've also shown it's still near the level of 87 Magic, and shown that Curry can still be a better regular season player than Magic. For other players, while having a clearly better playoffs, Curry's regular season is pretty clearly plays at the same level or better than the other competitors (Giannis, Kawhi, Garnett, Robinson, Moses). So... does it matter?

I think we have to ask ourselves: Why does Curry consistently create better shots for his teammates and improve his teammates' efficiency more than older LeBron, Harden, Jokic, Luka, Westbrook, and older Chris Paul, whether we're looking at a 1-year peak or a 5 Year prime? Where does this playmaking come from?
1 Year Peak: Curry +7.3% (1st in league) >> older LeBron +3.9% (2nd in league) > peak Westbrook +2.5% (3rd in league)
[Metric: teammates' shooting percentage improvement when a star is on court vs when they're off. Sample: among top players in 2017]
5 Year Peak: Curry +0.07 (1st in league) > Trae Young +0.06 (2nd in league) > Nikola Jokic +0.06 (3rd in league) > LeBron James +0.05 (4th in league)
[Metric: teammates' increased pts/shot when a star is on vs off, aided by tracking data. Sample: 2018-2022]

Just to add to this:



While Curry is certainly up there and arguably the best of the pack, I'm not sure he appears to be consistently ahead of the rest by this metric.

Thanks for the year-specific numbers! Very cool to look at

But: Curry's ahead of everyone else regardless of whether we take a 1-year sample during his peak or a 5/6-year sample of his prime (which doesn't include 2015 where he'd also probably be topping the league). So I do think it's fair to say Curry in his peak or his prime beats the competition in playmaking efficiency.

[MyUniBroDavis]

For people voting for Giannis, do you have any resilience concerns?

In literally every prime playoff, Giannis has had a scoring decline, and scoring is his best offensive trait:
in 2019 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2020 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -1.4% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2021 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-0.5 pts/75 drop, -3.3% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2022 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-1.3 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)

Context: Giannis did have injuries at the end of a few playoff series for example. But it still concerns me that Giannis' postseason scoring consistently declines after his best regular seasons in 2019 and 2020, even if we just look at playoff games where he was healthy. In 2021 when he supposedly "figured it out," he still had an overall drop and performed worst in his hardest series against the (injured) Nets. Even after "figuring it out" in 2021, he went right back to dropping in 2022 (and this decline persists even if we account for the opponent's defensive rating or just look at the 1st round).

I worry we're overrating Giannis' offense solely because of a memorable Finals, while forgetting... most of his other playoff performances. He's often had extreme declines against "build a wall" defenses and league-leading defenses. The best counterargument might be something akin to Bird or Curry or LeBron's resilience argument, where we say his scoring declines but he makes up for it in creation / gravity / off-ball play. But I'm not sure the eye test supports that (at least mine doesn't -- though I might have a particular bias against some of the head-scratching decisions he made earlier on... those early shot-clock 3s make me want to pull my hair out ).

And I will say team performance does correlate with this poor (offensive) resilience. Take the 2019 and 2020 regular season: the Bucks had fantastic margin of victory numbers, but they over-performed against bad teams and underperformed against good teams more than other all-time teams did. They had these numbers while surrounding Giannis with other all-stars who are good on offense (he had 2 other all-stars with him in 21), and he also had just about the perfect fitting big next to him, stretching the floor on offense while providing a second rim protector on defense.

I think we discussed this in an earlier post, but 2021 and 2022 the offense was different, 4 out 1 in vs 5 out bigger gaps dunker spot etc etc, the majority of his dropoff was because he was worse form three (on less shots so he wasn’t being forced to shoot from there more), and from the ft line, so I don’t think it’s a resellience thing for that year, and in 2022 the Celtics were uniquely equipped to guard him + his offensive load

[jalengreen]

For people voting for Giannis, do you have any resilience concerns?

In literally every prime playoff, Giannis has had a scoring decline, and scoring is his best offensive trait:
in 2019 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2020 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -1.4% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2021 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-0.5 pts/75 drop, -3.3% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2022 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-1.3 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)

Context: Giannis did have injuries at the end of a few playoff series for example. But it still concerns me that Giannis' postseason scoring consistently declines after his best regular seasons in 2019 and 2020, even if we just look at playoff games where he was healthy. In 2021 when he supposedly "figured it out," he still had an overall drop and performed worst in his hardest series against the (injured) Nets. Even after "figuring it out" in 2021, he went right back to dropping in 2022 (and this decline persists even if we account for the opponent's defensive rating or just look at the 1st round).

I worry we're overrating Giannis' offense solely because of a memorable Finals, while forgetting... most of his other playoff performances. He's often had extreme declines against "build a wall" defenses and league-leading defenses. The best counterargument might be something akin to Bird or Curry or LeBron's resilience argument, where we say his scoring declines but he makes up for it in creation / gravity / off-ball play. But I'm not sure the eye test supports that (at least mine doesn't -- though I might have a particular bias against some of the head-scratching decisions he made earlier on... those early shot-clock 3s make me want to pull my hair out ).

And I will say team performance does correlate with this poor (offensive) resilience. Take the 2019 and 2020 regular season: the Bucks had fantastic margin of victory numbers, but they over-performed against bad teams and underperformed against good teams more than other all-time teams did. They had these numbers while surrounding Giannis with other all-stars who are good on offense (he had 2 other all-stars with him in 21), and he also had just about the perfect fitting big next to him, stretching the floor on offense while providing a second rim protector on defense.

I'm not terribly high on Giannis' offense, but I do think that he has high postseason gravity against teams that stifle his scoring efficiency. Generates a high number of open three-pointers (and his playmaking ability has improved a ton IMO, especially his passing accuracy) but it feels that the Bucks' three-point shooting suffers in the playoffs (example: Jrue) which lets teams get away with playing a defense focused on Giannis.

There are also series like the 2021 sweep against the Heat where he had something like a 49% TS% but a 57% TS% excluding three-pointers IIRC which doesn't worry me regarding his resilience as much. I do think the decision-making is a valid concern though, he has plenty of moments like you mentioned.

[jalengreen]

Why was he worse in the 2017 Regular Season? Unlike any other player in the top... 20 peaks? 30 peaks?... Curry had an all-time player join his team during his 2ish-year peak. Do people really not expect there to be an adjustment period? I've provided in-depth statistical evidence and film evidence that showed that Curry was just as good a player in 2017 Regular season. He just lost value. Why? He intentionally took a step back to prioritize making KD comfortable. This is the kind of Cultural Leadership advantage that also puts Curry >> Kawhi, Moses Malone, Julius Erving, KG, David Robinson, Giannis, and Oscar, to name other players who have been voted in this thread.
Evidence that 2017 Regular Season Curry was just as good of a player as 2016 Regular Season Curry (just with a slump from taking a step back to help KD) here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100321960#p100321960, here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100359184#p100359184, and here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100017661#p100017661.

