Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #7-#8 Spots

[lessthanjake]

I think I’d be quite surprised if Bobby or Dennis made the top 25 of the next group.

Maybe I wasn’t quite appreciating how many great players played in that era, but Bobby Jones was ranked #73 in the RealGM Top 100 in 2023, and it’s not like it was due to big longevity, so it seems at least plausible for him to end up Top 20 in one of three peaks projects. More generally, regardless of where he’ll actually finish, I would say Draymond and Jones are very similarly good players.

While information from that era is lacking, I will note that as I know you know (since you were the one who first linked me to this!), we do know the Sixers’ plus-minus data from Bobby Jones’ years there. And in the 6 years from 1980-1985 when the 76ers averaged 59 wins a season and won a title and made two other Finals, the Sixers did better with Bobby Jones on the court than they did with any other Sixers player on the court in 5 of those years (and he was 1.1 net rating away from the top of the team in the year that was the exception). So I suspect that Bobby Jones would end up looking pretty similarly impactful to Draymond if we had RAPM data from back then. I can see him not being ranked as highly in this project though, because we lack that data and therefore can’t know for sure (note: I don’t think Draymond would end up voted in in this era if we didn’t have RAPM data).

[Jaivl]

Those 2019+2020 Bucks teams didn’t win a title though, like the 2018 Warriors did (or even make the Finals like the 2019 Warriors did). Those two Bucks years actually were amongst the best ever two-year regular season runs. They just were very disappointing in the playoffs, so we don’t think of them as a historically good team. Not exactly a good analogy to justify the 2018+2019 Warriors not being a historically good team.

Well, I didn't include 2021 because pbpstats wasn't working for the net rating, and was only giving me the 5v5 starters net rating (which was around +12 as well). I swear it's true . In terms of wins, 2019-2021 would be a 60-win pace.

In any case, the point wasn't that the Warriors weren't a historically great team, but that Giannis was unable to fit in one. Yet he played at around the same level of said All-time team in 2018-2019, acquiring the same amount of rings in the process, whenever Giannis was healthy (which he wasn't in 2020). Without having the f-ing Golden State Warriors' supporting cast.

Which one wasn’t in their prime in 1969? They were all nearing the end of their prime, but all three of them either finished top 5 in MVP voting that year or finished top 3 in MVP voting in a subsequent year (not to mention that Wilt won MVP the year before and Baylor had been 3rd).

Baylor's prime is 59-64, then he gets injured (a 1960s knee injury) and drops off a cliff, MVP finishes nonwithstanding (1960s MVP finishes). He's also 34 years old (1960s 34 years old). On his extended prime, maybe.

I think 2019 and 2020 Giannis is very much "Peak" Giannis, unless you think there was a noticeable difference between 2020 and 2021 Giannis.

Prime Giannis, sure, but I'd say his offense got better in 2021, especially in terms of passing.

[lessthanjake]

Man, with all this talk about stacking up talent and raising the ceiling of the top tier teams, I can't wait to see everyone voting for Moses Malone inside top 10 in the next era. It would be a pretty obvious choice, right...?

You might recall that I jumped for Moses sooner than anyone in the last Top 100 project. Not sure where exactly he’ll land for me in the next era (there’s so many great players in any 25-year span), but I would expect that I’ll probably be voting for Moses before others do.

They sure didn't.

Which one wasn’t in their prime in 1969? They were all nearing the end of their prime, but all three of them either finished top 5 in MVP voting that year or finished top 3 in MVP voting in a subsequent year (not to mention that Wilt won MVP the year before and Baylor had been 3rd).

I don't think you can make any credible case that Baylor was in his prime in 1969. He wasn't close to his best after 1965 injury, had a little nice comeback season in 1968 in West's absence, but then showed absolutely nothing in 1969 suggesting he was truly a top 5 player.

Wilt's production decline is mostly because of off-court issues and adjustment problems, but Baylor wasn't a top 5 player since 1964.

I don’t know—personally I find it very hard to say someone is not in their prime when they’re top 5 in MVP voting and virtually unanimous all-NBA first team. Not in his very best years? Sure. But I’d definitely still say it was his prime. He definitely struggled in the playoffs though.

[70sFan]

Man, with all this talk about stacking up talent and raising the ceiling of the top tier teams, I can't wait to see everyone voting for Moses Malone inside top 10 in the next era. It would be a pretty obvious choice, right...?

You might recall that I jumped for Moses sooner than anyone in the last Top 100 project. Not sure where exactly he’ll land for me in the next era (there’s so many great players in any 25-year span), but I would expect that I’ll probably be voting for Moses before others do.

Which one wasn’t in their prime in 1969? They were all nearing the end of their prime, but all three of them either finished top 5 in MVP voting that year or finished top 3 in MVP voting in a subsequent year (not to mention that Wilt won MVP the year before and Baylor had been 3rd).

I don't think you can make any credible case that Baylor was in his prime in 1969. He wasn't close to his best after 1965 injury, had a little nice comeback season in 1968 in West's absence, but then showed absolutely nothing in 1969 suggesting he was truly a top 5 player.

Wilt's production decline is mostly because of off-court issues and adjustment problems, but Baylor wasn't a top 5 player since 1964.

I don’t know—personally I find it very hard to say someone is not in their prime when they’re top 5 in MVP voting and virtually unanimous all-NBA first team. Not in his very best years? Sure. But I’d definitely still say it was his prime. He definitely struggled in the playoffs though.

I am glad to hear that - we need more Moses enthusiasts here!

Regarding Baylor - he rode on popularity votes for half of his career. He was never a top 5 player after 1964. He has absolutely no case for that in 1969. He's not top 15 player at that point.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Man, with all this talk about stacking up talent and raising the ceiling of the top tier teams, I can't wait to see everyone voting for Moses Malone inside top 10 in the next era. It would be a pretty obvious choice, right...?

