#25 Highest Peak of All Time (McGrady '03 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

For your B point to be the case here we'd need years from the player's prime. I don't see how one-year of RAPM is now suddenly cutting it for mind-changing data. And that's what we're talking about here -- something with enough puissance to matter.

We're not talking about 1-year vs mulit-year here, we're talking about multi-1-year vs single-multi-year. If a guy gets a rating of +X in several independent, consecutive studies do you really not believe that this is more powerful than one longer +X study?

While I understand that there's some degree of noise period, noise is very much related to variance, and the independent 1-year studies speak to small variance.

There's also the practical application of these numbers. Do they go down because Malone's asked to do too much? What's the error in the single-season? Is 2001 all that really matters here? Why are Stockton's defensive numbers so high -- doesn't this suggest a potential problem? (Since when is RAPM not subject to problems?) And perhaps most importantly, why does Stockton have such a huge 2001 season but then drops off in a season that was widely considered a rejuvenation of sorts? Nearly the same box metrics with a mild increase in minutes, and more than double the 20-point games from the previous year.

"because Malone's asked to do too much?", this is a good question to ask, but no answer you respond with makes the concern irrelevant. If Malone putting up the numbers that impressed everybody is him doing too much, this is an eye opener.

"Stockton's defensive numbers a problem?", yup. I'm not focusing one 1-year study here, the importance is that there's more than one.

(And to be clear since in your answer you seemed to rebut things I already agreed you were right on: The fact that the '00 study is wonky obviously has an effect on my original point.)

[fatal9]

Vote: 2003 Tracy McGrady

I have '98 Malone coming up next. I don't know what to do or how to comparatively judge Pettit, so if anyone has a take on him, I'd love to read it. Seems like he belongs around here.

Why is Howard leapfrogging McHale so easily? Is it an issue of McHale's health in '87 playoffs (just switch to '86 or '88) or do you guys believe Howard was just the better player?

McHale in a "4 around 1" offensive system built around him would be lethal, way more than Howard, because he could stabilize the high variance you get with such an offense with his unstoppable post scoring (and he has waay more moves to evade doubles). He is a better passer than Howard despite his reputation. His advantage on offense is HUGE. Dwight's offense is so much easier to make adjustments for and shut down in the playoffs. Peak McHale is a guy who had no trouble scoring on anyone or any type of defense. You couldn't slow him down with doubles either because he had shots/moves to turn away from them and score without taking a dribble (like the baseline jumphook which was not only super effective but impossible to block because of his long arms). No one had any measurable success at slowing him down in his prime, especially in the playoffs. With Dwight? I've seen teams put a help defender in the middle of the paint (to take away his rolling hook) and turn him into an offensive foul/turnover machine. Teams can and have made it look remarkably easy to neutralize his post offense. There is a big disparity in FT shooting as well. Dwight is a sub 60% FT shooter and very unreliable game to game (McHale was around ~80ish%). I actually feel fouling him a lot is a good strategy, especially in a game he's getting a lot of touches in the post, because it breaks down the rhythm of the Orlando offense, and he can't make you pay for it at the line (in 2011, Howard shot 15+ FTs 23 times...good right? But his team record in those games was only 12-11).

One thing people need to keep in mind: McHale does not need Larry Bird or any one to create his own offense, he was that damn good at scoring on his own. This is something I feel McHale gets penalized for no reason. In his '87 season he was having almost month long stretches of scoring like 30 ppg on close to 70% shooting , he is still the only player in history to put up a 25+ ppg season on 60+% shooting, was behind in MVP voting to only Magic, MJ and Larry (got about same amount of votes as him). He was unstoppable with or without Larry. I have no personal reason to overrate McHale, I wasn't initially even a fan of his, but after watching hundreds of old Celtic games over the years (Bird is my favorite player of all-time), he gained a lot of respect from me.