Through the first 20 games of the 2017 regular season, Curry averaged 26.9 PPG on 66.5% TS% and the Warriors were 17-3, a bonkers 70-win pace. In this same stretch, Durant averaged 27.3 PPG on 68.0% TS%.

I'm not convinced that there was much need for a season-long adjustment period. They had an electric start and Durant clearly seemed to be comfortable. And then Curry decided to take a step back for whatever reason. I get the perspective of saying "he took a step back for KD, so he's a great leader," but I can't help but think that there was no need for him to have taken a step back. I'd go as far as saying that it's a negative that he took a step back, not a positive because of it being indicative of strong leadership, although I understood the other perspective.

Hiya jalengreen! We discussed this at length in the links above (which was quite a fun conversation btw!), so I won't repeat too much.

In short: Teams adjust strategies throughout the regular season. It's not realistic to expect teams to have zero changes to their offense or defense as the year goes on, particularly if they suddenly add an MVP-level player. So despite their hot start, it's not crazy to think it takes time to adjust to playing with an all-time player, even if you think it should have taken less time then it did.

1. Does the reason for having a worse regular seasons matter? Players have been voted in already who did not combine their best regular season and playoffs in one year (LeBron, Kareem, Russell, Hakeem, possibly Shaq/others). Players are currently being voted over Curry who also didn't combine their best regular season with their best postseason (Giannis, Kawhi, Garnett, Robinson). If the context for Curry is that his regular season was worse because he was adjusting to a new team fit (regardless if you think the fit adjustment should have been quicker), while other players (e.g. 21 Giannis/17 Kawhi/95 Robinson) had worse regular seasons because they were intentionally coasting / lost regular season motor... that seems relevant and a point in favor of Curry, al least to me.

2. Who cares about a regular season slump if he's still just as good or better than the competition? I've shown 17 Curry's basically universally better than 87 magic in the postseason metrics we have. Even if 17 Curry's regular season is worse than 16 Curry's, I've also shown it's still near the level of 87 Magic, and shown that Curry can still be a better regular season player than Magic. For other players, while having a clearly better playoffs, Curry's regular season is pretty clearly plays at the same level or better than the other competitors (Giannis, Kawhi, Garnett, Robinson, Moses). So... does it matter?

I think it matters when so much is made of Curry's portability and leadership that he had a fantastic start with a balanced attack from Curry/Durant and then he suddenly went passive to fix a problem that wasn't there, yeah. I think the emphasis opens the way to criticisms.

If we think that 2017 Curry's regular season value was lower than 2016 but his "goodness" was the same and the drop in value was because of him taking a step back ... to me, that's his fault. The same way it's a player's fault for coasting. It's fair to not put much weight on that because of "goodness" the same way you would for coasting, but I don't personally agree with going the other direction and framing it as a positive (the cultural leadership point) instead of just taking it as what it is.

I think we have to ask ourselves: Why does Curry consistently create better shots for his teammates and improve his teammates' efficiency more than older LeBron, Harden, Jokic, Luka, Westbrook, and older Chris Paul, whether we're looking at a 1-year peak or a 5 Year prime? Where does this playmaking come from?
1 Year Peak: Curry +7.3% (1st in league) >> older LeBron +3.9% (2nd in league) > peak Westbrook +2.5% (3rd in league)
[Metric: teammates' shooting percentage improvement when a star is on court vs when they're off. Sample: among top players in 2017]
5 Year Peak: Curry +0.07 (1st in league) > Trae Young +0.06 (2nd in league) > Nikola Jokic +0.06 (3rd in league) > LeBron James +0.05 (4th in league)
[Metric: teammates' increased pts/shot when a star is on vs off, aided by tracking data. Sample: 2018-2022]

Just to add to this:



While Curry is certainly up there and arguably the best of the pack, I'm not sure he appears to be consistently ahead of the rest by this metric.

Thanks for the year-specific numbers! Very cool to look at

But: Curry's ahead of everyone else regardless of whether we take a 1-year sample during his peak or a 5/6-year sample of his prime (which doesn't include 2015 where he'd also probably be topping the league). So I do think it's fair to say Curry in his peak or his prime beats the competition in playmaking efficiency.

That's certainly fair, I just wanted to add information in case anyone took that as misinterpreting the claim to meaning that Curry consistently ranked above those players within that multi-year stretch. Westbrook, LeBron, Harden, Trae, and Luka have all had arguments to be up there/above Curry by this metric in two-year stretches.

[Doctor MJ]

I honestly thought Curry was going to run away with that last one. I got to say though I'm still surprised he's getting so much push for a top 5-9 peak, and had votes as high as 3rd by some here. I don't get it. I get that his impact his insanely high, and that he was a part in "changing the game" so to speak, but I'll also maintain that point is sort of overstated. Kerr I think deserves a lot of credit for the shift, although the small ball high volume 3 type style was well under way before Curry even hit his peak.

You've got some good thought in this post, feel like I should try to go dialectic with you here.

So first, I'll acknowledge I voted Curry 3rd. Not sure if anyone else did, but I know that I came into the project at the start with that in mind.

Second, I can see a case for many others over him. I don't think anyone's crazy to have him significantly lower, but wherever people end up ranking him, I feel a need to really hammer in what I'm seeing with Curry. I can live with people who can gush about all the unique ways he's impacting the game but still don't have him in their top 10 here, but I do think that part of what's happening now is that the paradigm shift that he represents is causing his play to be underrated.

Re: credit for the shift. I want to be clear that a) I'm not factoring in historical influence in my logic here - to me that's a different list, and b) I think Kerr deserves a ton of credit too - and I've noticed a trend where people assume that I'm not giving credit to those around Curry because I'm arguing for Curry, when in reality, I'm hire on most of the people associated with the Warriors than most are, as well as higher on what I believe the Warriors have achieved than most.

Just to name a few things here, that I think has kept Curry from getting in so far.