You might recall that I jumped for Moses sooner than anyone in the last Top 100 project. Not sure where exactly he’ll land for me in the next era (there’s so many great players in any 25-year span), but I would expect that I’ll probably be voting for Moses before others do.

I don't think you can make any credible case that Baylor was in his prime in 1969. He wasn't close to his best after 1965 injury, had a little nice comeback season in 1968 in West's absence, but then showed absolutely nothing in 1969 suggesting he was truly a top 5 player.

Wilt's production decline is mostly because of off-court issues and adjustment problems, but Baylor wasn't a top 5 player since 1964.

I don’t know—personally I find it very hard to say someone is not in their prime when they’re top 5 in MVP voting and virtually unanimous all-NBA first team. Not in his very best years? Sure. But I’d definitely still say it was his prime. He definitely struggled in the playoffs though.

I am glad to hear that - we need more Moses enthusiasts here!

Regarding Baylor - he rode on popularity votes for half of his career. He was never a top 5 player after 1964. He has absolutely no case for that in 1969. He's not top 15 player at that point.

Baylor is interesting in that he had a short peak/prime which was from 1959-1963, and then was a clear step-back. Not to derail further and to ask one question, why do you consider 1964 to be his prime?

[eminence]

I think I’d be quite surprised if Bobby or Dennis made the top 25 of the next group.

Maybe I wasn’t quite appreciating how many great players played in that era, but Bobby Jones was ranked #73 in the RealGM Top 100 in 2023, and it’s not like it was due to big longevity, so it seems at least plausible for him to end up Top 20 in one of three peaks projects. More generally, regardless of where he’ll actually finish, I would say Draymond and Jones are very similarly good players.

While information from that era is lacking, I will note that as I know you know (since you were the one who first linked me to this!), we do know the Sixers’ plus-minus data from Bobby Jones’ years there. And in the 6 years from 1980-1985 when the 76ers averaged 59 wins a season and won a title and made two other Finals, the Sixers did better with Bobby Jones on the court than they did with any other Sixers player on the court in 5 of those years (and he was 1.1 net rating away from the top of the team in the year that was the exception). So I suspect that Bobby Jones would end up looking pretty similarly impactful to Draymond if we had RAPM data from back then. I can see him not being ranked as highly in this project though, because we lack that data and therefore can’t know for sure (note: I don’t think Draymond would end up voted in in this era if we didn’t have RAPM data).

On a personal level I wouldn't mind Denver Bobby Jones in the fringe top 20 range (I personally like him more than McHale), more what I'd expect from the anticipated voter pool.

Philadelphia Bobby had a real stamina problem that might leave him halfway between Caruso and Draymond.

70sFan mentioned topic - I have Baylor with a reasonable top 5 argument in 1968, West missed a bunch of time and the Lakers held up pretty well.

[lessthanjake]

Man, with all this talk about stacking up talent and raising the ceiling of the top tier teams, I can't wait to see everyone voting for Moses Malone inside top 10 in the next era. It would be a pretty obvious choice, right...?

You might recall that I jumped for Moses sooner than anyone in the last Top 100 project. Not sure where exactly he’ll land for me in the next era (there’s so many great players in any 25-year span), but I would expect that I’ll probably be voting for Moses before others do.

I don't think you can make any credible case that Baylor was in his prime in 1969. He wasn't close to his best after 1965 injury, had a little nice comeback season in 1968 in West's absence, but then showed absolutely nothing in 1969 suggesting he was truly a top 5 player.

Wilt's production decline is mostly because of off-court issues and adjustment problems, but Baylor wasn't a top 5 player since 1964.

I don’t know—personally I find it very hard to say someone is not in their prime when they’re top 5 in MVP voting and virtually unanimous all-NBA first team. Not in his very best years? Sure. But I’d definitely still say it was his prime. He definitely struggled in the playoffs though.

I am glad to hear that - we need more Moses enthusiasts here!

Regarding Baylor - he rode on popularity votes for half of his career. He was never a top 5 player after 1964. He has absolutely no case for that in 1969. He's not top 15 player at that point.

Don’t want to derail too much further, but that feels a bit harsh on Baylor. From 1967-1970, he was 5th, 4th, 5th, and 7th in the NBA in PER. It’s definitely below his consistently-top-2 PERs in his best years, but it still looks very good and not like someone who is just riding on popularity votes. Granted, PER isn’t the best stat, but we are pretty limited in what we have from that era. At the very least, I think if PER has someone amongst the top several players every year and awards voting does too and we don’t really have impact data to tell us otherwise, then I feel like there’s a pretty good case that the guy is in fact still one of the league’s best players.

[DraymondGold]

7. 2021/22 Giannis Antetokumpo (HM: 2020/21, 2018/19)

Giannis is very tough and I have some problems with his ranking. All of his seasons are very incomplete for different reasons.

2018/19 is probably the most well rounded in terms of RS+PS combo, but he's realistically the weakest offensive version of Giannis considered here. He also failed in the playoffs, I understand that the loss wasn't only on him because the Bucks shot horribly, but Giannis still played poorly in the last 4 games of the WCF. The Raptors defense was amazing, so there is no shame in that, but I think the series showed Giannis his limitations at that time.

2019/20 is probably his best RS, but the playoffs in the bubble was a total disaster, I just can't put him anywhere near top 10 with that.

2020/21 is the default pick, but I don't love it because of two reasons:

1. His RS is relatively disappointing. It's probably the weakest RS out of the 2019-22 + 2025 years.
2. His postseason isn't that strong outside the finals. The first round was a total domination of course, so I don't even look at his raw boxscore numbers, but the next two rounds are a little bit disappointing. The second round look especially concerning - the Nets team was a corpse of what they wanted to be in the season with Kyrie and Harden exchanging injuries. Yet, the series was actually very close and I don't find beating past-peak Durant (whose peak wouldn't touch my top 10) with roleplayers that impressive. His raw numbers are solid, but remember that he didn't face a good defensive team and he had quite a few rough moments, he posted an AST/TOV ratio below 1 and he shot FTs absolutely horribly. This series should have never been this close. The ECF isn't bad when he plays... but he missed 2.5 games which could decide for everything had the Bucks faced a reasonable ECF-level opponent.

