Some Historical Plus-Minus

[Squared2020]

.

[70sFan]

Wow, you are the best, I have never thought I'd see any Dantley +/- numbers. Thank you so much!

It looks like I have quite a few more 1984/85 Jazz games, so if you ever decide to go back for that season I can help you.

I feel uncomfortable to ask for more, but do you have any data for Wilt Chamberlain and Artis Gilmore?

I have very little loaded into my database prior to the 1979-80 season. But there is a little bit of Wilt. Artis is also included here.



By the way... that first Wilt game is the fourth quarter only :: 35 possessions for each team!

Fantastic, thank you very much! Yeah, the pace of some of these early 1960s games is mind blowing.

Does your 1970 Lakers material come from Tommy Hawkins film collection? It seems that I have these games as well, though not sure if as complete as yours.

I think I have one more 1984/85 Spurs game against the Bucks somewhere. Small sample, but it doesn't show 1985 Gilmore in a positive light.

By the way, is there any way to help you with this work for pre-1980 games? I could do my best to get more data like that. If there is anything I could do, please let me know.

[Squared2020]

.

[70sFan]

The easiest way for me is just to make videos accessible. I think a couple games, I used your Patreon channel as I didn't have copies of the games. I'd be happy to trade a couple games with you so I could have them in my collection. I don't think I've used any in quite a while, but I continue to support for you to keep digging up footage.

I'll be happy to share you all the games you want. Just let me know what season you are interested in. I can create a list of my collection if you wish. Also, how would you like me to share games with you? Via YT links, or maybe links with files on MEGA?

I'd be interested in trading of course, do you have any type of list of games you have?

I've had a couple folks attempt to help me in the past with logging data, but I ended up with their interpretation of stints (some game-aggregate plus-minus didn't even end in a multiple of five) instead of actual stints.

Yeah, I understand that not everybody can do it correctly.

I've been more focused on the 1985-1996 years as that's Jordan's non-pbp seasons. I branched out to put in 1980 for rookie Bird/Magic and to get Kareem's trajectory. I think I've only transferred 2-3 games of 1978 data to disk, but I have something like 40 games from that season logged.

After I'm done verifying and logging 1996 data, my plan is to jump over to 1993. I think I've completed ~100 games there and have another 100+ games on video on drive. A few of my contacts that have games may have another ~100 games combined.

Sounds great, I'd like to see more data on 1993 Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson and Shaq.

[Owly]

This took longer than expected...

Eh. Hakeem being top 10 in the RS isn't hard to defend. Honestly I find him a top 5 rs performer plausible considering the external context he dealt with, but even if we bind ourselves to the data, I think he has a pretty persuasive case(at least if we focus on "isolate for winning" as opposed to offensive box production).

Coming in I'm pretty low on Olajuwon versus norms here (and elsewhere but unless mainstream stock his risen, I think he ranks highter here) and a greater RS weighter (and tend to regard variation from RS primarily as random variance, noise, though open to being wrong in general and that not being the best explanation in a specific instance and Olajuwon is one of the larger playoff samples for risers)... so, there's the context.

I'll also note defense is hard to quantify and ... that gives us greater range in general and maybe upside on Hakeem.

Still, that first line ...On top 5 there's a top 4 that many here are pretty sure of. I'd say Robinson has close to better box and better impact signals every year they're in the league together (bar '93 on box; obvs '97 he isn't functionally around though for what little it's worth the limited sample production and impact are nonetheless very strong) and I doubt otoh that his early years make up for the significant gap in box and impact as they both box peak, plus Robinson's continued big impact signals later as Hakeem falls in relevance. Or versus Garnett with with as roughly as good (or better) composites over a slightly larger sample with much greater certainty of impact. Or Wilt or ...

You get where I'm going with this? For 5 or 10 there's a lot of great players that would make top 5 pretty implausible and top 10 tricky to defend.