Limited size/defense: The only 2 non-bigs to get in prior to #9 were Lebron and Jordan. Everyone is in agreement those 2 are better, but when we look at Bird and Magic next, you're talking guys who are 6'9. Bird was quite a bit better on defense than Curry and was almost as good on offense in his peak playoff runs. I think many have the tendency to just assume that Curry and Magic are equal on defense, or that it's unimportant. Some say Curry had his best defensive season this year, I don't know if that's true or not but there's still a limit to who Curry can guard, Magic's bigger size offers a bit more flexibility. Magic wasn't getting burned on the perimeter, and he's not going to be pushed around my most big players either in the post. Maybe it's not something that is a big deal, but if I was trying to build a great defense and I had to pick between Magic and Curry in a vacuum I'd probably take Magic. Then on the other end, Magic arguably creates more of a mismatch than Curry, Curry's gravity and warping this is real but I still feel like he's been less resilient on average than Magic. I don't know if size is so much the reason, but teams weren't going to trap Magic like has been done to Curry because being a goat level passer with point guard handles at 6'9 makes that impossible. I feel many believe Curry's shooting/gravity/scoring>Magic's playmaking and solid scoring. I just wonder if that's more in theory than reality. Like it definitely sounds like it should be the case, and it probably is for the regular season but I'm not so sure it translates to better in the postseason. The Warriors in 2016(arguably peak Curry), were 4th in ortg in the playoffs with being below the Cavs by a pretty good margin. Their defense was arguably more important in those playoffs. They faced the 21st, 20th, 13th and 10th rated defenses. Their offense should've performed better than it did.

Curry's small size absolutely works against him in these conversations in ways both explicit and implicit.

Re: Magic wasn't getting burned on the perimeter...he would absolutely get burned on the perimeter now. Magic (as well as Bird) were helped out defensively by the claustrophobic spacing of the age. The same stuff that makes the new era for them so exciting on offense, would certainly come with some pain on the other side of the ball.

Re: won't be pushed around by big men in the post. How many offenses would you expect from 2022 forward will be focused on post play? Is this really one of the main things you want to focus on for a modern point guard?

Re: can't trap Magic. One of the many reasons why Magic is a better floor general than Curry.

Re: gravity still feels less resilient. I think this is a really important point with the word "feel".

I've suggested that I believe that part of what's happening with us right now as spectators is similar to what was going on with coaches for many decades.

When you focus on 3-point shooting, that means you're literally choosing a shot that a) you're going to miss more often, and b) you're going to have more variance in your precision. When you watch the game possession-by-possession with full concentration, you're brain is adding up those failures and those failure streaks as if the successes that come with them are of equal value to a traditional bucket...but this success counts for 150% of the traditional, and that's why it works.

I've also noted the significance of the NBA playing Best-of-7 playoff series as opposed to college's March Madness which is single elimination. Relying on a high variance strategy makes far more sense when you play your opponent more, because you can easily live with a couple of awful shooting games in every series if you're good enough the rest of the time, but in a single-elimination tournament, you'd already be out.

(Incidentally, this difference in playoff approach I think is in the end was driving a bigger and bigger wedge between college and pro basketball, and over time it seems like it's going to really cause an NBA minor league (presumably the G-League) to compete and defeat the NCAA when it comes to getting basketball players who see pro basketball as a goal. I see this as a shame, but I don't see a way around it.)

Back on topic:

I think what we're finding is that the failure rate and failure streak tendency that we see from Curry and the Warriors makes us think they are worse than the type of champion teams we're sued to, but in actuality, they'd smoke any team from earlier generations with this approach because of the 150% thing. It's just massive. I mean, in gridiron football you can "go for two" after a touchdown to try to get 8 points instead of 7. That's a 114% thing, less than one-third the advantage for a thing that hasn't been able to have a skill pertaining to it trained to near-robotic precision.

Curry's best regular season and postseason didn't occur together: 2016 and 2017 are the popular picks, 2016 Curry had arguably the best regular season ever...postseason not as much even if you think his injury played a role that still can't just be ignored. For me I still just can't take this 2017 playoffs at face value. The competition was super weak outside of the Cavs, and here's one thing I want to point out.

KD playoff numbers 2016: 28.4 ppg 54.2 ts% 20.3 PER
KD playoff numbers 2017: 28.5 ppg 68.3 ts% 27.5 PER

Curry playoff numbers 2016: 25.1 ppg 60.1 ts% 22.3 PER
Curry playoff numbers 2017: 28.1 ppg 65.9 ts% 27.1 PER

I mean you're fooling yourself to say, that kind of increase wasn't at least partly due to each guy having a goat supporting cast along with weak competition.

If we're looking at say 2019 or 2022 as more of Curry's real level, I don't see those as top 10 caliber playoff runs.

Frankly we've just never seen so much talent on one team like that. KD's run seems to get more asterisks put on it than Curry's which isn't really fair. I do see Curry as the better player, but not significantly so.

It would be like if back in 2006, Wade and Dirk wound up on the same team, and they recruited Andre Kirelenko to be their defensive anchor and you gave them Ray Allen for good measure. And oh yeah, let's say Ron Artest is their 6th man. I mean regardless of how well you think that would fit, would that team with average role players not win give or take 70 games and breeze through the playoffs?

You're absolutely right that Curry's best RS & PS not matching up is part of what makes this sort of Curry conversation so challenging. It's not just that Curry's getting dinged because of the (relatively) sub-par play in part of these seasons, but that this inconsistency has led people essentially "round down" how they see Curry in general. (Or perhaps, one might rebut, "round up".)

I want to bring up how you refer to the 2019 playoffs. Let's break that down into before and after KD went down with the injury, which happens to be the half-way point of the Warrior post-season, because the Warriors changed their play, and Curry clearly changed his role once that occurred, and I'll just use a 30 point threshold because we generally all agree that a 30 point game means you're doing some serious volume scoring.

2019 First 11: 2 (30 point games)
2019 Last 11: 8

Now look at the other post-seasons in question:

2015: 9 in 21 games
2016: 6 in 18
2017: 7 in 17
2018: 3 in 15

2022: 11 in 22

So, first thing I'll note, that when you watched the 2019 playoffs, you watched Curry score like a madman after KD went down, and yet you talk about that playoff representing "Curry's real level" which seems likely to be based on more abstract stats. Be careful you're not getting lost in the abstraction.

The fact that Curry was not doing this early in 2019 is a good reason not to select it as the year to be considered here for this project, but the idea are looking back at that post-season and thinking "see, another post-season where he couldn't match that other run", is to me treating player evaluation as it is defined by the cumulative rather than how the player actually played.

This is part of why I tend to say 2020 was the moment where I realized how great the divergence was between me and the center of mass of the forum on Curry, because I watched those 2019 playoffs and saw that Curry was clearly still able to be his team's big volume scoring threat, and was surprised a year later that people seemed to have thought they learned more from the few games Curry played in the regular season the next year than those playoffs.

Before I leave this I want to be clear:

The fact that Curry had more 30 point games in 2022 than in any other season is certainly something you could use as an argument for it to be his best post-season, and maybe I'll eventually conclude that myself. But of course, so much of what I'm talking about with Curry is the value he creates when he doesn't have the ball, and thus cannot score points.

