RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #4 (Bill Russell)

[OhayoKD]

I would suggest to leave such a choice of words, because it's not clear at all if Shaq was better than Duncan.

I suppose there’s room for disagreement so maybe I worded it too strongly. I think there’s impact metrics that would go Duncan’s way, so there’s an argument there. I did have a “IMO” in my post though. Anyways, to me, it’s just one of those things where I watched basketball at the time and I know pretty clearly who I thought was better. As good as prime Duncan was, prime Shaq was just league-warping.

As I said, though, Duncan still goes ahead for me, though I do find it to be a very tough call.

I think Shaq is one of the most extreme examples of perception overstating the actual impact. It doesn't mean that Shaq wasn't an all-time great at his peak (his peak was just absurd), but there is basically no data suggesting that Shaq peaked higher than top tier bigs and when you start analyzing the tape more in-depth, you start realizing that Shaq wasn't nearly as unstoppable one on one as you may think, or that his defense had way more holes than you may think (even as a rim protector), or that he didn't dunk on defenders that often and relied on relatively inefficient moves in the post...

I don't want to sound overly harsh on Shaq's peak, because I still view it in the top tier but I have heard so much about Shaq being unstoppable, incomparable etc. and once I did a deep dive on his peak games, I found it in big part an exaggeration created by a few memorable plays per game.

Tbh, I'm not sure I'd even take Shaq over Garnett. KG was pretty flatly the better rs player and really for all he has not done(or not had an oppurtunity), the one-time he got a chance to cook in 2004 I'd say he looked more impressive than Shaq ever has. It would be another matter if Shaq was a clear playoff-riser, but prior to joining with wade, his teams generally got worse. As 70's has pointed out, often that drop-off can be directly attributed to him(for example, in 2000 the defense collapses as shaq's matchups torch him at the rim). The only real exceptions are playoff-runs that follow poor(by atg standards) regular-seasons.

But scoring 30 will get you far with many eyes. Even in comparisons with both more impactful(at least emperically) and more successful guys.

[iggymcfrack]

I personally think the distribution of "skill" between lebron and Jordan is off(">>>" by "playmaking" and "=" by "defense" both seem dubious in opposite directions), but they've both been voted in already so I guess i'll skip to the main-attraction...

This 5 year run without Robinson, just from a team DRtg perspective is very comparable to the Celtics best 5 year run defensively from 1960-1964 where they posted rDRtgs of -6.2, -7.6, -8.5, -8.5, and -10.8. If the Celtics were 8 points better than league average on defense during their best run and the Spurs were 7 points better during their best run with the Celtics probably having a better defensive team around Russell than the Spurs had around Duncan, I don't see how you can say they weren't at least close on that end. Meanwhile scoring the ball, it's not close. Here are career numbers for both including a much more lengthy decline period for Duncan since he had a longer career:

Here's the thing. -8 in 1960-1964 is not the same as -8 in the 2000's. Taking Duncan because you think he's better in a vacuum is fine, but those d-ratings do not necessarily reflect defensive parity...even if we did assume russell had more or the same defensive help(David Robinson might disagree, not to mention the degree the pattern of post-rookie team drop-offs(which are quite large(8-points in 70) even overall).

Well, let's get this out of the way.....

VOTE: Tim Duncan

Thank you for that post, it was a pleasure to read!

When I look at a player whose statistical, impact, and accomplishment profile looks rather easily top 8 (and arguably top 5 [VERY likely from a total career value standpoint]), and then add on consideration of his extraordinary leadership resume [I mean, it doesn't sell shoes, but I still think it's pretty relevant in a discussion of basketball greatness], it makes him a
It was between him and Bill Russell, but I'm surprising myself and going with Wilt. Had recently started doing some "CORP" considerations, and he comes out ahead of Russell in this for me (in a vacuum). Which seems predictable, really; he simply is the "bigger" talent [to me].

Would you be kind enough to share CORP evaluation for Wilt and Russell (and for Duncan, Hakeem and Shaq if that's not too much)?

Personally, as a newly self-discovered era-srs-ivist, i would say I'd have to say wilt's CORP was pretty low. Could not even hit +9 with a team that went +5 without him? Only +4 with Jerry West? I'd say the results place him well off players like hakeem, duncan, and kg. Maybe closer to dwight...

(Concur with 70's that was a great write-up)

It’s specifically the 5 year span after Robinson’s retirement where the Spurs defense was 7 points better than league average. And while it’s true that there were more points scored per possession in the 2000s, it wasn’t a lot more as that was a pretty defensive era as well. My point is that they’re even comparable defenders, then even if Russell had say 15% more impact on the defensive end, Duncan’s superior offense, longevity, and competition are enough to swing the comparison in his direction.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Bam vs the big show

[homecourtloss]

I think people underestimate 2008 Duncan. He wasn't at his peak anymore of course, but it doesn't mean he wasn't MVP-level player anymore.

