Rishkar wrote:I don't see Pippen as anywhere near my ballot yet as a basketball player, but I am curious whether it's outside the scope of this project to consider his infamous low salary when comparing him to someone like Walt Frazier. Frazier was making only 30,000$ less than league leader Pete Maravich in his prime, whereas Pippen was making Luc Longley (and this was a huge driver of the Bull's success). I give Duncan bonus points for winning the 2014 championship through his paycut (as Trex has mentioned a lot in this project), as well as letting the Spurs get his replacements in Aldridge and Leanord. So far, I haven't really used that same logic elsewhere though but I'm starting to wonder if Pippen and Stockton having favorable contracts might be a factor worth looking at. I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on this, it feels weird to judge a basketball player as being better for having a lower salary but it also really impacts winning and I don't see a Bulls dynasty happening without Pippen's contract situation.
That's a good point (and one in Pippen's favour). He wasn't exactly happy/willing/eager to make such sacrifices, though, from what I've heard. Seems more like he walked into it out of a combination of being marginally misled and/or poorly represented [by agent], bad timing [on contracts], complacency, and yes: loyalty.
To be fair, Timmy had A LOT more salary to sacrifice (so voluntary pay cuts hurt less).
But yeah, I too am not feeling him here; at least not with Stockton languish on the nominees list. Pippen v Pettit is a good debate, though, imo. And I have Pippen a little ahead of Miller and Frazier.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
iggymcfrack wrote: Pippen: 6-4 in playoff series in 6 years without Jordan Jordan: 0-3 in playoff series in 5 years without Pippen
I am confused by this. The 6-4 is presumably the Bulls' 1994 playoff record, but then what is the 'in 6 years' part about? And the 6-4 implies that the 0-3 is a record of playoff games Jordan played without Pippen, but there was only ever one playoff game that Jordan played without Pippen from 1987 onward.
I feel like things are getting mixed up here. I think the 0-3 in 5 years is probably referring to MJ losing the three playoff series he played before Pippen was drafted. I think 1-9 is Jordan's record in games in those years.
It's a poor argument anyway. Jordan had a crap team in those early years, whereas Pippen had Grant, Kukoc, Armstrong, and a Rushmore coaching staff, not to mention a team with a wealth of playoff experience. The situations aren't comparable.
I agree with tsherkin, it's eyebrow-raising at the least to compare Pippen's playoff record to Pettit's when A)30 of his 33 series wins came as Jordan's clear #2 and B)A successful playoff run required fewer series in the 50s and 60s when Pettit played.
I guess I had it wrong. Pippen's series record was actually 3-6 in the playoffs without Jordan. I saw the thing above and thought it was his series record. He won 1 series in '94 and 2 series in 2000 with Portland. Overall on a game-by-game basis, Jordan was 1-9 without Pippen in the playoffs and Pippen was 18-23 without Jordan. My point was just that Pippen probably deserves a little more credit than he gets since he actually showed more ability to get it done without Jordan that MJ did without him. Obviously I'm not saying he was as valuable as Jordan to the championship teams, but he probably was at least as valuable to those teams as Kobe was to the Lakers 3-peat teams of the early 2000s.
The playoff record obviously has no context.
Jordan before Pippen played on putrid rosters. Pippen after Jordan played with (an older) Hakeem and Barkley then went to Portland and played with a very talented core of Rasheed, Steve Smith, Sabonis etc. And he wasn't the best player on any of these teams.
It's also disingenuous to give Pippen much credit for the Bulls' playoff success in 1988 and 1989 given his production.
Here is the Bulls WOWY data and it's a pretty large sample.
WOWY Combinations 1991-1998 Bulls
With Jordan 400-103 W-L -- 65-win pace +9.38 MOV Without Jordan 90-63 W-L -- 48-win pace +3.38 MOV
With Jordan With Pippen 367-91 W-L -- 66-win pace +9.67 MOV With Jordan Without Pippen 33-12 W-L -- 60-win pace +6.47 MOV Without Jordan With Pippen 86-55 W-L -- 50-win pace +3.79 MOV Without Jordan Without Pippen 4-8 W-L -- 27-win pace -1.42 MOV
Obviously with both playing, the Bulls were insanely dominant.
Pippen missed 2 games in 1993, 5 games in 1996 and 38 games in 1998. Even with most of the sample being from the weakest Bulls team, the Bulls still played like a contender (60-win pace +6.47 MOV) without Pippen with Jordan.
Meanwhile the team, while solid, was not a contender (50-win pace +3.79 MOV) without Jordan with Pippen.
Vote 1 - Bob Pettit Vote 2 - John Stockton Nomination 1- Rick Barry Nomination 2 - John Havlicek
I think Pettit deserves recognition is this range for an impressive overall career, decent longevity relative to era and creating the blueprint for later PFs. The first two things that stick out are his incredible FT rate and TS Add for that time (career .481 and 1,758 respectively, career highs .536 and 250.6 in ’59). In the ’58 finals yes Russell missed 2 games, but you can only play who’s in front of you and Pettit stepped up. In the game 6 championship win he put up 50 points (19-34 FG, 12-15 FT), 19 boards and scored 18 of the Hawks’ final 21 to close out the game. Russell did play 20 minutes in that game.
Stockton's the poster boy for all time great longevity and durability. When you play that long you're going to have some missteps along the way, but the late career impact data certainly bolsters his case. Yes there are other players still on the table who significantly contributed to winning titles, but it's still a team accomplishment. I get not everyone subscribes to total career value, but it's hard to argue against stockton at this point if you do.