Well, there is a difference between finding a bunch of players who have strong arguments, and a bunch of players whose arguments stay strong using internally consistent criteria/reasoning. Also should clarify I meant "top 10" is defensible on purely empirical means, not top 5. I see top 5 as plausible via contextual considerations (the same types that are often used to explain KG's "Impact' stuff tanking in the years immediately following 04 before his role is made significantly more specific in 08, or to penalize shaq for his off-court decisions). I'm also not necessarily going for one or two years, but rather a more general case that accounts for peak, prime, and career. Hakeem may not sweep all-three but he's within range for all of them and I don't know you can really say that for everyone you've listed. Duncan has a fantastic stretch that is basically shortened significantly with injuries in 04/05. KG may as well have injured himself for 05-07 if we're describing what happened as opposed to taking signals of the better looking parts as a reason to raise everything with a predictive lens.

I'll also note that I wasn't necessarily going for strict era-relativity. If I was, good chance my top 6 features 4 players from the 60's. That said, I'll start with box since I anticipate that may actually be the biggest source of our delta on Hakeem...

By the box though ... he's 17th in VORP ... in the VORP era (which means ignoring about half of NBA history and hurting those who spanned across the eras). 21st by win shares (and whilst efficiency is probably mean on him here, WS's low baseline means high total minutes is helping him, too). Hollinger's EWA would probably be friendlier (as PER much higher on him as a rate measure, though replacement level, if low, isn't otoh as dreadful as WS's is). Fwiw he never leads in PER, WS/48 or BPM (or Win Shares or VORP, don't know about EWA ... his 2nd overall in minutes in '93, his most productive year might give him a shot, though Jordan has a solid PER edge and iirc EWA gives SGs a lower replacement level) can't speak to the more state of the art stuff (though career wise, like BPM I suspect they might not like the weaker passing years).

You cite Hakeem's defensive value as a source of uncertainty that presumably can go either way. But to me, him being a valuable defender means "box" is going to undervalue him(and two-way bigs/primary paint protectors)relative to smaller players. You see uncertainty, I see bias:

Spoiler:

(1) Even if steals are overrated in box-based defensive measurements (e.g. if the box stats miss the fact that the steals come expense of unnecessary gambling, as they may for Jordan), steals are still individually the most valuable defensive play someone can make.

So a couple notes here.
(1) You are combining the defensive value of a steal with the offensive value generated. On the defensive side alone, steals aren't nearly as valuable as plays at the rim. Additionally, just like blocks, "steals" from a non-big often are a byproduct of a bigger player's influence...
https://youtu.be/p5aNUS762wM?t=1165
Here, Jordan is able to get a steal because Oakley stonewalls the attacker and occupies his attention. Yet as far as these box-models are concerned, all the credit here belongs to MJ. Notably, it was Oakley's arrival that saw the Bulls become a -2 defense in 1988(the only good defense Jordan has ever anchored), and it was with Oakley's depature that the Bulls fell back to mediocrity. Charles did not rack up enough steals or blocks for stuff like "RAPTOR' to love him, but I'd argue on plays like these, its Oakley who deserves most of the credit, not steal-getter MJ.

(2) Whatever the value of a steal, these metrics have no way to account for when steal attempts fail. Considering Jordan consistently posted high-error rates(dropping to the 14th percentile in 1991 despite a drop in defensive activity), only including the positives and completely excluding the negatives will naturally inflate how good a guard looks. We can actually see this if we compare Jordan's steal-d-rating correlation with Kawhi's:

Kawhi doesn't rack up as many, but because he gambles significantly less, his steals end up having a stronger influence on the quality of his team's defense.