Re: breeze through the playoffs. I just want to emphasize here that the Warriors were neither the first nor the last super-team, and in general these super-teams have found it very difficult to breeze through the playoffs (you mention Wade, and that Heatle team while very successful, did not accomplish what it hoped to accomplish because there were issues with fit). I think it's important not to assume that you can create the world's best team by throwing talent together.

Questions about Curry's floor raising: Curry had one of his best individual regular season in 2021, the Warriors missed the playoffs and had a 20/30 ranked ortg. I get all the injuries, fine but I just want to point out the hypocrisy here. That's a kind of offensive cast that Wade had in 2009 and 2010, and people go "look at those crappy offenses that Wade led!". But since it's Curry, he gets a pass. Again, I don't knock him just pointing out the double standard. I do think it's completely fair though to look at Curry, and not put him in the top tier of floor raisers. I think that's a big reason he's below Lebron, Duncan and Hakeem if no one else. Some put more value in being able to take so-so casts to a title. Curry only won titles when his supporting casts were best in the league level. If you want to say that about Magic and Bird, we can have that discussion sure. Not sure we can say that for anyone in the top 8 though.

So I just ask, is floor raising something that gives Curry an advantage over others or did he just have the best supporting cast every time he's won?

There may be few things I'm forgetting to mention, but this may be partly why there's a resistance to Curry. I don't think 10th would be insanely high or anything, but I do think top 5 would've been pretty insane I can't lie. There's just too many concerns I have with him that would allow me to put him top 10. I do think once you get out of the top 12 or so it gets harder and harder to argue against him. I personally would probably put Jokic ahead although, I can see there being some hesitation for some since he doesn't have hardware or that type of playoff run that would put him this high.

See you're doing it again here: Trying to use the cumulative rather than talking about the more specific basketball contexts.

The '20-21 Warrior season was split into two part. The part where they were trying to play Kerr-ball with Wiseman & Oubre, and the part where they went all in on Curry's scoring. Full disclosure: It's a hazier than that when the decision was actually made, but I'm going to split the season based on the point where Curry missed his biggest stretch of the season (5 games), because his approach felt noticeably different when he came back.

December through (most of) March:
Curry played 39 games.
Warriors were 21-18 in those games.
Curry had a 23-16 OnWin% (that's what I call having a positive +/- in a given game)
He scored 30+ in 17 of those games.

End of March through May to end the RS plus Play-In:
Curry played 26 games.
Warriors were 16-10 in those games.
Curry had a 20-6 OnWin% (including both Play-In games)
He scored 30+ in 23 of those games.

Also, the Warriors were 2-7 without Curry, which is what led to the team being 39-35 when all was said and done.

Why did the Warriors have such a middling record? Not because they never looked really good, but because they spent much of the year looking discombobulated out there trying to incorporate new players in the system that struggled with it.

And for some historical vantage point here,

2 trades the Warriors can make to get rid of Kelly Oubre Jr., January 11th, 2021.

The Warriors' season-in-review: James Wiseman, talks about the struggles of the season for the raw rookie.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I honestly thought Curry was going to run away with that last one. I got to say though I'm still surprised he's getting so much push for a top 5-9 peak, and had votes as high as 3rd by some here. I don't get it. I get that his impact his insanely high, and that he was a part in "changing the game" so to speak, but I'll also maintain that point is sort of overstated. Kerr I think deserves a lot of credit for the shift, although the small ball high volume 3 type style was well under way before Curry even hit his peak.

You've got some good thought in this post, feel like I should try to go dialectic with you here.

So first, I'll acknowledge I voted Curry 3rd. Not sure if anyone else did, but I know that I came into the project at the start with that in mind.

Second, I can see a case for many others over him. I don't think anyone's crazy to have him significantly lower, but wherever people end up ranking him, I feel a need to really hammer in what I'm seeing with Curry. I can live with people who can gush about all the unique ways he's impacting the game but still don't have him in their top 10 here, but I do think that part of what's happening now is that the paradigm shift that he represents is causing his play to be underrated.

Re: credit for the shift. I want to be clear that a) I'm not factoring in historical influence in my logic here - to me that's a different list, and b) I think Kerr deserves a ton of credit too - and I've noticed a trend where people assume that I'm not giving credit to those around Curry because I'm arguing for Curry, when in reality, I'm hire on most of the people associated with the Warriors than most are, as well as higher on what I believe the Warriors have achieved than most.

Just to name a few things here, that I think has kept Curry from getting in so far.

Limited size/defense: The only 2 non-bigs to get in prior to #9 were Lebron and Jordan. Everyone is in agreement those 2 are better, but when we look at Bird and Magic next, you're talking guys who are 6'9. Bird was quite a bit better on defense than Curry and was almost as good on offense in his peak playoff runs. I think many have the tendency to just assume that Curry and Magic are equal on defense, or that it's unimportant. Some say Curry had his best defensive season this year, I don't know if that's true or not but there's still a limit to who Curry can guard, Magic's bigger size offers a bit more flexibility. Magic wasn't getting burned on the perimeter, and he's not going to be pushed around my most big players either in the post. Maybe it's not something that is a big deal, but if I was trying to build a great defense and I had to pick between Magic and Curry in a vacuum I'd probably take Magic. Then on the other end, Magic arguably creates more of a mismatch than Curry, Curry's gravity and warping this is real but I still feel like he's been less resilient on average than Magic. I don't know if size is so much the reason, but teams weren't going to trap Magic like has been done to Curry because being a goat level passer with point guard handles at 6'9 makes that impossible. I feel many believe Curry's shooting/gravity/scoring>Magic's playmaking and solid scoring. I just wonder if that's more in theory than reality. Like it definitely sounds like it should be the case, and it probably is for the regular season but I'm not so sure it translates to better in the postseason. The Warriors in 2016(arguably peak Curry), were 4th in ortg in the playoffs with being below the Cavs by a pretty good margin. Their defense was arguably more important in those playoffs. They faced the 21st, 20th, 13th and 10th rated defenses. Their offense should've performed better than it did.

Curry's small size absolutely works against him in these conversations in ways both explicit and implicit.

Re: Magic wasn't getting burned on the perimeter...he would absolutely get burned on the perimeter now. Magic (as well as Bird) were helped out defensively by the claustrophobic spacing of the age. The same stuff that makes the new era for them so exciting on offense, would certainly come with some pain on the other side of the ball.

Re: won't be pushed around by big men in the post. How many offenses would you expect from 2022 forward will be focused on post play? Is this really one of the main things you want to focus on for a modern point guard?

Re: can't trap Magic. One of the many reasons why Magic is a better floor general than Curry.