Rishkar wrote:I don't see Pippen as anywhere near my ballot yet as a basketball player, but I am curious whether it's outside the scope of this project to consider his infamous low salary when comparing him to someone like Walt Frazier. Frazier was making only 30,000$ less than league leader Pete Maravich in his prime, whereas Pippen was making Luc Longley (and this was a huge driver of the Bull's success). I give Duncan bonus points for winning the 2014 championship through his paycut (as Trex has mentioned a lot in this project), as well as letting the Spurs get his replacements in Aldridge and Leanord. So far, I haven't really used that same logic elsewhere though but I'm starting to wonder if Pippen and Stockton having favorable contracts might be a factor worth looking at. I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on this, it feels weird to judge a basketball player as being better for having a lower salary but it also really impacts winning and I don't see a Bulls dynasty happening without Pippen's contract situation.
Regarding dynasty not happening ... logistically I'm not sure it makes a difference. Won't pretend to know the ins and outs but the cap was much softer then. JR was willing to give huge money to Jordan. I think the Perdue-Rodman trade was a 1m player for a 2.5m and I don't think that was via cap space. So my impression is logistically Pippen's low money didn't matter than much and pay wise JR was willing to pay for that team. Maybe if he's paid more Chicago do dump him in the interim years, though he's probably agitating to get out less so maybe not.
My impression has been that Pippen traded maximal value for security in an ill-judged way (and from one source... I think video, maybe Secret Base, I haven't checked out the truth of this first instance) maybe did so twice (1st contract also?) in an contract boom.
How one treats contracts across different eras is messy. My guess, though it is only that, is SP's cheaper contract is more circumstantial that JS's if that (rather than pure "as it was") is a factor - certainly he was more openly unhappy with his salary.
Rishkar wrote:I don't see Pippen as anywhere near my ballot yet as a basketball player, but I am curious whether it's outside the scope of this project to consider his infamous low salary when comparing him to someone like Walt Frazier. Frazier was making only 30,000$ less than league leader Pete Maravich in his prime, whereas Pippen was making Luc Longley (and this was a huge driver of the Bull's success). I give Duncan bonus points for winning the 2014 championship through his paycut (as Trex has mentioned a lot in this project), as well as letting the Spurs get his replacements in Aldridge and Leanord. So far, I haven't really used that same logic elsewhere though but I'm starting to wonder if Pippen and Stockton having favorable contracts might be a factor worth looking at. I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on this, it feels weird to judge a basketball player as being better for having a lower salary but it also really impacts winning and I don't see a Bulls dynasty happening without Pippen's contract situation.
considering contracts feels like it goes against the spirit of this exercise. we're ranking how good players are at basketball, not how little money they're willing to play for. or how little money they accidentally played for. most players try to maximize earnings (for good reason). and plenty maximize earnings and have championship rosters. why we should expect others in lesser situations to sacrifice makes no sense. it also seems anti-competitive and part of the whole reason for a salary cap. if some independently wealthy player was willing to play for the minimum their whole career and stack their rosters, should we praise them or say they gamed the system? while i'm sure tim duncan's billionaire owner likes saving money and while i'm sure it made spurs fans happy, praising duncan for stacking his teams and then also praising him for winning with a stacked roster seems weird.
also, it's not really an equal metric. until the 2000's, no one had made enough money to start taking voluntary paycuts. all of the guys in the 90's got the first really huge contracts in league history so they obviously weren't going to be keen on paycuts when they could go from contracts of a few million to tens of millions and they only had one contract to get before their careers were over.
whereas someone like tim duncan making $250M in career earnings instead of $260M doesn't really seem like a huge sacrifice and again, largely just saves his owner money.
I wanted to post something wrt to the offenses that prime John Stockton was part of. The typical narrative is something to the effect of "great in rs, collapse in playoffs", right? If that even vague describes your mindset, PLEASE READ ON.
.....Because on closer look, this doesn't quite seem to be the case.
For myself, I consider Stockton's prime to be 10 years ['88-'97], explanation in spoiler (goes a pinch off-topic):
Spoiler:
.......Though he's unusual in that his post-prime years are remarkably steady/consistent and still REALLY good (not THAT far behind his prime years). Most other players follow a different trajectory once out of their primes. One might ask how then I can claim with certaintly he's not still in his prime in '98, for example? Well, I can't say to certainty; it's a judgement call.
However, coming back from injury in a reduced-minute role at age 35 (he'd clearly lost the speed/explosiveness of a decade before, where he could attack in transition more) just doesn't seem like it's "prime" anymore [even if he was still an excellent player]. By the box-score I note that [despite playing nearly 6 fewer mpg that ANY of the previous 10 seasons]:
*It's his lowest PER, WS/48, and net rating in five years [since '93], being the 2nd-lowest of the entire 11-year period of '88-'98 for each metric. And it's the single-lowest BPM of those 11 years (again: while playing substantially fewer minutes). For those reasons, I don't feel like it can be considered as on the same level as '88-'97 (with the exception of '93, which was sort of a weird [for the uber-consistent Stockton] down year in the middle of his prime). If we did call '98 his prime, I think we'd be compelled to say he was in his prime all the way to '02 (because all those years are on a similar level); giving him an astonishing 15-year prime. I, however, tend to look at him as having a 10-year prime, and then an unusually consistent post-prime that is closer in quality than is generally seen for most players.
