RealGM Top 100 List #4

[DQuinn1575]

Wilt….as great as the numbers were, didn't have the same fundamentals and while others will say the coulda woulda shoulda's with him, it is all speculation to what the limited footage all shows us if we're being honest in compared to Shaq.

If I judged by fundamentals then these 2 lousy free throw shooters would not be in my Top 100.

I'm not judging by style points, or how they would fit in today's game. Nor am I trying to judge how LeBron would have done in the 60s.



There are a lot og guys in my Top 100 who wouldn't pass the fundamentals test- besides Wilt and Shaq I would add
Walt Frazier and Artis Gilmore right off the top of my head.

Shaq was pretty raw when he started, but improved his footwork and fundamentals while in the league.

Wilt's fundamentals were never great, but he was a decent ball-handler and passer.

What was wrong with Clyde's fundamentals? He was pretty much a jack of all trades at the guard spot back then.

Great great player,but he shot the ball with his elbow way out - worked for him exceedingly well.

[drza]

Spoiler:

And that's only speaking about the games I've uploaded. I've literally sat through hours upon hours of Garnett post seasons performances, which is the reason why I'm comfortable saying that he hasn't impressed me enough to say that he has a top 10 impact on the game.

Even the 4 of his best scoring games I uploaded (I might actually add some more later this summer from my collection) left me disappointed in his ability to change the flow of the game. I remember he'd be in the 4th quater of the game, whiles a team is going on a big run, and rather than take the ball to the hole, he'd keep on forcing mid range shots even when it wasn't falling even when he was being played 1 on 1. Or he'd get pushed out of position when his team needed to stop a run, and settle for a bad fade away. What I remember being impressed by most by him, whiles breaking down his footage, was always his ability to defend players off the dribble and on the perimeter. But specifically in both the Laker series from 03 and from 04 I found myself underwhelmed by his Rim protection .

I think what makes Kobe unique is that different parts of his game peaked at different times. Early in his career his defense was elite but the effort on that end of the floor fell off toward the end of the three peat. Then his athletic/scoring peak was from 05-07 in my eyes. Whiles his passing, post game and three point peak came from 08-10 if I'm remembering correctly. Sometimes it almost seems like different players.

I'm hoping that this becomes the start of a good conversation, because there's a lot here to work with that I applaud and other that I'd like to rebut. A couple of notes before I get started:

1) In the process of this response I may speak of general trends of thought on Kobe and Garnett that perhaps you don't ascribe to. If I do, then consider that part of my post as not specifically for you.

2) Warning! This post will use RAPM as evidence

Let's start with that latter. As I've pointed out, RAPM isn't a standalone measure of "goodness". On the other hand, it is the best measure we currently have to tie a team's performance to a certain player that doesn't involve using the box score. The box score has its uses as well, but I'm one that likes to keep them as separate measures. But I digress. This is also the best measure that we have for gauging a player's defensive impact, since so much of defense isn't covered in the box scores.

Thus, if someone says Kobe Bryant was an "elite" defender early in his career, I would expect there to be some sign of it in the RAPM studies. I'm not saying that he needed to measure out as well as the ATG bigs in order to impress me, but there have been LOTS of good defensive wings whose impact shows up clearly in the RAPM data. Shane Battier, Ron Artest, Luol Deng, Eddie Jones, Doug Christie, Bruce Bowen, Andre Iguodala and Manu Ginobili are all wings that show up among the top-52 players in Doc MJ's normalized data set. Each of them had very clear defensive impact from the wing, on the order of + 3.2 - +4.3 on that scale in their 5-year defensive peaks.

Kobe measured out at 292nd on the defensive list, with a 5-year peak defensive impact of less than 1 point.

Why would Kobe's defensive RAPM scores be so much smaller than expected, even in his early years? Is it a case of the RAPM approach missing it? That's possible, but it seems unlikely that the stat would unfairly single out Kobe and not the other good wing defenders that I mentioned. So, what might be another cause?

Well, speaking from my own observations, Kobe has definite strengths and weaknesses as a defender. One of his major strengths is his ability to play on-ball, 1-on-1 defense when he is motivated to. His size/athletic ability/competitiveness streak allows him to really bulldog any perimeter player that has the ball and challenges him. On the other hand, throughout his career (not just later) he has the tendency to conserve energy on defense so that he could use that energy for offense. He is not noted for consistently fighting through screens, nor is he known for making excellent defensive and help rotations. If anything, Kobe's off-ball defense has been noted as an area where he ball-watches more than putting in maximum team effort.

So, how do I interpret the defensive RAPM results in the face of my Kobe scouting report? I interpret it that Kobe's defensive approach is not one that produces measurable impact in his team's defensive efforts. But what the approach DOES do is really pop on screen. People won't remember the missed rotation or the screen that he don't fight through, but they WILL remember his mano-a-mano duel with MVP Iverson. They WILL remember when he blocked LeBron's shot in an All Star game.

To me, Kobe's defense is a good example for why sometimes stats like RAPM can do a better job of evaluating impact than our eye-test. For one thing, we don't always give proper weight to the individual acts on the court that are the most important. And for another, we all just miss a lot of the action.

The irony here, and what sparked this (increasingly wordy) response to your two posts, is that Garnett tends to be the exact opposite of Kobe in this respect. Many observers watch Garnett play, and come away unimpressed. It's funny that you referenced KG's 33-point game game 5 against the Pistons in the 2008 playoffs, because I had what (to me) was a crazy exchange with a Celtics fan on a different message board about that game in real time. True story, this was the gist of the exchange:

Celtics fan: Man, KG had pretty numbers but he really didn't give us much on offense.