Howard is the better interior defender, I don't quite view him as a clear cut DPOY type player as most do. I have tremendous respect for his ability to shut down the lane though. McHale was more versatile (could guard 3-5 comfortably...and I'm not saying this, he has legitimately shut down SFs like Dominique, Dantley and others in the playoffs) and was an excellent shot blocker and team defender himself (staple on all defensive first teams). This is a top 5 defensive big in the league too, so don't underestimate what he brings defensively. The biggest difference is in their rebounding, Howard is better but it should be considered that he has played around stretch 4s who don't rebound while McHale played on a frontline of two other 10+ rpg guys. Regardless, McHale never showed himself close to being on Dwight's level as a rebounder, though I never saw rebounding as a weakness for him. But is rebounding and edge in paint defense (keep in mind that McHale too is a great defensive player) enough to make up for how much more McHale brings offensively?

[Doctor MJ]

Not what I meant. I've been talking to Melo freaks for more than a half decade who insist he's just a half step behind LeBron, and as good as the Wades and Pauls of the world. When I tell them that in reality is fraction is a tiny fraction of those other guys, they tune out because its ludicrous to them. Their problem isn't really about Melo, it's about them being unable to analyze contradictory evidence without dismissing the stuff that doesn't fit with their schema as 'ludicrous'.

Okay, but can any of those Melo freaks (and we'll assume that they're in the casual fanbase that eats up things like awards, titles/team results and such) even point to anything like 1) 2 league MVPs 2) two Finals appearances/three WCF appearances 3) multiple all-D honors? Even by using the flawed "accolade" comparison Malone is way ahead of Melo here (heck, even his own peers at the forward position in the 90s). At least the causal Malone freaks can point to some stuff to support their argument here, and not just make rabid claims of greatness like Melo freaks do.

Westside I"m really surprised you're still fighting me on this. Here you are asserting your differentiation from a Melo freak based on something that you could have theoretically used as part of your argument, and my entire point was simply based on your argument being the problem.

I want to emphasize again you write stuff that impresses me. I'm not questioning you as a poster, but you went down a track with a weak argument, and now instead of saying, "Okay what I meant was..." you're spending time trying defend your original argument by making new arguments that don't make the old argument any better.

Really though, I think we understand each other, so this seems a particularly silly debate to continue.

[Doctor MJ]

I think your putting too much value into RAPM Doc. Just imagine you knew 8 people. You wanted to know the fastest way to get somewhere and naturally some people were more reliable than others. 7 of them tell you to go one general direction (with slight varience) but the one you trust most tells you to go a completely different way. Will you competent disregard the 7 to go with the 1?

I'm advocating you looking at the map yourself, not trusting the drunken yokel telling you to go the other way.

[ElGee]

For the Malone supporters (mainly ElGee), why 98 over a year like 95?

I read ronnymac's posts in the RPOY thread, and he seems to think that 94-96 is probably when Malone peaked. I'd probably go with 95 out of those years, just by glancing at his production in the RS and PS. I understand Malone's insane physical fitness, but he was still an effective passer and jump shooter in those years, and you'd still assume that he was a tad quicker and faster at 30-32 than 34.

This is a good question. In short, I see 94-98 as Malone's "peak" years. With a 92-98 argument and 93 as sort of a playoff misstep for him in this period. Any of these years are viable candidates out of the gate. But what changes took place to Malone the player during this stretch?

-Did he change defensively?

I don't think so. Not in anything meaningful that I can see or detect. Same brute force. Same strong hands. When I re-watch Jazz games from the mid to late 90's (pre lockout) his rotations look better if anything. I understand he actually blocked 1.5 shots a game in 94, but I don't see anything jumping out when I re-watch games from 94. Again, if anything I see sloppier team defense in the early 90's and much tighter stuff in the new uniforms.

-Did he change offensively?

This is where the late peaks issue comes in (offensively). Malone puts it together more and more each year. He posts his best TS% in 97 while the league offensive environment is sinking (and trying to stay afloat with the short 3-line, which doesn't effect him) because his shot improves as well as his passing steadily throughout the decade. Oh, and he still runs the floor better than most bigs.

