Peaks project update: #5

[Colbinii]

N.1: 1977 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
His best season, all time level playoffs and unbelievable performance in WCF VS Portland and Bill Walton.

N.2: 1964 Bill Russell
Goat defense season.

N.3: 1986 Larry Bird



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Why 64 over 65/62?

[ThaRegul8r]

N.1: 1977 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
His best season, all time level playoffs and unbelievable performance in WCF VS Portland and Bill Walton.

N.2: 1964 Bill Russell
Goat defense season.

N.3: 1986 Larry Bird



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Why 64 over 65/62?

As he said, it was his best defensive season.

Interestingly enough, Russell said so decades before advanced stats existed. Then the advanced stats corroborated what he'd already said long ago.

[Colbinii]

N.1: 1977 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
His best season, all time level playoffs and unbelievable performance in WCF VS Portland and Bill Walton.

N.2: 1964 Bill Russell
Goat defense season.

N.3: 1986 Larry Bird



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Why 64 over 65/62?

As he said, it was his best defensive season.

Interestingly enough, Russell said so decades before advanced stats existed. Then the advanced stats corroborated what he'd already said long ago.

Do you have a quote and/or article for this?

I'm always curious about your plethora of documentation.

[Colbinii]

Why 64 over 65/62?

As he said, it was his best defensive season.

Interestingly enough, Russell said so decades before advanced stats existed. Then the advanced stats corroborated what he'd already said long ago.

Do you have a quote and/or article for this?

I'm always curious about your plethora of documentation.

I've been looking for it.

Funny anecdote.

Russell never had to work part-time. When Wilt Chamberlain became the first NBA player to earn $100,000 in salary in 1965, Russell went to Auerbach and demanded a $100,001 salary, which he promptly received.

All I can find is Russell claiming the 1964 season to be the best CELTICS defense he played on; not himself playing the best defense.

Now, given what we know about Russell we could likely extrapolate that he infers he also played his best personal defense in that season. The DWS and rebounding numbers also align.

[pandrade83]

I don't think picking Duncan '03 > Olajuwon '94 is unreasonable; I went the other way but I can still appreciate where you're coming from.

I do, however, disagree with the bold. Looking at it round by round (Portland vs. Phoenix is kind of a whatever imo, so I'm just skipping it).

Phoenix vs. Lakers - Phoenix did have a soft defense for sure - but the Lakers defense was also soft. While you can certainly argue that they had a switch to flip & were able to flip it in '01 - that switch didn't actually flip & in the playoffs, the Lakers played like a team that was in-line with their RS results. And if there's no flip to switch (i.e. - if the Lakers are who their RS results indicated), then Phoenix is comfortably the more formidable threat - especially fully healthy. And even Phoenix may have had their RS results somewhat understated because Chuck & KJ each missed time. While i can appreciate that Olajuwon didn't face much defensive resistance, his ability to anchor that defense to a place where they could hold the line on Phoenix (7 pts worse per 100 than RS) is quite impressive.

Well they played 2 rounds, and one of them is the round that has me trumpeting Duncan's offense anyway. In round one vs Minny they played like a -1.7 defense, and after falling behind 2-1 they held Minny to a 95.4 ORTG (-9.4 compared to their regular season ORTG). I'd say that switch worked just fine until Duncan killed them but I can see the argument that it was just an aberration I guess but personally I don't agree.

Utah vs. Dallas - I'd easily take a fully healthy Dallas over that Utah team. The problem is that reality didn't exist since Dirk missed 1/2 the series. Once that's taken into account, I'd rather deal with Dallas then Utah.

Ehh but Duncan killed Dallas even when they had Dirk. I guess here my tie up is that I truly feel confident saying the Spurs still beat Dallas if Dirk wasn't hurt.

Knicks vs. Nets - The Knicks are by far the more dangerous team. I don't really feel like I have to argue this.

Oh easily. No disagreement here at all as you assumed.

Agree to disagree on the Lakers component - they held the Wolves to 1.1 below their average & followed it up with 4.5 worse than average vs. SAS - I know Duncan played great but the Lakers perimeter defense was porous - consistent with who that team was. Phoenix's defense obviously wasn't anything special, but that team had a lot of firepower and posted the league's best offense even with Barkley/KJ missing 15 games a piece. The Dallas thing is interesting to me. The "what if" on Dirk not getting hurt in the '03 WCF series is such an underrated one because if Dirk doesn't get hurt, then I take the Duncan carry job more seriously. Duncan played great & it's not unreasonable of you to think that the Spurs still win even if Dirk is healthy - but it's an unknown - not a lock.

And Dirk did get hurt though - that's the problem - and because of that, the best player on their most dangerous opponent got injured & they faced a historically weak Finals opponent - so it's hard for me to say that Duncan overcame greater hurdles than Olajuwon. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Duncan is > than Olajuwon - but I don't think he overcame greater hurdles.

[Gibson22]

hey, so I know I'm super late and i apologize if i'm asking for something we don't normally do around here, but is it too late for me to join this? I haven't posted a ton recently, but I was a regular contributor to the top-10 defensive at each position project, and I'd love to be part of this one.

A big LeYes

[Gibson22]

1) KAJ 1977
2) KAJ 1971
3) Between Hakeem 93 and Bill russell. Then I would take a look at bird, jerry west and steph. Just as a guess I would go with Russell 65

[Gibson22]

As of now I THINK it is between 03 Timmy (39,5 points) and 77 KAJ (40 points)

[Gibson22]

Vote!

Spoiler:

[quote="freethedevil"]

[quote="eminence"]





[quote="Ambrose"]
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[quote="LA Bird"]


[quote="Point-Forward"]

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[quote="Bel"]

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[quote="Bel"]
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[ardee]

Vote!

[spoiler]

This didn't go as planned

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[Bel]

1. 03 Duncan
2. 64 Russell
3. 86 Bird

Put simply I think the leadership of these three is more valuable at getting the most out of a team is more valuable in impact than a slightly better on court performance of KAJ or the 3 guys voted ahead.

I appreciate the discussion on Russell’s individual seasons. I wish I knew more about the intricacies of each individual year.

[cecilthesheep]

hey, so I know I'm super late and i apologize if i'm asking for something we don't normally do around here, but is it too late for me to join this? I haven't posted a ton recently, but I was a regular contributor to the top-10 defensive at each position project, and I'd love to be part of this one.

A big LeYes

Awesome. I'll cast my first vote in the next thread.

[euroleague]

should probably wrap this up already...

[ardee]

As of now I THINK it is between 03 Timmy (39,5 points) and 77 KAJ (40 points)

What's going on

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[euroleague]

As of now I THINK it is between 03 Timmy (39,5 points) and 77 KAJ (40 points)

What's going on

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Duncan won. Someone else should take over at this point

[ardee]

As of now I THINK it is between 03 Timmy (39,5 points) and 77 KAJ (40 points)

What's going on

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Duncan won. Someone else should take over at this point

Any volunteers?

[LA Bird]

By my count, the final totals after 60 hours are:

1) 77 Kareem = 40 points
2) 03 Duncan = 39.5 points
3) 71 Kareem = 23 points
4) 86 Bird = 17 points
5) 65 Russell = 14.5 points

Bel's vote would have put Duncan over the top but it came after the time limit. The 60 hour limit had been set after the previous controversies regarding inconsistent time extensions so I would imagine lebron3-14-3 would have followed the rule if he had been online the last few days. We could wait for him to clear this up but according to the rules, I would say Kareem won this round and the next thread can be started.