What impact metrics show MJ as a GOAT candidate?

[colts18]

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse.

This post so absurd. Do you realize what stat you are referring to? WOWY. With or Without you. Those last two words are key. How can you say MJ look worse in this stat when there was literally no without you's? Michael Jordan had 9 seasons in his career with 82 games. Last I checked, when you play 82 games, there are zero games without you so the stat does not apply at all. What about the 8 years Jordan made an ECF (won 6 titles)? He missed a total of 6 games in those years. How can you talk about a stat when there is literally no sample at all during Jordan's prime? We have just one season at all where Jordan missed significant games. His 2nd season in 1986. After that he missed a total of 6 games in 10 full seasons with the Bulls.

Then you cite PIPM, a stat that never existed during MJ's time.

[DraymondGold]

Since mj-topics tend to boil over, i'd like to preface this with a request that we all try our best to be nice to each other

I appreciate this OhayoKD

Before going ahead, let me just start out by saying I'm hoping we can avoid turning this into another Lebron vs Jordan thread. With that in mind, my personal focus here is not whether these metrics portray Jordan as the clear-cut best GOAT player, but whether they portray him as a GOAT candidate. Do they merely portray him in the Top Tier of players for peak/prime.

With that in mind, my short answer is yes (to parallel your phrasing ). I think it helps keep things organized if we retain my categories from my post: A. Plus Minus Metrics (and box approximations of them). B. WOWY metrics. C. Box metrics. D. Team metrics.

I'm going to try to keep this one quick , since my last post was so long. Hopefully that's okay. With that in mind:

A. Plus Minus Metrics (and box approximations of them)

Now, to jump into the deep end...

Do any?

My short answer is no. But getting to that short answer is a more involved process. Let's start by establishing what should qualify as "GOAT" lvl data:

The better question is what impact metrics do not show MJ as a GOAT candidate? Literally all available data we have has MJ as a GOAT level candidate.

-Every single Plus/Minus stat we have shows MJ is an Elite

-Every single RAPM shows MJ as an Elite (I'm not counting Wizards MJ)

-He played on some of the best teams in NBA history. 3 10+ SRS teams, 6 teams with a 6+ SRS

Sure. Jordan looks elite. And if we consider being elite the same as being a goat candidate, then there's no metric I'm aware of that suggests he isn't. However, the G in "GOAT" stands for greatest not elite. I'd argue that "elite" isn't really the bar we should set here. And it's worth noting that none of what Colts cited has him scoring the "greatest" even when many of these metrics he references don't include historical candidates like kareem and russell.

The only "winning" metric where he actually looks like "the greatest" is if you go by team success as colts does in point 3, but consider that "impact" is usually considered distinct from "total success". Impact, as its commonly used, denotes "isolated influence" on winning, not the whole pie, and even then, if we focus on winning championships, as opposed to srs(which can fluctuate in how indicative it is of championship probablity from era to era), Jordan quite clearly loses to Russell who also seems to outpace him in all the available impact data we have.

So in short, no. I don't think there are impact metrics which generally suggest Jordan as "the greatest." There are box-metrics which put him in the range, but these are not extrapolated from winning. Typically "impact" denotes when you isolate "individual influence on winning". Not when you look at different box-stuff and ascribe this or that many points to this or that category working with assumptions such as "blocks from a guard must be more valuable than blocks from a center." With that in mind...

One quick clarifier here is that the more advanced box-based stats (particularly those in Type A) can incorporate team offensive rating, defensive rating, SRS, record/margin of victory, etc. into their formula, then use box stats to try to ascertain how much impact an individual is having vs their teammates. This does allow the more advanced box stats to get closer to "winning-based" metrics. They're still an approximation, but people can (and have) added team-success based signals to get them closer to measuring true "impact"

A. Plus-Minus Stats (and box estimates of plus-minus stats)
1. 3-Year Postseason Augmented Plus Minus: 2nd all-time. Using Jordan's actual playoff on/off data, Jordan is a hair behind Duncan at 1st (well within uncertainty ranges to put Jordan first) and above every 3-year stint from LeBron.
2. 3-Year Postseason PIPM: 3rd all time.* Jordan's ahead of Miami LeBron, which is usually considered LeBron's peak (although LeBron has other samples that creep ahead).
3. 3-year Postseason RAPTOR: 1st all time.*
4. 3-year Postseason On/off: 9th all time. This is a noisy stat that's clearly worse than RAPM/etc. However, we don't have playoff RAPM yet. In raw on/off, Jordan still places high, having a better "on" rating than all but 2 of the players ahead of him and having a better on/off than Miami and 2nd-stint-Cavs LeBron.

The data being referenced here does not have plus-minus before 1997 and even then, whatever data is present is heavily informed by priors from seasons. These metrics, as they exist for Jordan are effectively variants of stuff like PER. They are looking at Jordan's box-stuff and then extrapolating offensive and defensive value. This is notable as using available impact data as opposed to box-stuff, Jordan's defense does not compare well to Lebron's at any point in his prime. As Lebron and Jordan are virtually tied on the offensive portion of all these metrics, simply replacing the defensive component with actual impact data, knocks Jordan off his perch. And remember, this is not including Kareem whose defenses were 4 points better, or Russell who won the most, by a landslide, on the strength of his team's defense.

A few corrections here.

1. 3-year Postseason Augmented Plus Minus uses actual playoff plus-minus data, and Jordan's peak comes out 2nd all-time, within uncertainty range of being #1, and ahead of every 3-year stint from LeBron. This stat alone disproves the central claim you've made that there are zero true impact metrics that place Jordan as a GOAT candidate. This is an impact metric, it uses real plus minus data, and it places peak Jordan as a GOAT-tier performer. It does come before 1997 like you say! But thanks to the manual tracking of Squared2020 / Thinking Basketball / others, we can get real plus minus data for Jordan (including actual plus minus during his peak playoffs, which Augmented Plus Minus uses here).

Now I'm not trying to say this singlehandedly proves Jordan's the better playoff performer over LeBron. Far from it. I'm merely saying that Jordan has a case as a GOAT peak/prime candidate, statistically. But you've raised other points, and good ones, so let's get to those:

2. "These metrics, as they exist for Jordan are effectively variants of stuff like PER". As I've said, this doesn't apply to Stat #1 (Postseason Augmented Plus Minus). It also does not apply to stat #4 (Postseason On/off) or #5 (Regular Season RAPM) -- let's discuss those further below. However, this criticism is definitely valid for Stat #2, #3, #6, #7 (Pre-97 Postseason PIPM, Postseason RAPTOR, Regular Season PIPM, Regular Season RAPTOR).

I'd like to push back against the claim that these box stats are no better than PER. Two reasons:
2A. The design of these stats is fundamentally different. PER was designed to produce a GOAT list similar to the conventional one... and so using it runs the risk of relying on circular logic ("PER is designed to show Jordan as a GOAT candidate, and thus Jordan is a GOAT candidate based on his GOAT-level PER rating"). Box approximations of PIPM and RAPTOR are fundamentally different. They are designed to, as closely as possible, use box stats to predict one's true plus-minus-based value. We can apply the box-approximations of these stats to players where we know the true plus-minus-based value, and come up with all sorts of measurements of the error, standard deviation, cases that are more and less likely to fit, etc. And in fact, the creators of these metrics have done this.

To me, a more fair characterization of the box-approximations of PIPM and RAPTOR is that they predict true plus-minus-based PIPM and RAPTOR, with wider error bars than the plus-minus based ones.

2B. These stats are measurably more accurate. We can look at how accurate these stats are at predicting wins and/or fitting to true adjusted plus minus. And as it turns out, these box-based stats are measurably more accurate than PER. In fact, they are closer in performance to APM/RAPM than they are to PER.

Like I said at the start of my first post, we don't have full plus minus data for Jordan, and so of course box approximations come with more uncertainty. But they're measurably better tools than some of our other options (e.g. PER). To me, we shouldn't throw away good tools, we should use them while acknowledging increased uncertainty. And if we do, these stats support the idea that Jordan is GOAT-tier (even if you still side with LeBron over Jordan).

Furthermore, if we use a more general frame as opposed to a specific one(3 year consecutive)...

Ben only lists 1 three year sample for jordan

Jordan's average from 89-91 is +7.7 in backpicks bpm and +7 in aupm, averaging to +7.35

For Lebron Ben lists three different three year samples(08-10, 12-14, 15-17) in AUPM:

08-10:+6.8, 16-18:+6.7, 12-14:+5.1

He only lists 12-14 for both bpm and aupm:

12-14: +5.8

So if we just use his three year averages, we see that lebron has a bunch of three-year stretches close to MJ but MJ's 89-91 scores highest. However it's interesting that lebron has three 3 year stretches that rank so high(2nd, 3rd, and 7th) and the lowest score came from the years ben rated as Lebron's peak. If we take a look at lebron's best two years from each of those three year stretches...(aupm/bpm is averaged)

Lebron's 09, 10, 12, 13, 16 and 17 are at +10, +8, +7.5, +7, +7.5, and +7.7 respectively.

You get 5 different seasons which would boost the average of MJ's 89-91 peak.

As draymond has covered with PIPM, even using a three-year frame, Lebron has 2 better samples, and the gap naturally widens when we just look at the best years as opposed to a 3-year lens. Notably, DPIPM's weightings are most closely tied to DRAPM making it the most "impacty" of the metrics in question. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that Jordan does the worst here looking at these box-score proxies. Playoff PIPM is also notably the one box-metric where Hakeem, arguably the most valuable defender since Bill Russell, has the second highest career average after...Lebron.


If we go onto actual plus-minus data, Jordan falls short in playoff on/off with 88-93 coming significantly behind 16-21 Lebron and being on par with the on/off for shaq and curry. Notably, Lebron's teams were as good with Lebron on the court as the Bulls were with Jordan. Keep in mind we don't have the data for players like Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, Magic, Bird, Walton, Wilt, or Russell. Jordan is competing in a very, very narrow field here and still doesn't look the best.

We have regular season on/off for Jordan's 97/98 and again, this doesn't look GOAT-worthy. Using Lebron as a reference, 98 scores lower than 18 different Lebron seasons. 97 scores lower than 17.

Lots of interesting thoughts. Let's cover each stat separately.

Stat #2. Postseason PIPM:
As before, I absolutely agree that stats like PIPM are less accurate when we're using the box-approximation, which is partially due to the difficulty of accurately measuring defense, as you suggest.

Re: year size, as I mentioned in my post, changing the year size changes the ordering of the list. But if we're using a stat that's primarily plus-minus-based, we likely want to be using samples larger than 1-postseason-run, as RAPM/PIPM take much longer to stabilize than a single postseason run. So if you're trying to measure peak, that leaves 2/3/4/5-year samples. 2 postseasons is also generally considered too short for RAPM/PIPM to stabilize. So that's why I went with 3. But again, you could use another sample and LeBron might creep ahead.

But I think it's worth reiterating, in a 3-year postseason sample, Jordan's approximate PIPM is 3rd all time. Sure, non-Miami LeBron's ahead -- I never said otherwise. But if 3rd all time isn't GOAT tier, I wonder whether we're really talking about a tier at all.