92 Malone had his shot working (see the FT% as a benchmark). But 97 Malone used the whole package slightly better to me. The feel. The passing. The shot selection. Subtle improvements, no doubt, but I see a slightly better offensive player. When you see him fail to really hit the gas in the 97 Finals (against a GOAT team and great defense, mind you, with someone trying to actively **** him), and then completely overcome that the next year, I don't know how to side with 97 or 98.

Then the question becomes 94-96...but isn't a critical tiebreaker here that 98 Malone, through guile and sustained athleticism posted the highest FT rate of his career. I think 98, 97, 95 and 92 are his most impressive years...and I like 98 by a nose because of the aforementioned reasons. If you side with the eariler years over the 97-98 seasons for some physical reason (defensive decline?) then 95 is a viable choice.

[ElGee]

For your B point to be the case here we'd need years from the player's prime. I don't see how one-year of RAPM is now suddenly cutting it for mind-changing data. And that's what we're talking about here -- something with enough puissance to matter.

We're not talking about 1-year vs mulit-year here, we're talking about multi-1-year vs single-multi-year. If a guy gets a rating of +X in several independent, consecutive studies do you really not believe that this is more powerful than one longer +X study?

While I understand that there's some degree of noise period, noise is very much related to variance, and the independent 1-year studies speak to small variance.

I do. I also wonder how "small" this variance is after the last update I saw on the 2012 season. 66g RS...with some fairly decent movement after another 15-20g, don't you think? This implies that after 60g of the RS, some wonky (stealing your word) stuff can happen down the stretch with guys injured, tanking, tired, resting (APM wouldn't know there was within-season inconsistency) that could shift scores by 2 or 3 points in either direction. That's not "small" to me.

There's also the practical application of these numbers. Do they go down because Malone's asked to do too much? What's the error in the single-season? Is 2001 all that really matters here? Why are Stockton's defensive numbers so high -- doesn't this suggest a potential problem? (Since when is RAPM not subject to problems?) And perhaps most importantly, why does Stockton have such a huge 2001 season but then drops off in a season that was widely considered a rejuvenation of sorts? Nearly the same box metrics with a mild increase in minutes, and more than double the 20-point games from the previous year.

"because Malone's asked to do too much?", this is a good question to ask, but no answer you respond with makes the concern irrelevant. If Malone putting up the numbers that impressed everybody is him doing too much, this is an eye opener.

I'm referring specifically to 2002 and 2003. Like I said, I'm fairly certain we're looking at 2001 twice and 2000 is NOT in the picture.

[fatal9]

ElGee I think I've read you mention that Celtics with both McHale and Bird in '87 were producing the GOAT offense. Or was it '88? Both players deserve credit for that, Bird more so for his all around brilliance and McHale for his historically efficient volume scoring. It's crazy that they were doing that with an aging core and awful bench production (biggest difference between celtics and lakers of that era)

[An Unbiased Fan]

It really has no choice but to factor in off court team performance, even if it's done in an indirect manner. The numbers being evaluated are a result of the 35 mpg vs 13 mpg dynamic, there is simply no way around this.

So when we say a player was "unimpressive" by this metric, we really need to examine what the metric is actually saying. What value is there in the 35 mpg that Malone gave to the jazz against 1st units vs the other 13 mpg against 2nd units, because these are factored into the overall estimation.

Right, so to your mind when you say you want a focus on "on court" as opposed to "off court" you don't mean whether they literally are only looking at on court time, you mean you don't want them to use +/- data at all, which means you want to have no analysis done on the actual scoreboard. "Just give me the arbitary stats that we know the players can manipulate to negative effect please."

I have no problem with correlating performance to the scoreboard, the problem is that RAPM doesn't really do that. Again, the 13 mpg that others were on court in Malone's place, doesn't really tell us about his impact because were talking about a few minutes to begin the 2nd & 4th quarters, and the occasional garbage time. All of which came against 2nd units.

Where's the player evaluation in those numbers? What I see is an analysis of the Jazz team's roster, not of Malone. Only the 35 mpg he was actually on court, tells us about his impact.

Re: actually saying. When I talk about nuance, I'm talking about not trying to compare Karl Malone's +/- to those of some scrub because we know they are doing very different things. If you are a man among boys though, we should be seeing glaring signs that things are better when you're on the court as opposed to eating an ice cream cone.

