Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #17-#18 Spots

[Jaivl]

So, my initial thought here:

Am I crazy to not be sure Dwight should be above Ben Wallace?

I’m cool with Big Ben entering the discussion.

I'm not cool with such a negative offensive player entering the discussion at #17.

And the comparison is not really with Howard. Among guys with a similar pattern of impact, Dray is obviously much better. Early Embiid seasons are better. Gobert is better. Hell, 2001 Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo have clearly better impact signals as well. I'd slot him next to Marc Gasol, and he isn't close to making the list for me.

And lots of other offensively-slanted players to be picked as well, of course.

[Owly]

Ya, it's like we're seriously throwing out hypotheticals of Draymond leading a Curry-less Warriors team into the ecf 10-15 years earlier as an argument over what Luka actually already did(beating 3.4, 7.4 & 6.4 srs teams consecutively)? These samples of Draymond leading teams in bits of minutes are also meant to carry way more weight than what actually happened in 2020. Which I get 2020 isn't a perfect picture but neither is what Dray&Klay were doing in those first two rds without Steph.

I'm not sure about how much weight either side of this discussion should carry.

But for what it's worth
- So far as I can tell the how a sans-Curry team might do was mainly rooted in an instance from the time of how they "actually did" as you acknowledge in your last sentence. Whether or not sufficient samples are used (post 27 for instance includes other playoffs but the sample will still be small) is up for debate but that's a different matter.

- Hypotheticals weren't just "thrown out" - rather Draymond was dismissed as a "non-Superstar" (post 13)

Draymond is a great player, but you can't build a team around him to go to the finals. With Luka you can. It's too early for discussion of non-superstar players like Draymond.

where an absolute which isn't amenable to falsification ... "you can't build a team around him to go to the finals" was thrown out as though it were a fact. This directly led to this side discussion. Where mileage can differ depending what information you trust. Not saying there wasn't hyperbole on the other "side" (post 16)

single-handed carrying his team through the early rounds

Is a characterization I'd just about never agree with. In a simplified version I'd just say ... teammates could always be worse and you'd lose so even where win equity is heavily tilted ... "single-handed carrying", then, sits very uneasily with me. But the reason this is being debated is from a pretty absolutely phrased Draymond-skeptical post not a pro-Draymond voter "throwing out hypotheticals" as a core part of their evidence base.


My limited impressions on that side discussion
- I'd guess without detailed knowledge that you wouldn't have to be taking RAPM numbers at absolute face value to be supporting Green here.
- I think sometimes it's thrown out that "defensive-y"guys that maybe aren't giant rim protectors can't be impactful as the best player ... I'm not sure about the evidence base for this and think '93 Rodman and '04 Kirilenko make me doubt it.
- Personally, I wouldn't be valuing finals runs as much as some appear to. I'm more into trying to get to who the better player is. And finals seems more about team context (goodness overall, goodness within small windows, health especially within small windows etc), opponent context (see prior), league context (seedings, routes, injuries, conference balance). But it depends what's important to the individual.
- From the above I think the notional ability to "lead" a team to the finals is a bit odd as a bar, it's very contextual (in terms of teammates as well as the bar itself) and by no means a fixed bar ... for instance we've seen sub-zero SRS teams make finals (not that SRS is perfect or a teams goodness is static but it's a solid short-hand in the clear majority of instances of team goodness over a larger sample).

[Owly]

So, my initial thought here:

Am I crazy to not be sure Dwight should be above Ben Wallace?

I’m cool with Big Ben entering the discussion.

I'm not cool with such a negative offensive player entering the discussion at #17.

And the comparison is not really with Howard. Among guys with a similar pattern of impact, Dray is obviously much better. Early Embiid seasons are better. Gobert is better. Hell, 2001 Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo have clearly better impact signals as well. I'd slot him next to Marc Gasol, and he isn't close to making the list for me.

And lots of other offensively-slanted players to be picked as well, of course.

Don't know if I'd be looking at him haven't thought it through as much as others ... and might be inclined towards a Kirilenko as floating defensive stars but that's very otoh ...

That said some long-term RAPM figures (97-14 Googlesites: -0.3; 1997-2024 RAPM (w playoffs), vanilla: -0.2) have Wallace as circa neutral on offense for his career so presumably not deeply negative at peak as appears to be implied here. ('97-'22 is lower on his offense ... -1.3 ... but at the same time gives him his highest absolute ranking).