Me: Wait, he led all scorers with 33 points.

Celtics fan: Yeah, but they were low impact points. He wasn't there down the stretch.

Me: Hold on, he led all scorers with 10 points in the 4th quarter!

Celtics fan: Yeah, but those came early. He didn't really do anything in crunch time.

Me: He hit the game-sealing free throws with 2 seconds left! Are you sure we watched the same game?

Focus: Like Kobe's defense, Garnett also has strengths and weaknesses on offense. You point out that he isn't always aggressive as you would like. That you would like to see him drive or post more instead of settling for jumpers. And those are fair (and oft levied) criticisms. On the flip side, Garnett has offensive strengths as well. He is one of the better mid-range shooters the position has ever seen. He is both an excellent and a willing passer. He is very good at drawing defensive attention and making the pass (or the pass-that-leads-to-the-pass) that gets a teammate an open shot. He's an enthusiastic (and sometimes illegal) pick setter. He knows where his teammates should be, and if they aren't there he communicates it to them.

And if we complete the mirror analysis to what we did with Kobe's defense, Garnett's offense DOES measure out as elite using offensive RAPM studies. He is 12th overall on DocMJ's normalized offensive RAPM rankings in terms of 5-year peak, and in the top-5 among big men with a 5-year peak of +5.4 on offense. Shaq (+7.6) and Dirk (+7.0) are the only two bigs with a convincingly higher mark than KG's on offense.

Just like Kobe's defense, one possible reason for the RAPM mark to be counter-intuitive is that for some reason the stat just likes Garnett in particular. Again, this is exceedingly unlikely. Perhaps it is too reliant on the regular season, as Ardee and Ryoga allege...but as I pointed out before, I'm almost positive that the postseason is weighted heavier in RAPM studies than the regular season, and also KG's on/off +/- scores appear to be BETTER in the postseason than they are in the regular season. So I don't see any indication that KG's postseasons would hurt his RAPM marks. So, then, I interpret the combination of evidence to suggest that KG tends to have a much larger positive impact than most observers seem to realize because again, his strengths aren't as easily observed as his perceived weaknesses and the ratio of his strengths vs his weaknesses isn't properly weighted.

Summary: In the examples of Kobe's defense and KG's offense, it appears to me that Kobe's defense has a tendency to LOOK like it should be more impactful than it is. On the other hand, it seems to me that KG's offense has a tendency to not appear to be as strong as it is. Not coincidentally, Kobe's defensive strength is his 1-on-1 on-ball defensive approach, and KG's perceived weakness on offense is his 1-on-1 scoring. It reminds me of a quote from Bill Russell that I've seen posted here before:

I used to break it down. There are 48 minutes in a game. It takes a second -- a second-and-a-half, maybe two seconds -- for a three point shot. And if you add up all the shots taken in a game -- free throws don't count because the clock stops -- but if you take all the seconds added up shooting and rebounding it comes to about three minutes. Now out of a 48-minute game three minutes are concerned with shooting and rebounding. What is going on the other 45 minutes?

I think the common tendency in the eye test is to focus more on the 3 minutes than the other 45, especially the 1-on-1 parts. And don't get me wrong, what happens in that 3 minutes is extremely important, and having the ability to go mano a mano on either offense or defense is a wonderful talent that certainly helps. But the game is so, so much more than just 1-on-1 skills, and I don't think our mindsets have caught up with that/made the appropriate weighting when evaluating 1-on-1 skills compared to the total package.

Personally, I've never used Per or +\- stats because I feel it's impossible to isolate a players impact in the course of 48 minutes in a 5 on 5 game. The only advanced stat I've found useful for individual evaluation is True shooting %. I have yet to find stats that effectivly account for: "

Strength of screens a big will set (Becomes important when evaluating the impact a player has on their team, because bigs who set stronger screens allow their playmakers to create space to operate)

Their passing ability out of double teams

Abilty to make the right play even with the shot clock running down

Their ability to alter the defensive gameplay of a team

Their Abilty to move to the right spot on the court both offensively and defensively

Their Abilty to fight for position and not be pushed around Inside

Their Abilty to make quick and smart plays with the ball

Their ability to create space

And there's so many more things that I feel gets left out when you try to package a players overall impact on the game into something like a +\- stat

I agree with everything that you wrote here except your first and last lines. I love the categories that you listed here, and am ecstatic that this level of video tracking is becoming a more common thing. I think that in the long run it could help change our understanding of the game. Ultimately, I envision categories like what you named or the type of stat tracking that ElGee does as the kernel for an outstandingly expanded box score that would be much more useful than the current one.

Where we differ, again, is that you don't believe that the +/- stats can account for these things. The way that I see it, the so-called impact stats are the only quantification methods that DO account for these things. While the box score approach keeps track of some subset of "good things" and misses others, the +/- approach doesn't attempt to account for each "good thing" separately but instead roughly traces the sum of those "good things" by following the team's scoring differentials.

So while you couldn't look at an RAPM score and say "this guy really alters the defensive gameplay of a team", you CAN say "Hmm. the offense seems to improve by a significant amount whenever this guy is on the floor. And it happens year after year, regardless of how the personnel changes. Let's correlate this result with out scouting/observations/the box scores/our own basketball sense and see if we can figure out why this might be happening."