Englemann’s 1997 to 2019 (RS+PS) PI RAPM tends to agree with this sentiment.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZW5UBk5BwcrEhh4mEsWl_H1Y9QGTaMPaT4v6dSEIBIo/edit#gid=0

[lessthanjake]

And in the three years before that they won 37.5% of their games without him and 61.3% of their games with him, so unless you think he got worse after his sophomore year, that too undersells him.

I do not think the MVP voters were wrong to vote for players who won more and have in fact repeatedly defended that approach. But that is separate from who was the best.

Here, I will hammer Barkley for a bit.
1987: +2.3 on, +7.9 on/off
1988: -0.9 on, +2.7 on/off
1992: +0.3 on, +6 on/off

He is not getting those same kinds of votes today without playing for the Knicks, and unless you think Hakeem’s impact was not significantly higher on his teams (and just looking at 1992 alone you can already tell it was), then yes, those were dumb box score myopia votes.

I’m not sure what time horizon you’re using to get that 37.5% number. The timeframe I used for the 44% number was the 1986-1987 season through the 1991-1992 season. The Rockets went 21-27 in that timeframe without Hakeem (i.e. a 44% win rate). And they averaged below a 1.0 SRS in those years. So it seems fairly unlikely to me that he’d have really high impact metrics in those years, if we had such metrics. You mentioned a win rate in “the three years before that” but the time horizon I used only has two years before it, and the Rockets went 7-7 without Hakeem in those years. Those missed games all came in the 1985-1986 season, where they were a 2.10 SRS team (though obviously they did ultimately make the Finals).

Overall, in the first 8 seasons of Hakeem’s career, his team went 28-34 in games without him (a 45% win rate), and they had an overall average SRS of just 1.02. Given those facts, it seems very unlikely to me that he would score highly in those years if we had impact metrics for him. They just weren’t that bad without him and weren’t very good with him. (Note: It’d probably be better to compare SRS in the games without him rather than just looking at the win rate, but it’d take too long for me to bother calculating that). And this inference squares with the limited data we do have: Squared’s RAPM for snippets of three of those seasons has Hakeem at 47th, 48th, and 17th in the league.

Given that likely impact profile and the fact that his box-score stats weren’t all that high—in his first 8 years, his average league rank in PER was 6.4, for win shares per 48 his average league rank was 12.5, for BPM it was 11.8, and for VORP it was 13.0, with his highest single-season placement in any of those being one 3rd-place finish in PER—I do actually think it’s fair to be somewhat down on Hakeem’s first 8 seasons and to think that the MVP votes were appropriate placement for where he was in the league during that time (if anything, the votes might have been generous!). And it’s true that, at the time, people were definitely not considering him some kind of top-5-all-time player—indeed, he was not even necessarily a top 5 player in the league!

[eminence]

I like Hakeems '85-'92 run well enough (generally MVP level), but it does seem a bit of an open question that one could go either way on.

Overall I have '98-'10 Duncan and '85-'97 Hakeem grading out pretty similarly (edge Duncan), which gives the overall win to Duncan pretty easily in that comp with the added '11-'15.

[One_and_Done]

Bam vs the big show

Bam if he couldn't shoot*

[f4p]

And in the three years before that they won 37.5% of their games without him and 61.3% of their games with him, so unless you think he got worse after his sophomore year, that too undersells him.

I do not think the MVP voters were wrong to vote for players who won more and have in fact repeatedly defended that approach. But that is separate from who was the best.

Here, I will hammer Barkley for a bit.
1987: +2.3 on, +7.9 on/off
1988: -0.9 on, +2.7 on/off
1992: +0.3 on, +6 on/off

He is not getting those same kinds of votes today without playing for the Knicks, and unless you think Hakeem’s impact was not significantly higher on his teams (and just looking at 1992 alone you can already tell it was), then yes, those were dumb box score myopia votes.

I’m not sure what time horizon you’re using to get that 37.5% number. The timeframe I used for the 44% number was the 1986-1987 season through the 1991-1992 season. The Rockets went 21-27 in that timeframe without Hakeem (i.e. a 44% win rate). And they averaged below a 1.0 SRS in those years. So it seems fairly unlikely to me that he’d have really high impact metrics in those years, if we had such metrics. You mentioned a win rate in “the three years before that” but the time horizon I used only has two years before it, and the Rockets went 7-7 without Hakeem in those years. Those missed games all came in the 1985-1986 season, where they were a 2.10 SRS team (though obviously they did ultimately make the Finals).

Overall, in the first 8 seasons of Hakeem’s career, his team went 28-34 in games without him (a 45% win rate), and they had an overall average SRS of just 1.02. Given those facts, it seems very unlikely to me that he would score highly in those years if we had impact metrics for him. They just weren’t that bad without him and weren’t very good with him. (Note: It’d probably be better to compare SRS in the games without him rather than just looking at the win rate, but it’d take too long for me to bother calculating that). And this inference squares with the limited data we do have: Squared’s RAPM for snippets of three of those seasons has Hakeem at 47th, 48th, and 17th in the league.