Others may well be better and the box-side isn't great (though fwiw, each RS from 02-06 sees an OBPM [mostly narrowly] above zero). As others have alluded to parsing Detroit credit isn't simple.

[eminence]

So, my initial thought here:

Am I crazy to not be sure Dwight should be above Ben Wallace?

I’m cool with Big Ben entering the discussion.

I'm not cool with such a negative offensive player entering the discussion at #17.

And the comparison is not really with Howard. Among guys with a similar pattern of impact, Dray is obviously much better. Early Embiid seasons are better. Gobert is better. Hell, 2001 Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo have clearly better impact signals as well. I'd slot him next to Marc Gasol, and he isn't close to making the list for me.

And lots of other offensively-slanted players to be picked as well, of course.

If it makes you feel better I meant the back half of this ballot (#19), Tatum and Dray clearly above.

Embiid is better, but has the same problem as he has the past 5 threads - he's 'better' but he physically cannot complete a playoff run.

Gobert can play a PO run, but didn't have one that looked particularly good in his true prime years. Got effectively game planned against in the POs of his peak RS (yes I think this an era difference thing, no that won't matter for my votes).

Robinson has the better impact signals on 75% of the minutes in a lighter defensive role. #2 on a good team, Shaq absolutely smacks him in the POs.

Mutombo has a similar story, slightly better impact, lower minutes, 1B on a much worse team, gets smacked by Shaq.

Wallace has worse to slightly worse impact numbers, plays a bunch more minutes, leads a great team and smacks Shaq. '01 vs '04 Shaq is certainly a difference worth highlighting.

I don't think anyone *has* to be picking Wallace here and I don't think I will be yet, but I'm pretty comfortable with discussing him on this level (Davis/Howard/Sheed in Portland as well).

[eminence]

I love AK, but he is unfortunately near completely PO untested in his peak seasons. In an HM class with McGrady for me for this project.

[Cavsfansince84]

- Personally, I wouldn't be valuing finals runs as much as some appear to. I'm more into trying to get to who the better player is. And finals seems more about team context (goodness overall, goodness within small windows, health especially within small windows etc), opponent context (see prior), league context (seedings, routes, injuries, conference balance). But it depends what's important to the individual.
- From the above I think the notional ability to "lead" a team to the finals is a bit odd as a bar, it's very contextual (in terms of teammates as well as the bar itself) and by no means a fixed bar ... for instance we've seen sub-zero SRS teams make finals (not that SRS is perfect or a teams goodness is static but it's a solid short-hand in the clear majority of instances of team goodness over a larger sample).

I think there are generally two ways to try to determine player goodness. One way is through individual stats/metrics and the other is through team results/stats which of themselves point towards high individual impact. When those go together its' a very strong case for player goodness I would say. I think characterizing support of Luka as based on 'a finals run' is not at all an accurate representation of the argument(s) that have been made so far for him. It's a combination of a. mvp level rs b. quality of teams beat in the playoffs as well as c. his individual play in those series. I've said this many times now. If someone remains unconvinced that's fine but this is not just about a guy making it to the finals or else I would be arguing for Tatum instead since he actually won a finals. There's also an established pattern of Luka's ability to play this way in the playoffs which speaks to the idea of any flukiness in that playoff run.

[LA Bird]

Was trying to think of who else could be in the discussion and remembered we had this project a few years ago

All-NBA Teams Project

Missing the 2021-25 range and it's also divided by positions but here are the players who have yet to be voted in
1st team: Westbrook, Howard
2nd team: Davis, Kidd, Ginobili, McGrady, Wallace
3rd team: Luka, Butler, George, Draymond, Embiid, Rose, Griffin, Billups, Pierce, Brand, Gasol, Allen, Carter, Robinson

Players peaking in the last few seasons could be on a higher team and there are also some completely new names like Tatum, Gobert, Lillard, Brunson, Haliburton, Edwards, Mitchell to be added but I think that's about it. Did I forget anyone? There are only 9 spots left though so we can pretty much eliminate most of the 3rd teams right away.

[Doctor MJ]

So, my initial thought here:

Am I crazy to not be sure Dwight should be above Ben Wallace?

I’m cool with Big Ben entering the discussion.

I'm not cool with such a negative offensive player entering the discussion at #17.