Re: gravity still feels less resilient. I think this is a really important point with the word "feel".

I've suggested that I believe that part of what's happening with us right now as spectators is similar to what was going on with coaches for many decades.

When you focus on 3-point shooting, that means you're literally choosing a shot that a) you're going to miss more often, and b) you're going to have more variance in your precision. When you watch the game possession-by-possession with full concentration, you're brain is adding up those failures and those failure streaks as if the successes that come with them are of equal value to a traditional bucket...but this success counts for 150% of the traditional, and that's why it works.

I've also noted the significance of the NBA playing Best-of-7 playoff series as opposed to college's March Madness which is single elimination. Relying on a high variance strategy makes far more sense when you play your opponent more, because you can easily live with a couple of awful shooting games in every series if you're good enough the rest of the time, but in a single-elimination tournament, you'd already be out.

(Incidentally, this difference in playoff approach I think is in the end was driving a bigger and bigger wedge between college and pro basketball, and over time it seems like it's going to really cause an NBA minor league (presumably the G-League) to compete and defeat the NCAA when it comes to getting basketball players who see pro basketball as a goal. I see this as a shame, but I don't see a way around it.)

Back on topic:

I think what we're finding is that the failure rate and failure streak tendency that we see from Curry and the Warriors makes us think they are worse than the type of champion teams we're sued to, but in actuality, they'd smoke any team from earlier generations with this approach because of the 150% thing. It's just massive. I mean, in gridiron football you can "go for two" after a touchdown to try to get 8 points instead of 7. That's a 114% thing, less than one-third the advantage for a thing that hasn't been able to have a skill pertaining to it trained to near-robotic precision.

Curry's best regular season and postseason didn't occur together: 2016 and 2017 are the popular picks, 2016 Curry had arguably the best regular season ever...postseason not as much even if you think his injury played a role that still can't just be ignored. For me I still just can't take this 2017 playoffs at face value. The competition was super weak outside of the Cavs, and here's one thing I want to point out.

KD playoff numbers 2016: 28.4 ppg 54.2 ts% 20.3 PER
KD playoff numbers 2017: 28.5 ppg 68.3 ts% 27.5 PER

Curry playoff numbers 2016: 25.1 ppg 60.1 ts% 22.3 PER
Curry playoff numbers 2017: 28.1 ppg 65.9 ts% 27.1 PER

I mean you're fooling yourself to say, that kind of increase wasn't at least partly due to each guy having a goat supporting cast along with weak competition.

If we're looking at say 2019 or 2022 as more of Curry's real level, I don't see those as top 10 caliber playoff runs.

Frankly we've just never seen so much talent on one team like that. KD's run seems to get more asterisks put on it than Curry's which isn't really fair. I do see Curry as the better player, but not significantly so.

It would be like if back in 2006, Wade and Dirk wound up on the same team, and they recruited Andre Kirelenko to be their defensive anchor and you gave them Ray Allen for good measure. And oh yeah, let's say Ron Artest is their 6th man. I mean regardless of how well you think that would fit, would that team with average role players not win give or take 70 games and breeze through the playoffs?

You're absolutely right that Curry's best RS & PS not matching up is part of what makes this sort of Curry conversation so challenging. It's not just that Curry's getting dinged because of the (relatively) sub-par play in part of these seasons, but that this inconsistency has led people essentially "round down" how they see Curry in general. (Or perhaps, one might rebut, "round up".)

I want to bring up how you refer to the 2019 playoffs. Let's break that down into before and after KD went down with the injury, which happens to be the half-way point of the Warrior post-season, because the Warriors changed their play, and Curry clearly changed his role once that occurred, and I'll just use a 30 point threshold because we generally all agree that a 30 point game means you're doing some serious volume scoring.

2019 First 11: 2 (30 point games)
2019 Last 11: 8

Now look at the other post-seasons in question:

2015: 9 in 21 games
2016: 6 in 18
2017: 7 in 17
2018: 3 in 15

2022: 11 in 22

So, first thing I'll note, that when you watched the 2019 playoffs, you watched Curry score like a madman after KD went down, and yet you talk about that playoff representing "Curry's real level" which seems likely to be based on more abstract stats. Be careful you're not getting lost in the abstraction.

The fact that Curry was not doing this early in 2019 is a good reason not to select it as the year to be considered here for this project, but the idea are looking back at that post-season and thinking "see, another post-season where he couldn't match that other run", is to me treating player evaluation as it is defined by the cumulative rather than how the player actually played.

This is part of why I tend to say 2020 was the moment where I realized how great the divergence was between me and the center of mass of the forum on Curry, because I watched those 2019 playoffs and saw that Curry was clearly still able to be his team's big volume scoring threat, and was surprised a year later that people seemed to have thought they learned more from the few games Curry played in the regular season the next year than those playoffs.

Before I leave this I want to be clear:

The fact that Curry had more 30 point games in 2022 than in any other season is certainly something you could use as an argument for it to be his best post-season, and maybe I'll eventually conclude that myself. But of course, so much of what I'm talking about with Curry is the value he creates when he doesn't have the ball, and thus cannot score points.

Re: breeze through the playoffs. I just want to emphasize here that the Warriors were neither the first nor the last super-team, and in general these super-teams have found it very difficult to breeze through the playoffs (you mention Wade, and that Heatle team while very successful, did not accomplish what it hoped to accomplish because there were issues with fit). I think it's important not to assume that you can create the world's best team by throwing talent together.

Questions about Curry's floor raising: Curry had one of his best individual regular season in 2021, the Warriors missed the playoffs and had a 20/30 ranked ortg. I get all the injuries, fine but I just want to point out the hypocrisy here. That's a kind of offensive cast that Wade had in 2009 and 2010, and people go "look at those crappy offenses that Wade led!". But since it's Curry, he gets a pass. Again, I don't knock him just pointing out the double standard. I do think it's completely fair though to look at Curry, and not put him in the top tier of floor raisers. I think that's a big reason he's below Lebron, Duncan and Hakeem if no one else. Some put more value in being able to take so-so casts to a title. Curry only won titles when his supporting casts were best in the league level. If you want to say that about Magic and Bird, we can have that discussion sure. Not sure we can say that for anyone in the top 8 though.

So I just ask, is floor raising something that gives Curry an advantage over others or did he just have the best supporting cast every time he's won?

There may be few things I'm forgetting to mention, but this may be partly why there's a resistance to Curry. I don't think 10th would be insanely high or anything, but I do think top 5 would've been pretty insane I can't lie. There's just too many concerns I have with him that would allow me to put him top 10. I do think once you get out of the top 12 or so it gets harder and harder to argue against him. I personally would probably put Jokic ahead although, I can see there being some hesitation for some since he doesn't have hardware or that type of playoff run that would put him this high.