2024/25 is possibly the best offensive version of Giannis, but it's also the weakest defensive version and Giannis needs two-way impact to compete here. Even 2025 version isn't top 15 offensive player here after all.

I decided to go with 2021/22, because I remember being quite impressed with him against the Celtics in the playoffs (I watched the series quite closely). He wasn't efficient but he did a remarkable job carrying the Bucks without his second scoring option.

As I said, Giannis is problematic, because his offense is heavily overrated by the raw boxscore numbers. People often compare him to Shaq, but I view them as completely different tier offensive engines and I think all the data and signal we can collect agree with me. Still, I said this before - Giannis has very high low-end estimation. You can't argue he's below all-defense level at his best and he's without any questions a solid offensive player. If you use a low-end estimation of the next group I consider (mostly guards + Kawhi), he's very hard to put them below. Some people also can suggest that his high-end evaluation is extremely high - after all he did remarkable things in the 2021 Finals. I can see him above KG only if you are significantly higher on his offense, but I think I have seen enough Bucks struggles to conclude that it's unrealistic to put him that high. His scalability is very poor in my evaluation, I think the Giannis-Lillard experiment showed all I feared about before it happened. Giannis is the exemplification of what James haters thought James was in his early career - ball-dominant, fairly one-dimensional, slow on adjustments, requiring spacing and very little off-ball game. Giannis simply had a very rigid offensive game that I don't think translates to top tier offensive results in the postseason. It's not like he didn't have anyone to work with.

Keep in mind that I have him extremely high because I think his superpowers are truly super and he's an excellent defender who managed to make everything work with solid casts. I truly believe that his defense, when locked in, is only short to the best defenders of this century. He's an amazing paint protector and very versatile help defender. I don't think his defensive BBIQ was ever on the level of guys like Duncan or Garnett, but his motor and athleticism made him incredibly effective, especially on recovery.

Hey 70s

You mention that Giannis has a very high low-end estimation. Personally, I do think there's room to drop him a bit, though I seem to be in the minority on this.

As a baseline impact estimate, his multi-year impact metrics don't stand out among this group. Chris Paul, Wade , and Kawhi (when available to play) seem to clear Giannis in the majority of metrics we have. In multi-year RAPM or EPM, Giannis usually also doesn't get much separation if he's even above them, compared to Kobe, Durant, Dirk, and potentially others (regular season Shai, perhaps Nash).

Then most of the context, at least as I see it, seems to be lowering Giannis a little bit more than his mean impact evaluation. Poor scalability with good teammates like you say, neutral to poor playoff resilience at least in his early peak years even when healthy, poor durability in the playoffs, separate regular season and playoff peak years... all of which seem to point to a lower evaluation of him.

From an 'adding up skills perspective', he's pretty great. Like you say, he's all-defense and a strong offensive player. He can score a ton and he can be your best offensive player on pretty great regular season offenses. But I wonder if this kind of 'adding up skills' approach might overrate him holistically (or at least overrate the average/low-end estimation of him compared to the rest of this tier). When he's playing in an era where individual big man defensive impact is near an all-time low, and add up some of the offensive concerns like DoctorMj and the recent Thinking Basketball podcast mentioned (needing to play 'Giannis ball' when you have Giannis, and the strong playoff concerns of Giannis ball due to his imperfect IQ, passing, or on/off-ball scoring counters, his general lack of playmaking / improving teammate shot quality)... and I'm not sure his low-end evaluation is that much higher than the competition.

Don't get me wrong, he definitely has a solid argument to be the #7th best peak in this era. I don't mean to just focus on the negatives -- moreso just explain why I think his low end evaluation and mean evaluation for Giannis might be more similar to the rest of this tier, rather than having him as the standout best player of the remaining candidates.

All that aside, I also have a separate question -- what makes you higher on the 2022 RS than the 2021 RS? I've also been deciding between 2021 and 2022 for his best year and would love some insight from others on the comparison.

[Doctor MJ]

Hmm...why is that?

The Celtics in 2008 were exceptional, same with the 2013 Heat, the 2021 Brooklyn Nets also showed a lot in limited minutes.

The 2008 Celtics underperformed in the post-season but still won the title and dominated the regular season.
The 2013 Heat had already started seeing Wade decline but had one of the best stretches of basketball ever.
The 2021 Nets had moments but injuries kept them from staying together.

What is different between these teams and the Warriors isn't "The Warriors worked because of Durant and the other teams didn't work because they had Durant", nor is it because of Curry or Kerr's system.

The Warriors were the best ever because they had underpaid stars and were able to keep their nucleus of 5 players together and then add a Top 5 player in the NBA at the height of his powers.

The Celtics had to trade part of their roster and assets for Kevin Garnett.
The Heat in 2011 had no bench since they had to sign Bosh/Wade/LeBron to slightly max deals, but then once they did flesh out credible role players in 2013, Wade was no longer what he was.
The Nets had to make trades and had injuries.

This whole idea that the Warriors succeeded because of system or the players and these other rosters didn't get to the same levels because of what you are insinuating is incorrect. Curry was signed to a below-max deal as a unanimous MVP, the NBA saw the single largest salary cap increase in NBA history, and Kevin Durant saw free agency when seldom do Top 5 players in the NBA hit free agency.

I mean, if you just want to say that all that matters is the sum of talent on the roster, then we just plain disagree.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well that isn't all I am saying, but which of the teams you deem as "super teams" had Klay Thompson as the clear-cut 4th best player and Andre Iguodala as the 5th best piece?