It is at this point that I think it's worth pointing out that LeBron generally performs slightly worse in 3-year playoff samples than 2-year samples. Here's another way of putting this: LeBron's stats are more inconsistent across his long peak / short prime compared to Jordan. For example, across many stats: 08 is a down year (relative to 09), 11 is a down year (relative to 09/10 and 12), 14 and 15 are down years (relative to 12/13 and 16/17). Jordan, on the other hand, shows a smoother statistical rise and fall over his postseason performances.

If we're favorable to LeBron: we explain away the down years using some sort of contextual argument, then say that the true signal are the higher years (like you do when you say there are X years that would raise Jordan's 3 year average). If we're less favorable to LeBron: we suggest that LeBron is more inconsistent than Jordan, and say the true value of LeBron is somewhere in between the peaks and valleys. I'm not here to argue one over the other. All I'm here to say is that it's not completely unreasonable to take the second approach.

To put the less favorable argument another way: I'm not interested in how a LeBron would perform with 09's athleticism and motor, 12/16's defense, 17/18's passing and shooting and offensive mastermind, and 13's general versatility, post up play, and off-ball cutting. That hybrid player never existed. What I am interested in (in this thread) is merely suggesting that it's not unreasonable to want a larger sample of consecutive seasons (as this avoids the hybrid-problem). And that if Jordan looks comparable to LeBron via 3-year postseason PIPM, better than peak Miami LeBron but less valuable than both Cleveland stints, (which he does), than he has a GOAT case... even if you still think PIPM favors LeBron.

Stat #4: Raw On/off.

I don't want to spend too long here. Raw playoff on/off is not a ranking stat, for obvious reasons. I just brought it up because unfortunately we don't have playoff APM There is some correlation with APM: if you have great raw on/off, and if you're not a role player benefiting from playing alongside a better star who's the true source of value, then you'll probably have great APM. This fits with Jordan. But the exact ranking of the top players in on/off doesn't determine the ranking according to objectively better stats like APM. Maybe some day...

What we have from Jordan in RAPM, including data from 2 years often included in GOAT regular season conversations, also doesn't compare well to what we have for Lebron:

From the peaks project...
LeBron:

+8.84 in 2009 (would be 4th all time), +9.73 in 2011 (would be 2nd all time), +9.5 in 2012 (would be 2nd all time), +6.4 in 2013 (would be 13th all time), 6.79 in 2014, 8.7 in 2015, +8.62 in 2016 (would be 4th all time), 6.62 in 2017, 1.56 in 2018 (holy coasting! wow!), 3.44 in 2019.

Jordan:

+7.47 in 1988 (would be 8th all time. 43 game sample where Bulls just barely performed better than their average season level), +6.40 in 1991 (57 games where Bulls drastically underperformed their average season level), +7.17 in 1996 (21 games sample where Bulls performed at their average season level), +5.85 in 1997 (full season sample), +6.15 in 1998.```

My apologies, but I interpret these stats completely differently.

We have less than 20% of Jordan's games measured in Jordan's 6 best years, we have strong evidence that the games we do have underrate Jordan, and Jordan nonetheless comes out 8th all time, tied with peak 2013 LeBron. Again, LeBron's non-peak years may still end up being higher than Jordan. But to me, the idea that a guy who's missing significant portions of his best samples and nonetheless ranks 8th all time seems pretty fitting with a GOAT-tier player, even if your GOAT choice is different.

Why do these stats underrate Jordan? Well, in the games we have for 1991 we would expect the Bulls to win 52-53 games. They won 61 and had the SRS of a 64-win team. That's a massive difference between the data we have and the known full-season value. I see no reason why 91 Jordan wouldn't look better with this missing data. Similarly, I see no reason why 1989 or 1990 Jordan might not look better than 1988 Jordan in RAPM, which is already 8th all time.

B. WOWY based stats

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse. With an optimistic appraisal of 23 win lift using an 82 game sample in 84(going by record instead of srs and assuming no improvement despite Oakley spiking the Bulls D-rating), Jordan comes out about even with post-prime Duncan(30 games 04/05), somewhat behind the best stuff we see from Hakeem(25 and 30 game lift in 20 game samples in 88 and 90), consistently behind Kareem throughout the 70's(30 win lift in 75, a 29 win improvement with a player similar to oakley as a rookie, 62 wins without his co-star, and takes the depleted remnants of a 30 win team to 45 wins in 77), and a pretty sizable gap compared to Lebron who has multiple 40 win signals for 09 and 10, 30 win signals in his second cavs stint, and is mostly operating at, at least 20+ win lift throughout his prime leading multiple teams to 60 or near-60 win basketball without co-stars on top-heavy rosters(cavs, heatles).

Finally you have Russell, leader of the greatest team ever, who, using an 82 game WOWY sample, seems to have beat two superteams on his last-legs with subpar help in 69, who has the best pre-nba impact alongside kareem in a more stacked league, saw the highest point differential at the olympics, and was able to consistently succeed with teammates going in and out of the lineup.

There are various other players who look alright in different frames, but to keep this succinct, WOWY(and the various derivations you can use to estimate it) really marks the "purest" family of impact signals and Jordan just doesn't look like the best, or even close to the best here. This holds true even if you insist on operating with the tiniest possible samples.

And just like we can "adjust" raw plus-minus to create APM and RAPM to correct for the other players, we can do the same for WOWY.

Except you can't, because WOWYR does not use lineup-level data, it utilizes game-level data. Even RAPM has various limitations that makes treating it like a "better" version of WOWY misguided. But this is just malpractice with WOWYR:

Instead of using results from lineups within a game (play-by-play data) like traditional APM, game-level plus-minus uses final scores from game to game for the players from that game. This allows for a historical, apple-to-apples comparison of per-game impact from before play-by-play was available (1997).

What this means is that you only really get data for a player when they aren't in the starting lineup. The adjustment's "correction" is marginal, and the sample of data we're working with here is realtively tiny. With Jordan, even including the 82 game samples from 1984 and 1994(not included in the WOWYR dray lists), we only have 8 games without MJ per season to work off. Take out that 164 game boost, and it's probably more like For Bill, we only have 2.2 games a season. You are making the sample exponentially smaller, for a marginal improvement in "noise". This is a much, much smaller sample to work with than the unfavorable partial rapm data Dray quickly dismisses, and even then, Jordan does not really look like the greatest. Notably, if we take WOWYR seriously, Bill Russell led the greatest team ever with 35 win help throughout his prime while Jordan barely won half as much with 40-50 win help. While Jordan looks marginally better than Lebron, he's not really within range of GOAThood.

. Generally, you like raw WOWY much more than I do, or at least much more than WOWYR. I'm not here to tell you that you shouldn't use WOWY or should use WOWYR or any variant like that. My main argument is that WOWYR is a valid stat, a stat that measures actual impact (not box approximations), and that it portrays Jordan as GOAT tier, even if you can use it to argue for other players over him.

Allow me to point out some flaws in raw WOWY, and why WOWYR might have valuable uses.

In short: WOWY == Raw plus/minus, but using games instead of possessions. WOWYR = Adjusted plus minus. There are problems we get with raw plus minus. We can get similar problems with raw WOWY.

1. WOWY does not fully correct for teammate or opponent context.
You can approximate the average difficulty of the opponent by using opposing SRS, rather than margin of victory. However, this makes no corrections for when opposing players are out or when teammates are out.

This lack of context is the exact same phenomenon that gives 2001 playoff Derrick Fisher better raw plus-minus than 2016 LeBron. 2001 Derrick Fisher happened to play on one of the best teams ever -- I trust we do not confuse that context with someone who actually is one of the best players ever.

How might this effect raw WOWY? Well, let's imagine (hypothetically of course ) that Jordan plays with good teammates and for a good coach.

(1) The effect of good backup teammates on WOWY: 2001 Derrick Fisher's raw plus-minus can be artificially boosted more than his true value, just because he happens to share on-minutes with 2001 Shaq/Kobe and go to the bench around the same time as Shaq/Kobe. Likewise, a player's raw plus-minus can be artificially limited if their minutes happen to mis-align with the other better players on their team.

WOWY is sensitive to the same thing... if Jordan's the only one to miss a game, and if his replacement (e.g. higher-usage Pippen) is better than many other replacement players, than this will artificially limit Jordan's "off value". Likewise, if Pippen et al. miss games when Jordan's playing games, this will artificially limit his "on value". The exact same process can occur with opponents missing games.

(2) The effect of good coach on WOWY: WOWY is sensitive to coaching. If a player is missing one game, for example, a poor coach may put less effort into adjusting the game plan than if a player is missing a lot of time in a row. If one coaching staff is much better than another coaching staff, the better one might do a much better job at filling in when a player is missing than a bad one. Jordan had great coaching with Phil Jackson. This is the kind of thing that would limit his raw WOWY.

But! If we regress (note: not regularize) the raw WOWY data, we can isolate for the specific changes caused by Jordan. This is the exact same as Adjusting plus minus data, except adjusting for when every player plays or does not play in a game (rather than adjusting for when every player plays or does not play in a possession), and we can do this for raw WOWY data

Just like Playoff Adjusted Plus Minus shows that 2001 Derrick Fisher is not more valuable to his team than 2016 LeBron James, we can do a similar adjustment based on Jordan's context. And when we do this adjustment, we find that Jordan is 4th all time over LeBron in this adjusted WOWY study.

This seems like a GOAT-tier player.

One other qualifier: I've seen critics against "adjusted WOWY" (i.e. WOWYR = WOWY regressed) say that it relies too much on small samples. This isn't totally fair. Again, let's go to our metaphor of Adjusted Plus Minus: let's say a player sits 1 minute in the 1st quarter, 2 minutes in the 2nd quarter, and 8 minutes in the 3rd quarter. WHen we go from raw plus/minus to Adjusted Plus minus, do we count each of those off-samples equally? Of course not! The larger sample gets more weighting, because we trust it more. The exact same thing is true for WOWYR. We give more weighting to the larger samples, as we trust them more... but we also don't throw out all the smaller samples, as they have valuable information too when we get enough of them.

This is not to say the statistics universally favor Jordan over other GOAT candidates like LeBron or Kareem or Russell. They don't. I'm sure you could find a similar array of stats to support LeBron.

This is a wierd characterization. The statistics you've referenced near-universally favor Lebron in the majority of comparative frames with the vast majority of nba history not included in your sample. Moreover the impacty data we have consistently favors Lebron by virtually any frame and, when it is available, also favors Kareem and Russell with similar consistency. Notably the gap widens the more "impacty" data becomes with Jordan's relative statistical profile looking worse relative to other greats the more inclusive the data becomes.

I think this is flat-out untrue. Jordan's playoff Augmented Plus Minus, based on actual plus minus data, is better than LeBron's. His WOWYR is over LeBron/Russell/Kareem. And all the approximations of more accurate stats we have show him as GOAT tier.

Again, I'm not trying to say Jordan is clearly over all those players. That's for another thread. But the idea that there isn't a statistical argument to put peak or prime Jordan in Tier #1 is just silly. There's plenty of evidence! Even if you think that evidence favors one player more than Jordan.

Alrighty, that's all I have time for. Hopefully everything I wrote made sense!

[ceoofkobefans]

There are plenty of them. What cant I find where is Kobes impact metrics for TOP10 conversation.