Given that likely impact profile and the fact that his box-score stats weren’t all that high—in his first 8 years, his average league rank in PER was 6.4, for win shares per 48 his average league rank was 12.5, for BPM it was 11.8, and for VORP it was 13.0, with his highest single-season placement in any of those being one 3rd-place finish in PER—I do actually think it’s fair to be somewhat down on Hakeem’s first 8 seasons and to think that the MVP votes were appropriate placement for where he was in the league during that time (if anything, the votes might have been generous!). And it’s true that, at the time, people were definitely not considering him some kind of top-5-all-time player—indeed, he was not even necessarily a top 5 player in the league!

ok, but what about the playoffs. let's face it, the lore of hakeem is based on the playoffs. the greatest playoff riser ever. statistically and team-wise. and since they often (some say always) determine the champion in the playoffs, this is hugely important. i'll even keep hakeem's rookie year in, even though i don't think anyone is basing his case on his rookie season.

from 1985 to 1992, his playoff numbers are:

26.0 PER, 0.223 WS48, 7.2 BPM, 58.0 TS%

now since i made a spreadsheet to compare players from age 22 to 31 and don't have any other numbers, we will look at hakeem's numbers from 85-94:

26.6 PER, 0.218 WS48, 7.8 BPM, 57.5 TS%

pretty similar across the board (which is to be expected since the first numbers included 8 of the 10 seasons). anyway, after normalizing all the box numbers such that 1st = 1.000 and 250th = 0.000, and averaging the normalized PER, WS48, and BPM, in the postseason hakeem comes out 9th. and one of the guys ahead of him is mikan, so basically 8th as far as this project is concerned. and 3 of the guys ahead of him are active guys jokic/giannis/kawhi, so more like 5th in terms of people we are talking about. i get duncan at 14th but 8th if i take out the same guys and dolph schayes and anthony davis.

all of that to say, hakeem's postseason box numbers from 22-31 come out looking excellent historically, and his first 8 years barely look any different, which means they are fairly excellent as well. and given that 32-34 is 1995-1997 for hakeem, i would think a 13 year 22-34 might look even better for hakeem, but i haven't thought about who else would rise or fall in those ages.

[AEnigma]

And in the three years before that they won 37.5% of their games without him and 61.3% of their games with him, so unless you think he got worse after his sophomore year, that too undersells him.

I do not think the MVP voters were wrong to vote for players who won more and have in fact repeatedly defended that approach. But that is separate from who was the best.

Here, I will hammer Barkley for a bit.
1987: +2.3 on, +7.9 on/off
1988: -0.9 on, +2.7 on/off
1992: +0.3 on, +6 on/off

He is not getting those same kinds of votes today without playing for the Knicks, and unless you think Hakeem’s impact was not significantly higher on his teams (and just looking at 1992 alone you can already tell it was), then yes, those were dumb box score myopia votes.

I’m not sure what time horizon you’re using to get that 37.5% number. The timeframe I used for the 44% number was the 1986-1987 season through the 1991-1992 season. The Rockets went 21-27 in that timeframe without Hakeem (i.e. a 44% win rate). And they averaged below a 1.0 SRS in those years. So it seems fairly unlikely to me that he’d have really high impact metrics in those years, if we had such metrics. You mentioned a win rate in “the three years before that” but the time horizon I used only has two years before it, and the Rockets went 7-7 without Hakeem in those years. Those missed games all came in the 1985-1986 season, where they were a 2.10 SRS team (though obviously they did ultimately make the Finals).

Overall, in the first 8 seasons of Hakeem’s career, his team went 28-34 in games without him (a 45% win rate), and they had an overall average SRS of just 1.02. Given those facts, it seems very unlikely to me that he would score highly in those years if we had impact metrics for him. They just weren’t that bad without him and weren’t very good with him. (Note: It’d probably be better to compare SRS in the games without him rather than just looking at the win rate, but it’d take too long for me to bother calculating that).

And I am sure 1984 has no bearing on trying to assess team quality at the beginning of his career, right.

This is just not an honest approach. Pretend to care about big samples but throw out the biggest and consequently overweigh the one explicitly harmful sample (1991) and the similarly large one where Hakeem had a legitimately okay team (1986).