Unless these sorts of things are somehow accounted for in these box-components,(as far as I know BBR BPM actively compounds the issue by giving smaller players more credit for blocks) I'm pretty confident high-gambling steal-getters(and to a degree, undersized block accumulators) are getting significantly juiced. However, when possible it's better to see if we can back our theories with evidence as opposed to speculation, which is probably why, contrary to whatever "consensus" you are referencing, Ben Taylor specifically argues that MJ's playoff on/off is important so we have a way to properly account for his defensive impact:
https://youtu.be/p5aNUS762wM?t=1291. And yes, on/off is "noisy", but if you're really concerned about noise...

Make a note of "just like blocks, "steals" from a non-big often are a byproduct of a bigger player's influence".

Moving on...

Spoiler:

...it's probably a good idea to reference larger samples. Maybe there is an allocation problem here, but the largest possible samples(including multiple 82 game-sets), actually have the defensive gulf being bigger than what one might extrapolate from on/off. This tracks with the Bulls going from average to #1 with Jordan's defensive activity and effiency(breakdowns/error rate) declining, them staying average defensively until Oakley's addition, his relatively unimpressive D-RAPM, the Bulls effectively being unaffected on defense by Jordan's departure, and even his D-PIPM(IIRC Ben says historic PIPM does a better job accounting for defense than similar metrics, something to do with using linear-regression as opposed to tree-branching?) which, outside of 1988, looks worse than basically all of Lebron's prime save for a couple down-years(Lebron is able to match 1988 at various points fwiw).

All considered, the real world seems to disagree with the box-one on defense with this type of archetype, and it does so consistently with the disparity not really getting any better if we look at raw individual data or even the history of great defenses.

I've put these excerpts in spoilers since they cover a "provocative" topic, but here's a quick synopsis: "All considered, the real world seems to disagree with the box-one on defense regarding this type of archetype, and it does so consistently with the disparity not really getting any better if we look at raw individual data or even the history of great defenses."

Unfortunately, I can't quote the thread, so if you want the full context of what I was replying to, you can scroll to the middle of this post:https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=103585765#p103585765)

Anyway, remember that note you took earlier?...let's take a look at the methodology for the box-aggregate you first highlighted:

This box score information is also weighted according to what position or role the player has on the team. For instance, a block by a center is good, but a block by a guard is great.

Yeah, um:
https://youtu.be/17swk1eLLRM?t=23

When you highlight Jordan's better box, you are discussing a version of Jordan that apparently is better at defense than Kareem. The same is true for fellow stat-sheet god LeBox. At least for LeBox, the real-world suggests some defensive influence throughout his prime, JorBox? Eh. But honestly, whatever box-titan you use the box-score to champion, the real world will disagree as it has Kareem's presence coinciding with a 4-point defensive improvement for 4 straight seasons. Now replace offense-slanted Kareem with bigs who get half their value on the defensive end(further investigation may lead me to claiming some get "most" of their value on the defensive end, but let's table that now) and we may have a problem.

If you want to disregard that, fine. But my approach here is to restrict box to specific comparisons, and maybe take a peek if a player is doing better than they "should" do there. To that end, if we're going to use BPM/Vorp to assess Hakeem, then I think we should restrict it to comparisons with similar archetypes. My preference is that we don't use it at all(for Hakeem), but if we are going to use it, maybe at least consider some of the above. FWIW Hakeem ranks 5th among "two-way bigs" in average BPM(Giannis and Davis not yet experienced his post-prime) and 3rd for career.

Wilt and Russell may as well be excluded, so let's say he's really 5th. That leaves 5-spots for everyone else with Lebron and Kareem effectively being shoe-ins(there is an angle to hit Lebron, but I'll get to that later).

Is that great for a top 10 case? No. Damning? Don't think so. Do I care?

Not really(may re-assess KG though).

(Jordan, Chamberlain, Russell, Johnson, Jabbar, Bird, Robertson) would leave little room for modern players and with James locked in there's little room for him and a lot of competition.