Off the dome I know VORP RS+PO has Bean at 11 (.3 points behind dirk for 10th) and RAPTOR WAR has him 8th all time. 5Yr RAPM has his peak at 10th as well

To be fair VORP isn’t pre 74 so I’m sure wilt or bill could be above him which puts him at 13 and same with RAPTOR WAR which is 77- so Kareem also is below him (this would have him 11th as a low end) WS RS+PO has him at 15th (13 NBA only) and these aren’t weighting PO higher or anything (where Kobe is one of the best PO risers and Performers ever) this is just adding RS and PO stats so that should be accounted as well 5 Yr RAPM has his peak at 10th (not career because there isn’t really a cumulative version of RAPM). This doesn’t include MJ Magic Bird Kareem Wilt ot Russell so even if we assume he’s worst than all of them that would still have him at 15th for *peaks* so I think that’s gives him a pretty solid t10 argument there

PIPM has him 3rd in Wins added for the PO idk about RS or RS+PO but PIPM is pretty low on Kobe so I could see him being outside the t10-15 in PIPM for the RS (isn’t pre 74 iirc)

But yea impact metrics love Kobe in the PO especially compared to the RS. He’s 8th in WS 5th in VORP 3rd in PIPM wins added (although I believe that’s the PIPM with On/off data incorporated not just the box model so could he closer to 10 than 1 easily).

These are all counting stats except Ramp and Pipm where he isnt TOP10 material. If we adjust longevity with previous eras, these counting stats aren’t top10 too

The counting stats are adjusting for longevity and his longevity is still very hard to argue outside of the t10 even if you era adjust. And you could also argue if PO are given a higher weight than the RS kobe ranks higher in these stats so that would cancel out lol he’s very much a top 10 player ever

[ceoofkobefans]

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse.

This post so absurd. Do you realize what stat you are referring to? WOWY. With or Without you. Those last two words are key. How can you say MJ look worse in this stat when there was literally no without you's? Michael Jordan had 9 seasons in his career with 82 games. Last I checked, when you play 82 games, there are zero games without you so the stat does not apply at all. What about the 8 years Jordan made an ECF (won 6 titles)? He missed a total of 6 games in those years. How can you talk about a stat when there is literally no sample at all during Jordan's prime? We have just one season at all where Jordan missed significant games. His 2nd season in 1986. After that he missed a total of 6 games in 10 full seasons with the Bulls.

Then you cite PIPM, a stat that never existed during MJ's time.

He is using year to year WOWY (looking at how good a team was before you got there or after you left compared to the year you’re added or the year before you leave) this is very noisy and not as reliable as just normal WOWY or WOWYR (pending on sample size) but he likes it a lot.

Also we do have PIPM going back to 1974 actually it’s just a box model only pre 1997.

[SpreeS]

Off the dome I know VORP RS+PO has Bean at 11 (.3 points behind dirk for 10th) and RAPTOR WAR has him 8th all time. 5Yr RAPM has his peak at 10th as well

To be fair VORP isn’t pre 74 so I’m sure wilt or bill could be above him which puts him at 13 and same with RAPTOR WAR which is 77- so Kareem also is below him (this would have him 11th as a low end) WS RS+PO has him at 15th (13 NBA only) and these aren’t weighting PO higher or anything (where Kobe is one of the best PO risers and Performers ever) this is just adding RS and PO stats so that should be accounted as well 5 Yr RAPM has his peak at 10th (not career because there isn’t really a cumulative version of RAPM). This doesn’t include MJ Magic Bird Kareem Wilt ot Russell so even if we assume he’s worst than all of them that would still have him at 15th for *peaks* so I think that’s gives him a pretty solid t10 argument there

PIPM has him 3rd in Wins added for the PO idk about RS or RS+PO but PIPM is pretty low on Kobe so I could see him being outside the t10-15 in PIPM for the RS (isn’t pre 74 iirc)

But yea impact metrics love Kobe in the PO especially compared to the RS. He’s 8th in WS 5th in VORP 3rd in PIPM wins added (although I believe that’s the PIPM with On/off data incorporated not just the box model so could he closer to 10 than 1 easily).

These are all counting stats except Ramp and Pipm where he isnt TOP10 material. If we adjust longevity with previous eras, these counting stats aren’t top10 too

The counting stats are adjusting for longevity and his longevity is still very hard to argue outside of the t10 even if you era adjust. And you could also argue if PO are given a higher weight than the RS kobe ranks higher in these stats so that would cancel out lol he’s very much a top 10 player ever

Nah. He isn’t.

[ceoofkobefans]

These are all counting stats except Ramp and Pipm where he isnt TOP10 material. If we adjust longevity with previous eras, these counting stats aren’t top10 too

The counting stats are adjusting for longevity and his longevity is still very hard to argue outside of the t10 even if you era adjust. And you could also argue if PO are given a higher weight than the RS kobe ranks higher in these stats so that would cancel out lol he’s very much a top 10 player ever

Nah. He isn’t.

Not gonna fight you on this because you very likely won’t listen but maybe when I eventually get around to making my Kobe post for my t25 series you’ll read it and hear it out!

Also would like to hear your t25 GOAT list (or whatever the highest number you have is) and expos if you feel up to it!

[SpreeS]

The counting stats are adjusting for longevity and his longevity is still very hard to argue outside of the t10 even if you era adjust. And you could also argue if PO are given a higher weight than the RS kobe ranks higher in these stats so that would cancel out lol he’s very much a top 10 player ever

Nah. He isn’t.

Not gonna fight you on this because you very likely won’t listen but maybe when I eventually get around to making my Kobe post for my t25 series you’ll read it and hear it out!

Also would like to hear your t25 GOAT list (or whatever the highest number you have is) and expos if you feel up to it!

I am fine with Realgm top100 2020. Maybe would switch Kobe with West, but let it be

[DraymondGold]

Hi Draymondgold, thank you for sharing all you did! For sure some great points made, some questions and personal 2 cents I have for your case(s) made (will link data, articles, or points at the end of this Quote exchange).

Hiya rk2023! I'm happy to discuss, and I always enjoy some nice data/articles

(1) What do you mean by impact metrics? If by impact metrics you mean "only actual plus minus data", then our arguments for Jordan will be limited by the obvious fact that Jordan came before the plus-minus era. By that line of thinking, Kareem, Russell, Wilt, Bird, Magic, and the rest all don't have an impact-metric-driven GOAT case, since they too came before the plus minus era. To be clear, we do have partial plus-minus data for Jordan, which I'll get to in a bit. But not complete plus minus data. Me personally, I don't like the idea of discounting players' GOAT cases simply because they played before 1997. But in order for that to happen, in order to make a statistical GOAT case for pre-1997 players, we have to be more flexible with the stats we use (i.e. including box-stats) and accept that the plus minus data we do have comes with smaller samples and thus more uncertainty.

Agreed, particularly the fact that other GOAT candidates shouldn't be diminished at first glance because "one can't speak upon their careers". From a film standpoint I get why people say this, but feel there is a point where one can see enough / contextualize / and make valid assumptions through missing pieces in order to gain a better assessment.

(2) And what do you mean by GOAT candidate? You might mean GOAT peak, GOAT prime, or GOAT career. People typically use stats to argue the first two (GOAT peak or GOAT prime), as this avoids the question of how to integrate value over time. And MJ absolutely has GOAT-tier peak or prime stats. If you mean GOAT career, well, very few people argue GOAT candidacy using stats that actually span players' full careers. For example, people rarely count up "career cumulative RAPM" or "career cumulative PIPM" or "career cumulative WOWY" to argue GOAT candidacy (with the exception of career CORP, which is more of Thinking Basketball's personal estimation than a normal stat). Instead, what they usually do is look at some combination of stats for peak or prime, then make longevity arguments or career cumulative arguments from there.

It is more worthwhile to have a criteria that converges into opinions rather than opinions that diverge into a criteria (eg. agenda pushing). Since GOAT candidate is open ended as a term, it boils down to what you value. for me, I factor prime quality > longevity >= peak - while having an extra consideration to adjust longevity for era (see TB article below) and being more adamant on players' playoff track-records and translation. Would also like to re-iterate as I see candidate as one who might not be "the basketball GOAT" with one's criteria but has a key argument shaped by part of it. Will touch on this more, but I see (chronologically) Russell Jabbar Jordan and James to be GOAT candidates - not really much wiggle room after them in terms of ranking players in a fourth spot high-end. When this board does greatest careers in fall (presumably?), I'll get more keen into doubling-down on a formal ranking of these four.

Your first sentence is interesting -- I wouldn't have thought to put it that way!

I also appreciate that you know what you value. Me personally, I might weigh having a better peak a little higher than longevity (at least over having more years that are clearly pre/post-prime longevity), but I think your method is perfectly valid. The era-adjusted longevity idea is also an underrated one, but I think it's important if we want to be fair and not favor modern players.

As for your Basketball Mount Rushmore, I probably have the same, and I'd guess it's the most popular Mount Rushmore on RealGM (but less popular in pop culture... old retired centers are less popular on twitter these days). I can see arguments for a high-end evaluation of Duncan, Wilt, or maybe Shaq if you're peak-heavy over a low-end evaluation of Russell, but... I personally have trouble being convinced by those arguments.

If you're specifically interested in GOAT career candidates with a focus on cumulative value or longevity, then this is probably one of Jordan's weakest areas as a GOAT candidate. Jordan played 15 seasons total... including 86 when he played 18 regular season games plus playoffs, 95 when he played 17 regular season games plus playoffs, and both Wizard years. Meanwhile LeBron has played 18 seasons and counting, and Kareem played 21 seasons. Now I generally think total seasons aren't the best barometer for longevity because:
(1) they don't account for era differences (e.g. Jordan and Kareem were required to go to college, unlike LeBron; and sports medicine has improved through the years, enabling better longevity).
(2) They don't account for the relative value of different seasons (Kareem's last seasons, Jordan's Wizard seasons, and LeBron's first seasons barely move the needle at all in their GOAT case).
... but still, Kareem and LeBron have the clear longevity advantage, so you have to rate Jordan's prime that much more than Kareem's and LeBron's in order to pick Jordan as the #1 GOAT from a career-value perspective. Those 3 separate retirements hurt Jordan here, particularly the lost 94/95 seasons. But if you value Jordan's prime highly, you still might have him in the GOAT tier, even if you think LeBron or Kareem have passed him from a career value perspective.

Agreed, I think when you are looking at aggregate CORP (Ben's Approach) - he's still a candidate but I think has one of the weaker arguments of the four.

Per my view, here is how many >= strong MVP seasons each of the candidates have (going with more of a conservative approach):

Russell: 10
Jabbar: 11
Jordan: 9
James: 11

Anyone can feel free to correct if they feel different; there certainly could be more seasons for each player (Jordan less-so unless there's a different view than I have on 1987) and I'm happy to list which ones I factored in.

I like that you actually counted up MVP seasons!

If I were to make an argument for Jordan's career (over, say, Russell), it would probably be by saying Jordan has more years that are clearly a level above strong MVP (e.g. more all-time seasons). But! I think this kind of MVP-level-season-counting are a nice way of illustrating the kind of longevity advantage the other Mount Rushmore candidates have over Jordan.

A. Plus-Minus Stats (and box estimates of plus-minus stats)

*placeholder*

1. 3-Year Postseason Augmented Plus Minus: 2nd all-time. Using Jordan's actual playoff on/off data, Jordan is a hair behind Duncan at 1st (well within uncertainty ranges to put Jordan first) and above every 3-year stint from LeBron.