1986: 64.7% win rate and +3.31 net rating with, 50% win rate and -0.79 net rating without; total difference of 14.7% win rate and 4.1 net rating

1987: 53.3% win rate and +2.12 net rating with, 28.6% win rate and -11 win rate without; total difference of 24.7% win rate and 13.12 net rating

1988: 57% win rate and +1.63 net rating with, 33.3% win rate and -5 net rating without; total difference of 23.7% win rate and 6.63 net rating

1992: 57.1% win rate and -0.2 net rating with, 16.7% win rate and -11.4 net rating without; total difference of 40.4% win rate and 11.2 net rating

And you know what, as a bonus year outside his three-year peak…

1996: 65.3% win rate and +3.2 net rating with, 10% win rate and -8 net rating without; total difference of 55.3% win rate and 11.2 net rating

For net rating purposes 1984 does not even really matter, because the Rockets were -2.9 that year and the next eight years they were -2.8 without Hakeem, but it sure as hell matters when you build this around win percentage: it changes the sample from “45%” without to 39.6%, right in line with their expected net rating. The 1985-92 Rockets were +1.8 with Hakeem, so just by net rating that is a +4.6 shift roughly taking a 32.5-win team to a 46-win team. Is that incredible regular season lift, no, it is not Lebron or Minnesota Garnett tier, but it is a lot rarer over a sustained pre-peak sample than you seem to be crediting. And as far as the hypothesis that amount of lift precludes him from showcasing high “impact”, well, it is right on par with Lakers Shaq, and that iteration was not exactly struggling to show up atop RAPM leaderboards.

On that note…

And this inference squares with the limited data we do have: Squared’s RAPM for snippets of three of those seasons has Hakeem at 47th, 48th, and 17th in the league.

Uh huh. Crazy how in random partial season snippets constituting a handful of games from four of the weaker years in Hakeem’s prime, he does not stand out. Per usual, sample size only matters when you want it to matter.

Say I take a “random” sample of Lebron’s NPI RAPM.

2005: slots in right around #60 even though he is averaging 27/7/7.

2008: #11

2014: #20

2018 (no postseason): #36

… damn, Lebron’s all-time impact suddenly looks pretty questionable.

Now imagine if we only had samples of 20% of games. How bad could I make him look?

Hakeem does not seem to show absolute top of the line regular season impact, no. At best, he might have a speculative one season at the top of the league in the regular season (1993) and a somewhat less speculative and possibly generous second place in 1994. But this is not a genuine way to frame that argument, relying on single-season RAPM samples from random fifths of seasons that might not even crack his personal top five.

^ I wrote this the last time someone disingenuously tried to weaponise those samples, and nothing is new.

Given that likely impact profile and the fact that his box-score stats weren’t all that high—in his first 8 years, his average league rank in PER was 6.4, for win shares per 48 his average league rank was 12.5, for BPM it was 11.8, and for VORP it was 13.0, with his highest single-season placement in any of those being one 3rd-place finish in PER—I do actually think it’s fair to be somewhat down on Hakeem’s first 8 seasons and to think that the MVP votes were appropriate placement for where he was in the league during that time (if anything, the votes might have been generous!).

Oh no, not the box score metrics!

Bill Russell — the only defender definitively better than Hakeem — finished higher than ninth in PER once. His average WS/48 placement was 8th (much smaller league). If we want to use someone more directly comparable in style, 1998-2001 Duncan averaged 8th in WS/48, 6th in PER, and 12th in BPM. Insightful stuff.

Just because you can see a few one-number metrics easily accessible on basketball-reference does not mean they have any real merit in these comparisons. Again, toy with formulas enough and you can get all sorts of results. We just discussed that with Engelmann’s “xRAPM”. IBM set up a formula that awarded the crown to Barkley three years running from 1986-88 (just outstanding Barkley years huh) and then to Dennis Rodman in 1992. Or we could use PIPM, which is imo the best pure box metric because it does a better job of weighing the defensive aspects of box inputs. There we see Hakeem start out his career 8th - 2nd - 3rd - 3rd - 2nd - 3rd - 5th - 6th. That reads a lot more honestly to me, but ultimately we just get back to these all being formulas toying with a few inputs not actually substituting for real impact.

If you are not confident enough to assess a player outside of what you can read off a stat-sheet, you can say so without trying to poison the well against those who actually took the time to develop their assessments.

And it’s true that, at the time, people were definitely not considering him some kind of top-5-all-time player—indeed, he was not even necessarily a top 5 player in the league!

Yeah if you think Wilkins or Barkley were better players than Hakeem because some voters “said so”, I am going to take you about as seriously as the people who say Iverson was better than Shaq and Duncan — or you know what, a top five player in any capacity — in the 2001 regular season because, hey, he won MVP!

[lessthanjake]

And in the three years before that they won 37.5% of their games without him and 61.3% of their games with him, so unless you think he got worse after his sophomore year, that too undersells him.

I do not think the MVP voters were wrong to vote for players who won more and have in fact repeatedly defended that approach. But that is separate from who was the best.