Anyway, I'm going to look at that prime, year-by-year, with playoff rORTG gauged relative to the defenses faced (please take the time to read):
'88 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: pre-prime Karl Malone (still a bit raw at this stage: a volume scorer, but efficiency not yet up there, lacks solid mid-range touch, not a good passer, turnover-prone), Thurl Bailey (fair/decent scoring forward), Mark Eaton ("empty uniform" on offense, according the Jazz coach), Bobby Hansen (avg offensive player), Marc Iavaroni (defensive role player, kinda bad on offense), Rickey Green (33 years old, avg offensive player at this point), Darrell Griffith (post-injury; not a good offensive player), Melvin Turpin (OK(ish)), Kelly Tripucka (a bit dinged up for much of the year; then missed 6 weeks straight and was awful for 11 games comeback [45.7% TS, 2.4 GameScore, -23 net rating]) rs rORTG: -1.2 Playoff rORTG: +2.17 (11-game sample; G7 in WCSF) Change: +3.37
'89 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone [in prime now], Mark Eaton, Thurl Bailey, Darrell Griffith, Mike Brown (defensive role player [terrible on offense]), Bobby Hansen (injured and declined this year), Mark Iavaroni (even worse on offense this year), Jim Les (also atrocious on offense)----NOTE [imo]: aside from Malone/Stockton, this cast is virtually bereft of offensive talent. The 3rd-best offensive player is Thurl Bailey (hardly a Hornacek, or Kareem/Worthy/Byron Scott, or Shawn Marion, or Kevin Love, or probably even a Toni Kukoc or Horace Grant). After that, literally EVERY other rotational player is bad on offense; not merely "not good", but outright BAD [even terrible in many instances]. rs rORTG: -1.2 Playoff rORTG: -1.7 (3-game sample; 1st round sweep) Change: -0.5
'90 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Thurl Bailey [who seems to be falling off slightly, fwiw], Mark Eaton, Bobby Hansen (never bounced back to prior form; he’s terrible this year), Blue Edwards (meh), Darrell Griffith (Dunkenstein does refine his 3pt shot a bit this year, and is “not bad” offensively in a reduced-minute role), Mike Brown (better than last year, though still not good), Delaney Rudd (terrible, like putridly bad), Eric Leckner (meh). rs rORTG: +2.2 Playoff rORTG: +2.1 (5-game sample; 1st round) Change: -0.1
'91 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Mark Eaton, Thurl Bailey (declining further, is now a sort of poor offensive player), Jeff Malone (excellent mid-range shooter, can get his own shot [somewhat]; not much of anything else on offense, zilch playmaker), Blue Edwards, Mike Brown, Darrell Griffith (fell off a cliff; terrible in what will be his final season), Delaney Rudd (less bad compared to year before). rs rORTG: +0.7 Playoff rORTG: +5.46 (9-game sample; G5 in WCSF) Change: +4.76
'92 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Jeff Malone, Blue Edwards (improved, now average(ish) on offense), Mark Eaton (nearing his last legs; always terrible on O, he’s now almost shockingly useless on that end), Tyrone Corbin (OK(ish); gets some offensive rebounds, doesn’t screw up much), Mike Brown, rookie David Benoit (meh), very limited minutes from Delaney Rudd and rookie Eric Murdock (meh). rs rORTG: +4.0 Playoff rORTG: +8.49 (16-game sample; G6 in WCF) Change: +4.49
'93 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Jeff Malone [possibly in early decline], Tyrone Corbin, Jay Humphries (kinda bad), David Benoit, Mike Brown [worse this year, for whatever reason], Larry Krystkowiak (kinda bad), Mark Eaton (last legs: final season, though his TS jumps dramatically from year before, though still tiny volume). rs rORTG: +1.6 Playoff rORTG: -2.1 (5-game sample; 1st round) Change: -3.7
'94 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Felton Spencer (kinda bad: good offensive rebounder, but non-relevant low-volume scorer, zilch passer, kinda turnover-prone), Ty Corbin, Tom Chambers (don’t get excited: 34-year-old version, average(ish) offensive player), Jeff Malone, Jay Humphries, rookie Bryon Russell, David Benoit, Jeff Hornacek*** (***Jeff was a late-season acquisition; would rank higher in playing time in the playoffs). rs rORTG: +2.3 Playoff rORTG: +4.91 (16-game sample; G5 in WCF) Change: +2.61
'95 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Jeff Hornacek, David Benoit, Antoine Carr (decent(ish) on offense), Adam Keefe (OK(ish) offensively), Tom Chambers, John Crotty, Felton Spencer, Bryon Russell. rs rORTG: +6.0 Playoff rORTG: +8.8 (5-game sample; 1st round) Change: +2.8
'96 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Jeff Hornacek, David Benoit, Adam Keefe, Antoine Carr, Chris Morris, Felton Spencer, rookie Howard Eisley (terrible on offense), Greg Foster (terrible). rs rORTG: +5.7 Playoff rORTG: +7.37 (18-game sample; G7 in WCF) Change: +1.67
'97 Supporting cast in descending order of minutes: Karl Malone, Jeff Hornacek, Bryon Russell, Greg Ostertag, Antoine Carr (35 years old, declined), Howard Eisley (still kinda bad), rookie Shandon Anderson (kinda bad), Chris Morris (in bizarrely bad down-year), Greg Foster, Adam Keefe (somewhat down year) rs rORTG: +6.9 Playoff rORTG: +7.0 (20-game sample; G6 in Finals) Change: +0.1
So the narrative…… Offense collapses in the playoffs, supposedly. Yet we see that the Jazz offense [relative to defenses faced] actually gets BETTER in the playoffs in 7 of 10 seasons in Stockton’s prime. A few years they got better by quite a lot.