Where is this coming from? I may not have the full knowledge of data sources but using BackPicks/Thinking-Basketball - the only AuPM 3-year run I see from Jordan is from 96-98 (of course, this is far from his apex and general prime) where he grades out with a 4.8 - tied with the Likes of 13-16 Westbrook and 03-05 Ginobili amongst others. Five of LeBron's 3-year runs grade out on the top 11 in his database and 4.6 grades out as his lowest-end within this span.

I like a person who asks for sources

The data is indeed from Thinking Basketball, but as you indicated it's not yet been uploaded to the standard Player-Season database that has normal Augmented Plus Minus.

The only place the data was published was in Thinking Basketball's 'Top 10 Best NBA Peaks Since 1977' video which you linked. It comes up in the Jordan vs LeBron comparison at 22:26. And I can tell you it's based on the playoff on/off data that Squared2020/Thinking Basketball/others(?) tracked for Jordan and published here:

Watch on YouTube

Hopefully he publishes the specific AuPM data for each year to his database soon! I'd love to take a look at the yearly breakdown.

4. 3-year Postseason On/off: 9th all time. This is a noisy stat that's clearly worse than RAPM/etc. However, we don't have playoff RAPM yet. In raw on/off, Jordan still places high, having a better "on" rating than all but 2 of the players ahead of him and having a better on/off than Miami and 2nd-stint-Cavs LeBron.

Some food for thought here, linked both videos because I remember some good insights brought up regarding Jordan v James on impact and some on/off numbers. Can circle back to these in this general thread upon a more focused rewatch.

Watch on YouTube

;t=1425s

Watch on YouTube

;t=761s

5. Regular Season RAPM, single season: 8th all time. This comes from Squared2020's fantastic historical research into Jordan's actual plus minus data. However, note that this comes from a half-season sample in 1988, a two-thirds-season sample in 1991 where the Bulls drastically underperformed (i.e. missing many of the Bulls' best games), and one-third-season sample in 1996. With larger samples in 1991, and with actual data in 1989, 1990, 1992, and 1993, it's very reasonable to expect Jordan to rank higher here.

I see the latter most point as an assumption at the end of the day, but it is one rooted with reasonable "filling in the holes based on what we know logic" so it's cool with me. If you would have a source and a number in this instance I would appreciate it, there is a site I have bookmarked for RAPM pre 2013 but the numbers don't look right to me. From using Englemann's Google-Site (Copied Both at end):

1991-2014 xRAPM/100: James comes out second all time, 7.65
1997-2014 RAPM: James comes out first all time, 5.63
2009 and 2010 Single Season RAPM: James tops the site-base with values of 9.3 & 9.8 respectively.

I also found Squared2020 / Justin Jacobs' RAPM project for 1991 - where Jordan comes out a 7.71. If anyone on this board has some other post 2014 or more accurate RAPM years from pre 2000, definitely feel free to share

Yep, I got the Jordan RAPM data from Squared2020's website! As far as I know, it's the primary source of pre-97 RAPM (except for maybe some 76ers data that goes back to Erving's time?).

For people who want to browse the data:
https://squared2020.com/2021/12/19/1969-1970-nba-rapm/
https://squared2020.com/2021/04/11/1979-80-nba-rapm/
https://squared2020.com/1984-85-rapm/
https://squared2020.com/1987-88-nba-rapm/
https://squared2020.com/2021/09/11/1990-1991-nba-rapm/
https://squared2020.com/2022/07/18/1995-1996-nba-rapm/

As for how much reasonable inference is required, you're right there's definitely a little. The one data point we have to ground our inference is at the bottom of each page, where Squared2020 lists how each team performed in the games we have vs how they performed in the full season... and you'll notice that the Bulls were on a 52-53 win pace in the games we have in 1991, compared to their 61 wins they actually got and the 64-win-pace they were on based on SRS. Wow! So the games we have seriously underrate the 91 Bulls and must be missing many of their best games. I have trouble picturing the Bulls doing that much better in those other games without at least some improvement in Jordan's (already impressive) number.

But you're right, since we only have partial samples for 88 and 91, we can only use logical inference for Jordan in his other best years.

2. 3-Year Postseason PIPM: 3rd all time.* Jordan's ahead of Miami LeBron, which is usually considered LeBron's peak (although LeBron has other samples that creep ahead).
6. Regular Season 3-year PIPM: 1st all time.* Jordan's 1st in PIPM across a full season (1st-Cavs-stint LeBron creeps ahead in PIPM per-possession).

I'm unsure of PS PIPM data, but am curious regarding RS. The spread-sheet I have in that instance has these as the top years between the two with RS/PS games used (can link through PM if need be):

2009 James - 10.45 , 2010 James - 8.79 , 1988 Jordan - 8.74 , 1991 Jordan - 8.63 , 2017 James - 8.55 , 2016 James - 8.34 , 2013 James - 8.33 , 1996 Jordan - 8.13 , 1989 Jordan - 7.97. After that, there is a drop-off between the two; the seasons I listed are all in the top 18 single season marks.

Here's what I used for
PS PIPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13pGq-utIRXi7trNXPjVas6qw7wFnTDHfJX-fVvbHv8Y/edit?usp=sharing
RS PIPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EIZvj_3-9SZULWomHz54V1CPL092j70u_0vUhoEEaIk/edit?usp=sharing
I'd recommend making a copy of the sheets or downloading them, so you can edit them as you like. Let me know if you used anything different!

One note: For stat 6, I noted I used the full-season value. PIPM is usually listed as PIPM per 100 possessions (or per 48 minutes? or per 36 minutes? I'm forgetting the units off-hand). But you can also convert them to a full season value (multiplying by total possessions or minutes or whatever)... you can see what's really the "full season value" as the "Wins Added" column.

People differ on whether they prefer doing Per Season, per game, per 36 minutes, or per 100 possessions. Personally, I tend to prefer per 100 possessions or per game, but I know others have argued for per season. I mentioned the per season value, as the opening thread was just asking what metrics could show MJ as a GOAT-level player, even if I prefer per 100 possessions.

3. 3-year Postseason RAPTOR: 1st all time.*
7. Regular Season 3-year RAPTOR: 1st all time.* Jordan's 1st in RAPTOR across a full season and per possession.

Where are the RAPTOR estimates coming from? I have yet to see anything outside of 2014 onwards

You'd be surprised at how difficult they made this (why isn't this a page on fivethirtyeight's website??).

Anyway, they posted their historical data on GitHub:https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/nba-raptor.
The data in text/csv form is here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fivethirtyeight/data/master/nba-raptor/historical_RAPTOR_by_player.csv

Download or copy paste it into some Google Sheet / excel, then split it into columns using 'text to columns' and separating the commas into columns. It's in alphabetical order, but personally I just pasted all the top players I wanted to analyze into a separate tab for easier sorting. Yikes, that was unnecessarily difficult

*Note that some of these stats use box-estimates compared to real plus minus data for more modern players. No, this is not a perfect comparison. But. It is the best we have, and the box estimates are designed to mimic the real plus-minus data as closely as possible. It's as a fair a statistical comparison as we can make.
*Note that some of these stats do not cover all NBA seasons. Russell and Wilt are notably missing from all of them. However, PIPM/RAPTOR estimates (#2, #3, #6, #7) go back to the NBA merger in 1977.

If you have data sources or links for some of these data-points, it would be immensely appreciated. Am getting more into advanced stats myself, so my working knowledge of what is available isn't down to a T by any means.

B. WOWY-based stats
Plus minus stats give a good sense of value within a particular role. But they usually only go back to 1997 (excepting the historical work of Squared2020, thinking basketball). However, we can create a plus-minus-like stat using games as the sample... so our "on" sample is games where someone played, and our "off" sample is games when a player missed. This is a noisy statistic (even noisier than plus/minus data). However, it allows us to measure a player's value in a role going all the way back to 1955!

Jordan performs worse in raw WOWY ("only" 32nd all time). However, just like we have reason to distrust raw on/off -- as it doesn't fully correct for the value of who you're playing with, against, and who's replacing you in a lineup -- we have a similar reason to distrust raw WOWY. And just like we can "adjust" raw plus-minus to create APM and RAPM to correct for the other players, we can do the same for WOWY.
8. 10-year prime WOWYR: 4th all time.* This is like "Adjusted WOWY", and it places Jordan's 10-year prime over Russell's, Kareem's, LeBron's, Wilt's, and Duncan's.
9. 10-year prime GPM: 8th all time.* This is an similar stat to WOWYR, calculated in a different way. It places Jordan just below Russell, but ahead of Kareem, LeBron, Wilt, Duncan.

I don't have anything here, as the difference between WOWY vs WOWYR - and the case of derivation in the latter isn't something I can speak on too firmly. If you would happen to know, some intel as for that derivation would be appreciated. I find it interesting that there is a decently smaller gap in the two's WOWYR (8.3 v 7.8) compared to the WOWY scores in their 2018 Backpicks profiles. The general premise represents my thoughts, as there is noise and I would trust more attributable-to-player metrics more-so.

You can find a 4-essay explanation here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/metrics/wowyr/

Since that might be too long lol, the general gist is:
We're missing plus minus data pre-97. But! We do have records for teams' Margin of Victory in games when stars played vs games they missed. Which is great! So we can create a plus-minus-like stat called "With or Without You" for the pre-97 players... but rather than using possessions played and possessions missed for our "on" and "off sample, we use games played and games missed.

Pros: The great thing about this is that it gets at a player's actual value (not a box-metric-based approximation of their value), no matter how old they are. This finally gives us a way to compare Russell, Wilt, Kareem, West, Magic, Bird, etc. using their actual impact.

Cons: It's a very noisy stat. Particularly the off-sample is noisy... some teams have players that are capable at replacing the role a star played (e.g. primary playmaker, primary defender, primary scorer), while other teams very much do not. Some coaches are good at creating backup plans and new schemes when stars are out, while others are very much not. Sometimes teammates put in extra effort to win games when a star is out (especially in shorter stints, benefited by the fact that opposing teams won't have good game plans for how to face a team without their star), while other teammates basically give up when a star is out. All these make our uncertainty much wider.

WOWY vs WOWYR: WOWY is the raw change in a team's performance when a star's in vs out. It's kind of like raw plus/minus... it doesn't adjust for other teammates/opponents that are in or out, and it thus doesn't necessarily isolate for the individual player's contribution. In other words, it doesn't correct for context. I'd definitely trust raw WOWY more than raw on/off. One nice thing about raw WOWY is that it's more trustworthy if you can look at larger samples. Take Jerry West: in his prime, near his peak, he missed over 30 games (1968). That's a lot of missed games and it's near his peak which is likely the time period we're interested in, so in theory that should help limit the noise.

WOWYR is just like Adjusted Plus Minus (APM) to raw plus minus. It corrects for the context when you have better or worse teammates/opponents when you're on/off, to help better isolate for the individual impact of the player. But to do so, it can incorporate smaller off-samples. The hope is you have enough off-samples that they add up to a reasonable size that you can trust. But that's the risk of WOWYR.

Hope this makes sense!