And the comparison is not really with Howard. Among guys with a similar pattern of impact, Dray is obviously much better. Early Embiid seasons are better. Gobert is better. Hell, 2001 Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo have clearly better impact signals as well. I'd slot him next to Marc Gasol, and he isn't close to making the list for me.

And lots of other offensively-slanted players to be picked as well, of course.

Well I should be clear that I'm really not thinking about Ben for the 17/18 slots. It's just that if someone is going to bring up the "next group of defensive superstars" and include Dwight but not Ben, I'm not sure I agree.

To your other players:

I've been voting Draymond on my ballot already, so no disagreement there.

Embiid is complicated because of the extreme health issues that have literally affected every single year of his career.

Re: Gobert & Mutombo. I think a conversation comparing these two next to Ben (and Dwight for that matter) makes a lot of sense.

I do think the big thing to consider is that Ben has an entirely different body than the talls. That's absolutely a traditional reason to consider him a worse defender, and when you add his offensive limitations, makes sense to prefer the other guys.

But Ben was also considerably more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo while quite possibly being stronger than them. I always remember a play where LeBron drove to the hoop against the Pistons and got fouled seemingly by all of Ben's teammates which accomplished nothing at all other than giving him a guaranteed trip to the charity stripe due to LeBron's superior strength, and then finally Ben comes in as the final boss and when gets his hand on the ball LeBron's trying to dunk cleanly, LeBron was stopped cold. Literally, if the other Pistons had just decided to not do anything at all to stop LeBron, Ben would have stopped LeBron by himself, but because they tried to stop him, all Ben could do is prevent the And-1.

One of the things that I think always messes with us in basketball is this assumption that height means strength unless we categorize a guy as a "stretch big", but in terms of what I'd tend to call "basketball strength", I think the archetypes to look at are guys like Willis Reed & Wes Unseld.

Ben is like those guys... except he also was a league-leading shot blocker. That combination I think makes him harder to plan an attack for that most 7-footers, and then you add that he was also smart (unlike Dwight) and you've got something pretty damn awesome.

Re: 2001 Robinson. That's an interesting conversation. It probably goes without saying that Robinson is post-prime and minutes-limited at that point, but I can still see the argument for him.

I have to say, I struggle to praise either Duncan or Robinson for 2001 because I consider the way they got destroyed by the Lakers to be among the most humiliating defeats of all time. Those who were around back then I'd think would remember, but this was supposed to be the ultimate showdown between champion teams at their very best, and the Spurs looked pathetic.

And then you fast forward 3 years, and you've got the Wallace brothers destroying the Lakers.

Now, to be fair, the 2004 Pistons had a much, much smarter defensive scheme than the 2001 Spurs in part because what the Pistons did was straight up illegal in 2001, but it's not like the 2001 Spurs came out of those playoffs looking to people like they were the 2nd best team. Literally everyone did better against the Lakers than the Spurs did.

Re: Marc Gasol. I respect Gasol's defense a great deal, but I don't see it in the same tier as the other guys you bring up. He has offense that could give him the edge over Ben, but to be honest, I struggle to see Marc as the equal of big brother Pau, and I don't expect to vote for Pau in my 25.

[Doctor MJ]

I love AK, but he is unfortunately near completely PO untested in his peak seasons. In an HM class with McGrady for me for this project.

My feeling as well. I was a huge pro-AK guy as he emerged and still wonder what might have been, but injuries being what they are, it's hard for him to break in at too high of a tier for me.

[Doctor MJ]

Let me also just say - someone brought this up, but I can't seem to find the post at the moment:

I applaud people bringing up Sheed and earnestly asking whether Ben was really better than him. I would tend to consider Sheed both the greater talent and the one who tallied up more VORP in his career.

But I also think that Sheed was utterly incapable of leading other people to become more than the sum of their parts, in part because he himself was less than the sum of his parts. I think the way Sheed fit in in Detroit had everything to do with not just the scheme but the culture of the Pistons that was already established around Ben, who in addition to being a) the DPOY of a defense-first team, and b) the literal avatar of the team with his afro, was also someone who all the other guys knew c) was the bad ass mofo who you best not start s**t with.

How to factor in cultural impact into a project like this is highly debatable and hard to quantify, but I don't think I'll be voting for Sheed over Ben here.