Wasn't really looking to branch this far out, but eh. I don't know Robertson over Hakeem is actually "conventional" anymore. My impression is Hakeem as a top 10 pick is quite frequent though obviously there's a playoff-lean there. MVP shares is probably a good proxy for real-time regular-season perception, but it will obviously skew against players with lesser-casts. A method I think would be interesting for regular season "peak" perception would be to look at how much of the vote went towards a winner. I don't know here Hakeem ranks here(66% of first place votes)but I imagine you'd get unexpected results with this approach(something like Curry, Shaq, Lebron, KG, Kareem, 2 more Lebrons, Jordan, Kareem again, ect). All that said, I'm not too interested in perception but yes, if that's what we use, Hakeem isn't top 10.

We do have hints at high impact at peak ... but the 94-96 on off data whilst promising is a long way behind Robinson but (on the average of the yearly figures) about even with Mookie Blaylock (who has more impact evidence later) and closer to the likes of Bo Outlaw and Horace Grant (who make no mistake show very strongly in these numbers) than Robinson. He is high in terms of ranking of the average. Very noisy figures.

Okay so uh, if we're working off one-off flashes(you may note I generally value replication and load), Hakeem(and pretty much everyone?) gets knocked down, but I imagine we both agree Mookie and Grant aren't really serious candidates here. That being said, this is a good chance to highlight collinearity(you know, but for posterity I guess). The Hawks had extreme collinearity(played alot of minuties together) with their starters and mostly ran a platoon system(keep complimentary minuties in and out of the lineup at the same time). Coincidentally, various Hawks players look unusually good. Won't push too strongly without a rotation chart, but Hakeem staggered early on, so something like on/off may be lower on him than something like WOWY. This applies to post-injury D-Rob, Celtics Garnett(compounded by relatively low minutes), and various other greats in a way I don't think it for Hakeem(again, pretty large sample has Sampson looking quite pedestrian).

Still, allowing for the above difficulty in quantifying defense for much of his career ... the combination of quality of competitors and, at first glance, absence of clear evidence of him as an absolute elite RS player (can't see much putting him top 10).

I will say I haven't fully ingested, properly paid attention to your pro-argument here but at first glance it seems more "he's good" than "he has a clear consistent RS case for above 6 or 11 others" (granted this is hard with differing levels of data) but I'd have to look closer.

Okay, but how many players are consistently "above 6 or 11 others" for their careers(or even primes)? Lebron, Kareem, (we don't really have the data for Russell but probably him as well), who else? Duncan's stuff fluctuates. Jordan isn't hitting those highs(well from an impact perspective anyway) even when we juice him(Oakley doesn't exist! replace 93 rs with 92!), and Magic obviously doesn't have the longevity(maybe the best "prime" impact portfolio of Hakeem's contemporaries though). Being consistently "good" is probably rarer than you're giving credit for, and I think looking at a player's signals in totality by accounting for the high-end stuff, the low-end stuff(and the stuff in between) is a better way to assess impact then jumping between specific frames for different players(KG's 2004 looks godly(and his playoff on-off peaks at +50!), but if one-year rs absurdities are your cup of tea, then Magic and MJ take a tumble). That Hakeem is consistently looking good(let's define 'good" as, "within range, or top 10" when we look at other players with similar frames) and replicates outlier-strong peak stuff(88, 92/93) is a rare combination among the 20 or so players you or I would be considering for "top 10".

I will say the reading on that rookie impact looks generous, on the margins because the same roster doesn't acknowledge that it's a young roster that would be expected to improve but primarily because "is special even among top-ten candidates" and with the finals appearance "GOAT-worthy" are quite strong. Olajuwon's (considered use of inverted comma's because I don't love crediting a team level stat to an individual, won't because consistent use on every player might grow tiresome but you get the idea) 4.5 SRS change is very good but less than half the change for Bird, Duncan, Robinson (all above 11) or Abdul-Jabbar. This isn't then, of itself an outlier that is "special" amongst special players

Well, top 5 isn't bad for top 10

FWIW, some discussion has gone into the specific roster(and player fluctuations) for early the Rockets(contrasted to the roster/player developments for the early Bulls):
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=101211127#p101211127
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=101211196#p101211196
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=101212621#p101212621
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2224933&start=200

For what it's worth, I think this is around where alot of "Hakeem, regular season floor-raiser?" started.