To me, the fact that the +/- results tacitly account for everything that a player does as opposed to picking and choosing how much credit to apportion from an incomplete subset of arbitrarily chosen categories is one of the most attractive aspects of the approach.

Now in reference to the eye test, I think you're putting all watching of game footage on equal footing. Personally I have two youtube channels with a lot of nba games, and I own a large amount of game footage. What separates simply watching a game, from going through footage for the evaluation of one player is the process. When I went through the KG footage I used for the videos, it wasn't simply about the end result on a possesion, or even the Imidiate cause of a good or bad possesion. When I examine game footage It's about what a player has done on a possesion that positively, neutrally or negatively impacted a particular possesion.

Back in the day I would literally take a piece of paper, focus in on a particular player and write how they effected each possesion .

So it would look like this

Offense Possesion #1- Garnett deflects tip ball to teammate , jogs up the court, catches the ball in the high post, passesthe ball to Cassell -whiles coming up to set the screen- rolls to the basket hard, draws in the defense enough
to give Cassell the room for an open jumpshot

Defensive possesion #1- Garnett stays attached to Webbers body in the post, Garnett drawn into pick and roll defensive situation at the top of the key , whiles guarding Chris Webber. Garnett goes over the screen and makes the correct switch on to Bibby. Bibby calls for an isolation-As a result Kg takes a defensive stance and uses his long arms to try and prevent penetration, Bibby tries to attack the rim but Garnett cuts him off,Bibby then takes a step back three that Garnett comes back out to contest.

When you break down their activity on a possesion by possesion basis you start to really understand the little things that make up a players DNA.

Again, I LOVE your scouting approach. As I pointed out before, I was going to be making generalizations that may not apply to you. And it certainly sounds like it doesn't. But I seriously doubt that the vast majority of those reading and posting in this forum can claim that level of scouting, so I think that the points that I made before did still need to be made.

When you tell me that +\- indicates that Garnett is an elite offensive player (in regards to the players he's being compared to) It gives me even less incentive to take the stat as seriously as a lot of the other posters. Here's how I think of Kg's offense

-Elite passer/playmaker of any area on the floor
-Great/smart screen setter
-Excellent mid range shooter (catch and shoot, contested, off the dribble)
-Doesn't play in the low post enough to maximize post abilities
-pushed out of the post to easily
-Is perfectly willing to settle for contested long mid range shots
-Not impressed by his offensive rounding ability
-Extremly impressed by his point guard abilities
-Impressed by his Abilty to create space using off the ball movement
-Not impressed by how easily it seems for playoff defenses to disrupt his scoring rhythm
- Hes not the kind of player to provide a scoring boost consistently when his team is down in the playoffs

There's Probally more.. But when I've observed these things it makes me think that KG was elite offensively when compared to the league as a whole.. But when it comes to the players he's compared to in the top 15 he comes up short with his impact on that end of the floor.

A couple of things. First, +/- results don't necessarily say (that KG is elite offensively. That's an interpretation. What RAPM says is that the offenses of the teams that he has been on have had played at a certain level, and that various mathematical regression techniques are able to correlate that performance to his presence. While it's more than fair game to examine how accurate those regressions might be (there is always some degree of error), RAPM isn't a so-called "made up stat". Said another way, the +/- results aren't so much a thing to agree with or not...they're simply a data point to be interpreted.

And that said, second, the underlined sentence suggests that in this case the result of your scouting doesn't really differ that much from what the +/- numbers say. The only players in these RAPM studies (started in 1998) that will get any traction in the top-15 are LeBron, Shaq, Kobe, Dirk, KG and Duncan. LeBron, Shaq, Kobe and Dirk all have clearly better offensive RAPM scores than KG. So he does measure out as "elite offensively when compared to the league as a whole.. But when it comes to the players he's compared to in the top 15 he comes up short with his impact on that end of the floor", as you suggested, with Duncan as the only exception. And both KG's and Duncan's inclusion in the top-15 is at least as (if not more) reliant upon their defense than their offense, so the fact that they do come up short offensively when compared to their super-elite peers isn't a reason for either not to be included.

The reason I value Kobe's 1 on 1 defense so highly, is because I consider the early 2000's the peak of isolation basketball. During the early 2000's due to the combination of zone rules and Handchecking, you had this defensive environment that made it so difficult to score, that you had all these 1 on 1 scorers making a name for themselves. So it's not that I consider 1 on 1 defense more valuable than help defense... I simply feel that 1 on 1 defense was more valuable In the early part of the decade before these complex team defenses were developed, and it was in this era that Kobe peaked defensively. But make no mistake about it, Kobe's quick hands, great foot speed, great anticipation and his intensity made him a great defender before that era ended with the rule changes.

I understand that reasoning. And I even agree with it to some extent in certain ways. Kobe did have quick hands, great foot speed, great anticipation and intensity when he focused on that. I'd also add excellent size and good strength. And when matched up with a unipolar offensive producer like Allen Iverson in 2001, for example, that 1-on-1 defense could pay great dividends. I think that having said skill was a great tool for Kobe to have in his back pocket, and differentiated him from the other players with defensive RAPM marks down where Kobe's was. Again, DRAPM isn't a measure of goodness per se.