[Cavsfansince84]

Let me also just say - someone brought this up, but I can't seem to find the post at the moment:

I applaud people bringing up Sheed and earnestly asking whether Ben was really better than him. I would tend to consider Sheed both the greater talent and the one who tallied up more VORP in his career.

But I also think that Sheed was utterly incapable of leading other people to become more than the sum of their parts, in part because he himself was less than the sum of his parts. I think the way Sheed fit in in Detroit had everything to do with not just the scheme but the culture of the Pistons that was already established around Ben, who in addition to being a) the DPOY of a defense-first team, and b) the literal avatar of the team with his afro, was also someone who all the other guys knew c) was the bad ass mofo who you best not start s**t with.

How to factor in cultural impact into a project like this is highly debatable and hard to quantify, but I don't think I'll be voting for Sheed over Ben here.

I think Larry Brown was the central piece in that culture. I think we tend to underrate coaches in these sort of things. I agree re Sheed though. He was one piece for the Pistons. Hard to separate any of Billups(partly because he peaked in the rs later on), Ben or Sheed for this project.

[Owly]

- Personally, I wouldn't be valuing finals runs as much as some appear to. I'm more into trying to get to who the better player is. And finals seems more about team context (goodness overall, goodness within small windows, health especially within small windows etc), opponent context (see prior), league context (seedings, routes, injuries, conference balance). But it depends what's important to the individual.
- From the above I think the notional ability to "lead" a team to the finals is a bit odd as a bar, it's very contextual (in terms of teammates as well as the bar itself) and by no means a fixed bar ... for instance we've seen sub-zero SRS teams make finals (not that SRS is perfect or a teams goodness is static but it's a solid short-hand in the clear majority of instances of team goodness over a larger sample).

I think there are generally two ways to try to determine player goodness. One way is through individual stats/metrics and the other is through team results/stats which of themselves point towards high individual impact. When those go together its' a very strong case for player goodness I would say. I think characterizing support of Luka as based on 'a finals run' is not at all an accurate representation of the argument(s) that have been made so far for him. It's a combination of a. mvp level rs b. quality of teams beat in the playoffs as well as c. his individual play in those series. I've said this many times now. If someone remains unconvinced that's fine but this is not just about a guy making it to the finals or else I would be arguing for Tatum instead since he actually won a finals. There's also an established pattern of Luka's ability to play this way in the playoffs which speaks to the idea of any flukiness.

So ...

1) The bolded (pretty clearly) speaks to my own preferences.

2) The post speaks to both an stated preference of of some voters and a general trend of very heavy focus in this thread to that point (starting towards the back of page one) on playoff progression/can player X "lead"/"carry" a team through the playoffs.

My post - though not the section you're quoting - post quotes a couple of posts specifically - one quote only about Green, the other about Green and Doncic, where my response regards only Green.

3) It is curious to me then why this post is quoted and highlighted and responded to with ...

characterizing support of Luka as based on 'a finals run' is not at all an accurate representation of the argument(s) that have been made so far for him

... because it isn't characterizing support of Luka at all. And thus the response is thereby itself mischaracterizing a post.


For what it's worth I'm not sure what "play this way" means in this context.

For what it's worth Luka's playoff career minute total of 2156 is still less than a typical good player's single season minutes total and I think most would acknowledge a singular regular season could be significantly luck influenced, performance itself, stats production and especially on the impact side. So whilst degree will vary depending on whether we're looking at one run or many and what the means of analysis are ... and here I'm not quite sure on intent ... to the extent that the use of "any" before flukiness may be read as trying to foreclose "any" such being at play, would seem ... dubious.

For what it's worth, personally, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with step B, especially as it is given as separate from step C. I'd say opponent would be something ideally factored into player performance (though certainly in small samples where it isn't more-or-less balanced as it would be over a regular season, we may sometimes forget ... and it's hard to know how much an opponent is at their typical performance levels over a small sample with variance and to the extent one thinks there are significant-risers/fallers accounting for that across opponents) and argue that if you think you are doing a competent job of C then it renders the win(or loss) moot, if, as I've stated for myself, you're interested in player goodness.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Re: Gobert & Mutombo. I think a conversation comparing these two next to Ben (and Dwight for that matter) makes a lot of sense.

I do think the big thing to consider is that Ben has an entirely different body than the talls. That's absolutely a traditional reason to consider him a worse defender, and when you add his offensive limitations, makes sense to prefer the other guys.