I'll end this post by adding some a couple of arguments for raising bigs/paint-protectors(that logically would help Hakeem as well)

Absolute value, the idea is that all this impact stuff is tracking something akin to "value over replacement", but in absolute terms, bigs are the most valuable players and there should be some scaling for size, ect.
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=104409082#p104409082

Historic consistency of Impact/Winning from Paint-Protection, The idea is that
A. paint-protection has the best track-record of stacking without diminishing returns(or better than wing-scoring/helio playmaking)
B. Paint-protectors are generally the most consistent in terms of leading successful teams and individual influence(Russell/Duncan are the textbook examples of the former, Russell/Kareem/Lebron???(is that cheating) are textbook examples of the former).
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=104200855#p104200855

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to touch grass

I’ll try to keep this brief because
a) We’re off topic
b) I’m time limited
c) I’m not sure I’ve fully understood all of this and relevance (some stuff not in quotes or spoilers talking to a “you” that isn’t me).

Thoughts reading what you’ve said:

KG has large sample multi-year RAPM variants that say he’s very impactful. There are down years sure but what I understand is the most reliable picture says he’s really impactful. He isn’t reliant on any contextual considerations to get him highly ranked. Now context is very important, especially for the more crude numbers but what is meant by that is “if I give the most generous interpretations and put my thumb on the scale for him …” okay well that’s part of the range and so is worst, both can be discussed, the average probably moreso. But yeah I got it as RS top 5 has a case, but RS top 10 has a pretty good case, I assume that’s fair? You’d have to be more specific on Shaq (fwiw I don’t love the personality, but my concern would be if/how it affected his playing career …. the rest is marginal to me [I think]).

“KG may as well have injured himself for 05-07 if we're describing what happened” is to me
1) Unclear (in precise meaning/intent)
2) At the margins potentially somewhat incendiary phrasing (we're already dismissing him, why is he injuring himself?)
3) Wrong. I’m trying to get to any understanding of the phrasing that I could … understandably allow. If it’s that he’s not good I think box and impact disagree with you. If it’s play on bad teams doesn’t matter, I really disagree.

I think you’ve misread my intent on D. The point to boxscore’s substantial incompleteness is as I think was stated, a head tilt towards likelier upside for him in particular and uncertainty in general. That said he is fairly box-prolific so this isn’t one of the Collins twins doing big impact gumming up the middle and drawing charges without box productivity so he’s certainly getting some credit. So him specifically it’s uncertainty that’s there in general but range is more upside versus the box.

The text starts losing me with “you” that’s not in quotes but isn’t about what I’m saying and youtube links not telling me what I’d be clicking on and then it’s not entirely clear where this ends so I maybe losing some meaning here.

The archetypes thing … we’re tangenting a lot; I’m not sure that I see why that has to be the case, I'd have to look into it more and if so -based on the why- what fair archetypes would be; there’s references to lists but not the lists themselves … I don’t think there’s much to get a foothold on here. Then too, you’re saying it’s not really a case for him so much as “not damning” for top 10 so ….

On “The old conventional wisdom gang”. Yes that is the old conventional wisdom. It’s not a case in and of itself but Oscar very much was part of that group (given in order of average ranking, but he was very much adjacent to Bird in terms of those old published rankings and saw a couple of 1 all time ranks). I Robertson has slipped and I don’t see the justification for it (insofar as it needs it … obviously we can’t presuppose the old list was right but I think evidence suggests Robertson as closer to elite than now perceived). I think his box stuff is tremendous. I think the impact signal through WoWY type stuff seems to be elite (and suggests his “co-star” Lucas was not actually very good). I don’t know if the mainstream got more “ringz as the guy” orientated but ... and we’re getting way off topic here, I am inclined to rate Robertson highly. This though is tangential to our core discussion which itself is off topic. Team does hurt Hakeem for MVP consideration (don’t know how much – less than some [thinking KG, Robertson] I’d say, but would want to be more systematic) and a crude tool but again also MVP shares in general is generous to his era.