Here, I will hammer Barkley for a bit.
1987: +2.3 on, +7.9 on/off
1988: -0.9 on, +2.7 on/off
1992: +0.3 on, +6 on/off

He is not getting those same kinds of votes today without playing for the Knicks, and unless you think Hakeem’s impact was not significantly higher on his teams (and just looking at 1992 alone you can already tell it was), then yes, those were dumb box score myopia votes.

I’m not sure what time horizon you’re using to get that 37.5% number. The timeframe I used for the 44% number was the 1986-1987 season through the 1991-1992 season. The Rockets went 21-27 in that timeframe without Hakeem (i.e. a 44% win rate). And they averaged below a 1.0 SRS in those years. So it seems fairly unlikely to me that he’d have really high impact metrics in those years, if we had such metrics. You mentioned a win rate in “the three years before that” but the time horizon I used only has two years before it, and the Rockets went 7-7 without Hakeem in those years. Those missed games all came in the 1985-1986 season, where they were a 2.10 SRS team (though obviously they did ultimately make the Finals).

Overall, in the first 8 seasons of Hakeem’s career, his team went 28-34 in games without him (a 45% win rate), and they had an overall average SRS of just 1.02. Given those facts, it seems very unlikely to me that he would score highly in those years if we had impact metrics for him. They just weren’t that bad without him and weren’t very good with him. (Note: It’d probably be better to compare SRS in the games without him rather than just looking at the win rate, but it’d take too long for me to bother calculating that). And this inference squares with the limited data we do have: Squared’s RAPM for snippets of three of those seasons has Hakeem at 47th, 48th, and 17th in the league.

Given that likely impact profile and the fact that his box-score stats weren’t all that high—in his first 8 years, his average league rank in PER was 6.4, for win shares per 48 his average league rank was 12.5, for BPM it was 11.8, and for VORP it was 13.0, with his highest single-season placement in any of those being one 3rd-place finish in PER—I do actually think it’s fair to be somewhat down on Hakeem’s first 8 seasons and to think that the MVP votes were appropriate placement for where he was in the league during that time (if anything, the votes might have been generous!). And it’s true that, at the time, people were definitely not considering him some kind of top-5-all-time player—indeed, he was not even necessarily a top 5 player in the league!

ok, but what about the playoffs. let's face it, the lore of hakeem is based on the playoffs. the greatest playoff riser ever. statistically and team-wise. and since they often (some say always) determine the champion in the playoffs, this is hugely important. i'll even keep hakeem's rookie year in, even though i don't think anyone is basing his case on his rookie season.

from 1985 to 1992, his playoff numbers are:

26.0 PER, 0.223 WS48, 7.2 BPM, 58.0 TS%

now since i made a spreadsheet to compare players from age 22 to 31 and don't have any other numbers, we will look at hakeem's numbers from 85-94:

26.6 PER, 0.218 WS48, 7.8 BPM, 57.5 TS%

pretty similar across the board (which is to be expected since the first numbers included 8 of the 10 seasons). anyway, after normalizing all the box numbers such that 1st = 1.000 and 250th = 0.000, and averaging the normalized PER, WS48, and BPM, in the postseason hakeem comes out 9th. and one of the guys ahead of him is mikan, so basically 8th as far as this project is concerned. and 3 of the guys ahead of him are active guys jokic/giannis/kawhi, so more like 5th in terms of people we are talking about. i get duncan at 14th but 8th if i take out the same guys and dolph schayes and anthony davis.

all of that to say, hakeem's postseason box numbers from 22-31 come out looking excellent historically, and his first 8 years barely look any different, which means they are fairly excellent as well. and given that 32-34 is 1995-1997 for hakeem, i would think a 13 year 22-34 might look even better for hakeem, but i haven't thought about who else would rise or fall in those ages.

That’s all a fair point. I didn’t address the playoffs since I was interjecting in a discussion about MVP votes, which is of course just about the regular season. But it is of course true that Hakeem was a good playoff performer in that era.

That said, I do think we should acknowledge that in that particular era, Hakeem’s teams were not making many deep playoff runs. They made the one run to the finals—which was definitely impressive and should not be discounted—but other than that it was basically all first-round losses (with one second-round loss). And some of the losses (i.e. 1987 to 1989) were to teams that didn’t have any player nearly as good as Hakeem. So, Hakeem typically played well in the playoffs in that era, but it was in a lot of short first-round series that ended in losses, including to some mediocre opponents. And his great box-score-based playoff stats from that era are driven in significant part by those series’ against fairly weak opponents where he was easily the best player in the series. Obviously, he can’t really be blamed for series losses where he played well, but I don’t really see good playoff performances in early-round losses (including to some mediocre teams) as being all *that* persuasive, nor do I think they really moved the needle all that much for people evaluating Hakeem at the time (though of course their 1986 finals run is a different story).