In fact, they got better by around +2.8 on average over these 10 seasons.
There are FOUR years with a playoff rORTG of +7 or higher; TWO better than +8 (one of these BEFORE Hornacek arrived, too), peaking at a +8.80 playoff rORTG.
ALL THREE seasons where prime versions of Malone/Stockton/Hornacek coincided resulted in playoff rORTG’s of +7 or better.
The 10-year AVERAGE rORTG in playoff games during Stockton’s prime was +5.55.
Their offense did do worse in the playoffs [relative to rs] AFTER ‘97. Is it a coincidence that this is Stockton’s post-prime?
Anyway, for ALL of Stockton’s prime and post-prime (‘88 thru ‘03, which gets into Malone’s post-prime, too), the Jazz averaged a +3.95 rORTG in the playoffs........that’s still +0.88 better than their rs [on average, over a 16-year period], and still elite (or nearly so).
So where is this narrative derived from? It seems pretty clear that, during Stockton’s prime at least, if the Jazz “failed” in the playoffs, it was more commonly their defense that underperformed.
Maybe it’s because of a notion that the offense failed them more in the LATE rounds???
It is true that their average rORTG specifically IN THE FINALS was -1.15. Though note that includes a year of Stockton’s POST-prime [‘98], where things bottomed out. It might also be worth acknowledging that the Bulls may have been a better defense in the Finals than their rs DRtg suggests (because Pippen had missed like half the rs).
They were +1.4 rORTG in ‘97 in the Finals.
Their AVERAGE rORTG in games played in the WCF (28-game sample, FIVE separate WCF): +6.94 rORTG. Their average rORTG in WCSF games looks close to that, at a glance; first round a little less.
Anyway, just saying. The offense performed (even in the playoffs) during Stockton’s prime.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Okay, and how much of that are we attributing to Stockton? 1988-91, sure, probably willing to give him the bulk of the credit as the team’s postseason offensive engine. 1992-96, not so much, with those being his most severe production dips (somewhat less so in 1993 and 1996 relative to Malone… but those are also their worst rates of change in that stretch ).
Rishkar wrote:I don't see Pippen as anywhere near my ballot yet as a basketball player, but I am curious whether it's outside the scope of this project to consider his infamous low salary when comparing him to someone like Walt Frazier. Frazier was making only 30,000$ less than league leader Pete Maravich in his prime, whereas Pippen was making Luc Longley (and this was a huge driver of the Bull's success). I give Duncan bonus points for winning the 2014 championship through his paycut (as Trex has mentioned a lot in this project), as well as letting the Spurs get his replacements in Aldridge and Leanord. So far, I haven't really used that same logic elsewhere though but I'm starting to wonder if Pippen and Stockton having favorable contracts might be a factor worth looking at. I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on this, it feels weird to judge a basketball player as being better for having a lower salary but it also really impacts winning and I don't see a Bulls dynasty happening without Pippen's contract situation.
considering contracts feels like it goes against the spirit of this exercise. we're ranking how good players are at basketball, not how little money they're willing to play for. or how little money they accidentally played for. most players try to maximize earnings (for good reason). and plenty maximize earnings and have championship rosters. why we should expect others in lesser situations to sacrifice makes no sense. it also seems anti-competitive and part of the whole reason for a salary cap. if some independently wealthy player was willing to play for the minimum their whole career and stack their rosters, should we praise them or say they gamed the system? while i'm sure tim duncan's billionaire owner likes saving money and while i'm sure it made spurs fans happy, praising duncan for stacking his teams and then also praising him for winning with a stacked roster seems weird.
also, it's not really an equal metric. until the 2000's, no one had made enough money to start taking voluntary paycuts. all of the guys in the 90's got the first really huge contracts in league history so they obviously weren't going to be keen on paycuts when they could go from contracts of a few million to tens of millions and they only had one contract to get before their careers were over.
whereas someone like tim duncan making $250M in career earnings instead of $260M doesn't really seem like a huge sacrifice and again, largely just saves his owner money.
I'm not saying I disagree but I will say it goes against your spirit of the exercise. CORP-type measures (and broad holistic player evaluations) look at goodness towards team wins and so team contexts will be a factor and it's not far to go from there to look into how your contract affects the chances of that title. I'm not saying one way is right, just ... I see the case.
Regarding not an equal metric ... it's true that CBA changes and money available changed over time. That said a lot else changes over time and we still factor it in. It doesn't have to be "pay cuts" ... it could be how hard guys negotiated.
In a literal sense the "no one" 2000s marker seems wrong. After his first 1 year, getting paid more than the salary cap contract (plus the other income streams), MJ probably didn't need a second.
If anyone's just praising players for "winning" (not contribution towards it) then facilitating that could in some instances be double counting (where teams spent effectively and did "win" to whatever degree required). I'd hope nobody's doing that.