BUT, I also think that a) Kobe didn't lock down like that all the time and b) the value of that level of locked in 1-on-1 defense is overstated, even in the 1-on-1 age. Most of the wings that I pointed out that had elite wing impacts on defense were also excellent 1-on-1 defenders as well. The difference is that they were also much better at maintaining that level of play, and better at incorporating their defensive efforts into helping the team defense. Was some of that effort distribution because Kobe had huge offensive responsibilities? Absolutely. As such, I'd agree that Kobe was a (possibly much) better defender in terms of "goodness" than his actual impact reflects. But at the same token, I believe that the impact is extremely important, and thus that Kobe's lack of that is not overcome by the likelihood that he may have been able to do more on defense if he chose to.

[PaulieWal]

I suggest you rewatch the series. Lebron was single covered just like Wade. And the reason Ariza and Barrier would help is that they would play defense and offensively they'd make up for Bron's production. And they didn't make a decision to run through Wade Lebron kept giving the ball up so they had to.

I suggest you re-watch the series so you can stop engaging in hyperbole.

[E-Balla]

Stopping Lebron was clearly Dallas #1 priority. A very clear example of this was moving JJB into the starting lineup as the series went on so that DeShawn could come in and be a fresh body on Lebron spelling Marion. Yes, the Mavs played zone all year, but that zone had man principles and it was clearly shading to Lebron.

Lebron could not be replaced by generic SF man and Miami win that series. Just no chance. Dallas had plenty of defenders to throw at Wade and without Lebron to worry about its hard to see Wade having that strong of a series, Maybe, but seems less likely.

Lebron did play poorly. How much of that the Mavs should get credit for and how much Lebron should be blamed for is up for dispute. As a fan of the Mavs I'd love to think it was all about hte plan Rick drew up and the tough individual defense and great team defense we played on him. But saying it was all Dallas requires me to believe that only Rick Carlisle was smart enough to find a scheme to stop him and that only Marion/DeShawn, Kidd with Dirk, Tyson, Ian, Haywood providing support were good enough on the court to execute it. Mad respect for Rick and that team, but nah it wasnt all them.

Im not sure why some are arguing this as an either-or. Dallas played great against him, he struggled in his own right. The end.

What about his performance on the defensive end? Why am I the only one who seems to remember his criticism on both ends?

Also offensively he didn't do anything special at all. When he started seriously being discussed I'll go deeper into it but you guys acting like he wasn't below average in an absolute sense have some games to rewatch.

I suggest you rewatch the series. Lebron was single covered just like Wade. And the reason Ariza and Barrier would help is that they would play defense and offensively they'd make up for Bron's production. And they didn't make a decision to run through Wade Lebron kept giving the ball up so they had to.

I suggest you re-watch the series so you can stop engaging in hyperbole.

Serious question, can you find any numbers to show he was at least average? Of not you might want to rethink your position on his performance.

[MisterWestside]

Obviously it's not perfect since we don't have infinitely many possessions for players, but as J.E. noted on APBRmetrics, the results tend to flatten out after 5000 possessions. I don't use RAPM as the sole basis of evaluation when comparing any two players, but if we're looking to isolate impact, and I can only look at one number, it's going to be some flavor of normalized, prior-informed RAPM.

Depends on the prior. If you're looking at one number, Englemann and Ilardi provide better all-in-one metrics than the ones that are often used here.

[DQuinn1575]

Rules: Vote for 1 player. You may change your vote as consensus emerges but if so, go back and EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL POST. Votes without analysis will not be counted. If, after 2 days, there is not a majority consensus, the top; 2 nominees will have a 1 day runoff election to determine the spot on our list. NBA/ABA only, no college, international play, ABL, NBL, BAA or other pre-NBA play considered.

Does someone have a vote count with voters' names? We hit two days, and I think Wilt will be in a run-off with either Magic or Shaq.

[ThaRegul8r]

All great players had a maturation process or were mentored. I've been doing research and this is for the room's consideration for character issues. The only difference imo is these guys had great supporting casts to help them win and HOF coaches to mentor them and shielded that process, while Hakeem was still playing like an all time great and had to evolve himself with religion.

These posts will be for discussion purposes for the room and not meant to be directed as anything specifically directed at towards you. It's only for consideration when judging these players by character, none of us are perfect including these guys.

It's false that "all" great players have had that particular problem. And I only care about the player in question. His teammates will be evaluated separately.

I judge players by whether they help or hurt their team's chances of winning. As the object of the game is to help one's team win, anything that aids in that goal is a +, while anything that impedes, hampers, diminishes or interferes with it is a -. Especially anything that lies under one's complete control. To go back to that clinching game of the '86 WCF, Hakeem wasn't even on the floor. Not being on the floor hurts your team's chances of winning. And he wasn't on the floor because he couldn't control his temper. One thing one has complete control over is how one handles/reacts to a situation. Staying in the game to help your team win is more important than any macho stupidity. That they won the game without him was no thanks to him. If they'd ended up winning that game and that became the impetus to turn things around to win the series, that would have been a huge minus. As I stated in my criteria, being bailed out by a teammate does not impart any bonus upon that player.

Some jobs have personality evaluations as part of the application, and ask questions like "Do you prefer working as part of a team?" "Do you prefer working alone?", they might ask if you've ever stolen anything from work, etc. The reason it's relevant is because they want to know if the applicant is someone who will help their company.