94-96 … I too want larger samples. I’m just trying to give Olajuwon’s best years (typically given as 93-95) and his best available on-off years an airing. I’m trying to give him the best chance. And fwiw, a 3 year sample … I think there should be significant signal here. And per above it’s not bad. It just lags a long way behind Robinson and has players whom most won’t have in their top 100 and one that I think would widely engender disbelief if you mentioned him as in any way significant (Outlaw) as closer neighbors. It’s good. It’s also his best chance for that RS ace card and it’s not there.

On Blaylock. By on-off
’94 shows some evidence of platoon (Willis even above him, Augmon adjacent, Koncack solid but a way back). Individual readings of the driver may differ. Depends on Wilkins/Manning roles too.
’95 I’ve gone 60 deep in on-off and don’t think I’ve seen another Hawk. Was going to stop there but can see Augmon is at 61. Blaylock is at 12. I don’t think there’s a case for it here.
’96 Mookie’s at 5. Long at 31. Don’t see any more Hawk name top 70 (stopped there, I could be missing guys).
(Unless I’m missing people) I’d say Mookie looks like the signal there and as I think alluded to above, my impression is he carries on having positive impact signal into late career.
….
There’s some mispositioned quotation …

Not sure I’m understanding you or we’re understanding each other on the next section. To restate my point, I think I’d struggle to get a top 10 all-time RS ranking for him and it’s close to non-existent for top 5. You cut try to cut out Robinson or Bird or others by tilting for longevity and allow Stockton and Malone in. There may be ways but they aren't obvious to me.

Then “Well, top 5 isn't bad for top 10”. I think this stems from a misreading that I listed all available rookies with greater notional lift (by SRS movement) than Olajuwon. I merely was illustrating that the phrasing in the original post (regarding "is special even among top-ten candidates" and with the finals appearance "GOAT-worthy") seemed … inaccurate. A fuller of notional arrival impacts list would note a Sampson shift at 8, Shaq at 7.87, then the Olajuwon group starting with Wilt at 5.06, Olajuwon 4.5, Baylor 4.36, Unseld 4.28, Jordan 4.19, Bill Russell 4.06 (using ’57 as arrival season), Chris Paul 3.79. Of those noted across the posts then, he’s 8th but not separated from 13th. It’s not special in this context. And I’d reiterate the caveats. But I’d also note there are some arrivals pre-dating SRS. Like Russell’s, Mikan’s is in-season and messy due to other arrivals but if you were to use Gems to Lakers (his first full season, and a poor use of this method, as the franchise technically was the same but the roster wasn’t at all) he’d be way out in front in terms of win percentage jump with .625758 (Duncan 2nd at about .439). As I say I don’t like that use but I would there isn’t an unmessy number and disregarding that number I’m confident Mikan had huge impact on arrival. Schayes is complicated too with NBL to BAA movement but his win% increase too is very marginally above that seen by Olajuwon’s Rockets. And this list is ad hoc. You could take out Sampson. I didn’t want to include Ben Simmons or Carmelo or Harden or Richmond (etc) where low baselines and other changes and the player isn’t thought that good or has no impact signal or whatever makes it even more junky. I’ve kept it NBA only or Gilmore’s leap would be higher too. It should be clear at this point that (1) I wasn’t seeking to diminish Olajuwon by listing everyone ahead and (2) my initial point that this was not something special among top 10 candidates is indeed correct.

I may look into the other threads, or not. I don’t have the time now and this is dragging on …
In brief, I’m still where I was really. There are some things in the response I tended to agree with and had alluded to (defensive non-boxscore impact), some that I would have to look into further (and/or seemed quite far off subject) and some that I disagreed with and have articulated why.