See you're doing it again here: Trying to use the cumulative rather than talking about the more specific basketball contexts.

The '20-21 Warrior season was split into two part. The part where they were trying to play Kerr-ball with Wiseman & Oubre, and the part where they went all in on Curry's scoring. Full disclosure: It's a hazier than that when the decision was actually made, but I'm going to split the season based on the point where Curry missed his biggest stretch of the season (5 games), because his approach felt noticeably different when he came back.

December through (most of) March:
Curry played 39 games.
Warriors were 21-18 in those games.
Curry had a 23-16 OnWin% (that's what I call having a positive +/- in a given game)
He scored 30+ in 17 of those games.

End of March through May to end the RS plus Play-In:
Curry played 26 games.
Warriors were 16-10 in those games.
Curry had a 20-6 OnWin% (including both Play-In games)
He scored 30+ in 23 of those games.

Also, the Warriors were 2-7 without Curry, which is what led to the team being 39-35 when all was said and done.

Why did the Warriors have such a middling record? Not because they never looked really good, but because they spent much of the year looking discombobulated out there trying to incorporate new players in the system that struggled with it.

And for some historical vantage point here,

2 trades the Warriors can make to get rid of Kelly Oubre Jr., January 11th, 2021.

The Warriors' season-in-review: James Wiseman, talks about the struggles of the season for the raw rookie.

Worth noting the Warriors ranked around 12th post “Curry scoring”, not counting the games he missed, more interestingly their shooting effeciency (using TS) was tied for first with the nets, their EFG was best in the league, and their issues were turnover percentage and offensive rebounding

[MyUniBroDavis]

With Currys season, I do understand the arguments against him and I personally think there’s a wide range where you can rank him

I don’t understand the idea that his regular season should bring him down whatsoever where the regular season for that season didn’t matter

We should look at seasons in context. A 11/10 regular season followed by a 8/10 playoff run where they lose in the finals is not better than a 6/10 regular season mostly low rating because of effort on a dominant team that gets first seed no matter what followed by a 10/10 playoff run winning the title

That’s not even applicable to here either

[capfan33]

8/9 of the greatest peak years came from title winners, apparently.

What are the actual odds of that being true?

Probably not especially high if you ran a simluation 1000 times, also interesting to me that Kareem is the 1 exception and I think in his case it's quite clear his 2 best years were non-title years. But it also has to do a lot with criteria, winning is a big criteria for people and moreover will often serve as a tiebreaker all other things being equal.

For example in MJs case I think his CORP levels are virtually indistinguishable from 89-91 but most people just go with 91 as his peak because of the title run which is what I did. In Lebron's case his title is definitely a factor for 2013 vs 2017 and 2009. Same with Wilt with 67 vs 64 or 68. Duncan in 2002 and 2003 is probably a virtual tie in a vacuum. I definitely think Olajuwon actually peaked in 93 but the title in 94 put it over the top. Could argue the same with Bird in 86 vs 87. So yea, definitely some winning bias here but honestly most of the years I chose were title years with the few exceptions above and I don't factor in titles when evaluating.

Lebron is arguably an example case against ring bias tho

His 2009 season arguably outperformed 2013 in regular season (not by a huge margin admiteddly) and in playoffs (by a more clear margin imo although lebron + shooters without the injured wade on court were outright murderous destroying a elite spurs team when they played)

And 2013 still won even when most value signals go to 2009 and the argument was supported by theory about portability or better skillset to overcomr thr toughest defenses even when 2009 lebron did better overall, no theory needed, against that exact kind of defense

Somethingh odd that happens at times with "floor raisers" is that they almost get punished for having too much impact in so-so teams cause that gives them the backhanded compliment of "a floor raiser more than a ceiling raiser"

I'm not sure I entirely follow you, but in my case I put 2013 over 2009 for reasons that have 0 to do with him winning a title that year as I've been quite vocal about. Purely based on numbers 2009 Lebron definitely deserved to win more than 2013 with his incredible playoff performances but I ofc don't think it's that simple.

For others however, I do think a good number of people go with 2013 just because of the ring despite the fact that his performance was not exactly smooth sailing.

[capfan33]

For people voting for Giannis, do you have any resilience concerns?

In literally every prime playoff, Giannis has had a scoring decline, and scoring is his best offensive trait:
in 2019 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2020 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -1.4% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2021 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-0.5 pts/75 drop, -3.3% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2022 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-1.3 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)

Context: Giannis did have injuries at the end of a few playoff series for example. But it still concerns me that Giannis' postseason scoring consistently declines after his best regular seasons in 2019 and 2020, even if we just look at playoff games where he was healthy. In 2021 when he supposedly "figured it out," he still had an overall drop and performed worst in his hardest series against the (injured) Nets. Even after "figuring it out" in 2021, he went right back to dropping in 2022 (and this decline persists even if we account for the opponent's defensive rating or just look at the 1st round).

I worry we're overrating Giannis' offense solely because of a memorable Finals, while forgetting... most of his other playoff performances. He's often had extreme declines against "build a wall" defenses and league-leading defenses. The best counterargument might be something akin to Bird or Curry or LeBron's resilience argument, where we say his scoring declines but he makes up for it in creation / gravity / off-ball play. But I'm not sure the eye test supports that (at least mine doesn't -- though I might have a particular bias against some of the head-scratching decisions he made earlier on... those early shot-clock 3s make me want to pull my hair out ).

And I will say team performance does correlate with this poor (offensive) resilience. Take the 2019 and 2020 regular season: the Bucks had fantastic margin of victory numbers, but they over-performed against bad teams and underperformed against good teams more than other all-time teams did. They had these numbers while surrounding Giannis with other all-stars who are good on offense (he had 2 other all-stars with him in 21), and he also had just about the perfect fitting big next to him, stretching the floor on offense while providing a second rim protector on defense.

I think we discussed this in an earlier post, but 2021 and 2022 the offense was different, 4 out 1 in vs 5 out bigger gaps dunker spot etc etc, the majority of his dropoff was because he was worse form three (on less shots so he wasn’t being forced to shoot from there more), and from the ft line, so I don’t think it’s a resellience thing for that year, and in 2022 the Celtics were uniquely equipped to guard him + his offensive load

This is my view as well, I think Giannis noticably improved this year in terms of resiliency. When you consider the context of his series against the Celtics (Elite, close to ATG defense that smothered an admittedly declined KD, without Middleton) I think this year specifically has a decent argument already. I'm probably going to be putting him somewhere around 12-18 but that's much higher than I would put his other years.