And "perfection" isn't required. That's a false dichotomy. I categorically reject the notion that it takes nothing short of "perfection" to—to continue with the above example for the sake of simplicity—keep your head to stay in the game to help your team win. Especially when you're the best player.

Hakeem eventually matured and got it. However, that doesn't wipe away the length of time it took to do so, as the totality of that player—and the whole body of work—is being considered, not just one period.

And, yes, Wilt has definitely fallen short on several of the criteria himself.

On another—positive—note though, so it doesn't seem like I'm just piling on him, since Hakeem's your candidate, you'll likely find this interesting:

Spoiler:

Hakeem’s Game-Winners

#1) Jan. 12, 1986: Rockets 87, Bullets 86 — “Akeem Olajuwon tipped in a basket at the final buzzer to rally the Rockets to an 87-86 victory over the Washington Bullets that extended Houston’s home unbeaten string to 20. The winning play came after Washington’s Dan Roundfield picked up a loose ball and scored with seven seconds to play for 86-85 lead. The Rockets quickly called time out and after one miss, Olajuwon sent home the winning points” (The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1986).

#2) Dec. 6, 1988: Rockets 106, Cavaliers 105 — “Akeem Olajuwon hit a 12-foot turnaround jump shot with one second left to lead the Houston Rockets to a 106-105 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday night. With five seconds left and Houston trailing 105-104, the Rockets inbounded the ball to Sleepy Floyd, who passed to Olajuwon on the baseline. Olajuwon turned and shot a fade-away jumper to provide Houston with its winning margin and snap a four-game winning streak for Cleveland. Olajuwon finished with 30 points and 15 rebounds, including all six of Houston’s points in the last 3:12 of play” (The Victoria Advocate, Dec. 7, 1988).

#3) Dec. 26, 1988: Rockets 97, Hornets 95 — “Akeem Olajuwon scored 23 points, including a dunk with 1:03 left that gave Houston a 97-95 victory over Charlotte on Monday” (Gainesville Sun, Dec. 27, 1988). “The Houston Rockets blanked Charlotte in a defensive duel down the stretch, defeating the Hornets 97-95. Tyrone Bogues and Kelly Tripucka led a late Charlotte rally Monday night that tied the game 95-95 with 3:24 to play. Then the teams settled into a rugged defensive stuggle that produced just one basket in the last three minutes. It came with 63 seconds left when Houston’s Akeem Olajuwon grabbed a long lob pass from teammate Buck Johnson, and in one motion stuffed the ball into the hoop over Kurt Rambis. Charlotte had three more chances to tie it after that, but never got a shot off” (The Mount Airy News, Dec. 27, 1988).

#4) Feb. 26, 1992: Rockets 118, Warriors 116 — “Hakeem Olajuwon scored 33 points, including the game-winner at the buzzer, rallying Houston from an 18-point halftime deficit to a 118-116 victory over Golden State in Houston […]” (Austin-American Statesman, Feb. 27, 1992).

#5) Mar. 8, 1992: Rockets 109, Kings 108 — “Hakeem Olajuwon dunked a halfcourt inbounds pass from Otis Thorpe with 3.3 seconds left to lift the Houston Rockets to a 109-108 victory over the Sacramento Kings. Mitch Richmond, who scored 30 points for the Kings, made a 16-foot jumper with 3.7 seconds left to give the Kings a 108-107 lead. After a timeout, Thorpe passed the ball deep to a jumping Olajuwon, who scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half. Olajuwon, scoreless in the first quarter, also had 14 rebounds” (The Victoria Advocate, Mar. 9, 1992).

#6) Nov. 27, 1993: Rockets 82, Clippers 80 — “Houston blew a 22-point lead to the Los Angeles Clippers before escaping with an 82-80 victory on Hakeem Olajuwon’s jumper with 22 seconds left Saturday night, giving the Rockets a 13-0 record” (Manila Standard, Nov. 28, 993).

#7) Nov. 8, 1994: Rockets 100, Cavaliers 98 — “At the first regular-season game at new Gund Arena in Cleveland, Hakeem Olajuwon sank the winning shot fallaway jumper from the baseline over Hot Rod Williams. ‘I don’t think anybody in the world stops Hakeem on a shot like that,’ Williams said. ‘You just try to play good defense and just hope he misses’ ” (The Deseret News, Nov 9, 1994).

#8) Apr. 10, 1994: Rockets 93, Nuggets 92 — “At Denver, Hakeem Olajuwon scored 31 points, including a 12-foot baseline jumper with 5 seconds left as Houston rallied to beat the Nuggets. Olajuwon helped the Rockets erase a 17-point deficit midway through the third quarter, scoring 21 of his team’s final 44 points. he also pulled down 12 rebounds” (The Daily Sentinel, Apr. 11, 1994).

#9) Dec. 5, 1995: Rockets 103, Jazz 100 — Olajuwon led Houston with 25 points and “scored the game-winner on a short jump hook” (USA Today, Dec. 6, 1995) to give Houston a 103-100 win over Utah.

#10) June 6, 1995, Game 1 of NBA Finals: Rockets 120, Magic 118, OT — “Hakeem Olajuwon tipped in a missed shot by Clyde Drexler with 0.03 seconds left in overtime to give the Houston Rockets a 120-118 victory over the Orlando Magic in the first game of the NBA Finals.

“Dennis Scott hit a three-pointer with just over five seconds remaining to tie the game in overtime. Drexler drove to the basket on the ensuing play, and the ball bounced over the rim. Olajuwon jumped over Orlando’s Shaquille O’Neal to tip in the winning shot” (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Jun 8, 1995).