I think the best analogy I can think of for Hakeem in that era is to Luka Doncic, if Luka basically stayed at his current level for a few more years. Luka is a borderline top-5-in-the-NBA guy, who doesn’t have a great impact profile, has good numbers but is never the best in the various box-score measures, is a playoff riser but typically loses early anyways, has actually missed the playoffs, and also has had one playoff run where his team really overachieved and upset a great team (Luka’s 2022 and Hakeem’s 1986). I think the analogy fits really well, though obviously their actual games are completely different. And I do think it’s true that if we’re sitting here several years from now and in the meantime Luka had only tread water in terms of where he’s at and what he’d achieved, we’d definitely be surprised if people told us he’d be considered top 5 all time.

[lessthanjake]

Uh huh. Crazy how in random partial season snippets constituting a handful of games from four of the weaker years in Hakeem’s prime, he does not stand out. Per usual, sample size only matters when you want it to matter.

Huh? I’ve very very consistently said that the Squared RAPM data are low sample size snippets that we can’t put a whole lot of value on as a result, and have actually mostly pointed that out in scenarios where the Squared data supports the argument I’m making (i.e. when it had Jordan #1 in a bunch of years and I still kept repeatedly saying we shouldn’t put a whole lot of value on that because it’s just snippets). Meanwhile, here I specifically called it out as “limited data.” The idea that you’d accuse me of having “sample size only matter[] when you want it to matter” is actually completely insane and wildly dishonest. You need to apologize for this promptly, otherwise it is clear you are discussing in bad faith.

On the substance of this, I didn’t suggest Squared data is super reliable here, and indeed, in what you quoted, I specifically called it “limited data.” The primary point I made was that we can infer the impact profile wasn’t high from looking at the teams’ SRS and their record without Hakeem. I simply used the Squared data as limited data points that at least support the inference.

Oh no, not the box score metrics!

Bill Russell — the only defender definitively better than Hakeem — finished higher than ninth in PER once. His average WS/48 placement was 8th (much smaller league). If we want to use someone more directly comparable in style, 1998-2001 Duncan averaged 8th in WS/48, 6th in PER, and 12th in BPM. Insightful stuff.

The difference is that Russell’s impact profile looks a lot better than Hakeem’s. So we have reason to believe that he was highly impactful despite not having absolutely elite box-score numbers. But, as I discussed regarding Hakeem, we have good reason to believe his impact numbers in the first 8 years of his career were not all that good. And his box-score-based numbers weren’t all *that* great either. If neither impact data nor box-score-based numbers suggest a guy is a very top player in the league, it’s hard to see on what basis we could actually consider him as having been a very top player in the league. And the MVP voting in those years is actually just in keeping with this.

Yeah if you think Wilkins or Barkley were better players than Hakeem because some voters “said so”, I am going to take you about as seriously as the people who say Iverson was better than Shaq and Duncan — or you know what, a top five player in any capacity — in the 2001 regular season because, hey, he won MVP!

As I said, you can always quibble with the specifics of a vote. There’s always weird/dumb stuff that can be disagreed with in retrospect. But the reality is that, more generally, there’s not a lot to suggest that Hakeem deserved to be rated more highly than those MVP votes were generally putting him in that era.

[ceoofkobefans]

This is my voting post

4. Tim Duncan

Td is someone that I fluctuate between thinking he could be top 3 or not top 5 (I generally land in the middle at 4 maybe 5). This is because I’m not sure how I feel about his game post 07. I’m confident in him having at least a fringe top 5 peak (single or multi year but more single year). I love his two way value (offensive star with top 3 defense ever) and he retains his value in the PO. 2003 is also just crazy whether it’s box score, box metrics, plus minus data, hybrids, or just film which makes 4 feel like a solid spot for him

Nomination: Kobe Bryant

I’m gonna save the propaganda *for now* (it’s coming y’all aren’t safe) but I’ll keep this relatively brief for Kobe talk.

I’m high on Kobe’s peak, ESPECIALLY for this server. I have his peak in the 8-13 range where I think the consensus for this server is his peak is fringe top 20 (I think he was 19th in the peak list last summer). The reason for this is I think the box metrics underrate his game (not being able to quantify either sides of his game well for reasons like gravity off ball movement on offense or communication / versatility not being easy to quantify with box metrics) and those usually have him in the top 5 in the RS (he’s also within MOE to be reasonably placed among players ranking higher and he’s a major PO riser) and these are in very stacked years like 2003 2006 2008 2009 etc. his longevity also speaks for itself with 16 HQ seasons and almost all of them being at a fringe mvp level or higher (imo) and at worst being very strong all nba in almost all of those years. I’ll go into more detail on what makes him so good in my eyes when I get to vote for him (hopefully at 6 if we can go ahead and get TD and maybe Shaq out of the way).

If I have to I will push the Kobe > bill prop on this thread.

[SpreeS]

I think people underestimate 2008 Duncan. He wasn't at his peak anymore of course, but it doesn't mean he wasn't MVP-level player anymore.