[MyUniBroDavis]

For people voting for Giannis, do you have any resilience concerns?

In literally every prime playoff, Giannis has had a scoring decline, and scoring is his best offensive trait:
in 2019 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2020 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-2.2 pts/75 drop, -1.4% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2021 playoffs: Drop in scoring (-0.5 pts/75 drop, -3.3% rTS efficiency drop)
in 2022 playoffs: Massive drop in scoring (-1.3 pts/75 drop, -6.8% rTS efficiency drop)

Context: Giannis did have injuries at the end of a few playoff series for example. But it still concerns me that Giannis' postseason scoring consistently declines after his best regular seasons in 2019 and 2020, even if we just look at playoff games where he was healthy. In 2021 when he supposedly "figured it out," he still had an overall drop and performed worst in his hardest series against the (injured) Nets. Even after "figuring it out" in 2021, he went right back to dropping in 2022 (and this decline persists even if we account for the opponent's defensive rating or just look at the 1st round).

I worry we're overrating Giannis' offense solely because of a memorable Finals, while forgetting... most of his other playoff performances. He's often had extreme declines against "build a wall" defenses and league-leading defenses. The best counterargument might be something akin to Bird or Curry or LeBron's resilience argument, where we say his scoring declines but he makes up for it in creation / gravity / off-ball play. But I'm not sure the eye test supports that (at least mine doesn't -- though I might have a particular bias against some of the head-scratching decisions he made earlier on... those early shot-clock 3s make me want to pull my hair out ).

And I will say team performance does correlate with this poor (offensive) resilience. Take the 2019 and 2020 regular season: the Bucks had fantastic margin of victory numbers, but they over-performed against bad teams and underperformed against good teams more than other all-time teams did. They had these numbers while surrounding Giannis with other all-stars who are good on offense (he had 2 other all-stars with him in 21), and he also had just about the perfect fitting big next to him, stretching the floor on offense while providing a second rim protector on defense.

I think we discussed this in an earlier post, but 2021 and 2022 the offense was different, 4 out 1 in vs 5 out bigger gaps dunker spot etc etc, the majority of his dropoff was because he was worse form three (on less shots so he wasn’t being forced to shoot from there more), and from the ft line, so I don’t think it’s a resellience thing for that year, and in 2022 the Celtics were uniquely equipped to guard him + his offensive load

This is my view as well, I think Giannis noticably improved this year in terms of resiliency. When you consider the context of his series against the Celtics (Elite, close to ATG defense that smothered an admittedly declined KD, without Middleton) I think this year specifically has a decent argument already. I'm probably going to be putting him somewhere around 12-18 but that's much higher than I would put his other years.

For me 2021 is better, just because I think lower ranking RS that had tangible effects have to be followed up with a playoff run where you do end up going far or being in a situation where seeding/matchups wasn’t a large factor in your loss. He was great vs Boston but I don’t think it compares to him against Phoenix or Brooklyn overall either

[ceoofkobefans]

8. 2016 Steph Curry

Now you can use 17 as his peak if you’re gonna tax 16 for the PO injury but 16 clearly has better shot making and the years aren’t much different everywhere else. 16 Steph curry is a clear t4 offensive peak ever. What makes Steph such an amazing player is that he gives you the best off ball movement ever while being the greatest shooter ever and him being an elite on ball player makes not only his offense the most unique style ever but also how defenses have to guard him. He’s being doubled at half court and you have to keep 2 guys on him regardless of if he has the ball which makes shot creating for him very easy (**** he’s creating shots without ever touching the ball). Being the best off ball creator ever while still being elite on the ball makes him a t10 playmaker Imo and I don’t even need to go into how he’s a t10 scorer ever. The 30 PPG on +10 rTS (and being 1 of 2 players ever to lead the league in scoring rate and efficiency) speaks for itself. While he isn’t an elite defender he has a good motor (which is crazy for how active he is on the ball) and has good off ball awareness. He’s a very solid team defender but would get “hunted” on the ball due to how good the rest of the warriors defenders were. I feel like him being a slight + on D is very fair. I like the 8 spot for him but could see him in the tier up or down depending on how high you are on his scoring and defense (and how much you value on ball playmaking)


10. 2008 Kobe Bryant

I know this is probably going to be controversial on this forum since he’s usually fringe t15 on peak lists around here (due to what seems like RS impact metrics). Most Impact metrics generally do have him around the fringe t15 range (like 13-17ish) but Kobe is one of the biggest PO risers ever. Here’s 08-10 Kobe from the RS to PO (biggest peak PO sample we have without 2 first round exits skewing results).

(Box numbers are IA/75)
RS
28.3 PTS
5.3 AST
5.8 TRB
3 TOV
+1.8 rTS
+5.3 BBR BPM (+3.9/g)
+5 BP BPM/g (+6.7/100)
+4.1 AuPM/g (+5.5/100)
+5.96 RAPTOR (+4.4/g)

PO
30.5 PTS
5.6 AST
5.8 TRB
3 TOV/75
+3.9 rTS
+7.8 BPM (+6/g)
+6.3 BP BPM/g (+8.2/100)
+4.7 AuPM/g (+6.1/100)
+8.07 RAPTOR (+6.2/g)

Here’s just 2008 since that’s his best season

RS
28.1 PTS
5.3 AST
6.1 TRB
3 TOV
+3.6 rTS
+5.8 BBR BPM (+4.5/g)
+6.1 BP BPM/g (+7.9/100)
+4.2 AuPM/g (+5.4/100)
+7.09 RAPTOR (+5.5/g)

PO
30.5 PTS
5.6 AST
5.6 TRB
3.2 TOV
+4.9 rTS
+7.4 BBR BPM (+5.9/g)
+6.7 BP BPM/g (+8.4/100)
+2.1 3yr AuPM/g (+2.6/100 this is obviously skewed by the 2 previous years)
+7.63 RAPTOR (+6.06/g)

31 IA PTS/75 on +5 rTS is absolutely insane when you consider that he’s playing in 2 center lineups with his best spacer being him and facing more gravity than anyone in nba history that’s name doesn’t start with an S. Him being able to pretty much maintain that in the PO over a 3yr stretch of finals runs against GOAT tier PO comp (same points on +4 rTS) is pretty damn good evidence for him being not only an all time PO riser but this scoring production being real for him. Him being an all time PO riser makes since because he’s arguably the best tough shot maker of all time and is a clear all time self creator which is the number 1 way for your scoring to be resilient in the PO against tougher defenses and more defensive attention. His defense was also pretty solid in 2008. He did still have a bit of a motor issue in the RS but it consistently would shoot up in the PO and this was no different in 08. He was a very good on ball defender but was also a good off ball defender (really good trapper, was the lakers’ primary communicator, and I thought his off ball awareness was improved from his past few years, although his closeout D wasn’t great which hurt his overall off ball D)