But Ben was also considerably more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo while quite possibly being stronger than them. I always remember a play where LeBron drove to the hoop against the Pistons and got fouled seemingly by all of Ben's teammates which accomplished nothing at all other than giving him a guaranteed trip to the charity stripe due to LeBron's superior strength, and then finally Ben comes in as the final boss and when gets his hand on the ball LeBron's trying to dunk cleanly, LeBron was stopped cold. Literally, if the other Pistons had just decided to not do anything at all to stop LeBron, Ben would have stopped LeBron by himself, but because they tried to stop him, all Ben could do is prevent the And-1.

Ben Wallace was more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo, but comparing Gobert and Mutombo in the same sentence in terms of mobility is incorrect.

I still don't see the argument for Ben Wallace over Rudy Gobert in this thread, but I am open to seeing it being presented.

[Doctor MJ]

Let me also just say - someone brought this up, but I can't seem to find the post at the moment:

I applaud people bringing up Sheed and earnestly asking whether Ben was really better than him. I would tend to consider Sheed both the greater talent and the one who tallied up more VORP in his career.

But I also think that Sheed was utterly incapable of leading other people to become more than the sum of their parts, in part because he himself was less than the sum of his parts. I think the way Sheed fit in in Detroit had everything to do with not just the scheme but the culture of the Pistons that was already established around Ben, who in addition to being a) the DPOY of a defense-first team, and b) the literal avatar of the team with his afro, was also someone who all the other guys knew c) was the bad ass mofo who you best not start s**t with.

How to factor in cultural impact into a project like this is highly debatable and hard to quantify, but I don't think I'll be voting for Sheed over Ben here.

I think Larry Brown was the central piece in that culture. I think we tend to underrate coaches in these sort of things.

Larry had literally just gotten there in '03-04 joining an already existing culture built around Ben with Rick Carlisle as the coach.

In general I see Larry as an erratic genius in a role that demands stability in order to have a GOAT career, and this meant he basically couldn't set culture.

I think the comparison of Larry with his protege Pop as noteworthy. Aside from Pop being the far more accomplished coach by NBA success, why are we always talking about Pop's coaching tree when that tree is just a subset of Larry's coaching tree? Because none of his other proteges really did all that much in the NBA, because he wasn't actually a great mentor.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: Gobert & Mutombo. I think a conversation comparing these two next to Ben (and Dwight for that matter) makes a lot of sense.

I do think the big thing to consider is that Ben has an entirely different body than the talls. That's absolutely a traditional reason to consider him a worse defender, and when you add his offensive limitations, makes sense to prefer the other guys.

But Ben was also considerably more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo while quite possibly being stronger than them. I always remember a play where LeBron drove to the hoop against the Pistons and got fouled seemingly by all of Ben's teammates which accomplished nothing at all other than giving him a guaranteed trip to the charity stripe due to LeBron's superior strength, and then finally Ben comes in as the final boss and when gets his hand on the ball LeBron's trying to dunk cleanly, LeBron was stopped cold. Literally, if the other Pistons had just decided to not do anything at all to stop LeBron, Ben would have stopped LeBron by himself, but because they tried to stop him, all Ben could do is prevent the And-1.

Ben Wallace was more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo, but comparing Gobert and Mutombo in the same sentence in terms of mobility is incorrect.

I still don't see the argument for Ben Wallace over Rudy Gobert in this thread, but I am open to seeing it being presented.

Are you suggesting that the gap between Ben & Rudy's mobility is small compared to Rudy & Deke?

I see Rudy as a guy whose mobility limitations have everything to do with why his team's success tended to choke in the playoffs.

[Owly]

I love AK, but he is unfortunately near completely PO untested in his peak seasons. In an HM class with McGrady for me for this project.

My feeling as well. I was a huge pro-AK guy as he emerged and still wonder what might have been, but injuries being what they are, it's hard for him to break in at too high of a tier for me.

Injuries to me seem a separate thing except in that they take out half of what might have been his best year.
I was aware of the playoff absence for that 2.5 year productivity apex. I nearly mentioned but abandoned a different post just briefly floating AK.

Is it more that absence of sample means doubt (of capacity to more-or-less replicate) and so a marginal shift towards skepticism?