C. Box stats
10a. 1-year Postseason BPM: 1st all time.
10b. 3-year Postseason BPM: 1st all time.
10c. 5-year Postseason BPM: 1st all time.
11a. 1-year Regular Season BPM: 1st all time.
11b. 3-year Regular Season BPM: 1st all time.
11c. 5-year Regular Season BPM: 1st all time.
12. 3-year Postseason Basketball Reference BPM: 1st all time.
13. 3-year Postseason WS/48: 1st all time
This is pretty clear-cut. Jordan's a GOAT candidate in the box stats.
*Note: I'm using Thinking Basketball BPM for 10a and 11b, as it tests as the most accurate box-stat for predicting wins. I'm hesitant to continue too far down the box-stat rabbit hole (e.g. looking at PER, etc.), but those also portray Jordan as a GOAT candidate. And to its credit, BPM is one of the best all-in-one stats we have going back to Russell's time.

If you're interested - here's a descending single-season distribution of how both's BPM seasons (in Elgee's model) look like in RS (first) and Play-offs (To Follow). Note that this is up to the 2020-21 NBA season.

Jordan: 9, 8.5, 8.4, 8.3, 7.8, 7.6, 7.2, 6.8, 5.4, 6, 4.7, 4.1, 2.8, 1.7, 1.4

James, 8.8, 8.6, 8.4, 7.2, 6.9, 6.8, 6.8, 6.2, 6.1, 6, 6, 5.8, 5.7, 5.6, 5.3, 5.1, 5, 1.5

Jordan: 12.1, 9.4, 9.3, 9.3, 8.5, 8.3, 7.5, 6.9, 6.7, 6.1, 5.9, 5.9, 5.5

James: 12.0, 9.5, 9.4, 9.3, 8.4, 8.4, 8.3, 8.2, 8.0, 7.0, 6.5, 5.9, 5.6, 4.8, 4.2

When you mention first all-time, It is by a sliver in both Regular Season and Playoffs - where James gains a clear upper hand in total BPM seasons at a star threshold in the former and comes out with a general higher top quartile and playoff track record in the latter.

I would agree with PER and WS/48 as something I'd be less likely to use.. per the DunksAndThrees article I linked below, those are the least predictive at measuring team success - and how an individual is lifting team success i'm assuming is central to a lot on here's criteria.

So: Across these 13 fairly industry-standard stats so far, Jordan comes out: 1st all-time 7x, 2nd all-time 1x, 3rd all-time 1x, 4th all-time 1x, 8th all-time 2x, 9th all-time 1x. That level of dominance is absolutely deserving of a statistical GOAT-case.

I think deserving of a case, but I wouldn't go as far to crown him the GOAT statistically. Looking at the two common choices used on BBR and (partially because of how sports media frames Bron vs. Jordan - some analytical pieces resulting as such from Pelton, Hollinger, 538, so on), on a year over year basis, I could give you a more consistent year over year prime from Jordan's 88-93 than James from 09-14 (what I see as his best six years), but I think LBJ reaches a slightly higher apex within that time span at different points then gains more ground with hyper-impactful surrounding years such as 16/17/20 and a better career longevity. All in all, feel Russell and Kareem are up there too. Stats (well we only really have WS/48 in Bill's case) are far from the measuring stick of Russell's impact too, just my thought on the subject.

D. Team Stats
We can also use team stats to help infer the value of a player. Now let me be clear: teammates matter, coaching matters, context matters. Team stats alone cannot rank players. But... at the GOAT level, it's reasonable to expect quite a bit of lift. We can look for statistical evidence of clear floor raising when a GOAT-tier player has a poor supporting cast, and for cases of all-time dominance when a GOAT-tier player has a good supporting cast. Jordan had a good supporting cast. Do his teams show all-time dominance, i.e. might we infer GOAT-level ceiling raising from Jordan during his prime? Absolutely.
14. Playoff SRS: 4th, 5th all time. Jordan's team was 5th in 1991 during Jordan's 1-year peak, higher than LeBron/Russell/Wilt/Shaq/Kareem/Duncan/etc. in years that usually go as their 1-year peak.
15. Playoff common-opponent Net Rating: 1st, 4th all time. They were 4th in 1991 during Jordan's 1-year peak.
16. Playoff record: 5th, 11th all time. They were 5th in 1991 during Jordan's 1-year peak.
17. Regular-Season / Playoff ELO: 2nd, 3rd, 9th, 10th, 11th all time.
18. Regular Season SRS: 2nd, 5th, 9th all time.
19. Regular Season Record: 2nd, 5th, 9th all time.

During Jordan's 10-year prime, Jordan's teams showed peaks reached levels that almost no other team did. Again, this crude method doesn't distinguish between Jordan and his supporting cast. But these statistics do show that Jordan can be the clear-cut best player in a ceiling-raising role on one of the most dominant dynasties ever.

I support the general premise, that Jordan was phenomenally impactful in his floor raising and lesser O-Load roles on championship calibre teams (moreso 1996-98). As I linked earlier, from the Jordan on/off tracking video - there was a clear-cut pattern going all the way from 1988-1993 where Jordan's "on moments" got higher - the supporting cast with Jordan "off" numbers showed even more of a substantial improvement. Due to noise in sample and nature of the PS, the "on" is what I take into consideration more - but cast I feel also played a part in catapulting to these heights. Basketball Reference in 1997 and 1998 grades him high, with an 8.8 on court net-rating / 100 and overall -18.2 net-swing from 97 and 98 (although these #s are significantly less in the Regular seasons where the Bulls won ~130 games).

In short: Yes, Jordan absolutely has a statistical case for GOAT peak and GOAT prime, and thus (arguably) for GOAT career. While we do not have all the data we want for Jordan (mainly no full-career actual plus-minus data), the stats we do have absolutely paint him as having a GOAT-tier peak and prime.

This is not to say the statistics universally favor Jordan over other GOAT candidates like LeBron or Kareem or Russell. They don't. I'm sure you could find a similar array of stats to support LeBron. Taking different sample sizes (e.g. 2-year, 4-year, 8-year, even 10-year playoff runs) would similarly shake up the order. And as above, the more you focus on longevity, the better the case LeBron and Kareem have.

But if you're just asking do the impact metrics we have portray Jordan as a GOAT candidate, then yes. Absolutely. At his best, Jordan was absolutely GOAT-tier player.

I can second this general premise, I don't have him as my greatest player of all time personally (if you haven't gotten that impression), but there can be arguments made if you are in the camp that he has the 3 best seasons played or that his 6 year prime is outlier good. I'm far more firm on the concept of a "Mount Rushmore" and tiers within some pyramid/pantheon, rather than outright crowning a GOAT. The most important thing to consider is that everyone's criteria differs.

Pre-2013 RAPM: https://web.archive.org/web/20131025011748/http:/stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/
Englemann RAPM G-Site: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/xrapm-per-100-91-14
TB Longevity / Older Players: https://backpicks.com/2017/08/01/are-older-players-getting-better-aging-throughout-nba-history/
Dunks and Threes Impact Metrics: https://dunksandthrees.com/blog/metric-comparison?s=09

I'm running a bit out of time, but I appreciate the list of BPM values and the articles! I'll give them a look when I get the chance.

As for your comment about LeBron reaching a higher apex than Jordan, I'm personally not ready to fully agree (at least in a ceiling-raising role in 1/2/3 year samples). But it's close! And I absolutely agree that he reached that "apex within that time span at different points" compared to Jordan. That's one of the things that makes LeBron such a fun and interesting player!

Ending with Jordan, I think I agree with the idea that I trust the on-sample of Jordan in a ceiling-raising role quite a bit. To me, the statistics clearly place him on the "Mount Rushmore" of peaks/primes, and that's the main thing I've been arguing in this thread. Fun stuff

[Jaqua92]

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse.

This post so absurd. Do you realize what stat you are referring to? WOWY. With or Without you. Those last two words are key. How can you say MJ look worse in this stat when there was literally no without you's? Michael Jordan had 9 seasons in his career with 82 games. Last I checked, when you play 82 games, there are zero games without you so the stat does not apply at all. What about the 8 years Jordan made an ECF (won 6 titles)? He missed a total of 6 games in those years. How can you talk about a stat when there is literally no sample at all during Jordan's prime? We have just one season at all where Jordan missed significant games. His 2nd season in 1986. After that he missed a total of 6 games in 10 full seasons with the Bulls.

Then you cite PIPM, a stat that never existed during MJ's time.

That dude has polluted all of the Jordan threads with nonsensical intellectualization of biases.

I'm I in the real world? Up until a year ago, MJ was the consensus GOAT who had the consensus peak...cultural impact aside, blah blah blah.

MJ stands alone, always has. It seems like over the last year, there's been this weird wave of folks trying to not just tear down MJ, but remove him from GOAT Convo all together...

Taking it as far as suggesting that people would "probably think" he's the best SG in the league today"

What is happening? Michael Jordan is and has been the greatest player of all time. Nothing's changed.

The only real way for ANYONE to surpass MJ in the public eye is for the Usain Bolt of basketball to show up. And by that, I mean the 6'10 wing who wins 7 rings, and peaks at a level that is clearly beyond Peak MJ, Bron and Shaq.

Until someone is THAT much better, this discussion shouldn't exist.

People are acting like MJs claim to GOAT is nothing but nostalgia, as if we don't have accounts from people who have seen both, and from PLAYERS who have played against Jordan, Kobe and LeBron

[Jaivl]

Which block per game numbers show Russell as a GOAT defender?

[HeartBreakKid]

Which block per game numbers show Russell as a GOAT defender?

We need to start considering where Camby ranks on the all time list asap.

[70sFan]

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse.

This post so absurd. Do you realize what stat you are referring to? WOWY. With or Without you. Those last two words are key. How can you say MJ look worse in this stat when there was literally no without you's? Michael Jordan had 9 seasons in his career with 82 games. Last I checked, when you play 82 games, there are zero games without you so the stat does not apply at all. What about the 8 years Jordan made an ECF (won 6 titles)? He missed a total of 6 games in those years. How can you talk about a stat when there is literally no sample at all during Jordan's prime? We have just one season at all where Jordan missed significant games. His 2nd season in 1986. After that he missed a total of 6 games in 10 full seasons with the Bulls.

Then you cite PIPM, a stat that never existed during MJ's time.

That dude has polluted all of the Jordan threads with nonsensical intellectualization of biases.

I'm I in the real world? Up until a year ago, MJ was the consensus GOAT who had the consensus peak...cultural impact aside, blah blah blah.

MJ stands alone, always has. It seems like over the last year, there's been this weird wave of folks trying to not just tear down MJ, but remove him from GOAT Convo all together...

Taking it as far as suggesting that people would "probably think" he's the best SG in the league today"

What is happening? Michael Jordan is and has been the greatest player of all time. Nothing's changed.

The only real way for ANYONE to surpass MJ in the public eye is for the Usain Bolt of basketball to show up. And by that, I mean the 6'10 wing who wins 7 rings, and peaks at a level that is clearly beyond Peak MJ, Bron and Shaq.

Until someone is THAT much better, this discussion shouldn't exist.

People are acting like MJs claim to GOAT is nothing but nostalgia, as if we don't have accounts from people who have seen both, and from PLAYERS who have played against Jordan, Kobe and LeBron

Don't worry, we don't need to wait for a 6'10 wing who will win 7 rings to surpass Jordan. A better player already existed before Jordan started playing basketball.