Englemann’s 1997 to 2019 (RS+PS) PI RAPM tends to agree with this sentiment.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZW5UBk5BwcrEhh4mEsWl_H1Y9QGTaMPaT4v6dSEIBIo/edit#gid=0

Pl explane why Curry 16 season is only 4th best and is at 196th place? Also the best Lebron season is 10-11? DRob the best season - 98/99? Westbrook 17 is only 6th best? O'Neal 2nd-4th best seasons are 98/99/04.....

318 Kobe 01
319 Klay 15

Durant the best season 15? MVP season only 3rd?
Harden MVP season only 6th

Wtf are these numbers suggest?

[AEnigma]

Uh huh. Crazy how in random partial season snippets constituting a handful of games from four of the weaker years in Hakeem’s prime, he does not stand out. Per usual, sample size only matters when you want it to matter.

Huh? I’ve very very consistently said that the Squared RAPM data are low sample size snippets that we can’t put a whole lot of value on as a result, and have actually mostly pointed that out in scenarios where the Squared data supports the argument I’m making (i.e. when it had Jordan #1 in a bunch of years and I still kept repeatedly saying we shouldn’t put a whole lot of value on it because it’s just snippets). Meanwhile, here I specifically called it out as “limited data.” The idea that you’d accuse me of having “sample size only matter[] when you want it to matter” is actually completely insane and wildly dishonest. You need to apologize for this promptly, otherwise it is clear you are discussing in bad faith.

At no point in this post did you bother to engage with any of the content in my response evidencing that this:

we can infer the impact profile wasn’t high from looking at the teams’ SRS and their record without Hakeem. I simply used the Squared data as limited data points that at least support the inference…
But, as I discussed regarding Hakeem, we have good reason to believe his impact numbers in the first 8 years of his career were not all that good. And his box-score-based numbers weren’t all *that* great either. If neither impact data nor box-score-based numbers suggest a guy is a very top player in the league, it’s hard to see on what basis we could actually consider him as having been a very top player in the league...
But the reality is that, more generally, there’s not a lot to suggest that Hakeem deserved to be rated more highly than those MVP votes were generally putting him in that era.

… is legitimately “dishonest”. To me that total lack of interest suggests actual rejection of “good faith” discussion and a preference for twisting specifically small or partially reflective samples into a broader commentary (certainly not the first time).

You are of course mostly free to justify your votes with whatever skewed and misleading justifications you see fit, but do not expect apologies for having those misrepresentations called out and highlighted — especially when you ignore the response in favour of some empty and affected pearl-clutching.

[One_and_Done]

Iverson may have won an unjustified MVP, but Shaq and Duncan were still right there in the voting. The analogy would only work if Shaq or Duncan's voting reflected Hakeem's year after year. A 1 year abberation, followed by a correction from the voters, shows the media adjusts quickly most times. That's why Iverson only has one top 3 finish ever. Hakeem wasn't getting a rough vote once or twice, it was every year almost.

[AEnigma]

Maybe that has something to do with him being a low popularity, lower scoring defence-first player on an unremarkable franchise never finishing with homecourt.

Again, unless you sincerely think there is meaning to players like Wilkins and Barkley routinely finishing ahead of him, then you are not actually saying anything of substance. And if you do think that is meaningful then I flat out do not trust your assessment of the sport. Like I have no idea how to even engage with that. Wilkins was a much worse player but competed for scoring titles on a good team. Is it meaningful that Durant finished higher than Kobe and Wade and Dwight in 2010? Is it meaningful that Rose won in 2011? That Carmelo had a top three year and a first place vote in 2013? That 2017 Westbrook and Harden placed over Lebron, potentially peak Curry, potentially peak Durant, and potentially peak Kawhi? No? So what is the point.

If the only value a “metric” has is how it can be used to specifically slander a player, then it does not actually have value as a point of discussion. And MVP finish is only weakly correlative with a player’s quality. The exercise here is not to offload all responsibility for player assessment to a handful of voters forty years ago with outright less game access than (and roughly similar comprehension as) the average fan today.

[ceoofkobefans]

Iverson may have won an unjustified MVP, but Shaq and Duncan were still right there in the voting. The analogy would only work if Shaq or Duncan's voting reflected Hakeem's year after year. A 1 year abberation, followed by a correction from the voters, shows the media adjusts quickly most times. That's why Iverson only has one top 3 finish ever. Hakeem wasn't getting a rough vote once or twice, it was every year almost.

I know this is extremely off topic but this had me interested in how Kobe compared to Hakeem Shaq and TD in mvp voting placement since I have the 4 next to each other all time and this seems somewhat interesting even if I don’t really value it

MVPs won

TD: 2
Shaq: 1
Kobe: 1
Hakeem: 1

Top 3 placements

TD: 5
Kobe: 5
Shaq: 5
Hakeem: 2

Top 5 placements

Kobe: 11
TD: 9
Shaq: 8
Hakeem: 6

Top 7 placements

TD: 11
Shaq: 11
Kobe: 11
Hakeem: 10

Top 10 placements

TD: 13
Shaq: 13
Kobe: 12
Hakeem: 9

Obviously not gonna treat this as anything close to definitive but I do find this interesting (would like to not that all 4 have multiple years where missed time caused them to slide in mvp voting).