Or, no playoffs kills this season to me, don't care much how good you are, doesn't matter if you're as good as one of those Robertson, KAJ, Garnett seasons, sucks to be you, I guess, sorry. I'm evaluating the "season" and for these purposes that needs team playoff success?

Obviously doesn't have to be completely binary.

[Cavsfansince84]

... because it isn't characterizing support of Luka at all. And thus the response is thereby itself mischaracterizing a post.


For what it's worth I'm not sure what "play this way" means in this context.

For what it's worth Luka's playoff career minute total of 2156 is still less than a typical good player's single season minutes total and I think most would acknowledge a singular regular season could be significantly luck influenced, performance itself, stats production and especially on the impact side. So whilst degree will vary depending on whether we're looking at one run or many and what the means of analysis are ... and here I'm not quite sure on intent ... to the extent that the use of "any" before flukiness may be read as trying to foreclose "any" such being at play, would seem ... dubious.

For what it's worth, personally, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with step B, especially as it is given as separate from step C. I'd say opponent would be something ideally factored into player performance (though certainly in small samples where it isn't more-or-less balanced as it would be over a regular season, we may sometimes forget ... and it's hard to know how much an opponent is at their typical performance levels over a small sample with variance and to the extent one thinks there are significant-risers/fallers accounting for that across opponents) and argue that if you think you are doing a competent job of C then it renders the win(or loss) moot, if, as I've stated for myself, you're interested in player goodness.

If even a full season can be viewed as luck based then I don't really even understand the point of having a one year peaks project or taking part in it if that's your view tbh. So I guess we can just agree to disagree or w/e when it comes to Luka's 2024 season. I would have it at #1 but I'm done voting in this period. Others might not see it as a ballot worthy season. I just think what happens in a season is what happened. Just as I made a rather long post in an earlier thread in this project that I don't believe in luck when it comes to what the best athlete's in the world are able to do during competition in that sport on the biggest stage. I likened it to calling the 3 by Ray in the 2013 finals or a 60 ft putt by Jack Nicklaus on the final hole of a major as luck. It's not. It's arguably the greatest at their skill set doing what they do under intense pressure. That's how I feel about when guys step up in the playoffs, particularly in the latter rounds. Nothing to do with luck imo.

[Doctor MJ]

I love AK, but he is unfortunately near completely PO untested in his peak seasons. In an HM class with McGrady for me for this project.

My feeling as well. I was a huge pro-AK guy as he emerged and still wonder what might have been, but injuries being what they are, it's hard for him to break in at too high of a tier for me.

Injuries to me seem a separate thing except in that they take out half of what might have been his best year.
I was aware of the playoff absence for that 2.5 year productivity apex. I nearly mentioned but abandoned a different post just briefly floating AK.

Is it more that absence of sample means doubt (of capacity to more-or-less replicate) and so a marginal shift towards skepticism?

Or, no playoffs kills this season to me, don't care much how good you are, doesn't matter if you're as good as one of those Robertson, KAJ, Garnett seasons, sucks to be you, I guess, sorry. I'm evaluating the "season" and for these purposes that needs team playoff success?

Obviously doesn't have to be completely binary.

Good framing of the dilemma.

How I tend to see it is that we don't really know how bulletproof a guy is until he makes a deep playoff run, and while AK eventually was part of a WCF team, it happened when he was no longer their star and lead MPG guy leading a defense-first team, but when he was their 4th MPG behind 3 other guys who were named all-stars on a team that was special because of their offense and no longer showed major impact from AK.

I won't refuse to consider AK here, but I think it will be unlikely I'll vote for him in my Top 25.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Re: Gobert & Mutombo. I think a conversation comparing these two next to Ben (and Dwight for that matter) makes a lot of sense.

I do think the big thing to consider is that Ben has an entirely different body than the talls. That's absolutely a traditional reason to consider him a worse defender, and when you add his offensive limitations, makes sense to prefer the other guys.

But Ben was also considerably more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo while quite possibly being stronger than them. I always remember a play where LeBron drove to the hoop against the Pistons and got fouled seemingly by all of Ben's teammates which accomplished nothing at all other than giving him a guaranteed trip to the charity stripe due to LeBron's superior strength, and then finally Ben comes in as the final boss and when gets his hand on the ball LeBron's trying to dunk cleanly, LeBron was stopped cold. Literally, if the other Pistons had just decided to not do anything at all to stop LeBron, Ben would have stopped LeBron by himself, but because they tried to stop him, all Ben could do is prevent the And-1.