Put Malone on the bench and allow him to play 2nd units, he would put up crazy numbers. We see this with guys like Harden/Manu, who are basically starters who play a bit more time against backups than most stars.

RAPM doesn't speak to impact, but utility. A guy like Odom was utilized in a very efficient way in 2009 rotations, and LA was a high MOV team, so he put up some gaudy numbers. There's a reason why these numbers fluctuate so much from year to year.

[Doctor MJ]

For your B point to be the case here we'd need years from the player's prime. I don't see how one-year of RAPM is now suddenly cutting it for mind-changing data. And that's what we're talking about here -- something with enough puissance to matter.

We're not talking about 1-year vs mulit-year here, we're talking about multi-1-year vs single-multi-year. If a guy gets a rating of +X in several independent, consecutive studies do you really not believe that this is more powerful than one longer +X study?

While I understand that there's some degree of noise period, noise is very much related to variance, and the independent 1-year studies speak to small variance.

I do. I also wonder how "small" this variance is after the last update I saw on the 2012 season. 66g RS...with some fairly decent movement after another 15-20g, don't you think? This implies that after 60g of the RS, some wonky (stealing your word) stuff can happen down the stretch with guys injured, tanking, tired, resting (APM wouldn't know there was within-season inconsistency) that could shift scores by 2 or 3 points in either direction. That's not "small" to me.

I feel certain we must be talking past each other here.

Consider the following two scenarios.

A) I roll a die 10 times and get 4 every time.

B) I roll a die 10 times and get an average value of 4.

Which of the two makes you start to question whether there's something non-random about the die in question?

Forget about the '99-00 study right now. I've said I recognize there's a problem there and this changes the validity of my argument. The independent nature of the studies in general makes similar results more powerful evidence than a unified study would.

[Doctor MJ]

I have no problem with correlating performance to the scoreboard, the problem is that RAPM doesn't really do that. Again, the 13 mpg that others were on court in Malone's place, doesn't really tell us about his impact because were talking about a few minutes to begin the 2nd & 4th quarters, and the occasional garbage time. All of which came against 2nd units.

Where's the player evaluation in those numbers? What I see is an analysis of the Jazz team's roster, not of Malone. Only the 35 mpg he was actually on court, tells us about his impact.

That is EXACTLY what APM (and RAPM) are doing dude. It's called regression analysis, it's used everywhere.

Put Malone on the bench and allow him to play 2nd units, he would put up crazy numbers. We see this with guys like Harden/Manu, who are basically starters who play a bit more time against backups than most stars.

Let's really get the language precise here:

RAPM is factoring in the degree of difficulty involved with the competition a guy is playing at. A guy is not going to have a skyhigh rating simply because he plays against scrubs because the algorithm knows he's playing against scrubs.

Where there is room for real concern in the metric is that if your game is particularly suited to playing against weaker opponents compared to other players, then playing against weak guys will inflate your rating. So, if we were to say that Ginobili was far better at destroying scrubs than Malone, but far worse at destroying starters than Malone, it's not going to make a lot of sense to compare their RAPM ratings if they aren't playing against similar opponents.

However, if you think Malone would be able to tear about scrubs better than Ginobili because you think he can also tear up stars better than Ginobili, then you literally have zero cause to assert distortion in the metric. The thing you're concerned about is addressed.

RAPM doesn't speak to impact, but utility. A guy like Odom was utilized in a very efficient way in 2009 rotations, and LA was a high MOV team, so he put up some gaudy numbers. There's a reason why these numbers fluctuate so much from year to year.

Utility and impact are synonyms dude. I fully understand that depending on how a guy is used his impact/utility/helpfulness/value will vary, which is why I and others have been trying to make others understand the distinction between value and absolute goodness.

[Lightning25]

What is the issue with 1975 Barry? Why shouldn't he be listed above Tmac? I'm not sure if he is but I am wondering why Barry isn't getting too much talks right now.