Overall i think it’s pretty fair to put Kobe in that top 10 range although I could see him at like 14ish(?) depending how high you are on others/low on him

11. 1987 Magic Johnson

This was a really tough placement but I trust Magic more in a Playoff environment than I do my number 12 player. Magic Johnson is on my Mount Rushmore of offensive players along with MJ steph and LeBron. He’s the best playmaker ever from 87-91 he averaged an estimated 17.4 shots created/100 possessions and had the highest multi year passer rating ever at a +9.6. He’s the best transition playmaker ever and he’s better than anyone at creating shots for teammates through his aggressive playmaking. He’s better at hitting contested passers than anyone and this opened up A lot of open shots that most people are not going to create. He’s also an elite scorer, averaging 22 IA PTS/75 on +7.4 rTS from 87-91 in the RS. While his scoring was better in 89 and 90 he was still an elite scorer in 87. He was a very good self creator and was great in transition. He also had a pretty solid bag with moves like his post hook. He’s lead some of the best offenses ever. While defensively Magic wasn’t very good he wasn’t a terrible defender or even a clear -. He has a decently big range as a defender but I personally have him as a slight -. He wasn’t very quick which hurt him when guarding some of the better guards but wasn’t big or strong enough to guard some of the bigger bigs. He was used usually in the passing lanes which he was good in and he was an ok post defender. He was usually able to guard lower end guards and wings pretty well but he struggles against better players.

Depending on how good you think his D is I could see him as low 13ish and as high as 8ish.

[falcolombardi]

Probably not especially high if you ran a simluation 1000 times, also interesting to me that Kareem is the 1 exception and I think in his case it's quite clear his 2 best years were non-title years. But it also has to do a lot with criteria, winning is a big criteria for people and moreover will often serve as a tiebreaker all other things being equal.

For example in MJs case I think his CORP levels are virtually indistinguishable from 89-91 but most people just go with 91 as his peak because of the title run which is what I did. In Lebron's case his title is definitely a factor for 2013 vs 2017 and 2009. Same with Wilt with 67 vs 64 or 68. Duncan in 2002 and 2003 is probably a virtual tie in a vacuum. I definitely think Olajuwon actually peaked in 93 but the title in 94 put it over the top. Could argue the same with Bird in 86 vs 87. So yea, definitely some winning bias here but honestly most of the years I chose were title years with the few exceptions above and I don't factor in titles when evaluating.

Lebron is arguably an example case against ring bias tho

His 2009 season arguably outperformed 2013 in regular season (not by a huge margin admiteddly) and in playoffs (by a more clear margin imo although lebron + shooters without the injured wade on court were outright murderous destroying a elite spurs team when they played)

And 2013 still won even when most value signals go to 2009 and the argument was supported by theory about portability or better skillset to overcomr thr toughest defenses even when 2009 lebron did better overall, no theory needed, against that exact kind of defense

Somethingh odd that happens at times with "floor raisers" is that they almost get punished for having too much impact in so-so teams cause that gives them the backhanded compliment of "a floor raiser more than a ceiling raiser"

I'm not sure I entirely follow you, but in my case I put 2013 over 2009 for reasons that have 0 to do with him winning a title that year as I've been quite vocal about. Purely based on numbers 2009 Lebron definitely deserved to win more than 2013 with his incredible playoff performances but I ofc don't think it's that simple.

For others however, I do think a good number of people go with 2013 just because of the ring despite the fact that his performance was not exactly smooth sailing.

The floor raiser thingh? I mean when we see a player who is able to take a huge role to floor raise so-so rosters (2009 cavs) or outright weak rosters (2022 jokic) to good or even really good teams

Because it doesnt win rings* (not completely true) it is almost like it doesnt matter at all to a lot of people who diminish it because is not "ceiling rsising" a team to winning rings

The whole thingh almost comes as a way to diminish players in weak teams compared to those in stacked ones and even when they win rings in better teams the "stigma" of being a floor raiser instead of the coveted "ceiling raiser" status can stay

[confucius]

1- 2015-16 Stephen Curry

- Stephen Curry is the greatest shooter of all time, and 2015-16 is no exception to that. If injuries didn't happen in the postseason, it was arguable that this was the top peak of all time. Curry's ability to warp defenses with his off-ball gravity is unparalleled and he was unstoppable all season long. That's why I think this is the best option at number 10.

2. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett

- Coming in at second place is 2003-04 Kevin Garnett. Garnett very well might be the greatest "Defensive Number 1, Offensive Number 2" in league history. His '04 campaign was sheer dominance, leading a Timberwolves team to the 1 seed who most likely would not have even made the postseason if it wasn't for his presence. On top of the all-time defense, Garnett provided good spacing for the time, good passing, and great playmaking.

3. 2008-09 Dwyane Wade

- Wade was dominant in '09 whether it was scoring, passing, playmaking at will, or providing amazing guard defense, he pretty much did it all for them. What holds him back for me is lack of 3pt shooting that season, but otherwise, would have most likely been the MVP if LeBron James didn't exist that season.

[iggymcfrack]

1. 2004 Kevin Garnett- Led the league in PER, WS, and BPM while also being the best defensive player in the league with absolutely insane on/off stats. +21 in the RS and +26 in the postseason. With KG on the bench, the Wolves were -10.9. That’s over 3.5 points worse than the worst team in the league. And yet KG was so dominant on both ends that he led Minnesota to the 1 seed over peak Tim Duncan playing with Parker and Ginobili and a super team of Shaq, Kobe, Malone, and Payton. Sam Cassell was literally the only other above average player on the entire team and he got hurt early in the conference finals causing the Wolves to lose 4-2. If he’d just had one decent teammate to help him, KG could have led Minnesota to one of the most impressive individual rings of all-time.

2. 2021 Giannis Anteokounmpo- Great numbers with DPOY-caliber defense and stepped it up more and more as the stage got bigger. 40/13/5 on .663 TS% in a Game 7 to close out KD and the Nets, then 3 more 40/10 games in the Finals including a ridiculous 50/14 game with 5 blocks on .749 TS% to close out the Suns.

3. 2021-22 Nikola Jokic: Best regular season ever by PER and BPM, 5th best postseason ever by PER with advanced numbers that dominate the competition much more than the box score. Incredible playmaking as Jokic combines the best passing from a big man ever with a surprisingly low amount of time holding the ball for such an offensive hub and underrated defense as well. Healthy teammates and an extended playoff run are the only thing keeping this from being a top 5 all-time peak season.