RealGM Top 100 List #17

[penbeast0]

Comparative rankings like MVP shares or RPOY results are most useful if you feel that the pool of elite players is reasonably consistent over various generations. Wilt and Russell retire but Kareem and Erving come in down to Jordan and Hakeem being replaced by Shaq and Duncan etc. Then it is one piece of information that helps you look at a player's ability to dominate his competition.

Then you have to correlate this information with some sense of how strong and weak each era was which is why I had so many discussions with Baller about his idea that the 60s were a "weak sauce" era v. the 70s which he seemed to feel was much stronger in terms of talent pool where I feel the 60s concentrated talent to a much larger degree and the 70s had a similar peak talent pool but with a much larger amount of teams diluting the competition.

But again, even with this proviso, this isn't a definitive ranking but just another datum of information to help form useful judgments across eras.

[Jim Naismith]

Someone is still going to have to explain to me what we learn from relative rankings like MVP shares or RPOY results. How would it make player X better or worse if the top 5 players of his era never existed or if the 5 best players from outside their era actually played in their era?

1. Comparing players from the same year is easier than comparing players from different years. Hence PoY judgments tend to converge more and tend thus to be more objective.

2. If the top 5 players never existed, a star has a greater chance of leading his team to a ring. Hence he becomes better relative to the league.

I understand using relative worth is not very satisfying since it doesn't adjust for era strength. However trying to eliminate this factor is not a straightforward thing and could introduce more problems than it solves.

I'm not saying these aggregate PoY rankings are gospel, but they serve as a rough guide for me.

[Texas Chuck]

Appreciate the responses guys.

[Doctor MJ]

Spoiler:

So you can't use it as part of your argumentation!

When we look at a stat like RAPM, having lesser minutes is something that blurs the results a bit for us.

Actually, from mathematical point of view it does not blur anything (well, not more than for 40 MPG players in ridge regression), when we have player like Stockton who played thousands of minutes and results from several different seasons (and three different RAPM models!) say the same story.

But even if playing 30 MPG and over 15k total minutes would blurs the results, we still don't know in which way it blurs - if it artificially increases players value or decreases. So why you are in so hurry to assume that it helps John?

My entire point is to try to not make assumptions. What I'm talking about is being mindful of imprecision when factoring in a new measurement.

If with my old way of measuring things I got a value of 8, and then I use a new tool that has a precision of +/- 2, then me getting a measurement of 9 or even 10 doesn't tell me that the old measurement was necessarily wrong.

Obviously this is a much more complicated scenario but the basic premise isn't the same. It's questionable to me whether we've really seen enough to conclude Stockton was considerably superior to what was previously thought. I've seen enough that it has my attention, but certainly not enough that I'm simply going to have my opinion of Stockton be represented by these numbers.

[lorak]

My entire point is to try to not make assumptions. What I'm talking about is being mindful of imprecision when factoring in a new measurement.

If with my old way of measuring things I got a value of 8, and then I use a new tool that has a precision of +/- 2, then me getting a measurement of 9 or even 10 doesn't tell me that the old measurement was necessarily wrong.

Obviously this is a much more complicated scenario but the basic premise isn't the same. It's questionable to me whether we've really seen enough to conclude Stockton was considerably superior to what was previously thought. I've seen enough that it has my attention, but certainly not enough that I'm simply going to have my opinion of Stockton be represented by these numbers.

Ok, two question regarding bold parts:
1. Don't you think that "what was previously thought" is often misleading? Shouldn't "why people thought that way" be more important?

(BTW, and it's not like RAPM tells totally different story than data we have from his time, so I'm not sure why are you saying that we are dealing here with new opinion that suggest that Stockton was considerably superior. Even during realGM past top100 projects Stockton wasn't far behind Malone and scoring bias was even bigger then.)

2. What would change your opinion about Stockton?

[Doctor MJ]

To be clear "adjusting for competition" here would really about Kareem & company relating to Moses, it would be about looking at guys Robinson & Malone went up against.

So the question: Who was #1 in their peak years who was also worse than Moses in your book?

It's hard to compare peaks at different time. One test is how long the player sustained that #1 peak.

It's hard to do Top 100 lists of guys who played at different times, but here we are.

Really the issue though isn't that you're shying away from something that's too hard, but rather than your argument has an immediate rebuttal typically by anyone who understood your first point.

Put it another way: As I said before, the basis of your argument is an appeal to authority followed by the dismissal of that authority's ability to understand it's own authority. It's not impossible that you're right about this...but it's basically a given that people aren't going to easily agree you're right when you thread a needle like that.

By that measure: KG 2004, Wade 2006, Dirk 2011

I'm a little confused here because none of those years was in Malone or Robinson's prime, which was what I was asking about.

Now, I see how my words were ambiguous, but in you answering as you did, what you're basically making clear is that unlike the RPOY voters, you in fact are able to compare across eras. Do you see the problem here?

It's perfectly fine for you to say you know better than other people. That's what an opinion is after all. The rub comes in when use such tricky methods of trying to get to your point. Bottom line is that if you just think Moses was better, you'd be far more convincing if you made an argument analyzing Moses' actual play.

[Doctor MJ]

-The Moses Malone peak things continues to weird me out. It's not like it's some mystery whether people though peak Moses was better than peak Kareem, Bird, or Magic. He's always been considered weaker by most. Hence the whole "domination" argument for Moses just dies right from the start.