#11) Apr. 13, 1996: Rockets 112, Suns 111 — “Hakeem Olajuwon capped his 13th career triple double with a flying 5-foot jumper at the buzzer, rallying the Rockets to a 112-111 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night” (Times Daily, Apr. 14, 1996).

#12) Nov. 14, 1996: Rockets 90, Pacers 88 — “Hakeem Olajuwon scored 9 points in the final 4:32 and blocked Reggie Miller’s layup in the final seconds Thursday night, giving the Houston Rockets a 90-88 victory over the Indiana Pacers. Olajuwon scored 21 points for the Rockets, who trailed 85-76 with 4:32 left. Plagued by foul trouble, Olajuwon snapped an 88-all tie with a baseline jumper with 20 seconds left. The Pacers had a chance to tie, but Olajuwon blocked Miller’s shot and players for both teams wrestled for the loose ball near midcourt as the buzzer sounded” (The Victoria Advocate, Nov. 15, 1996).

#13) Dec. 1, 2001: Raptors 104, Celtics 103 — “Hakeem Olajuwon’s baseline jumper with 1.8 seconds left gave the Toronto Raptors a 104-103 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. […] Atlanta’s Nazr Mohammed hit two free throws with three seconds left but, after a Toronto timeout, Olajuwon took an inbounds pass from Carter and hit the turnaround jumper for the winning points” (The Albany Herald, Dec. 2, 2001).

[Texas Chuck]

Spoiler:

Stopping Lebron was clearly Dallas #1 priority. A very clear example of this was moving JJB into the starting lineup as the series went on so that DeShawn could come in and be a fresh body on Lebron spelling Marion. Yes, the Mavs played zone all year, but that zone had man principles and it was clearly shading to Lebron.

Lebron could not be replaced by generic SF man and Miami win that series. Just no chance. Dallas had plenty of defenders to throw at Wade and without Lebron to worry about its hard to see Wade having that strong of a series, Maybe, but seems less likely.

Lebron did play poorly. How much of that the Mavs should get credit for and how much Lebron should be blamed for is up for dispute. As a fan of the Mavs I'd love to think it was all about hte plan Rick drew up and the tough individual defense and great team defense we played on him. But saying it was all Dallas requires me to believe that only Rick Carlisle was smart enough to find a scheme to stop him and that only Marion/DeShawn, Kidd with Dirk, Tyson, Ian, Haywood providing support were good enough on the court to execute it. Mad respect for Rick and that team, but nah it wasnt all them.

Im not sure why some are arguing this as an either-or. Dallas played great against him, he struggled in his own right. The end.

What about his performance on the defensive end? Why am I the only one who seems to remember his criticism on both ends?

Also offensively he didn't do anything special at all. When he started seriously being discussed I'll go deeper into it but you guys acting like he wasn't below average in an absolute sense have some games to rewatch.

I suggest you rewatch the series. Lebron was single covered just like Wade. And the reason Ariza and Barrier would help is that they would play defense and offensively they'd make up for Bron's production. And they didn't make a decision to run through Wade Lebron kept giving the ball up so they had to.

I suggest you re-watch the series so you can stop engaging in hyperbole.

Serious question, can you find any numbers to show he was at least average? Of not you might want to rethink your position on his performance.

Im confused why you think Im saying Lebron was good in the 2011 Finals. Let me be clear--he wasnt. Just like Wade outplaying Dirk in 06 meant the Heat won, Dirk outplaying Lebron led to Dallas winning.

What I am trying to say is simply that the Mavs deserve some credit for that. Not all the credit. No team is completely shutting down peak Lebron. No, he had his own struggles. My belief is that no player in modern sports history was ever under as much pressure as Lebron was. I think to some extent he just cracked a bit. I think the mental fatigue got to him. Part of that is guys like Marion and DeShawn and Kidd never backing down for one second. Lebron is used to intimidating guys and winning the mental game and he couldnt do that here. But I don't know that to be the case. Its conjecture.

Defensively he was tremendous the first half of the series taking JET almost completely out of the series and was certainly a big part of Miami being up in the series. Yes, he struggled defensively in the 2nd half of the series and deserves some blame for it. I also hold Spo responsible when he could see how fatigued Lebron appeared why he didn't get him on an easier assignment rather than chasing JET over screens. Dallas always had plenty of non-scorers on the court where Lebron could get more of a break on that end.

[ceiling raiser]

Obviously it's not perfect since we don't have infinitely many possessions for players, but as J.E. noted on APBRmetrics, the results tend to flatten out after 5000 possessions. I don't use RAPM as the sole basis of evaluation when comparing any two players, but if we're looking to isolate impact, and I can only look at one number, it's going to be some flavor of normalized, prior-informed RAPM.

Depends on the prior. If you're looking at one number, Englemann and Ilardi provide better all-in-one metrics than the ones that are often used here.

Don't want to derail the thread, but I'd disagree.

Including box-score elements improves predictive value obviously, but you're adding a bias from those stats. RAPM is no longer an orthogonal metric (to the box score) once it becomes a blend, and thus loses explanatory value (for defense in particular, since so little in a box score tells us about defense).

I completely understand your viewpoint, don't get me wrong, but my preferred flavor is standard prior informed RAPM (I think Doc and drza feel the same way).