Regarding "why should we expect..." I don't think anyone should expect players to give up money. It's not a value judgement. It's simply a matter of if facilitating team achievement indirectly in a team sport via taking less money is part of ones criteria or not.
"if some independently wealthy player was willing to play for the minimum their whole career and stack their rosters, should we praise them or say they gamed the system". Well they can't stack their rosters, that's management. Might such a player be higher by crude "achievement" than by player goodness, yes. Would they be, to a lesser degree, higher in some CORP-ish models than in raw player goodness, yes and mileage can absolutely differ on people want to measure [I do think being clear on that matters for clarity of debate]. I do think the fan has to decide what they want in terms of priorities. Back in the day they were greedy and cared too much about money and not enough about winning. Now some are "stacking the deck" when they sacrifice money. Regarding anti-competitive ... I don't the soccer/calcio/football is anti-competitive on the field, each team plays 11 players. Does each organization have an equal chance no but this isn't F1 where participants have wildly different equipment, each game is won or lost by the players. And it's not like the NBA has a mechanism to ensure all teams pay out the same amount for players, coaches, trainers, medical, organization etc or each market provides equal quality of life.
Hope you guys don't mind me jumping back into the project.
VOTE: Bob Pettit - The best player of the late 50s, took over as the star of the league after Mikan and then was Russell's first rival, leading one of only two teams to take a title off the Celtics dynasty. Most importantly for his case his he peaked at a legit MVP level and was among the best players in the league for a decade straight, keeping up with the stars well into the 60s so I don't think him playing in a weak era is much of an argument against him here. He's probably the only one on the board I'd personally have included a couple rounds earlier.
ALTERNATE VOTE: John Stockton - I'm usually not that bullish on Stockton because I'm a peak guy and you could argue Stockton was never even top 5 in the league at any point. Still, at some point you need to reward his incredible consistency throughout his lengthy career. Looking at the other candidates on the board I think Reggie Miller has a similar case but not as solid as Stockton's. Frazier and Pippen both peaked higher imo and had strong primes around it but I'm not sure their best was that much better than Stockton's best to offset Stockton's overall career value, probably not tbh.
NOMINATE: Kawhi Leonard - There's a bunch of amazing wings coming up next for me in George Gervin, Clyde Drexler, John Havlicek, Elgin Baylor and Rick Barry but first there seems to be a lot of support for Kawhi, which I'll gladly join in on. Sure there is always the longevity argument against Kawhi but he still has more career minutes than Jokic, who is already in. Kawhi excelled early as a role player who kept carving out bigger parts for him to fill, he then went on to become a legit MVP level player, finishing top 3 in 2 consecutive years, and then of course an impressive title with the Raptors for his seond Finals MVP. Among the wings I mentioned earlier I think Kawhi's peak stands out among the rest, especially in the play-offs and none of them kept up their high level play for long enough to sway me to prefer any of them over Kawhi. I'd probably take Kawhi over Pippen as well.
Dutchball97 wrote:Hope you guys don't mind me jumping back into the project.
I can't say it strongly enough that I hope people do jump back in after they fall out.
In my experience as a participant it's hard to stay locked in for many-month projects and when I fall out, sometimes it's hard to get your head back around things. I'm hoping our relatively simplistic voting scheme makes it easier to come back around.
Rishkar wrote:I don't see Pippen as anywhere near my ballot yet as a basketball player, but I am curious whether it's outside the scope of this project to consider his infamous low salary when comparing him to someone like Walt Frazier. Frazier was making only 30,000$ less than league leader Pete Maravich in his prime, whereas Pippen was making Luc Longley (and this was a huge driver of the Bull's success). I give Duncan bonus points for winning the 2014 championship through his paycut (as Trex has mentioned a lot in this project), as well as letting the Spurs get his replacements in Aldridge and Leanord. So far, I haven't really used that same logic elsewhere though but I'm starting to wonder if Pippen and Stockton having favorable contracts might be a factor worth looking at. I'd appreciate other people's thoughts on this, it feels weird to judge a basketball player as being better for having a lower salary but it also really impacts winning and I don't see a Bulls dynasty happening without Pippen's contract situation.
I would say that explicit consideration of salary isn't something that's a part of the project context here, but the implicit boundary can get hazy.
I've always said that for me personally, I try to think about it like a GM looking to build for the long-term. With this in mind, a player having a tendency toward playing nice with his franchises is something that matters to me - and money could be part of that - but a guy being stuck on a deal that underpays him due to rookie contracts or other quirks of fate does not.
So, I want to post some Ginobili stuff and I'm going to begin by carrying over some stuff I wrote in the '04-05 thread pertaining to Ginobili here. ftr, while I expect at the moment Ginobili will be the next guy I add to my Nominee votes, I'm not dead-set on Ginobili being at any particular place.
The big thing for me is that I want to make people consider Ginobili with new eyes, because I think that the way we were presented Ginobili back in the day made us not appreciate how singular his impact truly was.
To those quoted within my quotes, my apologies for "dragging you in" here. I debated about cutting out quotes, but that made things make less sense - then I debated just removing your names, but decided you had a right to be made aware that I was including your words here. Certainly feel free to chime in - and particularly so if you think other posts I omitted should be included as well.
Doctor MJ wrote:
trelos6 wrote:Other. Manu Ginobili.
But yeah, prob Duncan.