None of this means you can't argue for Moses based on you just thinking he's better, but his MVP/POY shares are an inflated way to look at him as a player if your actual assessment of him aligns with any consensus analysis I've ever seen.

Apparently using the word dominance was wrong in my original post. But as I have tried to explain, I am not arguing that KAJ/Bird/Magic were at their peaks. But they also weren't that far off. Which is why I have been voting for Moses in the last few threads and not in the top 5 had those other guys been at their utmost peaks from 79-83.

Okay, let me first salute you for acknowledging language was a source of confusion before. It frequently is - and this is true even before we get into the fact not every one has English as a native language. I cannot remember all I posted, but if I was combative with you, I do apologize.

Second: If you truly believe Moses is better than the other guys we're talking about, you should absolutely vote Moses. Just make sure you putting more thought into it than the 3 MVPs. If you've done that already, cool.

[Doctor MJ]

My entire point is to try to not make assumptions. What I'm talking about is being mindful of imprecision when factoring in a new measurement.

If with my old way of measuring things I got a value of 8, and then I use a new tool that has a precision of +/- 2, then me getting a measurement of 9 or even 10 doesn't tell me that the old measurement was necessarily wrong.

Obviously this is a much more complicated scenario but the basic premise isn't the same. It's questionable to me whether we've really seen enough to conclude Stockton was considerably superior to what was previously thought. I've seen enough that it has my attention, but certainly not enough that I'm simply going to have my opinion of Stockton be represented by these numbers.

Ok, two question regarding bold parts:
1. Don't you think that "what was previously thought" is often misleading? Shouldn't "why people thought that way" be more important?

(BTW, and it's not like RAPM tells totally different story than data we have from his time, so I'm not sure why are you saying that we are dealing here with new opinion that suggest that Stockton was considerably superior. Even during realGM past top100 projects Stockton wasn't far behind Malone and scoring bias was even bigger then.)

2. What would change your opinion about Stockton?

1. As you know, I'm hardly afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. That doesn't mean I ignore all that came before though. It's really about the confidence I have with all the different factors involved.

I'll also say that it would be a lot easier for me to switch things in my mind if correlations didn't run a different direction. The peak of the Jazz came as they turned to Malone over Stockton more and more. While it's not impossible, it's an awfully big unhelpful coincidence if that was simply due to other factors.

Now that we have data going back to the late '90s, Stockton's +/- data is definitely more compelling than it was when we only went back to 2002....

2. but it's still dominated by time when Utah was playing relying considerably less on Stockton than they had done before.

I would really like to get several years of data from the time when Stockton was playing big minutes racking up those huge assist numbers before I come to a conclusion along the lines of "Behold, Stockton was the true MVP of the Jazz, not Malone!".

Oh, one last thing: There's also the matter of Stockton's RAPM being impressive specifically because of the defense rather than the offense. This is something not really in line with what the stat has told us about in general about point guard defense. This is another thing that makes me nervous about simply accepting what I see without more sample.

[DannyNoonan1221]

Second: If you truly believe Moses is better than the other guys we're talking about, you should absolutely vote Moses. Just make sure you putting more thought into it than the 3 MVPs. If you've done that already, cool.

I actually didn't use the MVP talk too much in my original voting post if I remember correctly. I brought it up this thread because people seemed to be brushing them off to the side so easily, where as I think some credit should be given. Yes, this is not a list of who is the most decorated player. But I believe the level KAJ/Bird/Magic/Dr.J were at when he did isn't something to be skipped over- it has some pull at the 17th spot in my mind.

I focused on his offensive rebounding and why I believe OReb to be such an important category.

[drza]

There's been some good debate in this thread. It appears that Karl Malone is in the driver seat, but I did think the Stockton vs Malone conversation between Lorak, ElGee and DocMJ was very interesting. ElGee had a killer post about Nash, but Lorak came back just as hard with more great support for Stockton. Malone has seemingly been the default best player in their partnership, so it was good to hear some conversation on the subject. Would have liked to hear a bit more, to be honest.

The Moses contingent has been dedicated, but for as often as he's mentioned I don't see a lot of comparison between him and other greats. There's the over-strained arbitrary RPoY metric and/or MVP shares. And I've seen some discussion about his strengths. But I really haven't seen any of his supporters make a case for why he was better at basketball than any of the others up for debate. To me, Moses' strengths are the most limited of the candidates being considered, and I have trouble seeing how a center with modest defense and terrible passing could anchor a team better than Karl, Robinson or Barkley. Barring someone making such a case and opening my eyes, I still have him at the bottom of this current list.

I've enjoyed the Barkley vs Karl Malone conversation, and would have liked to see it fleshed out even further. Unlike some of the accounts given of the late 80s/early 90s, I do in fact remember there being a lot of debate about Barkley vs Malone. I remember because I was more of a Barkley fan and tended to his side of the debate, but whenever they played head-to-head it seemed like Malone's size was a real problem for Barkley. I haven't gone back to check their head-to-head numbers, but that's at least how my memory plays it. Nevertheless, it seems clear that Barkley has no traction at all here.