[Jaivl]

This post so absurd. Do you realize what stat you are referring to? WOWY. With or Without you. Those last two words are key. How can you say MJ look worse in this stat when there was literally no without you's? Michael Jordan had 9 seasons in his career with 82 games. Last I checked, when you play 82 games, there are zero games without you so the stat does not apply at all. What about the 8 years Jordan made an ECF (won 6 titles)? He missed a total of 6 games in those years. How can you talk about a stat when there is literally no sample at all during Jordan's prime? We have just one season at all where Jordan missed significant games. His 2nd season in 1986. After that he missed a total of 6 games in 10 full seasons with the Bulls.

Then you cite PIPM, a stat that never existed during MJ's time.

That dude has polluted all of the Jordan threads with nonsensical intellectualization of biases.

I'm I in the real world? Up until a year ago, MJ was the consensus GOAT who had the consensus peak...cultural impact aside, blah blah blah.

MJ stands alone, always has. It seems like over the last year, there's been this weird wave of folks trying to not just tear down MJ, but remove him from GOAT Convo all together...

Taking it as far as suggesting that people would "probably think" he's the best SG in the league today"

What is happening? Michael Jordan is and has been the greatest player of all time. Nothing's changed.

The only real way for ANYONE to surpass MJ in the public eye is for the Usain Bolt of basketball to show up. And by that, I mean the 6'10 wing who wins 7 rings, and peaks at a level that is clearly beyond Peak MJ, Bron and Shaq.

Until someone is THAT much better, this discussion shouldn't exist.

People are acting like MJs claim to GOAT is nothing but nostalgia, as if we don't have accounts from people who have seen both, and from PLAYERS who have played against Jordan, Kobe and LeBron

Don't worry, we don't need to wait for a 6'10 wing who will win 7 rings to surpass Jordan. A better player already existed before Jordan started playing basketball.

"The only real way for ANYONE to surpass MJ in the public eye is for the Usain Bolt of basketball to show up. And by that, I mean the 6'10 wing who wins 7 rings" -- I mean, that sounds like a less-winning version of Olympic-caliber track athlete William Russell.

[OhayoKD]

Seems people here have been able to stay mostly respectful, so I'll take that sign of progress.

Since mj-topics tend to boil over, i'd like to preface this with a request that we all try our best to be nice to each other

I appreciate this OhayoKD

Before going ahead, let me just start out by saying I'm hoping we can avoid turning this into another Lebron vs Jordan thread. With that in mind, my personal focus here is not whether these metrics portray Jordan as the clear-cut best GOAT player, but whether they portray him as a GOAT candidate. Do they merely portray him in the Top Tier of players for peak/prime.

I appreciate this sentiment but if this was your objective, I'm surprised then that you almost exclusively focused on the Lebron stuff. I think this part in particular is relevant when we are talking about of all time tiers:

Keep in mind we don't have the data for players like Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, Magic, Bird, Walton, Wilt, or Russell. Jordan is competing in a very, very narrow field here and still doesn't look the best.

Saying Jordan ranks 3rd or 2nd behind other top 10 candidates in metrics that exclude most of Jordan's contemporary and historical competition doesn't really work as proof he's "GOAT tier" unless we are using Colt's much, much broader standard. One you don't seem to follow considering that you have advocated for the exclusion of players for Duncan and Hakeem. This applies, I think to your assertion of AUPM as definitive proof(more on that later).

Additionally, when you are dismissing things that are directly drawn from winning like on/off(that directness is very much the point of impact analysis) as useless while championing crude approximations because they make "corrections", it's probably relevant to consider when these corrections are actually making the data more inaccurate:

As Lebron and Jordan are virtually tied on the offensive portion of all these metrics, simply replacing the defensive component with actual impact data, knocks Jordan off his perch. And remember, this is not including Kareem [streamable][/streamable]whose defenses were 4 points better, or Russell who won the most, by a landslide, on the strength of his team's defense.

BBR BPM is on par with RAPTOR in terms of predictive accuracy IIRC(notably behind direct rapm extraps. like EPM when tech is equalized). As far as BPM is concerned, Jordan is a significantly better defender than Kareem. Simply hedging between defensive impact signals and defensive box-score data knocks knocks Jordan out of range.

That a metric makes adjustments of some kind does not make it inherently better, and proper analysis involves weighing the merits and cons of different metrics and then deciding what adjustments/caveats/context needs to be applied. There is a trade-off here.

You get less noise, but you also get inaccuracy that skews towards a certain archetype. And when the "corrected" data is consistently disagreeing with "real" data, then adjustments should be made. That is the value of "raw" impact. And any credible impact analysis will factor in those types of signals.

The on/off Ben calced is, to my knowledge, the only available sample of data which doesn't utilize an artificial scale and accounts for defensive impact. Don't you think the idea that we shouldn't even consider this while we use metrics that equate steals per game with defense a little silly?

I also think there are some basic inaccuracies here that we should address, acknowledging I was under the incorrect impression pre-97 aupm also lacked plus-minus data.

That being said...

WOWYR is just like Adjusted Plus Minus (APM) to raw plus minus. It corrects for the context

WOWYR = Adjusted plus minus. There are problems we get with raw plus minus. We can get similar problems with raw WOWY.

...uh, no

Instead of using results from lineups within a game (play-by-play data) like traditional APM, game-level plus-minus uses final scores from game to game for the players from that game. This allows for a historical, apple-to-apples comparison of per-game impact from before play-by-play was available (1997).

As I covered before, the "correction" is marginal. But frankly WOWY and WOWYR doesn't really make a difference here, because as long as you are using large samples, even corrected impact still has Lebron consistently looking better:

Before Michael, the 1984 Bulls were a 27-win team (-4.7 SRS) with an average defense and a futile offense that finished 5 points worse than the league (rORtg). Jordan immediately provided the scoring punch that they needed and Chicago improved to just above average on offense in his rookie year, with an overall improvement of nearly 4 points per game. In his second season, he missed a significant chunk of time after breaking his foot, then logged fewer than 20 minutes in each of his first six games back. Excluding those sub-20 minute games, the Bulls played 15 contests with Jordan at a 40-win pace (-0.3 SRS) that year.

The ’06 Cavs were even more impressive, thanks to a breakout year from James. With Ilgauskus and Gooden now accompanied by Larry Hughes (a moderate creator and inefficient scorer), the offensively-challenged Snow and two shooters (Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones), Cleveland churned out a 5.1 SRS when healthy (56-win pace) with a +6.6 offensive efficiency in 30 healthy games. A similar rotation ticked along at a 51-win pace in ’07 (3.4 SRS) in a larger sample, but the offense regressed to near-average, meaning the ’06 result was likely an aberration. (LeBron’s offense regressed slightly in ’07 too, likely contributing to the backslide.) Still, the period demonstrated that pre-prime LeBron-ball could buoy offenses while stuffing the court with defenders and a few shooters.
(The cavs were a -9 srs team before drafting Lebron)

Jordan also lags behind Kareem in larger(>10 games per season) samples, and Russell. and Hakeem. The most relevant part of WOWY vs WOWYR here is the inclusion of 82 game stretches in impact analysis. And I think you and I can both agree that full season samples can be very, very useful, even if there's noise to account for. The only thing that has Jordan comparing favorably(to lebron, not everyone in history) is 10-year data, but again, let's consider the sample in question:

What about the 8 years Jordan made an ECF (won 6 titles)? He missed a total of 6 games in those years. How can you talk about a stat when there is literally no sample at all during Jordan's prime? We have just one season at all where Jordan missed significant games. His 2nd season in 1986. After that he missed a total of 6 games in 10 full seasons with the Bulls.

Your 10 year-set is taking 2.2 games per season from Russell and then throwing less than a game a season for Jordan alongside a larger sample from one season that does not compare favorably with Lebron, Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, or various other players I've neglected to mention(KG, Shaq, ect). And for all that, if we account for certain eras requiring lower SRS for high championship probability...

At the height of their dynasty, the Celtics were comically dominant. From 1962-65, their average margin-of-victory (MOV) was over 8 points per game. During the same time span, only two other teams even eclipsed 4 points per game – the ’64 Royals and the ’64 Warriors. And all of Boston’s separation was created by its historic defense, anchored by Russell:

...Jordan is still well behind Russell(and by extension Wilt):

Notably, if we take WOWYR seriously, Bill Russell led the greatest team ever with 35 win help throughout his prime while Jordan barely won half as much with 40-50 win help. While Jordan looks marginally better than Lebron, he's not really within range of GOAThood.

Just to give Jordan the slightest empirical advantage over Lebron, we reduced our per-season sample by a factor of ten and Jordan still comes out well behind Russell and Wilt(as well as Magic and D-Rob).

Regressed or non-regressed, if we use larger samples, Jordan plummets relative to Lebron and Kareem. We can discuss the merits of this type of data, but trying to paint his WOWYR stuff as some GOAT-lvl indicator doesn't really work. Notably, the disparity generally comes from the defensive side of things. A disparity we shouldn't be surprised box-stuff can't account for. It's also a disparity many of the theoretical excuses made for the lack of comparable influence doesn't really consider(The 2015 Cavaliers say hello).

(2) The effect of good coach on WOWY: WOWY is sensitive to coaching. If a player is missing one game, for example, a poor coach may put less effort into adjusting the game plan than if a player is missing a lot of time in a row. If one coaching staff is much better than another coaching staff, the better one might do a much better job at filling in when a player is missing than a bad one. Jordan had great coaching with Phil Jackson. This is the kind of thing that would limit his raw WOWY.

The assumption that good coaching must depress impact is questionable. In fact I would say bad-coaches failing to optimize a star player's influence is as common than the opposite. I'm also not sure why you're using a one-game sample in your analogy when its multiple 82 game samples that are being relied upon the most here. If your theory holds, then the relatively pedestrian stuff we have under Jackson's significantly worse predecessors should be sparkling. Moreover, if you're concerned about coaching ajustments, then WOWY is really the way to go here, as it's much easier to make adjustments with some pre-time before a game or a season, than it is to make adjustments when a player leaves half-way through.

Frankly this is an exceptionally weak approach to take with say, Lebron, considering that Lebron looks better in larger samples of "off", and his teams tend to look the worst when the team is given time to adjust. This includes his time under Erik Spoelstra where the heatles without Lebron did not look as good as the Bulls without Jordan or the Bulls without Jordan and Grant(at least by SRS).

Not to be too critical here, but this seems like another example where you've come up with a seemingly viable theory, without actually looking where the breadcrumbs lead.

WOWY(and WOWYR) is indeed noisy, which is why it's good to look for replication across a variety of contexts:

somewhat behind the best stuff we see from Hakeem(25 and 30 game lift in 20 game samples in 88 and 90), consistently behind Kareem throughout the 70's(30 win lift in 75, a 29 win improvement with a player similar to oakley as a rookie, 62 wins without his co-star, and takes the depleted remnants of a 30 win team to 45 wins in 77), and a pretty sizable gap compared to Lebron who has multiple 40 win signals for 09 and 10, 30 win signals in his second cavs stint, and is mostly operating at, at least 20+ win lift throughout his prime leading multiple teams to 60 or near-60 win basketball without co-stars on top-heavy rosters(cavs, heatles).