We can move beyond that though. The Heat, Celtics and Nets all lacked a foundation. They didn't have a nucleus which went to back-to-back NBA Finals and were a couple baskets short or a nut-kick away from winning back-to-back titles prior to the addition of Kevin Durant. They had a system which was tested and true and all the players sans Durant knew the system and their roles. Ironically, the player who struggled most in 2017 was Klay Thompson, whose skill-set is move and shoot, move and shoot, think about dribbling and shoot.

The Miami Heat had a relatively new coach and had to build a system. The Nets never had time to gel due to injuries and also had a coach who hasn't been considered for any vacancies over the past 2 years (I know you will say "Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving got him fired", which may be true, but the fact is Nash hasn't gotten another opportunity). The Celtics were one of the best defenses ever while Garnett in 2008 approached the On-Court ratings of that Warriors team.

My point is the Warriors had a structure and system in place and then added a player whose skill-set fit into their system and filled a need. The Celtics, Heat and Nets all lacked that, some stripped part of their core to acquire a player to make the super team and on different occasions the Celtics and Heat resembled the greatest team of all-time.

So I think it is fair to say that the Warriors did have a particular strong 4th & 5th best players in Klay & Iggy once Durant came, though I'd also point out that their further depth was damaged. They lost Barnes, Bogut & Barbosa from their core 8 man rotation, and while adding KD with one of those spots made it worth it, going from Bogut & Barbosa to Zaza & Clark was a pretty big drop off. Prior to this year the Warriors had a legit "strength in numbers" thing going, but after this they were basically rolling 6 deep, which is not deep at all.

Over at Miami, they were notoriously top-heavy at first, but then they acquired Battier & Allen who were awesome, and I'd absolutely say they were deeper from 6 onward relative to the '16-17 Warriors.

I'll skip the Celtics and come back:

On the Nets, oh this was entirely KD & Kyrie's fault. Remember, they had Jarrett Freaking Allen on the team and they wanted him gone so they could play with their buddy, the ancient DeAndre Jordan. They basically destroyed their own team's depth for no good reason at all.

They also got their first coach - now reigning COY Atkinson - fired largely because he objected to getting rid of Allen and playing Jordan, and KD pushed for Nash. Nash then learned immediately that KD & Kyrie literally refused to play any kind of sophisticated defensive scheme as part of their whole thesis is that they ought to be able to "just hoop" and win, and "just hooping" meant basic man defense.

I'll also say anyone with doubts as to whether Nash knows his stuff, um, yeah, he knows his stuff. The defensive issues on that team had everything to do with KD & Kyrie killing the existing supporting cast and refusing to act like serious NBA professionals, because they had the theory that all of these coaches trying to tell them what to do didn't know as well as they did, and they were dead wrong.

Doesn't mean the Nets couldn't have won it all, because their injuries are the only reason Giannis has a chip, but yeah, they don't get to blame their issues on a weak supporting cast or weak coaching, because they did that to themselves.

Back to the Celtics:

This is an entirely different thing because they weren't actually seen as that talented until they turned out to be way better than expected for reasons that were basically about the NBA world not understanding how good at defense KG could be with schemes that made use of the fact that Illegal Defense rules changed. We're talking about the best defender since Bill Russell here, and they rode that to greatness.

Regarding what the Celtics gave up, the funny things is, they gave up nothing of substance. At the time Al Jefferson was perceived as being valuable, but in reality he really never was. At the time Jeff Green was seen as a major prospect, but in reality, it's not clear if he ever should have been in the NBA at all. The Celtics used perceived assets to create their Big 3, but the dirty secret was that the guys they gave up were guys you should really just cut, and in some ways that makes the off-season all the more brilliant, but in others makes clear how easily Danny Ainge's grand experiment could have failed. Imagine in some parallel universe the Celtics actually trying to compete with Al Jefferson and Jeff Green as part of their core and how likely it would be that Ainge would get another job once that failed.

Re: "My point is the Warriors had a structure and system in place and then added a player whose skill-set fit into their system and filled a need", yeah I feel like this is largely my point. They became what they became because they were building with fit in mind, whereas most superteams are built assuming that if you just get enough talent on the roster, they'll have to be a dynasty, and mostly that fails.

Now I think you're saying "Yes but Durant was lucky to go to a team like that", to which I'd agree, because certainly whenever Durant makes a good decision about changing teams, he's basically just a broken clock. Clueless and fragile as he might be though, being a super long & tall guy who can shoot near GOAT level and doesn't dominate the ball makes you easy to slot in - which I'll say, relates to mentioned concepts like portability, scalability & ceiling-raising, but I'm frankly reluctant to even use those terms now because of how they're getting used by people. Giannis' real issue here isn't that a heliocentric role is definitionally not-very-portable, but in the fact that he's just not good enough in that helio role to scale the offense like the savants who normally play the position do. When you put guys with real decision making limitations at helio - Giannis, Westbrook, Paolo, etc - that's where you commit to a lower offensive ceiling.

None of this means that Giannis couldn't possibly make up for this, but there's a real issue here with at the heart of how Giannis became a legit offensive superstar that - at least to this point - has kept him from being in the top tier, and this matters more because his helio style dictates so much what his team can't do regardless of the talent around him. In contrast to guys of the "beta O, alpha D" big man archetype (Russell, late Wilt, Mutombo, late Robinson, late Garnett, etc) which generally allows the team to build around someone else offensively without much constraint, Giannis doesn't let you do that.

This then to say, I think that Steph, Klay & Dray are all inhibited by Giannis - Dray to the point where I think they'd stagger his minutes hard and relegate him effectively to a back-up, which is rough given that he is the best defender on the team, and the killer add of Giannis is supposed to be his D. While I'd certainly expect that the Warriors would have an improved defense to the extent both Giannis & Dray played big minutes, the stark difference between how to optimize for the team offensively (stagger'em) and defensively (play both as much as possible), is a real issue.

Is it enough of an issue that I'd rather stick with Harrison Barnes? Well no, I can't say anything like that, but I do think KD's skillset works better with what the Warrior core had proven to be able to be great with than Giannis' does.