So I'll just piggy back here and say that when I did my last pass doing POY for that season, I was surprised to have Ginobili come out at #1. I had Nash 2 and Duncan 3. The summary:
Duncan was the best player until he went down with injury, but afterward - despite coming back and winning the title as his team's lead scorer - I think Ginobili was pretty clearly the more valuable player.
Most would probably object to Ginobili ever being more valuable - fair enough. Others might concede my point but still argue Duncan was more valuable for the season's entirety - fair enough.
Others might concede that Ginobili deserves to be the top Spur but would object based on Ginobili's limited minutes that he could ever be the top player in the league. This tends to be the thing I struggle with too.
In a nutshell I'd say that if a guy plays limited minutes and his team doesn't win the chip, it's hard for me to elevate him that high, because no matter how valuable he was in the minutes he did play, his lack of play can be said to have kept his team from the promised land.
But if a team does win it all, and a player who plays more limited minutes is the best player on the court in those minutes that decided the series, well, I think that should be hard to dismiss.
To go into a bit more detail, let's contrast Duncan & Ginobili's minutes in the playoffs that season recognizing ahead of time that literally no one tries to hold minutes against Duncan here:
Duncan 37.8 Ginobili 33.6
An advantage for Duncan to be sure, but does 4.2 MPG really determine the team's MVP necessarily? I'd say no.
Let's not that in the final 2 series of the run Ginobili averaged 36+ MPG both times. So this wasn't a situation where the Spurs won the title without Ginobili playing normal starter level minutes. When they knew they needed him to play more, they played him more.
Now let's look at the PM data per 100, both the On and the On/Off:
Duncan +3.3 -5.3 Ginobili +10.9 +19.9
It's not unusual for Ginobili to trump Duncan here - it's basically a rule that the Spurs couldn't win a title if that didn't happen - but in most years it's not enough to sway me that Ginobili was actually the more valuable player overall. This year though, the difference was incredibly stark.
And of course, while mainstream commentators didn't have +/- in their vocabulary really at the time, everyone was noting that Duncan was struggling coming back from injury. While some gave hyperbolic language to the effect that Duncan should get down on his knees and think Robert Horry for bailing him out, I don't think any major figures at the time were willing to seriously argue that Duncan shouldn't get the Finals MVP.
But I'll say flat out that I think Ginobili deserved the Finals MVP and - had they held it back then - the WCF MVP. He was the guy the Pace & Space Suns struggled with, not Duncan. He was the one with big +/- numbers against the Pistons, not Duncan (or Parker) who the Spurs got outscored with them on the floor. And of course, he was also the one with impressive shooting efficiency, while the other two were low.
Realistically I'd argue that the injury to Duncan meant that '04-05 should have been a year where the Spurs came up short...but Ginobili was just too good for any opponent they faced to stop them.
Doctor MJ wrote:
AEnigma wrote:“Any counter-arguments?”
First off, I will say the case for Manu that year specifically is fair, and I see him as one of six players with a reasonably legitimate claim.
Appreciate you can say that at least. Cannot expect most to take it seriously.
AEnigma wrote:My main counterarguments would be essentiality and replicability.
I like the use of specific vocabulary. I grok what you mean immediately.
AEnigma wrote:For essentiality, while we can talk about how the Manu and Duncan were basically even in regular season on-court and on/off measures (as well as RAPM measures), I try to remember that the Spurs were 9-7 without Duncan and 6-2 without Manu. Without either player, the Spurs were 1-0, so they were 8-7 with Manu and no Duncan and 5-2 with Duncan and no Manu. There is a meaningful difference in how teams perform when you are in the game and out of it, and on that front, I think the advantage is to Duncan.
(By comparison: the 2001 regular Lakers were 5-3 without Shaq and 11-3 without Kobe — no overlap, although the absence of Fisher and others were notable factors.)
All of this makes sense as a significant lens to look through, but of course it's regular season data, and Ginobili's argument is based on the playoffs.
AEnigma wrote:As a transition to replicability, we can look at those measures over a longer period. From 2004-11 (Manu’s NBA prime), the Spurs had a 71.5% win rate with Manu and a 59.8% win rate without Manu. Over the same period, the Spurs had a 71.4% win rate with Duncan and a 51.9% win rate without Duncan. There is further nuance we could explore — e.g., how often were other teammates missing time in those stretches, and how often were they playing without each other — but as a ballpark indicator, I think that speaks correctly to how the team was built.
Another excellent lens to look through, but also RS-based, right?
If we use your 2004-11 epoch, the W-L records for each guy in the playoffs:
Parker 61-43 Duncan 61-43 Ginobili 60-38
Seems like a pretty good case for Ginobili's essentiality.
And of course, when we look at the raw +/-, it's pretty crazy:
Ginobili 413 Duncan 201 Parker 172
This of course misses 2 of the 4 Spur title years, in each of which Ginobili led the entire playoffs in +/-.
So yeah this is the thing: I actually see quite a bit of replicability. It takes special circumstance such as in the 2005 playoffs for that to outweigh Duncan's minutes advantage, but the track record of profound impact across Ginobili's career is pretty well established I think.
AEnigma wrote:This does not in itself mean Duncan was “better”, but it is a starting point. And on the subject of “better”, I think it is important to ask how frequently we could claim Manu was “better”. Say we agree Manu was indeed “better” that postseason, or “better” in Rounds 3 and 4 particularly (although again, I feel like essentiality merits some consideration). Is that how we are assessing those players in the absolute? We can, and people do, but I feel like a lot of the same approaches can get us to calling Kobe “better” than Shaq in 2001, and Murray/Gordon “better” than Jokic in the postseason, and I think if people balk at those, they should similarly pause before abandoning Duncan in the face of a lesser postseason showing.