The disparity is consistent. I don't need to cherrypick one year or approach to observe a gap. That's a pretty good indication that this can't just be put down to "noise". It's good to look at everything and assess the evidence holistically. The best possible signal I can get for Jordan is to take record instead of srs for 1986, ignore 84, **** with the minute thresholds ,ignore Ben's much more pedestrian appraisal, pretend Oakley didn't help them defensively, and you get 32 win-lift for a sub 50 win team. That took many, many extra steps and it still doesn't get you to what Lebron does in 2009, 2010, or 2015 and 2016. That 23 win-appraisal I throw around works on the assumption there was no improvement after MJ was drafted(again, ignoring evidence that Oakley helped alot defensively). "Impact" is just not a winning case unless you ignore the forest for trees. Speaking of which...

We have less than 20% of Jordan's games measured in Jordan's 6 best years, we have strong evidence that the games we do have underrate Jordan, and Jordan nonetheless comes out 8th all time, tied with peak 2013 LeBron. Again, LeBron's non-peak years may still end up being higher than Jordan.

As far as the data you're actually using is, 2013 Lebron is not Lebron's peak, and the comparison here is Jordan vs Lebron, not "Jordan vs Miami Lebron" or "Jordan vs whatever year of Lebron might give MJ a semblance of a case". You are more than smart enough to recognize the difference between letting the evidence speak and strangling it so that it fits your priors.

You also neglect to mention that the data we have for 1988 actually skews in Jordan's favor as the Bulls did worse during the portion of the season we don't have data for. As I'm sure you're aware, there's plenty pointing to 1988 as Jordan's most "imapctful" season and that conclusion would actually fit the "bad coaching" theory you offered earlier. It is fair to point out uncertainty, but trying to take data that clearly favors Lebron as actually "pro-mj" because more data may improve how Jordan looks is a bit of a leap. As it is, we do have playoff on/off here, and it doesn't support that conclusion. Jordan's on/off arcs downward(in line with a defensive decline observed in both Blocked and Ben's film-tracking) from 1988 to 1993 before rebounding for the second-three peat. As it is, Jordan's 1988 also scores near the top in the offense-skewed stuff you seem to prefer, so this honestly seems like a questionable prediction.

Also important to note, before we use "tiers" to explain this away, this data only really exists for the peaks of post 1997 greats(and MJ), so Jordan only looking sizably worse than one modern player(doesn't really look better to me than duncan or kg here though maybe an expert like Jaivi can offer some distinction), doesn't mean he's "close" to being "the greatest". He flatly doesn't score close to Lebron here, and we have no way to know if that would apply to players like Wilt, Russell, or Kareem. Notably, RAPM consistently places Lebron well ahead of the likes of KG, Shaq, and Duncan(I recall seeing a 5 year average where the gap between lebron and 2nd place KG was similar to the gap between KG and 7th place Nash), players who, with more "apple to apple" pure impact analysis look quite comparable to Jordan. Crude comparison, but at this point it's a straw on a camel that broke yesterday. It's not as emphatic as WOWY(regularization will do that), but it's just not a winning case for puffy-j.

To me, a more fair characterization of the box-approximations of PIPM and RAPTOR is that they predict true plus-minus-based PIPM and RAPTOR, with wider error bars than the plus-minus based ones.

Sure, but it's not just "wider error bars", it's "wider error bars largely because they ascribe outsized(relative to historical precedent and actual impact signals) defensive value to smaller steal and block accumulators." But even then, looking at the metric that accounts for defense best...

And that if Jordan looks comparable to LeBron

But he doesn't. You specifically chose a favorable frame of comparison for Jordan(3-years consecutive), and Lebron has, not one, but two better stretches when we utilize that frame. Going off the data RK listed, Lebron has the 2 highest scoring years(with 2009 being far ahead of anything else), and 5 of the best scoring 7. I could literally chuck the best scoring year by far, and Lebron would still look better. Jordan does not look comparable, and he does not rank 3rd-all time, he ranks 3rd among the players we actually have data for. PIPM dates back to 1977. That leaves at least 2 players with consistently better impact indicators completely out of the room.

As for AUPM, you can shake off Lebron if you use a three-year frame(note I said "generally speaking" and "most comparative frames" as qualifiers), he still falls short here to Duncan. Considering that AUPM is constructed as a combination of on/off and BPM, that Duncan grades out #1 here is rather impressive, especially since we are using a frame of comparison(3 years consecutive) that gives him the best looking case. And remember, Jordan does not score "2nd all-time", he scores "2nd among a minority of historical players in this specific metric using the most favorable possible comparative lens". Considering you don't have Duncan to have "GOAT tier" impact indicators, it seems logically inconsistent to me to argue that impact-data potrays Jordan as a "definite GOAT-tier player"

...Duncan scores higher in aupm despite aupm being partially constructed with BPM, scores as high as a pretty optimistic MJ WOWY appraisal in injury plagued 04/05, looks similarly dominant in RAPM stuff(though this gets very noisy with different scales), and won 57 and 62 wins at his most valuable looking stretch as opposed to 50 for Jordan in 1988.

Hakeem looks better if you use his very best WOWY samples, looks better in his first three years, and looks similarly impactful throughout his prime, while scoring higher in postseason PIPM(the box metric which most closely is tied to actual defensive impact.(remember that pre 97, none of the "plus-minus" stats you reference have plus minus(or film tracking)). Hakeem also scores similarly in 97/98 on/off despite arguably being further from his peak than Jordan was those years.

I don't mind different definitions, but I think its a good idea to keep our thresholds consistent. When you tell me someone has GOAT-tier impact stuff, I want to see something that suggests you were the greatest. Maybe you're using a more liberal definition, but I don't think consistent application leaves Jordan significantly above TD and The Dream.

I think this is flat-out untrue. Jordan's playoff Augmented Plus Minus, based on actual plus minus data, is better than LeBron's. His WOWYR is over LeBron/Russell/Kareem. And all the approximations of more accurate stats we have show him as GOAT tier.

In AUPM, Jordan looks worse than Duncan and better than Lebron in one framework while looking worse than LBJ in most others. That is also just a fraction of nba history being accounted for.

His WOWYR is flatly worse than Russell's(and Wilt) over 10 years(when we adjust for lower srs-championship tresholds), and when we take >10 or 82 game samples instead of a sample of 6 games over 8 years, Jordan scores well behind whether you prefer WOWY or "corrected WOWYR. I also don't know what you're basing these metrics being "the most accurate" from. The box-stuff specifically gets less noisy by chucking out defensive accuracy and the more useful method(imo) where we just replace the defensive box-score with defensive impact, immediately sees MJ plummet.(Jordan is tied or ahead of Lebron in D-RAPTOR, ahead of Kareem in BBR D-BPM, well, well behind on D by basically all impact stuff).

Perhaps these stats aren't as bad as PER, but nonetheless, they skews heavily towards Jordan(at least relative to the history of great defenses, and the "real" impact signals of the players in question), and Jordan still does not get #1 if it has actual on/off or plus-minus. Coincidentally, his actual on/off looks much, much worse, as does WOWY and adjusted WOWY over serious samples(>10 games).


If you loosen you definition of Impact(non-plus minus RAPTOR and pure Box with weak correlates) you can get Jordan there(along with someone like Duncan), but I feel my definition of "impact" is more in spirit with what impact denotes and is ultimately more useful.

Accept or reject that, but consistency is key:

...Duncan scores higher in aupm despite aupm being partially constructed with BPM, scores as high as a pretty optimistic MJ WOWY appraisal in injury plagued 04/05, looks similarly dominant in RAPM stuff(though this gets very noisy with different scales), and won 57 and 62 wins at his most valuable looking stretch as opposed to 50 for Jordan in 1988.

Hakeem looks better if you use his very best WOWY samples, looks better in his first three years, and looks similarly impactful throughout his prime, while scoring higher in postseason PIPM(the box metric which most closely is tied to actual defensive impact.(remember that pre 97, none of the "plus-minus" stats you reference have plus minus(or film tracking)). Hakeem also scores similarly in 97/98 on/off despite arguably being further from his peak than Jordan was those years.


IIRC, you have dismissed both Duncan and Hakeem as having GOAT-level data on multiple occasions. If Jordan's impact stats potray him as "absolutely GOAT-Level at his best", why don't you extend that for Hakeem and Duncan who do just as well if not better using data which actually has "impact" in it.

Is Duncan a GOAT candidate according to "impact"? If so, sure, put Jordan there. If not, then I don't think MJ really has a case(at least if "impact" is the lens).

And yes this post was brought to you by the San Antonio Spurs

[ShaqAttac]

Pretty sure it depends what you can even find. All I've seen is data starting from 97 or updates with data slightly before that. AuPM shows him as having All-time level impact in both 97 and 98 despite that not being him at his best anymore. I've seen RAPM for 1996 where Jordan ranks as the best in the league. The WOWY and WOWYR I've seen show MJ as one of the top guys historically. Ahead of LeBron but behind the likes of Magic, Stockton, Robinson and actual GOAT candidate Serge Ibaka.

I know thinkingbasketball has quite a few historical stats but that's behind a paywall. It'd be a great help to basketball discussions if impact metrics like this were as easily and openly available as box metrics on bkref.

dont wowy have bron waay higher

Wowy is different that the stat ben made (wowyr)

Wowy looks at a team with and without a player over long stretches of time (example when he gets injured and misses a season compared to the prior season, or when he misses 10-15-20 games in a year)

Ben wowyr as i understand just takes whatever it cam from spare seasons which is much smaller and much more "noisy" sample.

As instead of using full season samples (like comparing a year with jordan and one without him cause injury or retirement) or long stretches of 10-20 games you are using 1-2 games a year

In actual wowy (with ot without you) where players miss significant time lebron lift is bigger than almost anyone ever, jordan included

I think ohayokd explained the difference more in depth and i bolded the more relevant paragraphs

Basically in actual "how much your teams improve with you vs without you" jordan falls short of lebron, and it requires a bit of a ultra noisy/small sample stat to get jordan ahead when everythingh else amd better sample leans clearly lebron in that area

Since mj-topics tend to boil over, i'd like to preface this with a request that we all try our best to be nice to each other

Now, to jump into the deep end...

Do any?

My short answer is no. But getting to that short answer is a more involved process. Let's start by establishing what should qualify as "GOAT" lvl data:

The better question is what impact metrics do not show MJ as a GOAT candidate? Literally all available data we have has MJ as a GOAT level candidate.

-Every single Plus/Minus stat we have shows MJ is an Elite

-Every single RAPM shows MJ as an Elite (I'm not counting Wizards MJ)

-He played on some of the best teams in NBA history. 3 10+ SRS teams, 6 teams with a 6+ SRS

Sure. Jordan looks elite. And if we consider being elite the same as being a goat candidate, then there's no metric I'm aware of that suggests he isn't. However, the G in "GOAT" stands for greatest not elite. I'd argue that "elite" isn't really the bar we should set here. And it's worth noting that none of what Colts cited has him scoring the "greatest" even when many of these metrics he references don't include historical candidates like kareem and russell.

The only "winning" metric where he actually looks like "the greatest" is if you go by team success as colts does in point 3, but consider that "impact" is usually considered distinct from "total success". Impact, as its commonly used, denotes "isolated influence" on winning, not the whole pie, and even then, if we focus on winning championships, as opposed to srs(which can fluctuate in how indicative it is of championship probablity from era to era), Jordan quite clearly loses to Russell who also seems to outpace him in all the available impact data we have.