[Doctor MJ]

It's possible the Warriors are the most talented team ever and had the best nucleus for any superteam (Curry/Draymond/Klay being a super team) to be in position to seamless add one of the best scorers ever.

These can both be true.

What happens when teams continue to add talent is there becomes more of a focus on fit, structure and a chess master (coach) ability to utilize all the pieces to their maximum value. Different skill-sets have varying diminishing returns when combined with other similar skill-sets. This is why someone who can do more on the basketball-court is going to be more portable, and a person who can do less typically will be less portable than someone who can do more things, since it is more likely someone who can do less things will have overlap than someone who can do more things.

Where this concept of portability sort of falls by the wayside is when we are comparing "How does an MVP do when added to a 73-win team?" As part of an argument for why one player is better than another. As if this is more important than any realistic roster construction, which typically involves building directly around a specific player and their skill-set(s).

I don't have Giannis highly ranked due to his offense. In fact, his offense is feeble in the sense of its simplicity and he isn't going to be a great fit when added to certain rosters, certainly compared to Durant.

That, to me, doesn't make Giannis a worse player than Durant though. Giannis' defense and rim pressure will always be a boon for his impact regardless the roster construction or who his teammates are and his defense is near GOAT level.

Yep, being able to do more things well will tend to improve portability. But I think we should also acknowledge that some skills just don’t step on the toes of similarly-skilled players as much as other skills do. You mention that “Different skill-sets have varying diminishing returns when combined with other similar skill-sets” and I think that’s right. But that doesn’t mean that the diminishing returns are the same for each particular skill set. I’ve always found it interesting that people will say that certain players didn’t fit well because they have similar skill sets, but then turn around and say that Steph and Klay were a great fit together. Both things may well be true, but there’s kind of an important insight to get from that IMO—which is that the diminishing returns on some skill sets are substantially different than for others, so some skill sets are much easier to fit with. It’s an insight that I think is pretty important to understanding the great fit of the 2017 Warriors. And it also means that someone can be great at fewer things but still be more “portable” because the skill sets they do have are easier to fit with.

And didnt we see those durant diminishing returns in 2019 and 2018 ? Other than 2017 which was a dominant team all year long, thd other 2 years of dursnt in warriors didnt produce demonstrably better teams than pre durant version of those teams

The 2018 version went 2-3 vs rockets before paul injury and 2019 was paedestrian in regulsr season and seemed to play the rockets better without durant

So I'm just tracking back on the interesting discussions here and responding to what compels me, apologies for jumping in with a rebuttal:

I don't think it makes sense to talk about "diminishing returns" in the fit sense based on Year 2 of a team if it wasn't there in Year 1. I think the falloff is better described as the honeymoon being over in the case of KD, and this keeping the Warriors from being as good as they were the prior year.

Now, it's also certainly possible that adaptations by opponents (Houston first among them) decreased the Warriors' outlierness, but to me this doesn't change the actual fit of the talents on the Warriors.

[Doctor MJ]

I really wouldn’t say that the 2018 and 2019 Warriors were pedestrian in the regular season, rather than just that their best player missed a lot of time. The Warriors were 93-27 (a 64-win pace) with a +9.27 net rating in games Steph played. They were better in 2017, but those numbers in games Steph played are actually still historically good. And the fact that that happened while the team had real outside-the-court chemistry issues (not to mention that teams that win titles do tend to coast a bit in the regular season) is pretty remarkable and a real testament to the on-court fit IMO. And also, the 2017 year happened, so ignoring it would just be cherry picking away the most positive data point.

An excellent point. It doesn't change the fact that the Warriors were less of an outlier when healthy in 2018 compared to 2017, but a lot of the superficial gap is about Curry missing time.

If we look at the top Warriors by raw +/- that RS, while putting their games played in parens:

1. Steph (51)
2. Klay (73)
3. KD (68)
4. Green (70)

It's pretty insane that Steph missed 31 games and still led the team in +/-, let alone led the team by the amount he did (86 points).

[Doctor MJ]

Ultimately they had three players in the midst of their primes who are going to Finish 4th, Top 15 and Top 20 in this project. That's incredibly unique and I don't know if we will get 3 players in their primes on the same team finishing Top 20 in this project in the next 25-year block.

I suspect there’s a good chance that at least one team will have that in the next 25-year block. For instance, I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Bobby Jones all finish Top 20 in the next 25-year block. And the Sixers had all three of them in their prime, along with a multi-time all-star (Maurice Cheeks). I also would expect that Wilt, West, and Baylor will all end up in the Top 20 in the 25-year block after that, and they all played together in their prime. There’s probably another example or two if I thought more about it.

I had similar thoughts, as well as Kareem/Magic/Worthy, Jordan/Pippen/Rodman, Wilt/Greer/Walker/Cunningham, and then the Russell Celtics.

I would acknowledge though that most of these combos were not entirely of the same generation, and so while they might all be in prime, they probably have a wider gap between the years chosen as individuals.

[Doctor MJ]

West, and Baylor will all end up in the Top 20 in the 25-year block after that, and they all played together in their prime.

They sure didn't.

So, this is definitely a case where the year's we'd single out as peak for the 3 players will diverge more, because with Baylor we'd pick early '60s while West we'd pick late '60s.

But I'd push back against any notion that the reason why West-Baylor didn't accomplish more together was that they weren't in prime together.

Key thing for me: Up through '68-69 - that is including Wilt on the team - Baylor continued to be the first shooting option on the team, and he continued shooting at volume at roughly the same efficiency he'd done his entire career. While Baylor was falling back some due to natural aging and the wear that took on his body, it basically had no effect on the BIG problem of Baylor-West:

The fact that West was a drastically superior scorer than Baylor had ever been for years, yet the team continued to play a Baylor-first scoring attack.

You combine that with the fact that when Wilt joined the team in 1968, he was joining a team that had just been the best offense in the history of basketball, and he made it worse fighting the coach all season which then led to that coach (van Breda Kolff) getting removed and his reputation forever turned into a punchline as the fool who thought he knew better than Wilt..while absolutely knowing better than Wilt.