Ben Wallace was more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo, but comparing Gobert and Mutombo in the same sentence in terms of mobility is incorrect.

I still don't see the argument for Ben Wallace over Rudy Gobert in this thread, but I am open to seeing it being presented.

Are you suggesting that the gap between Ben & Rudy's mobility is small compared to Rudy & Deke?

No.

I see Rudy as a guy whose mobility limitations have everything to do with why his team's success tended to choke in the playoffs.

It was Rudy's lack of mobility which is the sole reason for the Utah Jazz's inability to defend the perimeter at a high level in the postseason. I can't get behind that.

Rudy Gobert is an easy player to dislike, from NBA Players themselves clowning him in multiple interviews to Gobert's out-of-touch comments regarding the global pandemic, to the Utah Jazz being a dominant regular-season team that falls short in the postseason, similar to the 1980s and early 1990s Jazz.

Defensively, a team with Bojan Bogdanovic, Mike Conley, and Royce O'Neale isn't going to be capable of stopping good offenses in the postseason. Of course, we saw an older Rudy Gobert join up with the likes of Jaden McDaniels, Anthony Edwards, and Karl-Anthony Towns and have a historically dominant postseason series against an Offensive GOAT in Nikola Jokic, holding the Suns to -7.1 Ortg (Compared to their RS) and Denver to -10.4, all while Minnesota produced a great offense against Phoenix and mediocre against Denver, before eventually crashing and burning against Dallas. We then see Gobert in 2025 hold up incredibly well against Luka in isolation.

It is clear that Gobert has defensive blemishes in the postseason, unlike Ben Wallace, but that's where this offensive gap comes into play. We are also trying to hone in on one season, a season in which we saw Gobert dominate in a way Ben Wallace simply never did, on both ends of the court. However, the season ended in a disappointing fashion due to outlier shooting performances, which is why playoff sample sizes are always tricky to evaluate.

2021 LAC Round 1: 37.3 3P%
2021 LAC Round 2: 43.3 3P%
2021 LAC Round 3: 35.3 3P%

Again, I know you adore +/-, even just raw +/-. I have read your posts, and you often use raw +/- in them to articulate your viewpoint on players or situations. In fact, your ability to diagnose +/- and extrapolate your thoughts and opinions through it is incredibly valuable to me, as I too adore +/- as a rudimentary analysis that is far more valuable than other box-score-specific counting stats.

This isn't a gotcha moment, but a post of yours from about two years ago in a discussion regarding Luka, Manu, and +/-points.

(Snip regarding Luka)

In the end, I tend to focus on base impact (in the sense of +/-, though we don't always have enough data to know what that is) and scalability to greater team play with such a role as my north star here. If Player X is having more impact and playing more in a style that seems to fit on a champion than Player Y, I'm probably not going to be overly focused on whether Player X could do what Player Y does. Rather, I'll be asking myself how Player Y would do in a scenario like Player X.

(Snip regarding Manu)

Before I move off from +/-, I'm going to mention something I've mentioned before that I know a lot of people don't like, but here we go:

We are now in Year 5 of Luka's career, and as things stand, he's once again not leading his team in raw +/-.

As I've acknowledged before: Raw +/- is a super-simple metric that by no means should be taken by itself as proxy for how good a player is. I use leading a team in raw +/- as something to share because:

1. Everybody (almost) understands what raw +/- actually is and should be capable of discussing what they think is happening, whereas more sophisticated metrics make that trickier.

2. When we're talking about players who are supposed to be outliers, we generally expect them to be able to separate themselves from their peers in most years unless they have fellow outliers on their team.

3. In the case of Luka, who is often talked about as a player that hasn't been built around with suitable supporting talent, there are no outliers that have gotten in the way.

RE: Player X and Player Y Roles

What if we did swap Gobert and Wallace? I understand the general consensus (with which I agree) that Ben Wallace was an incredibly passionate and strong leader, whereas Gobert wasn't. But what exactly would Chauncey Billups and the Detroit offense achieve with a P&R threat as effective as Rudy Gobert? We saw Mike Conley have historically great +/- at the tail-end of his prime running P&R next to Gobert, imagine the boon this provides Chauncey and Detroit.

