RealGM Top 100 List 2017 -- #8

[mischievous]

Vote: Shaq like last time. Same reasoning.

2nd Hakeem

In the future, please at least copy those arguments over. That way if someone wants to see your reasoning and respond, they don't have to go hunting for it.

That's fair, it's just i was at lunch on my phone and didn't really have the time to do it. I saw the thread was coming to end.

[Outside]

My criteria for ranking players are highly subjective, but I like to say that they are informed by stats. I'm a fan of going beyond basic stats like points, rebounds, and assists to look at true shooting percentage, pace, offensive and defensive rating, and things like that, but the advanced analytics get murky. I'm impressed by the time posters have put into presenting detailed arguments in the threads thus far, and I try to read what others have obviously put so much effort into, but I've arrived at a difficult place.

You have a lot of really good posts and come at this with an open mind, so I'll piggy-back a few thoughts off of you if that's OK. First, for interpreting stats, I recommend these references:

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/interpreting-advanced-statistics-in-basketball/
https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2011/12/6/2602153/advanced-stats-primer

I also recommend my book (link in sig) -- it's free right now if you have Kindle Unlimited. Almost every issue you've raised is addressed in it (scorekeeping methods, offense/defense, why all ppg is created differently, etc.). Most importantly for this conversation, I go into detail on the cognitive mechanisms of Winning Bias, which I'll talk to below for Garnett.

Catching up here, and there appear to be several responses to this post, but I wanted to voice my thanks for you taking the time to put this together. I'm not sure when I'll get into that deeper dive, but I do intend to get there at some point.

Thanks again.

[rebirthoftheM]

Noticed the voting is closed, but the discussion will continue, so will chip in here.

One thing that I’ve noticed in my short time on this board, and which has been somewhat evident in these ATG List threads, is the absolute confidence displayed by posters about certain players/teams with little to no reference to game tape and nuanced takes on team context. What instead occurs is the selective usage of certain data sets, which in it of themselves tell you literally nothing about what is going on the court ( I mean RAPM tells you nothing how a player actually played/what was on going on the court). IMO this cheapens the analysis. Not suggesting at all that this applies to everyone, but it does seem noticeably prevalent, even in the conversations I’ve personally engaged in.

I’ve generally tried to stay away from this approach, even about the players who I’m generally suspicious of (say KG). This is why, despite KG’s defensive indicators looking very strange in 05-06, and in fact going into the negatives in the 05 season, I wasn’t comfortable with making concrete conclusions it. What I did instead, was that I made numerous posts, imploring his fans, who I assume would have watched the Wolves during those years, to explain what had transpired. So far there has been no adequate explanation, which makes me think either they completely forgot or as I highly suspect, did not watch much of the dumpster Wolves during those years. The responses have ranged from ‘coaching shifts/injuries’ etc which again don’t explain away the on/off splits we see, nor do they actually explain what actually went down on the court with specific players/line-ups. My tentative conclusion on it, knowing KG’s general approach to the game, was that his data must have been ‘corrupted’ by the trash he was playing next to, feeding into a general hypothesis of mine that on/off and DRAPM are highly suspect as far as examining a player’s actual control on his teams defences.

But going back to the disturbing trend I mentioned above.. it is evident even in this very thread. Ardee has engaged in this by using KG’s dumpster records in 06/07, particularly in 07, despite it being very clear that his team was really bad. One might believe (as I do) that on trashy teams like that, ATG/GOAT offense might be more impactful in floor raising, but this is a side issue. That team was horrible and it is clear they collapsed whenever KG sat. Ardee has rightfully being criticized for it, and I myself responded to him about his analysis of 07 KG’s squads as being somewhat unfair.

But then in this very thread, to counter Ardee’s point, we see the counter disturbing trend about Kobe, and which generally goes unchallenged on this forum. This is where certain posters, with no reference to game tape, context, team-line-ups etc, go sprawling through box scores, RAPM sets and bball-reference to speak about the 06/07 Lakers with a level of confidence that you’d expect from a scout. What this inevitably leads to is awfully embarrassing claims about these teams, a fascination with ‘names’ (Like Lamar, who was an excellent #3 but a pretty average #2) instead of team fit, a dismissal of the fact that perhaps maybe, some of these dudes who raised as evidence of Kobe’s relatively better talent might have performed better because they played extensive minutes with an ATG offensive player in Kobe Bryant. I just noticed that Brian Cook’s name was raised as an example of the talent Kobe working with, which is really unfortunate. There's also a total ignorance of the fact that 07 Lakers were ravaged with Injuries, and when healthy were a top 3-5 team in the West.

In the coming list thread, I'll be making some further points about the 06/07 dumpster Lakers. I do really hope the conversation about Kobe really improves though, because at the moment, it is awful.

[Joao Saraiva]

I'm glad Shaq got in. Hope the nex one is Hakeem, he's definitely worthy of a top 10 spot in my opinion!

[Colbinii]

If you somehow got the acronym wrong (unless you're referring to something else), Pabst Blue Ribbon will just make him feel worse.

What an awful beer.

It is Bench Press Personal Record.

I hit my DL PR on Monday

How much? I am scheduled for a 325x3 squat tomorrow.

265

Good luck on your squats.

[Pablo Novi]

Long quote that didn't add anything deleted -- penbeast0

Just wanted to thank you trex (and the other posters who very early on contributed to how our voting would be tabulated).
So far, in RealGM's GOAT Top 8 vs my GOAT Top 8, there's only one player, Bill Russell, that RealGM has that I don't (I have him at GOAT #16). The next biggest gap is only 5 spots (RealGM has him #7, I have him #2) - but I can live with that. (Given that FOR ME, the GOAT gaps are relatively smaller than for most other GOAT list-makers I've run across).

In other words, in addition to thanking the "devisers" of both this voting system (and "doers" of the effort to process it); I also think it's a darn good list.

[ardee]

It is Bench Press Personal Record.

I hit my DL PR on Monday

How much? I am scheduled for a 325x3 squat tomorrow.

265

Good luck on your squats.

Got it, almost popped a blood vessel in my eye on the 3rd rep though haha.

[Colbinii]

How much? I am scheduled for a 325x3 squat tomorrow.

265

Good luck on your squats.

Got it, almost popped a blood vessel in my eye on the 3rd rep though haha.

I weirdly shut my eyes when I workout now, in part because of this (though I don't know if it matters if my eyes are open/closed, but it is more of a mental thing).

[Clyde Frazier]

Read on Twitter

A friendly reminder