All of this gets into why the '68-69 Laker team is THE NBA superteam we should always be looking at, not because they were the best, but because they had such a talent advantage and they blew it by not playing the players how they should be played - partially out of sentimental loyalty to Baylor, and partially out caving to Wilt.

Any notion that the Curry-KD-Green trio is just drastically more talented than any trio we've ever seen is just wrong from the start, because '68-69 exists.

Now, we might debate whether Baylor was actually "that good", and I'm very much a Baylor skeptic, but I'm also someone who has always been focused on the problem of fit with Baylor. The issue wasn't that Baylor wasn't a strong scorer & passer compared to league competition (and he was always strong on the boards), but that he had a teammate who was better than him and the Lakers (including he and West, but also all the way up to the top with Jack Kent Cooke) never pushed to acknowledge this with a new strategy even when West started to be seen generally as the best player league-wide.

[Doctor MJ]

I think I’d be quite surprised if Bobby or Dennis made the top 25 of the next group.

I don't have a list, but given that Bobby Jones has been a regular Top 75-ish player in the top 100, and didn't have extraordinary longevity, he seems like a likely candidate here.

DJ is tougher given that the board has seemed to conclude he was only the 3rd best Sonic behind Gus & Sikma.

[Doctor MJ]

Man, with all this talk about stacking up talent and raising the ceiling of the top tier teams, I can't wait to see everyone voting for Moses Malone inside top 10 in the next era. It would be a pretty obvious choice, right...?

They sure didn't.

Which one wasn’t in their prime in 1969? They were all nearing the end of their prime, but all three of them either finished top 5 in MVP voting that year or finished top 3 in MVP voting in a subsequent year (not to mention that Wilt won MVP the year before and Baylor had been 3rd).

I don't think you can make any credible case that Baylor was in his prime in 1969. He wasn't close to his best after 1965 injury, had a little nice comeback season in 1968 in West's absence, but then showed absolutely nothing in 1969 suggesting he was truly a top 5 player.

Wilt's production decline is mostly because of off-court issues and adjustment problems, but Baylor wasn't a top 5 player since 1964.

As I alluded to with Jones, I don't have a pre-made list, but Moses being Top 10 for 1975-2000 seems pretty likely.

On Baylor, as I noted, his shooting efficiency in 1969 is basically Baylor-level shooting efficiency, and that combined with his volume was part and parcel with the fit issues. This to say while I don't think Baylor deserved to be seen as a Top 5 POY season at any time after '62-63, I don't actually think it's because he got drastically worse as a player.

I'd also note that if your assessment of the Lakers in '68-69 was that they had West & Wilt but were choosing to use a post-prime Baylor as their first scoring option, I think it makes pretty clear that the primary issue wasn't that Baylor was post-prime, but that the Lakers were not optimizing the strengths they had through a combination of natural poor fit (Baylor works best as first option, but should never be first option on West's team), delusional sentimental decisions ("This is Elgin's team, he has to get all the shots and he'll be the first interviewed after he leads us to a title"), and extreme petulance (Wilt gonna Wilt).

[Doctor MJ]

Yeah, this seems wild to me. The Warriors were already being talked about as possibly the best team of all-time before KD even joined. Remember when they won the title and then started the next season 24-0? You could have added Al Horford to the Warriors the summer of 2016 and they probably become the best team of all-time. They were an incredibly loaded team and KD's iso-ball wasn't exactly a hand in glove fit.

Adding Horford doesn’t force you to scrap Kerr’s offense. Horford’s intelligence and shooting would be a boon to the offense, and he would also help their defense.

Re: KD iso-ball. Eh, KD has never been an iso guy as I see him. He’s a scorer first and foremost, but he’s not someone you look clear out for and let him cook like Giannis. Yeah he drives when the opportunity opens up enough, but he’s mostly looking to just rise up and shoot.

Meanwhile, the threat of KD in the half court had everything to do with why the Warriors were so bullet proof in the playoffs in a way they weren’t the prior year. If the defense wanted to sell out completely to stop Kerr’s motion offense, KD was perfectly suited to take advantage as a more traditional volume scoring mid range guy.

Finally I’ll just say:

Many super-teams have tried to combine star talents to make the greatest team in history, but only one did. I’m quite hesitant to assume that the guy they added which helped them achieve this can be replaced and improved by either

A) another star talent who is a worse fit

B) a role player who can’t be your go-to scorer


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The prior year, Curry was banged up the entire playoffs and struggled against the Cavs’ physical defense. If he was at 100%, people probably do argue the 2016 Warriors as the greatest team of all team even with Harrison Barnes in the KD role.

In 2017, there was one team that could actually compete with the Warriors and they were up 25 points on them in Game 1 when Kawhi got hurt. How much of the Warriors looking more bulletproof in the playoffs the next seasons was due to Zaza taking out their only competition? Are we sure it’s because of KD who they went 16-4 without in the regular season and 2-0 without in the playoffs with a margin of victory of +17.5 per game? KD who in the playoffs where he’s supposed to be more important had an on/off of +6 while Steph was +21 and Draymond was +19?

In 2018, they certainly didn’t look bulletproof. They were down 3-2 in the conference finals when they again benefited from their toughest competition suffering a key injury. If Chris Paul could have held out and won one more game the ‘18 Warriors are remembered as weaker than the ‘15 or ‘16 teams.

In 2019, the Warriors start out 6-4 in the playoffs against relatively weak competition before KD suffers an injury. Without his shooting to make them bulletproof the Warriors proceed to peel off 6 wins in a row before reaching the Finals where they find that for the first time since 2016, their toughest competition is healthy and the Raptors proceed to win a competitive series in 6. The Raptors were an incredible team at 100% and I think it’s a mistake to assume the Warriors would have won the series with KD playing.