[Djoker]

Fantastic, thank you very much! Yeah, the pace of some of these early 1960s games is mind blowing.

Does your 1970 Lakers material come from Tommy Hawkins film collection? It seems that I have these games as well, though not sure if as complete as yours.

I think I have one more 1984/85 Spurs game against the Bucks somewhere. Small sample, but it doesn't show 1985 Gilmore in a positive light.

By the way, is there any way to help you with this work for pre-1980 games? I could do my best to get more data like that. If there is anything I could do, please let me know.

The easiest way for me is just to make videos accessible. I think a couple games, I used your Patreon channel as I didn't have copies of the games. I'd be happy to trade a couple games with you so I could have them in my collection. I don't think I've used any in quite a while, but I continue to support for you to keep digging up footage.

I've had a couple folks attempt to help me in the past with logging data, but I ended up with their interpretation of stints (some game-aggregate plus-minus didn't even end in a multiple of five) instead of actual stints.

I've been more focused on the 1985-1996 years as that's Jordan's non-pbp seasons. I branched out to put in 1980 for rookie Bird/Magic and to get Kareem's trajectory. I think I've only transferred 2-3 games of 1978 data to disk, but I have something like 40 games from that season logged.

After I'm done verifying and logging 1996 data, my plan is to jump over to 1993. I think I've completed ~100 games there and have another 100+ games on video on drive. A few of my contacts that have games may have another ~100 games combined.

You're doing amazing work!

I saw from your MJ logs that you've done a big chunk of Bulls' games that season, by my count 71/82.

I was wondering. Do you also track playoff games?

[Squared2020]

.

[Djoker]

You're doing amazing work!

I saw from your MJ logs that you've done a big chunk of Bulls' games that season, by my count 71/82.

I was wondering. Do you also track playoff games?

I think 71 Bulls games are loaded to disk. My database is showing a 63-8 record. I have all 82 Bulls games, as well as all 18 playoff games from the 1995-96 season on tape.

For the 1993 season, I am missing three Bulls games: 17-Nov-92 vs. Minnesota, 15-Dec-92 vs. Charlotte, and 3-Mar-93 vs. Dallas.

I do have a good bit of playoff games completed, but not loaded to disk.

Amazing!

Could you post MJ's plus-minus data from the playoffs?

[Squared2020]

.

[Squared2020]

.

[Djoker]

Amazing!

Could you post MJ's plus-minus data from the playoffs?

I could do that sometime soon, but I wouldn't have pace of play because of the playoff data not being loaded to disk.

Post what you can. I really appreciate it.

I saw on your website the +/- for MJ's 1985 playoff series against the Bucks. Something similar for other years would be amazing even without pace if it isn't available.

[ceiling raiser]

Amazing!

Could you post MJ's plus-minus data from the playoffs?

I could do that sometime soon, but I wouldn't have pace of play because of the playoff data not being loaded to disk.

Question -

What percentage of Bulls games are available each year on tape from 84-85 through 95-96?

Wondering what the maximum possible dataset for MJ’s on-off would be.

Thanks again for your work.

[Squared2020]

.

[colts18]

Question -

What percentage of Bulls games are available each year on tape from 84-85 through 95-96?

Wondering what the maximum possible dataset for MJ’s on-off would be.

Thanks again for your work.

These are approximate guesses on what I have:

1985: ~35 games
1986: ~15 games
1987: ~40 games
1988: ~40 games
1989: ~50 games
1990: ~50 games
1991: ~55 games
1992: ~65 games
1993: ~75 games (79)
1994: ~20 games
1995: ~25 games
1996: ~80 games (82)

I know I could dredge up about another 20-25 games from friends and family.

I remember that a Youtube user uploaded all 82 games for the Bulls for 1991 and 1996. I wish I could find it because he was posting all of the games he had from the 1990-1993 timeframe.