[Dr Positivity]

B) That we see a trend going right up to Malone's respectability peak and still not seeing an impact which is scary as hell. We didn't see that with Kobe, so this is new territory that I think it's starting to make sense to really start to worry about. One thing to dismiss one or two years at the end of a guy's career, but when a guy is known for a late peak and we start seeing 5 years of continued meh impact, this is a wow moment...

Isn't the situation almost identical to Kobe's though? 09 Kobe-98 Malone, 10 Kobe-99 Malone, 11 Kobe-00 Malone seems like a great comparison to me. Both guys slipped slightly in 10 Kobe/99 Malone, then a bit more in 11/00. Kobe still looks like an elite player on paper in 2011 as well (still 25/5/5, stupidly still finishes top 4 in MVP voting) but he definitely wasn't the same guy. I think everyone agrees 00 Malone was definitely not the same guy as 97/98 Malone by a similar margin. Kobe went from 4th in 2010 to like 30th in 2011. If someone only had information up to 2011 they might find that as alarming as Malone's 00 numbers.

[An Unbiased Fan]

That is EXACTLY what APM (and RAPM) are doing dude. It's called regression analysis, it's used everywhere.

RA isn't the problem, the assertions based on the data being produced is the issue. I understand that people want to see beyond boxscore numbers, since the amount of useful data we have is rather lacking. But RAPM isn't what people are making it out to be. There is no way to properly correct the date for lineups, depth, coaching schemes, and so on. The minutes Malone played were of a differing competitive & intensity level than the other 13 mpg. The attempt to extrapolate just his and his alone's impact during those 35 mpg is impossible using the APM model. You simply don't have data that can accomplish this task.

Let's really get the language precise here:

RAPM is factoring in the degree of difficulty involved with the competition a guy is playing at. A guy is not going to have a skyhigh rating simply because he plays against scrubs because the algorithm knows he's playing against scrubs.

Where there is room for real concern in the metric is that if your game is particularly suited to playing against weaker opponents compared to other players, then playing against weak guys will inflate your rating. So, if we were to say that Ginobili was far better at destroying scrubs than Malone, but far worse at destroying starters than Malone, it's not going to make a lot of sense to compare their RAPM ratings if they aren't playing against similar opponents.

However, if you think Malone would be able to tear about scrubs better than Ginobili because you think he can also tear up stars better than Ginobili, then you literally have zero cause to assert distortion in the metric. The thing you're concerned about is addressed.

I welcome analyzing the opponents, though i question RAPM's effctivenes in this regard. But again, the issue is the underlying APM data which springboards the whole thing. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it'll stick be a pig.

And my point really wasn't that Manu was better against scrubs, but rather that he spent more mpg playing in units against them. Guys like him will do very well with RAPM, which is no surprise.

Utility and impact are synonyms dude. I fully understand that depending on how a guy is used his impact/utility/helpfulness/value will vary, which is why I and others have been trying to make others understand the distinction between value and absolute goodness.

I would have to completely disagree here. Utility is about about how a coach utilizes a player within the system and in the lineups.

Steve Nash's numbers in Dallas don't impress, yet...once he lands in PHX with a high octane team, and a new coaching system, his APM numbers exploded. Clearly, his improvement came from the system which utilized him better. NOT that Nash all of a sudden became a much better player.

[Lightning25]

By the way, does anyone think it's possible to argue that Tmac's peak was actually in 2002, not 2003? I thought Tmac was better in terms of all-around play that season. He did a great job rebounding, defending that season compared to 2003 and other year in Orlando really. His scoring and passing was there too, it always was although not as good as 2003. 2003 was his best scoring/offensive outburst season but 2002 was his best all-around season.

[lorak]

But then, this is truly weird because we know full well that the Jazz offense peaked with Malone's primacy and Stockton's regression from prominence, if this wasn't at least somewhat about Malone's improved capabilities, what the hell happened?

Jeff Hornacek.

Jazz offense was so good during second half of the 90s because of:
1. Stockton
2. Hornacek
and then
3. Malone

One thing to dismiss one or two years at the end of a guy's career, but when a guy is known for a late peak and we start seeing 5 years of continued meh impact, this is a wow moment...