Which brings me to the Admiral. He remains a very hard player for me to judge. I do think that he was an amazing impact player...probably the best still left on the board. However, the questions and counter-arguments are compelling. Texas Chuck points out that in the regular season, the much bigger sample size, Robinson seemed to play well against Olajuwon. And I'd agree that we shouldn't judge a career on just one series. But as has come up in these discussions before, it's not just one series. Whether they were head-to-head match-ups or not, the Robinson vs Malone battles of 1994 and 1996 certainly don't play to Robinson's advantage. Kaima's post that Ronnymac re-posted was just as devastating this time around as it was in the RPoY project. On another site, I even saw someone argue that Robinson had been outplayed in the postseason by an opposing big leading to a loss 5 times in a row, presumably including Barkley's Suns in '93 and Malone's Jazz again in '98. I'm not too impressed by this narrative (especially the extended 5-year version) because basketball isn't a 1-on-1 game, and Robinson wasn't matched up on Barkley at all (and not Malone all of the time). But even saying that, I still have to at least note it as a possible trend. Especially when so many posters that I respect do a good job of making a plausible narrative of his shortcomings in the postseason.

But all of that said...I still think Robinson is the best player on the board. As I said before, the regular season counts as well, and I have no doubt that Robinson's regular season impact as off the charts. Similarly, as someone (Owly?) pointed out, we don't have great defensive metrics for the postseason so I'm willing to give Robinson more benefit of the doubt about his postseason defense. And I also have to look at who he's being compared to...it's no longer the Hakeems, Duncans and KGs but instead the Malones and Barkley. I think the latter all have their own pros and cons, with enough cons that I feel strongly enough to make my vote official.

Vote: David Robinson

[D Nice]

Spoiler:

So I voted for Malone, but seeing someone bring up Malone vs Stockton reminds me that I'd love to see discussion along these lines.

As someone was arguing, if you take RAPM by face value, Stockton seems like he should rank higher than Malone, which is a pretty interesting acid test for just how far you take the results.

The fundamental issue with this as I see is Stockton was playing reduced minutes, which in general means he's probably getting an advantage of playing when it best suits him. But what exactly does that mean? If part of what we're talking about is that he basically always got to play with Malone and hence his role is basically defined in terms of how nicely he can play with Malone compared to other guys, then clearly I think Malone should be ranked higher. It's not proof that Stockton couldn't do great things without Malone, but there's clearly no basis for saying that all perception of the time giving Malone the MVP candidacy was off.

On the other hand, if we can see data showing that Stockton isn't showing any particular dependency on Malone in terms of team success, that starts giving us grounds to swing the comparison.

Thoughts of others?

Well I've said earlier in this project that people need to realize what RAPM is actually "saying." It does not say Collison and Johnson are among the best players in the world. It also does not say they are imparting the most impact. It says that they are very impactful in their given role...which is for a short period of time, i.e. is specialized.

This really stands out to me when it comes to players like old Stockton, old Robinson, old Garnett, etc. It's not that I don't think they were good, it's just that even if the stat is "accurate" it still only says what these players were able to do in the right spots. This not only includes minute allocation for their rest/energy but also the lineup-roles they have. RAPM tries to detect when you have good/bad teammates, but it doesn't know if you only get put out there in lineups that cater to your strengths.

This really isn't an issue at all when a player is forced to play with a diversity of lineups, i.e. play big minutes. But when you get into Stockton's 27-29 mpg territory, I see the results as much more specialized. An indicator of value, no doubt, but of overall goodness? I don't see how the metric is measuring that given the circumstances. I'd say the same thing about Robinson to a degree.

Stockton interests me on a psychological level more than anything. He was revered but never crowned. Like Havlicek before him. Or Ripken in baseball. Everyone "respected" him and "the way he played," but no one really ever thought he was a high-peak guy. Then Nash came along, and from an "eye test" point of view I just kept saying "Stockton on Steroids. Stockton on Steroids." And it really almost literally was taking Stockton's mastery of the pick and roll and making it look almost passive. Nash would just look to burry defenses on every play.

In Stockton, we're talking about a player who scored over 30 points 11 times in his prime (34-point best) out of 880 games. That's 1.2% of the time. This is someone in the 14-15 pts/36 range. He took over 20 true shot attempts in a game 21 times in that period (2.4% of games).

What's worse is what happens in the playoffs. He had six games with over 20 TSA (4.7% of PS games). Against sub-103 defenses in the playoffs, he averaged 12.7 pts/36, 8.5 sat/36 2.7 tov/36 on 52.8% TS. This is a drop from 14.4 pts/10.5 ast on 61.5% TS in the regular season. His sub-105 numbers show the same trend: in 87 games, 13.5 pts/36, 10.2 ast/36 on 57% TS, down 5% from the RS along with a 2 point drop in volume.

This was someone who not only failed to ramp up his game, but his absolute metrics make him look more pedestrian than all-nba (or all-timer). This is a major problem for me, not because it exists on paper, but precisely because it reinforces what I saw when I re-watched all those Jazz games a few years ago -- where the heck was John Stockton?? That Utah's offenses were so successful in the postseason says borderline wondrous things to Malone for me since he was the anchor, the rock, the constant, etc. I understand his variance (stemming from jump-shooting), but Michael and Kobe had variance. If I were less concerned with scaling (portability), I'd probably have Malone bordering on top-5.