[ceoofkobefans]

Maybe that has something to do with him being a low popularity, lower scoring defence-first player on an unremarkable franchise never finishing with homecourt.

Calling Hakeem Olajuwon a lower scoring player is pretty crazy icl considering he was almost always his teams leading scorer is 44th all time in CAREER ppg (17th in playoffs) 13th in career points and top 5 in ppg in 4 straight seasons (including b2b years in 2nd place one year being to MJ).

Like Hakeem averaged a career 21.8 ppg lol how is that low scoring?

[AEnigma]

Maybe that has something to do with him being a low popularity, lower scoring defence-first player on an unremarkable franchise never finishing with homecourt.

Calling Hakeem Olajuwon a lower scoring player is pretty crazy icl considering he was almost always his teams leading scorer is 44th all time in CAREER ppg (17th in playoffs) 13th in career points and top 5 in ppg in 4 straight seasons (including b2b years in 2nd place one year being to MJ).

Like Hakeem averaged a career 21.8 ppg lol how is that low scoring?

Because he never finished higher than eighth in the league until 1993.

Like quick question, how often does the scoring leader not finish highly in MVP voting, provided they make the playoffs? Yeah scoring is important, but Westbrook was not one of the three “best” players in 2017, nor was Carmelo in 2013, nor was Durant in 2010, nor was Iverson in 2005 (fourth place there) and 2001 (to the credit of the voters, they did give him a rare snub in 2002). We are talking an era where perimetre players won 7 of the first 9 DPoY awards; why pretend any of these takes were deeply principled or informed or reflective of some realistic regular season ranking?

[lessthanjake]

Uh huh. Crazy how in random partial season snippets constituting a handful of games from four of the weaker years in Hakeem’s prime, he does not stand out. Per usual, sample size only matters when you want it to matter.

Huh? I’ve very very consistently said that the Squared RAPM data are low sample size snippets that we can’t put a whole lot of value on as a result, and have actually mostly pointed that out in scenarios where the Squared data supports the argument I’m making (i.e. when it had Jordan #1 in a bunch of years and I still kept repeatedly saying we shouldn’t put a whole lot of value on it because it’s just snippets). Meanwhile, here I specifically called it out as “limited data.” The idea that you’d accuse me of having “sample size only matter[] when you want it to matter” is actually completely insane and wildly dishonest. You need to apologize for this promptly, otherwise it is clear you are discussing in bad faith.

At no point in this post did you bother to engage with any of the content in my response evidencing that this:

we can infer the impact profile wasn’t high from looking at the teams’ SRS and their record without Hakeem. I simply used the Squared data as limited data points that at least support the inference…
But, as I discussed regarding Hakeem, we have good reason to believe his impact numbers in the first 8 years of his career were not all that good. And his box-score-based numbers weren’t all *that* great either. If neither impact data nor box-score-based numbers suggest a guy is a very top player in the league, it’s hard to see on what basis we could actually consider him as having been a very top player in the league...
But the reality is that, more generally, there’s not a lot to suggest that Hakeem deserved to be rated more highly than those MVP votes were generally putting him in that era.

… is legitimately “dishonest”. To me that total lack of interest suggests actual rejection of “good faith” discussion and a preference for twisting specifically small or partially reflective samples into a broader commentary (certainly not the first time).

You are of course mostly free to justify your votes with whatever skewed and misleading justifications you see fit, but do not expect apologies for having those misrepresentations called out and highlighted — especially when you ignore the response in favour of some empty and affected pearl-clutching.

Unbelievable. The fact that you can’t bring yourself to apologize for making such a blatantly dishonest attack is breathtaking. You don’t even address it, but instead go on some free-wheeling subject-changing maneuver to justify your stated refusal to apologize for something that was plainly unacceptable behavior. You were straightforwardly dishonest. Just apologize. It shouldn’t be difficult to do so if you’re a remotely mature human being. And it’s actually substantively important to discussion like this project that you apologize for behavior like this, because it will genuinely discourage people from honestly identifying appropriate caveats to the points they make and the evidence they provide if they know that people will just dishonestly attack them as if they did not do so. And that will ultimately lower the standard of discussion.

And you’re right—there was one particular part of your post I didn’t respond to. And that’s because all you did was take out half the data that was most inconvenient to you and then still only got to a conclusion that you yourself admitted wasn’t even particularly flattering for Hakeem. It was not something I felt the need to respond to, because I didn’t feel it made even a facially persuasive point.