Here, quick exercise (awkward phrasing is deliberate):
Player A and Player B are +6.15 when on the court together. Player B without Player A is +10.41 higher than Player A without Player B.
Player 1 and Player 2 are +6.03 when on the court together. Player 2 without Player 1 is +10.15 higher than Player 1 without Player 2.
Awfully similar numbers. One of them is 2004-11 Duncan and Manu in the postseason, and the other is Jokic and Jamal in the postseason.
This is an illustration, not an equation. Manu is a lot better than Jamal, and there is a lot of nuance lost in that cursory comparison — although that distinction would apply less to 2001 Shaq and Kobe, so the general principle I think still applies.
I think this is a great example to keep in mind. Much uncertainty remains for Murray, but I've long been extremely impressed by his potential. My inclination would, unsurprisingly, be to consider it unlikely that Murray was more valuable than Jokic...but it's early days in their playoff relationship, and time will tell us more about the two Nuggets.
Doctor MJ wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Rasho played 25.5 MPG in the regular season. Rasho played 7.6 MPG in the playoffs.
So I think a likely explanation here is that as Pop trimmed the fat in the playoffs, that meant that there was less time to be played with "bad" teammates, and so players who spent the regular season playing a bigger fraction with the "bad" are going to play with better teammates in the playoffs.
With this in mind, it makes sense to say that a guy like Ginobili might look better by On-Off in the playoffs compared to the regular season.
This doesn't explain Ginobili's general RAPM improvement in the playoffs, nor the stark difference between he and Duncan in the 2005 post-season, but it's something to look for as part of a general trend as coach's shorten their rotations.
i mean rapm isn't impervious to those effects, though i would be curious what the 5-year comparison looks like during the stretch you have many penned as a potential 5-peat centerpiece. As i highlighted when i did the cheema break-down, with the exception of Lebron James, everyone who played 200,000+ regular season possessions or 20000 playoff possessions saw a drop for their career marks in the postseason. Though maybe you are referring to something else?
When you refer "isn't impervious to those effects", do you mean RAPM has collinearity issues too?
If so, that's certainly true, but if you're looking to reject all the data we have that can be used to show playoff impact (raw +/-, W-L with/without you, RAPM) it feel like there's nothing left but the regular season default.
Always fine to say "I'm not confident enough in the sample to weigh it significantly", but when you're saying stuff like "probably noise", that's a very different slant in my eyes.
Re: referring to something else? Honestly I was just going by memory from looking at stuff previously.
But if we use Cheema's 25-year post-season study, we can see that there are plenty of guys with a bigger postseason RAPM compared to regular season, and that Ginobili is one of them.
Gionbili has 23,031 postseason possessions listed btw, so I think he should qualify based on your stated thresholds, though I must say that I'm not particularly concerned about that threshold. Small sample is always a problem, I don't think we need to get to 20K of something before we have a sample worth considering.
AEnigma wrote:Okay, and how much of that are we attributing to Stockton?
I don't know. I'm not going to tell you how much to attribute to him. Would it be fair to say for at least two years he was the best/most important offensive player on the team, maybe a "1b" for a couple years after that, and otherwise the clear 2nd-best in all other years? So from that standpoint, a substantial "some" can be attributed to Stockton?
I don't really care how much credit for it you, individually, give him.
The "Stockton/Malone duo made for good rs offenses, but they couldn't sustain it in the playoffs" IS a narrative we [or at least I] have heard before, though. It is, at times [not by you, at least that I'm aware of], levied as a criticism aimed specifically at Stockton (or at least by proxy, when it's aimed at the Stockton/Malone duo).
So it seems a fair counterpoint to demonstrate that no, the Jazz offenses were not good in rs only. They did, in fact, [usually] perform very well in the playoffs (better, on average, than they did in the rs).
AEnigma wrote:1988-91, sure, probably willing to give him the bulk of the credit as the team’s postseason offensive engine. 1992-96, not so much, with those being his most severe production dips (somewhat less so in 1993 and 1996 relative to Malone… but those are also their worst rates of change in that stretch ).
Some box-based dips are, at times, expected even while outperforming expectation as a team.......if facing elite defenses, for example: the absolute ORtg may fall relative to rs standard [and the individual box-performances that generate them], while in truth they outperformed expectation (relative to the elite defense faced).
In the five years you site as big dips by Stockton, the defenses faced were rated as follows:
'92 1st round: 5th (of 27) WCSF: 15th (though with a notable pesky defensive PG) WCF: 3rd
'93 1st round: 2nd (of 27; again with notable pesky defensive PG)
Only two of 11 teams faced were NOT top-10 defenses. Only three of 11 were not top-5 (and FIVE of 11 were in the top-3). Stockton was matched up against Gary Payton in three of 11 match-ups, too.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Which is why I gestured at Malone, who generally did not see the same extent of decrease in that period. Sure, the Jazz played good defences: that is how it is possible to have a high relative rating even as most of your key players see their production dip. But Stockton’s was not normal. Hornacek maintained better than Stockton did in 1994-96 as well.