Nash, on the other hand, only played 67 PS games from 05-10 in Phoenix. 43 of them were against sub-105s. (!) You know what happened in those game? His scoring spiked. 19.2 pts/36 on 60.2% TS. UP from the RS of 17.6/10.6 62.5% TS.

Hold on I nearly fainted. Didn't realize it was that impressive until I hit "calculate." Never seen that before.

OK I've regained consciousness. The clutch numbers reflect all this as well. It's not a "change" in their games, but a *reflection* of their games -- Nash was a great offensive player because of the pressure of his own scoring (from shooting) combined with his GOAT-level reads and quick passes. Defending him off the PnR was a nightmare. Stockton was excellent, but more passive, not as good of a shooter, not as big and crafty in finishing and while a great passer, i don't think he was quite at Nash's Manning-level of defense-reading.

Stockton's 5+5 clutch numbers:
1997: 19.6% USG | 21.6% Pts% | 51.7 ast%
1998: 26.3% USG | 26.4% pts % | 50.0% ast%
1999: 20.6% USG | 15.7% pts% | 60.9% ast%
2000: 23.5% USG | 24.7% pts% | 58.3% ast%

Nash's 5+5 clutch numbers:
2005: 30.8% USG | 28.3% pts% | 68.6% ast%
2006: 30.6% USG | 32.7% pts% | 63.9% ast%
2007: 28.6% USG | 31.5% pts% | 55.3% ast%
2008: 31.3% USG | 34.3% pts% | 61.0% ast%

Peaking in 2010 at 35.3% USG, 36.2% pts% and 63.9% ast%. All told, their classic clutch stat lines look like this:

Nash 05-10: 27.2 pts/36 | 64.1% TS | | 54.1% eFG% | 9.7 ast/36 (856 min)
Stock 97-00: 18.3 pts/36 | 60.6% TS | 47.9% eFG% | 9.7 ast/36 (538 min)

Nash went from an 17.3/36 scorer to a 27.2/36 scorer -- a 57% improvement -- while increasing efficiency. Stockton jumped from 14.4 pts/36 to 18.3 -- a 27% scoring jump -- on a 1.1% drop in efficiency. Let's put Nash's scoring in perspective here: there have been 22 player-seasons in NBA history at 27 pts/36 and over 54% eFG%. It's been done by 12 men. (Shaq, Dantley, King, Kareem, K. Malone, Durant, Kiki, Bird, Jordan, Walter Davis and Gervin). From 03-11 Dirk was 30 pts/36 at 47% eFG% in the clutch.

And I've heard people suggest confusion as to why Nash should be heralded for situational volume scoring while others aren't (necessarily). It's simple -- there's nothing situational about the PRESSURE Nash applies on the defense -- it's constant, he just balances his own shots with his teammates. He COULD be a volume scorer if he wanted to, the way some lead guards play by default (from the Francis/Marbury type to guys like Wade and even LeBron), but Nash senses higher efficiency elsewhere and perceives passing as the best option. Hard to argue with the GOAT-level offensive results. When the passing is choked off and the option sub-optimal -- due to defensive adjustment, teammate changes, or simply Nash just hedging his bets and simplifying the game by calling his own number more -- he is still capable of volume scoring well because he's awlays been capable of scoring well. Which is exactly what makes him so different from John Stockton. Similar, but steroids make a huge different.

Full circle to Malone -- Karl was the guy who played more of the Nash role I just described. When the going got tough, Utah went to Malone a lot. Sometimes Karl passed, but he wasn't the creator Nash was. He was a phenomenal passer, and an excellent scorer. There are probably only a handful of players in history who could have performed better against that kind of stress/load he faced annually in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Stockton passed and passed and essentially wilted against better defenses at the most inopportune times. And I still think Stockton's good, but there's a sizable gap between him and Malone.

So much awesome here I wish I could and-2 it! Beastly post.

Spoiler:

David Robinson and Karl Malone: impact

I'm coming to the realization that I may just not have time to finish my long Robinson vs Karl Malone analysis before tomorrow's deadline. Life has interfered tonight, and I've got work tomorrow. But there are still some things that I've been thinking about while reading arguments and working on this.

Here's one of my thoughts: the regular season counts too.

So many of the arguments against Robinson are tied to his postseason struggles, and for good reason. If Robinson is your best player, and you legitimately believe that his playing style does not allow him to have reliable superstar impact in the postseason, then that is worthy of some degree of censure. This has been a big reason (along with longevity) that Robinson has slid this far. For example, I suspect that Robinson in the regular season may have had more impact than Hakeem Olajuwon. But Hakeem is enough better as a postseason performer (in general, not just head-to-head) that I can understand why he gets the nod over Robinson in historical rankings.

But even with that said, Robinson's regular season impact should still be apportioned some amount of credit. It's not ONLY in the postseason that a player's contributions are valuable. RonnyMac's and Chuck Texas' exchange earlier in this thread was interesting. RonnyMac's stance seemed to be that since Malone seemed to outplay Robinson head-to-head in their primes, this was an indication that Malone was the better player at their primes. I thought Chuck's rebuttal had some value, though, in suggesting that perhaps Karl Malone and Hakeem were just bad postseason match-ups for Robinson. That a player can be better overall even if they have trouble in certain match-ups.