Btw, We have MJ playoff on/off. Thinking Basketball posted it in their Youtube Video that had MJ playoff data.

[70sFan]

By the way, for the few people that have private messaged me in the last couple days:

Despite being on these boards for over five years, I cannot send any replies or start any new messages because I am a "recently joined" member.

How can I contact you?

By the way, I have been working on updating my (very) old collection list. So far, I finished at 1973/74 season, but I will update it up to 1989/90. You can see it here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zA2YgG7O6fkzD4qSXmnd4rmTHqabSiZSXZtmOSysLEw

As far as trading goes, I'm mostly interested in what games you have from pre-merger era, as well as 1977-79 Lakers and 1977-82 Bulls games. It would be highly appreciated if you can send me some kind of list.

[capfan33]

Question -

What percentage of Bulls games are available each year on tape from 84-85 through 95-96?

Wondering what the maximum possible dataset for MJ’s on-off would be.

Thanks again for your work.

These are approximate guesses on what I have:

1985: ~35 games
1986: ~15 games
1987: ~40 games
1988: ~40 games
1989: ~50 games
1990: ~50 games
1991: ~55 games
1992: ~65 games
1993: ~75 games (79)
1994: ~20 games
1995: ~25 games
1996: ~80 games (82)

I know I could dredge up about another 20-25 games from friends and family.

It's conjecture on my part, but do you think the NBA has more or less every MJ game on tape? Like 95ish%. It seems to me that around the start of MJ's career is when the NBA really started preserving everything, playoffs maybe going back a few years earlier than that.

[Squared2020]

.

[Djoker]

Question -

What percentage of Bulls games are available each year on tape from 84-85 through 95-96?

Wondering what the maximum possible dataset for MJ’s on-off would be.

Thanks again for your work.

These are approximate guesses on what I have:

1985: ~35 games
1986: ~15 games
1987: ~40 games
1988: ~40 games
1989: ~50 games
1990: ~50 games
1991: ~55 games
1992: ~65 games
1993: ~75 games (79)
1994: ~20 games
1995: ~25 games
1996: ~80 games (82)

I know I could dredge up about another 20-25 games from friends and family.

I remember that a Youtube user uploaded all 82 games for the Bulls for 1991 and 1996. I wish I could find it because he was posting all of the games he had from the 1990-1993 timeframe.


Btw, We have MJ playoff on/off. Thinking Basketball posted it in their Youtube Video that had MJ playoff data.

Thinking Basketball presented MJ's playoff on/off in a video as graphs where one can read approximate values but he never shared the actual data and not game-by-game as far as I know.

[homecourtloss]

First of all, thank you for sharing all this dad I wish you could’ve easily put behind a pay wall.

Secondly, I see why Kareem turns out so nicely in 1985 and in 1988 in your RAPM sets. I remember the rotations and dash in these two years, what percentage of Kareem’s minutes would you say were on the floor with Magic’s?

Third, mods—can we sticky this thread?

I don't know that percentage, but here's the estimated playing time from the stint data I've created. The more YELLOW a part of the graph, the higher the percentage of time the player was on the floor. The more BLUE a part of the graph, the less the percentage of time the player was on the floor.

Left to right is seconds elapsed in a game: 0 : Tip-Off, 720 : Start of 2nd Period, 1440: Halftime, 2160: Start of 4th Period, 2880: End of regulation (No overtime shown... it'll all look blue)

1980 LA Lakers


1985 LA Lakers


1988 LA Lakers

Thank you for making this available.

Can you post Magic’s plus/minus numbers?

[70sFan]

...

Here is Bucks vs Spurs game from 1984/85 season:

https://youtu.be/mIuyrBmiZ68
https://youtu.be/6IDylxfEUV4
https://youtu.be/9zC3DiH9PT8
https://youtu.be/AL8bEQVey0w

Watch on YouTube