Maybe the explanation is this: Malone's peak wasn't in '97 or '99 - he won MVPs and these seasons are perceived as his peak beacuse of winning bias. In reality Malone's peak was around '94 or '95 season, when he had the same skills as during late 90s, but also was better athletic wise. (and didn't shot as many jumpers as during '97-'99.)

RAPM is just a number. People are putting way too much stock in a lineup evaluation metric, when it overrides so much other evidence of Malone's impact.

What evidence exactly?

Vote: 2003 Tracy McGrady

I have '98 Malone coming up next. I don't know what to do or how to comparatively judge Pettit, so if anyone has a take on him, I'd love to read it. Seems like he belongs around here.

Why is Howard leapfrogging McHale so easily? Is it an issue of McHale's health in '87 playoffs (just switch to '86 or '88) or do you guys believe Howard was just the better player?

McHale in a "4 around 1" offensive system built around him would be lethal, way more than Howard, because he could stabilize the high variance you get with such an offense with his unstoppable post scoring (and he has waay more moves to evade doubles). He is a better passer than Howard despite his reputation. His advantage on offense is HUGE. Dwight's offense is so much easier to make adjustments for and shut down in the playoffs. Peak McHale is a guy who had no trouble scoring on anyone or any type of defense. You couldn't slow him down with doubles either because he had shots/moves to turn away from them and score without taking a dribble (like the baseline jumphook which was not only super effective but impossible to block because of his long arms). No one had any measurable success at slowing him down in his prime, especially in the playoffs. With Dwight? I've seen teams put a help defender in the middle of the paint (to take away his rolling hook) and turn him into an offensive foul/turnover machine. Teams can and have made it look remarkably easy to neutralize his post offense. There is a big disparity in FT shooting as well. Dwight is a sub 60% FT shooter and very unreliable game to game (McHale was around ~80ish%). I actually feel fouling him a lot is a good strategy, especially in a game he's getting a lot of touches in the post, because it breaks down the rhythm of the Orlando offense, and he can't make you pay for it at the line (in 2011, Howard shot 15+ FTs 23 times...good right? But his team record in those games was only 12-11).

One thing people need to keep in mind: McHale does not need Larry Bird or any one to create his own offense, he was that damn good at scoring on his own. This is something I feel McHale gets penalized for no reason. In his '87 season he was having almost month long stretches of scoring like 30 ppg on close to 70% shooting , he is still the only player in history to put up a 25+ ppg season on 60+% shooting, was behind in MVP voting to only Magic, MJ and Larry (got about same amount of votes as him). He was unstoppable with or without Larry. I have no personal reason to overrate McHale, I wasn't initially even a fan of his, but after watching hundreds of old Celtic games over the years (Bird is my favorite player of all-time), he gained a lot of respect from me.

Howard is the better interior defender, I don't quite view him as a clear cut DPOY type player as most do. I have tremendous respect for his ability to shut down the lane though. McHale was more versatile (could guard 3-5 comfortably...and I'm not saying this, he has legitimately shut down SFs like Dominique, Dantley and others in the playoffs) and was an excellent shot blocker and team defender himself (staple on all defensive first teams). This is a top 5 defensive big in the league too, so don't underestimate what he brings defensively. The biggest difference is in their rebounding, Howard is better but it should be considered that he has played around stretch 4s who don't rebound while McHale played on a frontline of two other 10+ rpg guys. Regardless, McHale never showed himself close to being on Dwight's level as a rebounder, though I never saw rebounding as a weakness for him. But is rebounding and edge in paint defense (keep in mind that McHale too is a great defensive player) enough to make up for how much more McHale brings offensively?

So fatal, why Malone over McHale? Kevin is better defender and comparable offensive player.

This is where the late peaks issue comes in (offensively). Malone puts it together more and more each year. He posts his best TS% in 97 while the league offensive environment is sinking (and trying to stay afloat with the short 3-line, which doesn't effect him) because his shot improves as well as his passing steadily throughout the decade. Oh, and he still runs the floor better than most bigs.