That's a counter-intuitive take in most NBA comparisons, especially in the post-Jordan era. The greatest players of the late 80s (led by Magic and Bird) were known more for team accomplishments. But Jordan was the greatest individual talent that the game had seen at least since Wilt, possibly ever. He played a style that my coaches had always taught me was ball-hogging. But he had immense individual determination, immense individual skill, and immense ego...and he seemingly FORCED the game to fall into line. He personally destroyed all competitors, and in doing so made himself a legend. His playing career almost played out like a gunslinger Western movie, where Clint Eastwood comes in and proves he's the best man by killing everyone lined up in front of him. And after Jordan was done, the entire basketball-playing and watching world seemed to want to be like Mike. As though that style is the only (or even the best) way to be great/the best.

That was a tangent, but it relates to why I think Chuck had a point. Because I don't think that you have to necessarily beat your 1-on-1 assignment to be having a big impact. I think that it certainly counts against Robinson that he could seemingly be beaten by individual peer competitors to such a large degree that it seemingly swung some playoff series. But I don't necessarily believe that this has to mean that those particular players were better.

Bring it back to Robinson and Karl Malone. We've talked about how Malone was a better offensive player than Robinson as he developed his passing/initiating/jumper abilities. That these things allowed Karl to continue to have bigger offensive impacts and carry his teams offensively more in the postseason, even when Malone's own shot wasn't falling. But if this is true, and I believe that it is, then that suggests that Malone's peak as a contributor really was during that late-90s run when he won a couple of MVPs and led his team to two Finals trips against the Bulls.

But. If that really is his peak, then that would suggest that the 1998 RAPM studies should represent some of the best that we would ever have seen from Karl Malone even if we had RAPM studies for the previous 15 years. Of course, we can't KNOW that. But I do strongly suspect that. As I've laid out before, offensive RAPM studies tend to be much kinder to offense initiator/distributors and jumper/space-creating bigs than to bigs that are primary finishers. And frankly, this fits my eye test...I believe that Malone WAS better in '97 and '98 than he was earlier in his career.

On the other hand, there's Robinson. By 1998, Robinson was focusing more on his defensive role while subsuming his offensive game. His minutes and role do have a lot of similarities to post-championship, Celtics Garnett. And like that version of Garnett, Robinson showed that he could maintain an elite overall impact almost purely with his defense. However, also like Garnett, Robinson showed much more ability and impact while in his prime. Someone (ShutUpAndJam?) earlier in this thread laid out some of the obvious monster impact Robinson was having in his career. Yeah, Robinson wasn't the ONLY new change in a Spurs team going from 20-something wins in '89 to 56 wins in '90...but he was the biggest change. Robinson's injury at the end of 1992 leading the Spurs to drop from about a +5 SRS to about a -5 SRS? The Robinson injury in 1997 helping turn a team winning in the mid-50s into a cellar dwellar (ok, some of it might have been tanking, but the difference was chasm-like).

In the late 90s next to Duncan, Robinson was putting up overall RAPM scores equivalent to Malone's '98 RAPM. But the thing is, I see almost NO way that these are the best RAPM scores that Robinson would have ever produced if we had the data. Again speculation, but again I feel that it's justified. Looking at the situations, I wouldn't be surprised at all if peak Robinson's RAPM scores were up in the stratosphere with some of the best values that we've seen.

So, where does that leave them? Well, if Robinson really did have SIGNIFICANTLY more impact than Malone at their peaks...which I suspect that he did. Then even before we get to their perceived postseason performance, I would argue that Robinson was providing a lift to his team on an order that the Mailman couldn't replicate.

I think about some of the work that ElGee has done with estimating championship probabilities. Ironically, this work leads ElGee to promote Malone as more valuable than Robinson for their careers (which isn't where I'm going at the moment). But another one of ElGee's logic trains is that we can measure how much lift a player has in a poor situation...and we can also look at how much they can lift an already good team. And that while it's cool for a player to be able to lift a bad team to solid, that it's more valuable for a player to be able to lift a good team to elite.

In this case, though, I wonder if Robinson isn't better at both. He demonstrated in the early/mid-90s that he could take an average supporting cast and put them into consistent regular season contention with some postseaosn success as well. And whatever you think of Robinson's postseason efforts, most would admit that it would be unlikley to see pretty much anyone winning titles with those casts. As I laid out in the impact discussion above, I suspect that Robinson's impact was significantly larger in this role than any that Malone showed in his career.

However, on the other end of the spectrum. Robinson was able to modify his game to also provide an elite amount of list to a contending team with the late-90s/early 00s Spurs. And here's where skill-set works to Robinson's advantage in this comp. Because while Malone (especially later in his career) may have been a better offensive player than Robinson, and capable of elite offensive impact...his offensive skillset did not (IMO) scale upwards to provide similar impact on better offensive teams. Now let me be clear...I'm not saying that Malone wouldn't be extremely valuable on a team featuring Magic Johnson or LeBron James. What I'm saying is, that as you ramp up the offensive abilities of the rest of the team, the relative amount of lift that Karl could provide with his skillset diminishes. On the other hand, a team full of offense would still allow Robinson's Malone-level impact with his defense. No matter how it's built, if a team were to be "good" without Robinson, his game likely allows him to be able to provide his full measure of impact to help make that "good" team elite.