Over the course of KD’s entire tenure in Golden State, in the regular season the Warriors went 27-4 (.871) when Steph played with KD and 131-37 (.780) when they played together. In the playoffs, when KD played, they went 2-3 against elite competition (2018 Rockets with Paul) and 35-7 against more pedestrian competition. When KD was injured, the Warriors went 2-4 against elite competition (2019 Raptors) and 7-0 against more pedestrian competition.

I’m just super not sold on KD’s impact as a ceiling raiser. It seems like he did a very poor job of making the Warriors better relative to his talent level and standing in the league. I’ve often used the analogy in the past that KD made the Warriors the best team of all-time the way Rodman made the Bulls the best team of all-time, but the difference is I’m much, much more confident in Rodman’s impact. I can’t imagine we’re going to be discussing 1996 Rodman as one of the top 10 peaks potentially from 1976-2000. Imagine Robert Covington in KD’s place from 2017-2019. Do the Warriors do better or worse?

Like if your statement is just “well KD managed to perform the Harrison Barnes role adequately on the Warriors and Giannis might have done even worse”, that’s a statement I guess, but it’s more a reason to not vote for either player than it is any kind of credit to KD.

I appreciate you pushing back here Iggy.

Given that Barnes was a starter on the 73-9 team, should I really be quick to jettison him for a greater talent who fits worse like Giannis? Maybe not.

Here's where Barnes' playoff performances (plural) leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Generally I think you'll find that I'm a champion of quality 4th/5th starters as being considerably more worth celebrating than most. To my mind, merely being on a champion isn't that impressive, but in a 5-man on-court sport, if you're one of the core 5 guys the coach depends on as you win a chip, that is generally a big deal.

It's why I'll take Danny Green over far-richer draftmate DeMar DeRozan, as he has a place on a champion's 5-man core, and DeRozan doesn't.

So it would be reasonable to think I'd celebrate Barnes, as he was absolutely in that role when the Warriors won the 2015 title, and also in that role in 2016 when they had great success and almost won the title. But he really struggled in the playoffs.

The theory of Barnes, who folks might remember was a hyped prospect who was expected to be One & Done in college and then the #1 pick, was that at the very least he would feast on open shots playing on a team where the defensive attention went elsewhere, but come playoff time, it was basically always a brickfest. Some of it was surely about better and more intense defense, but some of it just seemed to be yips.

This then to say that while if I felt really good about Barnes being a Danny Green-level player, I'd be quite reluctant to swap him out for a worse fit even if the talent was much greater, but instead, in the '15-16 post-season we're talking about the guy who was really the worst player in the Warriors' main 8 man rotation after Iggy, Bogut, Livingston & Barbosa.

The Warriors had other struggles that post-season with health, new opponent tactics, etc, and I don't want to make it out like it was all about Barnes, but Barnes just wasn't giving the team what he gave them in the regular season.

I have to end it here unfortunately and I know I didn't address your whole post. I'll try to get back to it, or if you want to reply and set focus on the conversation further, go right ahead.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Now I think you're saying "Yes but Durant was lucky to go to a team like that", to which I'd agree, because certainly whenever Durant makes a good decision about changing teams, he's basically just a broken clock. Clueless and fragile as he might be though, being a super long & tall guy who can shoot near GOAT level and doesn't dominate the ball makes you easy to slot in - which I'll say, relates to mentioned concepts like portability, scalability & ceiling-raising, but I'm frankly reluctant to even use those terms now because of how they're getting used by people. Giannis' real issue here isn't that a heliocentric role is definitionally not-very-portable, but in the fact that he's just not good enough in that helio role to scale the offense like the savants who normally play the position do. When you put guys with real decision making limitations at helio - Giannis, Westbrook, Paolo, etc - that's where you commit to a lower offensive ceiling.

None of this means that Giannis couldn't possibly make up for this, but there's a real issue here with at the heart of how Giannis became a legit offensive superstar that - at least to this point - has kept him from being in the top tier, and this matters more because his helio style dictates so much what his team can't do regardless of the talent around him. In contrast to guys of the "beta O, alpha D" big man archetype (Russell, late Wilt, Mutombo, late Robinson, late Garnett, etc) which generally allows the team to build around someone else offensively without much constraint, Giannis doesn't let you do that.

I agree with the general overarching points here.

1) Giannis has limitations as a helio, which prohibit certain ceilings his teams can realistically match offensively

However, this statement of yours is something which, while true, isn't a problem for me.

...which generally allows the team to build around someone else offensively without much constraint, Giannis doesn't let you do that.

How often is a team going to have the opportunity to acquire a player better offensively than Giannis? The realistic chance of this happening is next to none. Furthermore, to the point regarding Celtics KG being beta O, alpha D, Pierce, and Middleton sustained similar Usage % next to KG/Giannis, respectively.

I also think there is room for better offensive players than Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday to flourish next to Giannis, and looking at an older Lillard as proof in the pudding doesn't sit right with me. Paul Pierce, in a lot of ways, is a better version of Khris Middleton, and I believe Pierce could still be the 2008 Pierce next to Giannis, while Ray Allen is truly a unique chess piece in which Giannis has optimized a similar, albeit much worse, 3P gunner in Malik Beasley.

In conclusion, Giannis is going to limit those superteam offensive thresholds but can still anchor a championship-caliber offense with relatively pedestrian 2nd/3rd scoring options.

I will use this to segue to a more interesting but related topic and thoughts.

Dwyane Wade is a lot like the guard version of Giannis. Incredible defensive impact for their position (SG and PF, respectively), inability to consistently stretch the floor with their primary location of gravity at or near the rim. This immense rim pressure that both of them exude has been shown to be good enough to win a championship, but I would question Wade's ability to maintain his same impact if paired with a better offensive player (See LeBron James).