Citing the Sonics also underwhelms when two of the instances were specifically cited as postseasons where Stockton was generally okay even while the offence was not. If there are people sincerely trying to argue the Jazz had an outright unsuccessful postseason offence even while making five conference finals and two Finals across a seven-year stretch, sure, correct that claim. To whatever extent it maintained — and mind you, these postseason samples can get messy (the whiplash in offensive ratings between the 1994 and 1995 Rockets/Jazz series is one of my go-to examples) — is something I see being more to the credit of Malone than to Stockton, or perhaps to the lack of credit of certain aspects of the era.
Thanks to everyone who pitched in on the Pippen salary question, I won't be considering it for the project. With that in mind: Induction Vote 1:Bob Pettit At some point, Pettit's (admittedly weak) era needs to stop being held against him. He played against decent competition and dominated, as shown by his POY shares. He might have used the charity stripe better than any other player in history (he's the career leader in free throws made per game). He was a fantastic rebounder, and has good longevity for his era. Induction Vote 2: John Stockton In the 89'-90 season, John Stockton had 10 games with over 20 assists, which is more than any other player not named Magic Johnson has had in their career. He holds 4 of the top 15 seasons with the most steals. He was a good shooter, good man defender, GOAT tier help defender, GOAT tier passer, not very turnover prone, had great intangibles, GOAT level longevity (especially for a guard), GOAT level durability, and orchestrated the success of the second greatest team of the 90s. He assisted over 50% of his teammate's field goals throughout his career (which is a large reason the Jazz never won a chip: nobody besides Stockton could run the offense). And although his scoring is often criticized, he scored more points than Pippen and Frazier, and is only about 300 points off of Pettit. And only Miller scored on better efficiency. Nomination Vote 1:Jason Kidd Incredible defender and passer, held back by inneficent scoring. Great longevity and carried the Nets defense in a way few guards have ever anchored a defense (outside of 95-96 ). I think I value guard defense more than most on this board, and Kidd was phenomenal (Frazier is next up on my ballot). Nomination Vote 1:Hondo Less sure on this one, but an integral piece in the greatest dynasty in professional sports who then blossomed into a superstar afterwards. Fantastic defender and all around player, GOAT stamina/motor. I prefer him over Pippen who is a nominee.
falcolombardi wrote:My temptative vote is reggie miller followed by pippen, with arguments to make fot stockton longevity or pettit era relative peak as my alt over scottie
Got a full 32 hour shift tpday so prolly wont make the in depth post until tomorrow or wednesday tho
Dutchball97 wrote:Hope you guys don't mind me jumping back into the project.
I can't say it strongly enough that I hope people do jump back in after they fall out.
In my experience as a participant it's hard to stay locked in for many-month projects and when I fall out, sometimes it's hard to get your head back around things. I'm hoping our relatively simplistic voting scheme makes it easier to come back around.
This format definitely helps a lot to find your footing again. Without the choice of 5 players, I'd have to compare way more players and probably wouldn't have jumped back in after missing so many rounds (although looking back it's probably better I missed most of the top 30 as I disagree with quite a few placements).
Regarding the discussion about Pettit postseason regress, I will quote his 1956-64 numbers from my old project (note that relative efficiency is against league average here, not against faced opponents):
RS: 39.2 mpg, 16.8 rpg, 3.0 apg, -- tov, 27.3 ppg on 43.9% FG, 75.9% FT and 51.3% TS (+4.64% rTS) Against -2.0 rDRtg defenses or better (36.78% of playoffs games): 41.5 mpg, 15.9 rpg, 2.8 apg, -- tov, 26.8 ppg on 41.9% FG, 76.6% FT and 50.0% TS (+3.75% rTS)
In short, he went from 25.1 pp36 on +4.6 rTS% in RS to 23.3 pp36 on +3.8 rTS%. Is that a significant drop off? Well, it's certainly not insigniciant, but we can compare to some of the other all-time greats:
I mean, all of these players (but Dirk) saw a drop off that was inarguably bigger and more visible across raw numbers. Although it's fair to criticize Pettit for some weaker showings in some years, I don't think suggesting he was a playoff failer is fair. He did reasonably well against the quality defenses in the playoffs, all things concerned.
70sFan wrote:Regarding the discussion about Pettit postseason regress, I will quote his 1956-64 numbers from my old project (note that relative efficiency is against league average here, not against faced opponents):
RS: 39.2 mpg, 16.8 rpg, 3.0 apg, -- tov, 27.3 ppg on 43.9% FG, 75.9% FT and 51.3% TS (+4.64% rTS) Against -2.0 rDRtg defenses or better (36.78% of playoffs games): 41.5 mpg, 15.9 rpg, 2.8 apg, -- tov, 26.8 ppg on 41.9% FG, 76.6% FT and 50.0% TS (+3.75% rTS)
In short, he went from 25.1 pp36 on +4.6 rTS% in RS to 23.3 pp36 on +3.8 rTS%. Is that a significant drop off? Well, it's certainly not insigniciant, but we can compare to some of the other all-time greats:
I mean, all of these players (but Dirk) saw a drop off that was inarguably bigger and more visible across raw numbers. Although it's fair to criticize Pettit for some weaker showings in some years, I don't think suggesting he was a playoff failer is fair. He did reasonably well against the quality defenses in the playoffs, all things concerned.
Didn't Pettit play a big chunk of his playoff games against the Celtics? That will depress anyone's numbers.
).
). I think I value guard defense more than most on this board, and Kidd was phenomenal (Frazier is next up on my ballot).