Bottom line
Even if Malone performed better than Robinson in their postseason match-ups...even if Malone's prime was clearly much longer than Robinson's. If I'm convinced that Robinson was the higher impact player in actuality, that he's better able to lift a poor team to good, AND that he's the better player to lift a good cast to great then I'm still hard-pressed to rank Malone higher on this list. I'm still reading, I'm still open to changing my mind. But right now, this is where I'm at.

Another pretty amazing post. What especially jumped out at me was...

However, on the other end of the spectrum. Robinson was able to modify his game to also provide an elite amount of list to a contending team with the late-90s/early 00s Spurs. And here's where skill-set works to Robinson's advantage in this comp. Because while Malone (especially later in his career) may have been a better offensive player than Robinson, and capable of elite offensive impact...his offensive skillset did not (IMO) scale upwards to provide similar impact on better offensive teams. Now let me be clear...I'm not saying that Malone wouldn't be extremely valuable on a team featuring Magic Johnson or LeBron James. What I'm saying is, that as you ramp up the offensive abilities of the rest of the team, the relative amount of lift that Karl could provide with his skillset diminishes. On the other hand, a team full of offense would still allow Robinson's Malone-level impact with his defense. No matter how it's built, if a team were to be "good" without Robinson, his game likely allows him to be able to provide his full measure of impact to help make that "good" team elite.

Pretty incredible that after all this time you're still able to force me to re-think elements of my evaluations in regards to Karl and D-Rob. I'm going to seriously have to figure out how I feel about this particular point. Great stuff Drza

Spoiler:

Other points:

-I often say everyone's free to choose their own peak vs longevity in my book, but I still find my eyebrows raised by seeing Walton mentioned at this stage. I'm not running the show here, I'm not saying anyone is "wrong", but this isn't the High Peak project. Seems to me like in distinguishing your career list from your peak list, there should be some place where the fact that no team would even consider drafting the guy this high on an All-Time Draft comes into play.

I would draft him in an all time draft high as I believe in BPA, and you are pretty much passive-aggressively saying that the people who voted for Walton are wrong.

Passive aggressively? I really can't win. You're basically knocking me for being too polite when telling people they are wrong, but it's not like people like it when I outright say such things.

Look, I'm saying it like I'm saying it because I want people to be sure they really think this stuff through. As I say that, that's going to piss some people off too. I don't know what to say. This is the type of stuff that when I say it in real life, people listen to me. I go on here on the internet and some people just chafe infinitely at any implication I make that I know better than someone else. It's weird because this whole place is full of opinion, and the nature of that is that you always think your opinion is right and the other guy's is wrong. People don't consider it arrogant to have an opinion, but dare to wade into someone's thought process and that's totally different.

Let's step through this here, and maybe you'll point out where your set of assumptions differ from mine in a way that makes sense to me. Here's how I see it:

You're a GM who is fortunate enough have a prescient assistant GM who saw into the future and knows how good each player would prove to be along with how healthy they were. You grill him about Bill Walton:

You: So is Walton as good as advertised?
As't: Absolutely.
You: Who is he like?
As't: Bill Russell is the best comparison.
You: Great, how's his longevity?
As't: Um, problematic.
You: Okay, how many healthy years can I get from him?
As't: Define healthy?
You: Jeez. Well how many years playing 3000 minutes does he have?
As't: One.
You: Holy crap! What about if we include playoff minutes?
As't: Oh sorry, that was including playoff minutes.
You: Oh man. Okay, no playoff minutes, how many years 2000 minutes?
As't: Still just one.
You: Holy cow. Alright, what was the name of the other center we were considering who has longevity issues?
As't: David Robinson.
You: How many 2000+ minute years did he have again?
As't: Eleven.

Are you seriously telling me that your next response in this conversation is to ask more questions about Walton vs Robinson? How can there be any question that Robinson's going to give you more over a career than Walton?

Again, I'm not saying there's a "wrong" answer here in the sense that I'm some authority figure. I'm just another poster in this, and one who grants a lot of leeway in terms of peak vs longevity. I'll also add: Because the NBA did a 50 Greatest thing back in the '90s and included Walton there's long been a tendency to include Walton in the Top 50 here. While the "who would you draft" criteria is a powerful one to me, if I got a response from someone talking about their own personal standards for a player's immortality, I'd have to at a certain point back off and say to each their own.

But if you're truly thinking along the lines of who you'd draft based on what they actually did out there, Walton's injuries are a really big deal.

This is deconstruction at its finest. I'm glad you walked through it like this. Really, it can't be spelled out any clearer than this. I know it required more patience than people will realize.

[D Nice]

Someone is still going to have to explain to me what we learn from relative rankings like MVP shares or RPOY results. How would it make player X better or worse if the top 5 players of his era never existed or if the 5 best players from outside their era actually played in their era?

It's an efficient means of contrasting contemporaries when people try to make arguments predicated on conclusions that are directly opposed to the POY valuations.

It's imperfect, because I think some of the RPOY "valuations" were pretty off (particularly '06-'08) but it provides a strong baseline for figuring out where contemporaries stand in relation to one another. Similar to SRS, it's not designed to provide strong cross-era analysis, but also like SRS, when it suits people's agendas they will typically overlook this fact (some may genuinely be unaware of the flaws as well, sometimes it can be hard to tell).