C'monn, it was discussed before. Malone's TS% was so good during regular season, because he scored a lot of easy points. But he wasn't skilled big man (he had no post moves) and during playoffs he was very inefficent because he fell in love with his jump shot. For example the same 1997 season he shot Iverson like 50.1 TS% in the playoffs.

[ardee]

Ok, so a lot of interesting Malone discussion here.

Since Barry has pretty much no traction, I'm then looking at Karl and T-Mac.

1998 seems to be the Malone here that everyone has hopped onto, but it seems to me there are a bunch of other seasons worth discussing.

1997 for example, was one of the best regular seasons of all time, and the more I think about it, was it really THAT major of a travesty for him to win MVP over Jordan based purely on the regular season? But we know he had a much more sub-par Playoffs, so 1997 is not one we'll look at then.

1990 was unreal, 31-11 on 63% TS with good defense, but the drop in the Playoffs was almost DRob-esque, 25 ppg on 51% TS.

1993 is another awesome regular season, but it was probably his second worst Playoffs, so we're not going to look at that.

So, his three best regular seasons, 1990, 1993 and 1997 are all eliminated because of sub-par Playoff performances.

So, taking into account both regular season and Playoffs, the Malone years I'm looking at are:

1992: 28-11 on 60% TS, probably the third best player in the league after MJ and Drexler that year. He was brilliant in the Playoffs, 29-11 on 62% TS, and led the Jazz to a WCF berth while losing finally to the loaded Blazers who then of course got roasted by MJ one round later.

1995: 27-11-4 on 59% TS. Lost in 5 games to the defending champion Rockets in the first round, but it's hard to put it on Karl. He managed 30-13 on 55% TS (he got to the line 16 times a game!!), but Hakeem was obviously in God-mode that entire Playoffs, I don't think you could have covered him with a Duncan-Russell front-line that year.

1998: A very slightly worse regular season then 1997. He was getting to the line more though, and was better in the Playoffs. 26-11-3 on 53% shooting is decent, and he had one of the best Finals games ever against the Bulls. However, I'm not convinced as to why this is worth ranking over 1992.

I'm pretty certain 1992 is the Malone year I'm voting for. He was younger, more athletic, and his defensive rotations were just as good.

So, 1992 Malone vs. 2003 T-Mac. Any thoughts?

[C-izMe]

By the way, does anyone think it's possible to argue that Tmac's peak was actually in 2002, not 2003? I thought Tmac was better in terms of all-around play that season. He did a great job rebounding, defending that season compared to 2003 and other year in Orlando really. His scoring and passing was there too, it always was although not as good as 2003. 2003 was his best scoring/offensive outburst season but 2002 was his best all-around season.

It was his best all around season. That doesn't make it his best season. In 03 none of those skills declined (he averaged 26/7.5/5 for the first half of 03) and his scoring was at an all time high.


And I would say 98 is Malone's peak.

[postertag]

1992: 28-11 on 60% TS, probably the third best player in the league after MJ and Drexler that year. He was brilliant in the Playoffs, 29-11 on 62% TS, and led the Jazz to a WCF berth while losing finally to the loaded Blazers who then of course got roasted by MJ one round later.

I'm pretty certain 1992 is the Malone year I'm voting for. He was younger, more athletic, and his defensive rotations were just as good.

So, 1992 Malone vs. 2003 T-Mac. Any thoughts?

Wait... why not nominate '92 Drexler then?

[colts18]

1992: 28-11 on 60% TS, probably the third best player in the league after MJ and Drexler that year. He was brilliant in the Playoffs, 29-11 on 62% TS, and led the Jazz to a WCF berth while losing finally to the loaded Blazers who then of course got roasted by MJ one round later.

I'm pretty certain 1992 is the Malone year I'm voting for. He was younger, more athletic, and his defensive rotations were just as good.

So, 1992 Malone vs. 2003 T-Mac. Any thoughts?

Wait... why not nominate '92 Drexler then?

[MisterWestside]

Really though, I think we understand each other, so this seems a particularly silly debate to continue.

That's fine. I was only thrown off with your mentioning of Malone with Melo so I'll concede on that point.