How does Utah's offense look with Ben Wallace at the helm of a P&R attack? Probably pedestrian, though given their shooting (4-out spacing) it would still be effective, but I have my doubts they could be the #1 offense in the NBA like they were in 2021.

To reiterate, simply swapping players 15 years apart in different league environments isn't something I personally place great value in, but Detroit had better pieces, relative to their era, compared to what Utah was working with around Gobert, and I don't see that as particularly debatable.

RE: +/-

Rudy Gobert is an outlier in terms of +/-

2021 Rudy Gobert: +728 (1st in NBA)
2021 Mike Conley: +548

2020 Anthony Davis: +240
2020 LeBron James: +442

2009 Dwight Howard: +550
2009 Rashard Lewis: +582

2010 Dwight Howard: +620
2010 Vince Carter: +497

2004 Ben Wallace: +440 (10th in NBA)
2004 Chauncey Billups: +413

2005 Tayshaun Prince: +437
2005 Rip Hamilton: +425
2005 Rasheed Wallace: +375
2005 Chauncey Billups: +352
2005 Ben Wallace: +343 (24th in NBA)

2006 Tayshaun Prince: +647
2006 Rasheed Wallace: +615
2006 Ben Wallace: +599 (3rd in NBA)

My Napkin math says Ben Wallace is still first in +/- between 2004 and 2006 for Detroit, but he is lumped together with his other teammates. Rudy Gobert, on the other hand, is going to be head-and-shoulders ahead for a 3-year sample of 2020-2022.

Gobert was head and shoulders above the best player on a 9 SRS team, where Rudy Gobert led the league in +/-rating. This should matter for something here.

[Owly]

... because it isn't characterizing support of Luka at all. And thus the response is thereby itself mischaracterizing a post.


For what it's worth I'm not sure what "play this way" means in this context.

For what it's worth Luka's playoff career minute total of 2156 is still less than a typical good player's single season minutes total and I think most would acknowledge a singular regular season could be significantly luck influenced, performance itself, stats production and especially on the impact side. So whilst degree will vary depending on whether we're looking at one run or many and what the means of analysis are ... and here I'm not quite sure on intent ... to the extent that the use of "any" before flukiness may be read as trying to foreclose "any" such being at play, would seem ... dubious.

For what it's worth, personally, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with step B, especially as it is given as separate from step C. I'd say opponent would be something ideally factored into player performance (though certainly in small samples where it isn't more-or-less balanced as it would be over a regular season, we may sometimes forget ... and it's hard to know how much an opponent is at their typical performance levels over a small sample with variance and to the extent one thinks there are significant-risers/fallers accounting for that across opponents) and argue that if you think you are doing a competent job of C then it renders the win(or loss) moot, if, as I've stated for myself, you're interested in player goodness.

If even a full season can be viewed as luck based then I don't really even understand the point of having a one year peaks project or taking part in it if that's your view tbh. So I guess we can just agree to disagree or w/e when it comes to Luka's 2024 season. I would have it at #1 but I'm done voting in this period. Others might not see it as a ballot worthy season. I just think what happens in a season is what happened. Just as I made a rather long post in an earlier thread in this project that I don't believe in luck when it comes to what the best athlete's in the world are able to do during competition in that sport on the biggest stage. I likened it to calling the 3 by Ray in the 2013 finals or a 60 ft putt by Jack Nicklaus on the final hole of a major as luck. It's not. It's arguably the greatest at their skill set doing what they do under intense pressure. That's how I feel about when guys step up in the playoffs, particularly in the latter rounds. Nothing to do with luck imo.

1) You'll note I'm not voting.
2) "a full season can be viewed as luck based" is a very clunky phrasing (and I think meaningless). But to illustrate the point McGrady received some pushback based on the idea that his 2003 shooting was significantly lucky. Isaiah Thomas's peak is often regarded as significantly luck influenced (though it's hard to be sure given he didn't really get the chance after to try and duplicate it). And this comes back to the debate/choice of "player" where trying assess to what extent that is true matters, versus "season" where it might not.
3) The thing is I don't even have any objection to a "what happened happened" point of view (I haven't dived that deeply into that debate). But if you don't see the influence of randomness on a single event that seems odd. The idea of greats applying their skill ... I don't know ... makes for a binary where no luck is at play ... it feels like taking that view to it's logical endpoint Allen should make all his 3s.

[post edited for typo]