But just in a very quick response, I think it answers what you were asking.

[magicmerl]

Through to post #212:

14 Karl Malone -- FJS, Doctor MJ, rich316, penbeast0, ronnymac2, batmana, PCProductions, lukekarts, magicmerl, trex_8063, DHodgkins, Clyde Frazier, Chuck Texas, SactoKingsFan
6 Moses Malone -- JordansBulls, Warspite, GC Pantalones, basketballefan, DQuinn1575, DannyNoonan1221
5 David Robinson -- shutupandjam, Owly, fpliii, lorak, drza
2 Bill Walton -- HeartBreakKid, Notanoob
1 Steve Nash -- colts18
1 Charles Barkley -- ShaqAttack

[Jim Naismith]

So the question: Who was #1 in their peak years who was also worse than Moses in your book?

It's hard to compare peaks at different time. One test is how long the player sustained that #1 peak.

By that measure: KG 2004, Wade 2006, Dirk 2011

Now, I see how my words were ambiguous, but in you answering as you did, what you're basically making clear is that unlike the RPOY voters, you in fact are able to compare across eras. Do you see the problem here?

It's perfectly fine for you to say you know better than other people. That's what an opinion is after all. The rub comes in when use such tricky methods of trying to get to your point. Bottom line is that if you just think Moses was better, you'd be far more convincing if you made an argument analyzing Moses' actual play.

I'm comparing across eras in a very mechanical (or non-tricky) way. I just count how many years someone has been #1 in the league and use that as the gauge of quality.

Wade was #1 for a single year (2006). Dirk was #1 for a single year (2011). KG was unanimous #1 for 2004 but #1 by a weak plurality in 2008.

That's why these three have lower peaks than Moses, who was a near-unanimous #1 for two years.

[Notanoob]

At this point I may as we'll change my vote to David Robinson. He's the best player left on the board, or at least he's a better player than either Malone, who are ahead of him. He had a sufficiently good longevity to earn this spot.

[Doctor MJ]

It's hard to compare peaks at different time. One test is how long the player sustained that #1 peak.

By that measure: KG 2004, Wade 2006, Dirk 2011

Now, I see how my words were ambiguous, but in you answering as you did, what you're basically making clear is that unlike the RPOY voters, you in fact are able to compare across eras. Do you see the problem here?

It's perfectly fine for you to say you know better than other people. That's what an opinion is after all. The rub comes in when use such tricky methods of trying to get to your point. Bottom line is that if you just think Moses was better, you'd be far more convincing if you made an argument analyzing Moses' actual play.

I'm comparing across eras in a very mechanical (or non-tricky) way. I just count how many years someone has been #1 in the league and use that as the gauge of quality.

Wade was #1 for a single year (2006). Dirk was #1 for a single year (2011). KG was unanimous #1 for 2004 but #1 by a weak plurality in 2008.

That's why these three have lower peaks than Moses, who was a near-unanimous #1 for two years.

Okay first: I guess I was confused about the stuff with Wade etc, so nevermind on that.

Re: mechanical = non-tricky. Ah, I'll clarify as again my words were ambiguous:

The process of your method was very simplistic, and hence not tricky at all.

The rationale of your method though was extremely tricky. As I said: Appealing to an authority whose ability to assess it's own authority you dismiss. Very, very tricky. Honestly, if you don't see that, then I would worry you really don't understand the criticisms you're getting.

[Basketballefan]

I really don't get how Moses' 3 mvps are just getting swept under the rug..he was that dominant.

[Doctor MJ]

Spoiler:

lorak & Doc - Both of you are touching a larger concern of mine...at what point do we draw a distinction between a player's overall goodness how well a player is playing in a given role?

So, RAPM looks to isolate each player's ability to affect scoring margin. I think we can say that it does a pretty good job of that, but when you're isolating a player from his teammates and opponents, what you're left with is something that represents the player. But he's still playing the game a very specific way, and generally with superstars, it's not the only way he can play (and in the case of high portability players, it's not the only way he can thrive at a high level).

When we have a guy who dramatically shifts his playstyle mid-career, I really don't know if a direct comparison between those seasons is appropriate. RAPM (and WOWY, team ORtg/DRtg, and whatever other similar metrics we're using) aren't going to tell us whether a player was better in year n vs year (n-1) if that change took place. Better (or more poorly, since guys can sometimes be put in suboptimal situations later in their careers, either out of necessity or because of poor coaching/management) utilized, maybe, but since portability is such a big part of the discussion, either we're going to have to make a ton of assumptions or do some very involved analysis to try to determine how a guy would affect scoring margin in year n if he kept his year (n-1) role, or what impact he'd have in year (n-1) if the change was made earlier.

At some point, I think we have to decide what exactly we're trying to accomplish in comparing players. Are we trying to decide how well players would compare in their respective roles, or are we trying to make a comparison after considering the entire spectrum of possible roles they can play, and how well they'd play each of them? I think we're trying to do a bit of both, since it's tough to determine what a guy's optimal role is if we've never seen him physically play in that role, and succeed in it, and seasons in suboptimal roles provide datapoints that tell us both how much a guy triumphs over adversary, and how far removed those suboptimal roles are from his preferred roles.