[PaulieWal]

Serious question, can you find any numbers to show he was at least average? Of not you might want to rethink your position on his performance.

There is no argument here on his performance. The problem is you engaging in hyperbole. Let's be clear on that. I already said he was bad in those Finals but the question is about replacing him with Battier or Ariza . You seem to forget Miami was playing Anthony and the corpse of Bibby big minutes in those series. Put in Battier or Ariza and Miami doesn't do that much better defensively. LeBron actually covered Terry very well but he was making tough shots that series. Offensively, they might make more shots but the Mavs then zone to contain Wade more than Ariza and Battier.

[PaulieWal]

Im not sure why some are arguing this as an either-or. Dallas played great against him, he struggled in his own right. The end.

This X 100. That's the most reasonable and rational explanation but no, Miami could have won that series with Battier or Ariza . Oh, well.

I always say LeBron struggled but the Mavs also played him perfectly. It was a combination of both the things. Defensively LeBron was chasing Terry around screens and Carlisle was happy to hear Spo's gameplan (he admitted as much after the series). It's not like LeBron was not trying on defense. I know it is too rational of an explanation but LeBron was consistently playing high intensity minutes in those playoffs guarding the other team's best players a lot. That's why Battier was so huge in 12/13 and that's why his decline in 14 was so problematic because it put more defensive pressure on LeBron.

[colts18]

Based on Elgee's tracking of the 2011 finals, LeBron was average

http://web.archive.org/web/201108200525 ... ted-value/

[An Unbiased Fan]

Based on Elgee's tracking of the 2011 finals, LeBron was average

http://web.archive.org/web/201108200525 ... ted-value/

Surprised Dirk's EV is only average too.

[Texas Chuck]

Based on Elgee's tracking of the 2011 finals, LeBron was average

http://web.archive.org/web/201108200525 ... ted-value/

Surprised Dirk's EV is only average too.

You really have to take it with a grain of salt. Dirk's presence changes everything for Dallas from the lineups they can play to the shots guys like JET gets. JET finally came through in the playoffs for Dallas and was terrific, especially in the clinching game when he kept them in the game when Dirk went 1 for a billion in the first half, but make no mistake Dirk was a much more valuable player for Dallas.

Just like Lebron even with all his struggles was more valuable than anyone but Wade.

[penbeast0]

All great players had a maturation process or were mentored. I've been doing research and this is for the room's consideration for character issues. The only difference imo is these guys had great supporting casts to help them win and HOF coaches to mentor them and shielded that process, while Hakeem was still playing like an all time great and had to evolve himself with religion.

These posts will be for discussion purposes for the room and not meant to be directed as anything specifically directed at towards you. It's only for consideration when judging these players by character, none of us are perfect including these guys.

Not perfect, sure . . . . character issues that had negative impact on the team, I have not heard anything about Russell or Duncan (and quite a few others further down the list) that showed a serious maturing over time. If anything, Russell went the other way (resting his knees instead of practicing -- the smoking was actually doctor recommended for weight control ). Many of the others had issues, some of which they matured out of (Hakeem), some of which seemed to grow worse as they settled into stardom (Kobe, Oscar). Some of which ebbed and flowed (Kareem, Garnett), and some just never matured at all from what I can tell (Shaq, Barkley). So, I am very interested in your detecting a consistent pattern among the greats . . . especially if it doesn't apply to the average player!

[E-Balla]

Spoiler:

Stopping Lebron was clearly Dallas #1 priority. A very clear example of this was moving JJB into the starting lineup as the series went on so that DeShawn could come in and be a fresh body on Lebron spelling Marion. Yes, the Mavs played zone all year, but that zone had man principles and it was clearly shading to Lebron.

Lebron could not be replaced by generic SF man and Miami win that series. Just no chance. Dallas had plenty of defenders to throw at Wade and without Lebron to worry about its hard to see Wade having that strong of a series, Maybe, but seems less likely.

Lebron did play poorly. How much of that the Mavs should get credit for and how much Lebron should be blamed for is up for dispute. As a fan of the Mavs I'd love to think it was all about hte plan Rick drew up and the tough individual defense and great team defense we played on him. But saying it was all Dallas requires me to believe that only Rick Carlisle was smart enough to find a scheme to stop him and that only Marion/DeShawn, Kidd with Dirk, Tyson, Ian, Haywood providing support were good enough on the court to execute it. Mad respect for Rick and that team, but nah it wasnt all them.

Im not sure why some are arguing this as an either-or. Dallas played great against him, he struggled in his own right. The end.

What about his performance on the defensive end? Why am I the only one who seems to remember his criticism on both ends?

Also offensively he didn't do anything special at all. When he started seriously being discussed I'll go deeper into it but you guys acting like he wasn't below average in an absolute sense have some games to rewatch.

I suggest you re-watch the series so you can stop engaging in hyperbole.

Serious question, can you find any numbers to show he was at least average? Of not you might want to rethink your position on his performance.

Im confused why you think Im saying Lebron was good in the 2011 Finals. Let me be clear--he wasnt. Just like Wade outplaying Dirk in 06 meant the Heat won, Dirk outplaying Lebron led to Dallas winning.