So in short, no. I don't think there are impact metrics which generally suggest Jordan as "the greatest." There are box-metrics which put him in the range, but these are not extrapolated from winning. Typically "impact" denotes when you isolate "individual influence on winning". Not when you look at different box-stuff and ascribe this or that many points to this or that category working with assumptions such as "blocks from a guard must be more valuable than blocks from a center." With that in mind...

The data being referenced here does not have plus-minus before 1997 and even then, whatever data is present is heavily informed by priors from seasons. These metrics, as they exist for Jordan are effectively variants of stuff like PER. They are looking at Jordan's box-stuff and then extrapolating offensive and defensive value. This is notable as using available impact data as opposed to box-stuff, Jordan's defense does not compare well to Lebron's at any point in his prime. As Lebron and Jordan are virtually tied on the offensive portion of all these metrics, simply replacing the defensive component with actual impact data, knocks Jordan off his perch. And remember, this is not including Kareem whose defenses were 4 points better, or Russell who won the most, by a landslide, on the strength of his team's defense.

Furthermore, if we use a more general frame as opposed to a specific one(3 year consecutive)...

Ben only lists 1 three year sample for jordan


For Lebron Ben lists three different three year samples(08-10, 12-14, 15-17) in AUPM:

He only lists 12-14 for both bpm and aupm:


So if we just use his three year averages, we see that lebron has a bunch of three-year stretches close to MJ but MJ's 89-91 scores highest. However it's interesting that lebron has three 3 year stretches that rank so high(2nd, 3rd, and 7th) and the lowest score came from the years ben rated as Lebron's peak. If we take a look at lebron's best two years from each of those three year stretches...(aupm/bpm is averaged)


You get 5 different seasons which would boost the average of MJ's 89-91 peak.

As draymond has covered with PIPM, even using a three-year frame, Lebron has 2 better samples, and the gap naturally widens when we just look at the best years as opposed to a 3-year lens. Notably, DPIPM's weightings are most closely tied to DRAPM making it the most "impacty" of the metrics in question. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that Jordan does the worst here looking at these box-score proxies. Playoff PIPM is also notably the one box-metric where Hakeem, arguably the most valuable defender since Bill Russell, has the second highest career average after...Lebron.


If we go onto actual plus-minus data, Jordan falls short in playoff on/off with 88-93 coming significantly behind 16-21 Lebron and being on par with the on/off for shaq and curry. Notably, Lebron's teams were as good with Lebron on the court as the Bulls were with Jordan. Keep in mind we don't have the data for players like Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, Magic, Bird, Walton, Wilt, or Russell. Jordan is competing in a very, very narrow field here and still doesn't look the best.

We have regular season on/off for Jordan's 97/98 and again, this doesn't look GOAT-worthy. Using Lebron as a reference, 98 scores lower than 18 different Lebron seasons. 97 scores lower than 17.

What we have from Jordan in RAPM, including data from 2 years often included in GOAT regular season conversations, also doesn't compare well to what we have for Lebron:

From the peaks project...
LeBron:

Jordan:

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse. With an optimistic appraisal of 23 win lift using an 82 game sample in 84(going by record instead of srs and assuming no improvement despite Oakley spiking the Bulls D-rating), Jordan comes out about even with post-prime Duncan(30 games 04/05), somewhat behind the best stuff we see from Hakeem(25 and 30 game lift in 20 game samples in 88 and 90), consistently behind Kareem throughout the 70's(30 win lift in 75, a 29 win improvement with a player similar to oakley as a rookie, 62 wins without his co-star, and takes the depleted remnants of a 30 win team to 45 wins in 77), and a pretty sizable gap compared to Lebron who has multiple 40 win signals for 09 and 10, 30 win signals in his second cavs stint, and is mostly operating at, at least 20+ win lift throughout his prime leading multiple teams to 60 or near-60 win basketball without co-stars on top-heavy rosters(cavs, heatles).

Finally you have Russell, leader of the greatest team ever, who, using an 82 game WOWY sample, seems to have beat two superteams on his last-legs with subpar help in 69, who has the best pre-nba impact alongside kareem in a more stacked league, saw the highest point differential at the olympics, and was able to consistently succeed with teammates going in and out of the lineup.

There are various other players who look alright in different frames, but to keep this succinct, WOWY(and the various derivations you can use to estimate it) really marks the "purest" family of impact signals and Jordan just doesn't look like the best, or even close to the best here. This holds true even if you insist on operating with the tiniest possible samples.

Except you can't, because WOWYR does not use lineup-level data, it utilizes game-level data. Even RAPM has various limitations that makes treating it like a "better" version of WOWY misguided. But this is just malpractice with WOWYR:

Instead of using results from lineups within a game (play-by-play data) like traditional APM, game-level plus-minus uses final scores from game to game for the players from that game. This allows for a historical, apple-to-apples comparison of per-game impact from before play-by-play was available (1997).

What this means is that you only really get data for a player when they aren't in the starting lineup. The adjustment's "correction" is marginal, and the sample of data we're working with here is realtively tiny. With Jordan, even including the 82 game samples from 1984 and 1994(not included in the WOWYR dray lists), we only have 8 games without MJ per season to work off. Take out that 164 game boost, and it's probably more like For Bill, we only have 2.2 games a season. You are making the sample exponentially smaller, for a marginal improvement in "noise". This is a much, much smaller sample to work with than the unfavorable partial rapm data Dray quickly dismisses, and even then, Jordan does not really look like the greatest. Notably, if we take WOWYR seriously, Bill Russell led the greatest team ever with 35 win help throughout his prime while Jordan barely won half as much with 40-50 win help. While Jordan looks marginally better than Lebron, he's not really within range of GOAThood.

This is not to say the statistics universally favor Jordan over other GOAT candidates like LeBron or Kareem or Russell. They don't. I'm sure you could find a similar array of stats to support LeBron.

This is a wierd characterization. The statistics you've referenced near-universally favor Lebron in the majority of comparative frames with the vast majority of nba history not included in your sample. Moreover the impacty data we have consistently favors Lebron by virtually any frame and, when it is available, also favors Kareem and Russell with similar consistency. Notably the gap widens the more "impacty" data becomes with Jordan's relative statistical profile looking worse relative to other greats the more inclusive the data becomes.

Even if we stick to what you characterize as box-metrics(not really relevant but fine), Lebron wins out in a variety of frames(looks better in the playoffs with most frameworks), and Kareem remains competitive despite being bogged down with incomplete data.

If you want to define "GOAT TIER" as broadly as Colts has, fine. But otherwise, I don't really see how you can say the impact data is Goaty. Or let me put this another way...

But if you're just asking do the impact metrics we have portray Jordan as a GOAT candidate, then yes. Absolutely. At his best, Jordan was absolutely GOAT-tier player.

...Duncan scores higher in aupm despite aupm being partially constructed with BPM, scores as high as a pretty optimistic MJ WOWY appraisal in injury plagued 04/05, looks similarly dominant in RAPM stuff(though this gets very noisy with different scales), and won 57 and 62 wins at his most valuable looking stretch as opposed to 50 for Jordan in 1988.

Hakeem looks better if you use his very best WOWY samples, looks better in his first three years, and looks similarly impactful throughout his prime, while scoring higher in postseason PIPM(the box metric which most closely is tied to actual defensive impact.(remember that pre 97, none of the "plus-minus" stats you reference have plus minus(or film tracking)). Hakeem also scores similarly in 97/98 on/off despite arguably being further from his peak than Jordan was those years.


IIRC, you have dismissed both Duncan and Hakeem as having GOAT-level data on multiple occasions. If Jordan's impact stats potray him as "absolutely GOAT-Level at his best", why don't you extend that for Hakeem and Duncan who do just as well if not better using data which actually has "impact" in it.

[/quote]
kd said bron wowyr also higher

sumthin sample size sumthin

[OhayoKD]

dont wowy have bron waay higher

kd said bron wowyr also higher

sumthin sample size sumthin

Not how I'd phrase it, but yes. Basically. Utilizing pretty much anything but a handful(or two handfuls) stretched over several-10 years, MJ's at a very clear disadvantage that really only gets bigger with larger and larger samples.

Also, not to be too critical but, maybe you could not quote absolutely everything when you don't need to? It's kind of an eyesore.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Wait I don’t understand so wouldn’t all pre 97 measurements be estimates of impact measurement using only box score components to try to account for the missing impact component?

[DonaldSanders]

I always knew Draymond was better than Jordan & Kareem!

Finally, vindication

But seriously, I don't think you can use advanced stats as a basis for GOAT candidates. It can help inform your opinion, but the best is always to watch the games. From a statistical perspective the fact that the rules, players, teams, etc. are constantly changing means that we never are actually comparing apples to apples. I enjoy reading these threads but anyone (and I'm not saying you or anyone here specifically is) using stats alone to pick their GOAT is misusing statistics. I also think there isn't actually a real answer, but it's fun to discuss.

[colts18]

Wait I don’t understand so wouldn’t all pre 97 measurements be estimates of impact measurement using only box score components to try to account for the missing impact component?

They are trying to pull a fast one on us. They cite PIPM for LeBron which is a Box Score and Plus/Minus blend then cite PIPM for MJ acting like it's the same stat. When in reality, PIPM for MJ is all box score. You might as well cite BPM because it's the same exact stat as PIPM for pre-1997 players.

[Cavsfansince84]

That dude has polluted all of the Jordan threads with nonsensical intellectualization of biases.

I'm I in the real world? Up until a year ago, MJ was the consensus GOAT who had the consensus peak...cultural impact aside, blah blah blah.

MJ stands alone, always has. It seems like over the last year, there's been this weird wave of folks trying to not just tear down MJ, but remove him from GOAT Convo all together...

Taking it as far as suggesting that people would "probably think" he's the best SG in the league today"

What is happening? Michael Jordan is and has been the greatest player of all time. Nothing's changed.

The only real way for ANYONE to surpass MJ in the public eye is for the Usain Bolt of basketball to show up. And by that, I mean the 6'10 wing who wins 7 rings, and peaks at a level that is clearly beyond Peak MJ, Bron and Shaq.

Until someone is THAT much better, this discussion shouldn't exist.

People are acting like MJs claim to GOAT is nothing but nostalgia, as if we don't have accounts from people who have seen both, and from PLAYERS who have played against Jordan, Kobe and LeBron

I'm not entirely sure you are old enough to have an objective view on what you are speaking on here. I mean you might be but I know that there's a lot of posters on this board(myself included) who were around for all of MJ's career and I don't think the whole idea that MJ was the consensus goat ever actually happened. Sure the media did its best for the most part to portray it that way starting in about 93 and then more so when he came back for the second 3 peat with the 72 win season but I think a lot of us fully understood that it was never clear cut beyond him being the biggest star in maybe the history of sports up until then and going out on top. He had a definite case for being thought of as the goat of bb but so did others. To look back and act like everyone thought of him as the goat isn't correct and it's largely due to how the media chose to portray it long before we even started breaking things down in a more objective way with analytics(which MJ does fine in) and in other ways. This whole way of portraying what we think of as the goat debate is skewed around the internet coming along just as MJ was finishing his career and all the Kobe/LeBron comparisons which also tended to exclude big men from goat convos since then.