I think ElGee touched on this a bit on the previous page, and his good post has me wondering about a few things:

Well I've said earlier in this project that people need to realize what RAPM is actually "saying." It does not say Collison and Johnson are among the best players in the world. It also does not say they are imparting the most impact. It says that they are very impactful in their given role...which is for a short period of time, i.e. is specialized.

This really stands out to me when it comes to players like old Stockton, old Robinson, old Garnett, etc. It's not that I don't think they were good, it's just that even if the stat is "accurate" it still only says what these players were able to do in the right spots. This not only includes minute allocation for their rest/energy but also the lineup-roles they have. RAPM tries to detect when you have good/bad teammates, but it doesn't know if you only get put out there in lineups that cater to your strengths.

This really isn't an issue at all when a player is forced to play with a diversity of lineups, i.e. play big minutes. But when you get into Stockton's 27-29 mpg territory, I see the results as much more specialized. An indicator of value, no doubt, but of overall goodness? I don't see how the metric is measuring that given the circumstances. I'd say the same thing about Robinson to a degree.

How important are minutes in determining a given player's role? If a guy is specializing, and playing in particular lineups, certainly minutes and lineups (though even for most role players, they're going to be playing in a variety of situations...if he's so linked to a given lineup, maybe we should consider looking at it as a consequence of him playing his role, as opposed to the other way around) are something extremely important to consider. But if we have a guy, who is playing very much the same brand of basketball, while slowly reducing his minutes, and there is a dramatic shift in RAPM or other impact-based metrics, should we consider this an effect of a difference in the role he was playing, or the actual performance in his roles?

It might sound like I'm worrying a bit much about semantics here, but I do think even if there isn't a dichotomy, it's something we have to try to answer. Particularly, when we have aging superstars, whether they find themselves in drastically different situations, or if their role change is the primary difference.

And I've heard people suggest confusion as to why Nash should be heralded for situational volume scoring while others aren't (necessarily). It's simple -- there's nothing situational about the PRESSURE Nash applies on the defense -- it's constant, he just balances his own shots with his teammates. He COULD be a volume scorer if he wanted to, the way some lead guards play by default (from the Francis/Marbury type to guys like Wade and even LeBron), but Nash senses higher efficiency elsewhere and perceives passing as the best option. Hard to argue with the GOAT-level offensive results. When the passing is choked off and the option sub-optimal -- due to defensive adjustment, teammate changes, or simply Nash just hedging his bets and simplifying the game by calling his own number more -- he is still capable of volume scoring well because he's awlays been capable of scoring well. Which is exactly what makes him so different from John Stockton. Similar, but steroids make a huge different.

Full circle to Malone -- Karl was the guy who played more of the Nash role I just described. When the going got tough, Utah went to Malone a lot. Sometimes Karl passed, but he wasn't the creator Nash was. He was a phenomenal passer, and an excellent scorer. There are probably only a handful of players in history who could have performed better against that kind of stress/load he faced annually in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Stockton passed and passed and essentially wilted against better defenses at the most inopportune times. And I still think Stockton's good, but there's a sizable gap between him and Malone.

Great, great point about Nash knowing when to score vs. pass. I would've liked if there was more discussion about Oscar and Magic in that context. I think it was established in earlier threads that they had the ability to score more often, but there wasn't as much discussion about how well they achieved that balance. Their offensive results speak for themselves obviously (as does Nash's), but this is one of those areas that always has a place in conversation, since I think it's very difficult to discern what about these guys in particular gives them the ability to balance the two, and what other offensive anchors with the ability to both create for others and score lack.

Regarding Malone, do we then feel his role was suboptimal throughout his career? If so, when was the closest he came to an optimal role, and what similar players do we feel were placed in what we could consider Malone's optimal role? If he was placed in an optimal role, do we think he handled the load and stress as well as he should've? If not, how much is due to context, and is there a possibility that a subopimal role for Malone would've better served his teams given his particular situation? I wondered aloud above about seasons in suboptimal roles telling us a bit about "how much a guy triumphs over adversary and how far removed those suboptimal roles are from his preferred roles". How valuable is the ability to succeed in those suboptimal situations, and at what point is it worth it for a player to assume those roles if their so far removed from his optimal role (especially if it makes team-building more difficult? Not saying this is the case with Malone, just a general concern?

Apologies for ranting, but the exchange between the three of you (which has been a very good discussion so far, I hope it continues into tomorrow) really got me thinking about this philosophically.

Thought this was awesome, though it's a bit too much for me to have a particular response to.

To the general point of the importance of getting clear what question you're answering before you give an answer: Absolutely, and it's amazing how easy it is to put the cart before the horse.

[colts18]

Was Walton's 77 season really better than Robinson's 95 season? Walton was outplayed more by kareem than Robinson was outplayed by Hakeem. The only difference is that Walton's teammates were good while Robinson's were not.

[john248]

I think I've voting Karl Malone. Well, I guess it's official. lol Tough between him and Barkley. I think Barkley is far more talented, but Karl has enough longevity to over come that which seemed to be what analysts thought at the time too. Malone was a great 1v1 defender, solid rebounder, great in transition, solid in the post, good passer in the mid-90s on, relied on the fade a little too much. Robinson's longevity bothers me too much with just a half dozen prime years and his own playoff issues.