On one hand, we see a trend where Wade joins up with LeBron James, and his volume dips by ~10% but his efficiency increases by ~3%. Wade had his 2nd most efficient season by TS+ in 2011 (1st in 2006) and a career high in OREB% and At Rim FG% (In fact, his 3 highest At Rim FG% seasons were when playing with LeBron James). This reduced scoring volume also saw an uptick in his defensive ability and pressure, and a career high in +/-.

What does all this mean? In my eyes, there is some real truth in the pudding here regarding Wade's skill set and ability to scale on super teams. Remember, LeBron/Wade/Bosh in 2011 were at +14.9 in over 1900 minutes together (pedestrian +2.2 in the post-season in 640 minutes). Of course, in 2012, in the postseason, the Big 3 were at +14.9, which matched their 2011 regular season number, perhaps another data point leading us to believe these Heat could have sustained dominance if not for Wade's deteriorating health in 2013 and 2014.

When contrasting Wade and Giannis, it seems Wade had more ability and willingness to work off-ball as a cutter and, as a result, the ability to crash the offensive glass as a physical force without invading spacing on the court. Wade's ability to attack off-ball and coordinate with LeBron James as a relentless two-man duo does seem better and more synergistic than anything we can see with Giannis. Of course, does this matter when comparing Wade and Giannis in this project? To me, it doesn't, though it is fascinating to discuss and could hold merit in a different comparison.

Does Giannis's offensive skill set limit team building? Yes. The better or follow-up question is "To what Degree?"

[eminence]

I think I’d be quite surprised if Bobby or Dennis made the top 25 of the next group.

I don't have a list, but given that Bobby Jones has been a regular Top 75-ish player in the top 100, and didn't have extraordinary longevity, he seems like a likely candidate here.

DJ is tougher given that the board has seemed to conclude he was only the 3rd best Sonic behind Gus & Sikma.

I don't want to count him completely out, but RPOY would seem to be a better proxy - where his peak was 5th in '77 in the more recent version of the project (9th in the old one). No other seasons with a finish above 9th.

The '01-'25 '77 5th equivalent is '01 Iverson. A player I'd be shocked to receive serious consideration here.

18 off the top players I'd be shocked to see Bobby over in roughly chronological order:
KAJ
Walton
DrJ
Moses
Bird
Magic
Drexler
Hakeem
Jordan
Barkley
Ewing
Robinson
K. Malone
Pippen
Shaq
Duncan
Mourning
KG

Does he beat out all the other 4th/5th best in the league guys for one of the last ~7 spots? Some big names not in the above: Gervin, Moncrief, King, Nique, Thomas, KJ, Stockton, Mutombo, Miller, Payton, Penny, Hill, Kidd, etc.

[lessthanjake]

I think I’d be quite surprised if Bobby or Dennis made the top 25 of the next group.

I don't have a list, but given that Bobby Jones has been a regular Top 75-ish player in the top 100, and didn't have extraordinary longevity, he seems like a likely candidate here.

DJ is tougher given that the board has seemed to conclude he was only the 3rd best Sonic behind Gus & Sikma.

I don't want to count him completely out, but RPOY would seem to be a better proxy - where his peak was 5th in '77 in the more recent version of the project (9th in the old one). No other seasons with a finish above 9th.

The '01-'25 '77 5th equivalent is '01 Iverson. A player I'd be shocked to receive serious consideration here.

18 off the top players I'd be shocked to see Bobby over in roughly chronological order:
KAJ
Walton
DrJ
Moses
Bird
Magic
Drexler
Hakeem
Jordan
Barkley
Ewing
Robinson
K. Malone
Pippen
Shaq
Duncan
Mourning
KG

Does he beat out all the other 4th/5th best in the league guys for one of the last ~7 spots? Some big names not in the above: Gervin, Moncrief, King, Nique, Thomas, KJ, Stockton, Mutombo, Miller, Payton, Penny, Hill, Kidd, etc.

Yeah, if I *really* think about it, I think I was probably overestimating Bobby Jones’s chances when I first posted about this. I looked at the RealGM Top 100 placements and basically said “He’s around 70-75, and there’s three eras and he’s not known for longevity, so there seems like a pretty good chance he’d be top 20 or 25 peaks in his era.” I think a big thing that that back-of-the-napkin thinking wasn’t accounting for is that players can (and will) appear in multiple eras in this project. So like, if guys like Shaq, Duncan, and maybe Garnett and others will be in that era after already making this era (and also some will inevitably be in that 1976-2000 era and then make the prior era too), then the basic intuition of dividing someone’s RealGM top 100 placement by three as a rough baseline of where they might end up would tend to systematically overrate where they’ll roughly end up. Basically, three sets of 25 peaks will actually end up having significantly fewer than 75 total players voted in.

Of course, there’s also the fact that the RealGM Top 100 is not *really* a perfect proxy—since some players have amazing peaks but much lesser careers, while others are very consistent with no particular year that stands out. With Jones, I’m not sure how that plays out. You point out RPOY voting that would suggest he hasn’t been regarded here as having any particular year that stands out. I do feel like being an MVP-vote-winning guy in his very early years suggests he does have particular years that stand out, but it’s the ABA so that muddies the waters there a lot.

On balance, though, I think I was probably overestimating where Jones will likely end up. That said, I’m not convinced he’s actually a lesser player than Draymond, and I think he’s the type of player that we’d regard more highly if we had impact data from that era (which is very similar to Draymond, who is definitely seen more highly here than he would be if we didn’t have his impact numbers). The point about his minutes load being lower than Draymond is a good one though, and does seem to be a serious differentiating factor.

[ReggiesKnicks]

I suspect there’s a good chance that at least one team will have that in the next 25-year block. For instance, I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Bobby Jones all finish Top 20 in the next 25-year block. And the Sixers had all three of them in their prime, along with a multi-time all-star (Maurice Cheeks). I also would expect that Wilt, West, and Baylor will all end up in the Top 20 in the 25-year block after that, and they all played together in their prime. There’s probably another example or two if I thought more about it.

After closer inspection, it appears 3 players all in the Top 20 of a 25-year range on the same team is going to be unique