What I am trying to say is simply that the Mavs deserve some credit for that. Not all the credit. No team is completely shutting down peak Lebron. No, he had his own struggles. My belief is that no player in modern sports history was ever under as much pressure as Lebron was. I think to some extent he just cracked a bit. I think the mental fatigue got to him. Part of that is guys like Marion and DeShawn and Kidd never backing down for one second. Lebron is used to intimidating guys and winning the mental game and he couldnt do that here. But I don't know that to be the case. Its conjecture.

Defensively he was tremendous the first half of the series taking JET almost completely out of the series and was certainly a big part of Miami being up in the series. Yes, he struggled defensively in the 2nd half of the series and deserves some blame for it. I also hold Spo responsible when he could see how fatigued Lebron appeared why he didn't get him on an easier assignment rather than chasing JET over screens. Dallas always had plenty of non-scorers on the court where Lebron could get more of a break on that end.

Lebron could not be replaced by generic SF man and Miami win that series. Just no chance.

My problem is this. You say you weren't saying Lebron was good but then you throw this statement in. I'm not saying Gerald Green would help Miami win but Shane Battier cerca 2011 aka the guy who did this earlier in the season:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dhOwhxW1Po[/youtube]
or Trevor Ariza the guy that was basically the difference between a great team and a champion in 2009 would. you can't say Lebron was bad on one hand and that these guys couldn't outperform him unless you are saying those guys are bad.

Now Dallas deserves a ton of credit and they get it but Lebron was very bad.

And defensively I liked games 1 and 2. Game 3 was decent. Games 4, 5, and 6 were terribad.

Serious question, can you find any numbers to show he was at least average? Of not you might want to rethink your position on his performance.

There is no argument here on his performance. The problem is you engaging in hyperbole. Let's be clear on that. I already said he was bad in those Finals but the question is about replacing him with Battier or Ariza . You seem to forget Miami was playing Anthony and the corpse of Bibby big minutes in those series. Put in Battier or Ariza and Miami doesn't do that much better defensively. LeBron actually covered Terry very well but he was making tough shots that series. Offensively, they might make more shots but the Mavs then zone to contain Wade more than Ariza and Battier.

It isn't hyperbole. Who cares about those two getting big minutes they suck and we all know it. They sucked whether or not Lebron was there. The defense would improve with Battier there or Ariza there and the offense wouldn't take a hit. Remember as bad as Lebron was this was still one of the closest contested Finals series ever. That small improvement would go a long way.

And offensively if they run the zone Wade will have 2 great spot up shooters to pass to. Bosh would perform better too with an open floor.

[Texas Chuck]

What you are missing is the fact remains that Lebron freaking James is on the court. Just because he had struggled in the series, Dallas was never going to stop focusing on the best player in the world. If Battier or Ariza, both decent role players are in the game, Dallas can essentially ignore them offensively except for making sure they close out and don't allow them open 3s. This is a far easier task for Dallas which allows them to put their best defenders on Wade full-time and slide their big man help his way as they did time and time again against Lebron.

You are missing how the dynamics change based on who is on the floor. JET shot the ball a lot better than Dirk did in the Finals. But by no means does that mean you can pull Dirk off the floor and put in David West or Serge Ibaka or choose your own good PF and expect Dallas to win.

[Basketballefan]

Are we really letting this thread turn into a Lebron debate?

[MisterWestside]

Don't want to derail the thread, but I'd disagree.

Including box-score elements improves predictive value obviously, but you're adding a bias from those stats. RAPM is no longer an orthogonal metric (to the box score) once it becomes a blend, and thus loses explanatory value (for defense in particular, since so little in a box score tells us about defense).

I completely understand your viewpoint, don't get me wrong, but my preferred flavor is standard prior informed RAPM (I think Doc and drza feel the same way).

I can understand why. However, some on the APBR board have done a fine job of driving home the philosophical reasons of preferring prediction in a model, and upon reflection I tend to agree with that viewpoint. (Indeed, explanation is a lower "bar" to jump over, which is why Wins Produced does so extraordinarily well at it. That's also not what the aim is.) The comment about defense is also valid, but it can be argued that it's better to just look at overall impact anyway, instead of separating them as offense and defense.

Now, if one prefers to keep the box score and +/- data separate, that's fine (provided that one dataset isn't used at expense of the other). But were talking about the use of one number, so...

[penbeast0]

Using TheRealBigThree's count on page 18 then adding the subsequent votes I have:


Wilt Chamberlain - 17 (trex_8063, Owly, penbeast0, Warspite, DQuinn1575, Notanoob, magicmerl, fpliii, ardee, DannyNoonan1221, Greatness, Narigo, RSCD3_, TrueLAfan, Gregoire, kayess, SactoKingsFan)

Shaquille O'Neal - 7 (RayBan-Sematra, colts18, therealbig3, HeartBreakKid, O_6, PCProductions, MacGill)

Magic Johnson - 6 (Basketballefan, DHodgkins, GC Pantalones, Clyde Frazier, An Unbiased Fan) + JordansBulls

Hakeem Olajuwon - 4 (90sAllDecade, Quotatious, ronnymac2, Dr Positivity)

Tim Duncan - 3 (Baller2014, batmana, Texas Chuck)

Kevin Garnett - 2 (Doctor MJ, drza)

LeBron James - 1 (rico381)

Baller supposedly found another vote for Magic but failed to identify the voter.


Last vote counted: O_6, post #331 (rico381)

If anyone wants to double check this; Wilt is pretty clearly in but checking the Shaq v. Magic votes would be a big help. I will continue checking too to get a final count on those two but I've been known to make mistakes.