RealGM Top 100 List #37

[trex_8063]

No he obviously isn't Dirk but Dirk is one of the GOAT offensive anchors so being ranked behind him still leaves room for a high ranking.

A fair point, but it's not just that he's behind Dirk as an offensive anchor. He's also pretty significantly behind Dirk as a rebounder (even relative to positional expectations). He's perhaps even marginally behind defensively. Heck, relatively to positional expectations, he's perhaps behind Dirk as a passer, as well. And even offensively, not only is he "not Dirk" as far as his ability to "warp defenses" or generally cause strategic difficulties.....he's behind Dirk in that regard, yes, and then he's also behind in a strictly individual sense (like what he himself produces and on what efficiency).

He's behind Dirk in actual career accomplishment (Reggie had some supporting casts of similar quality to what Dirk had in 2011, too).

The gist of it is that the measures we have of Miller's career (career WS aside) don't really add up to top 40. I bring up the Dirk comparison because the arguments being presented for Miller by his proponents to justify the position are very similar to those used in lobbying for Dirk (skill-set and style adversely effecting defenses; can't remember if the specific comparison has been voiced).......but the fact (as I see it) is that Miller did NOT effect defenses in the way that Dirk has (or even close to it). So I'm wondering about the validity of these arguments.

[Chicago76]

What exactly am i missing out on?

I value players who are more well rounded. He scores an efficient 18-22ppg i get that. Besides that not much else.

Helps space the floor, is difficult to follow when running off screens, isn't particularly ball-dominant.

All three things (among the other stuff he brings) make defending him a living hell, and allow teammates to more easily play their games.

Two of the three things you mentioned are also accomplished by a player like Wesley Matthews. jsia....

I can see (even remember) Miller causing defensive miscues on potential screen switches as he's running his man ragged thru multiple screens. But ultimately this doesn't translate to anything near the "defense warping" effect that Dirk has/had.
Because ultimately Reggie is relatively one-dimensional in the way that he scores (even if he is the best of the best in that one method), almost never warrants a double-team, and doesn't create mis-match problems either.
Individually, there's no question he's near-impossible to guard; he's pretty consistently gonna get his, and generally pretty efficiently too.....but never a big volume that he's garnering so efficiently (even at his zenith it was ~15 FGA/game; the rest of the time the Pacers would have to settle for whatever efficiency the rest of the team can manage).

And given Miller's other short-comings, idk, I'm having trouble seeing the rationale for giving him top 40 credit. And this certainly isn't bias: I wore #31 in highschool (because of Reggie Miller), and Reggie Miller IS the desktop background on computer I currently have on my lap. He's on my short-list of all-time favorite players. I just don't think he was this good.

Don't post here much, but to put his volume and efficiency in perspective: Over his peak (90-99), Reggie Miller's TS was about 9.2 pts higher than the league average. For comparison, Ray Allen at his peak was about +5.2 pts higher and your run of the mill starting shooting guard is normally around +1 to +2 pts of TS higher than league average. So basically, the difference from a relative efficiency standpoint between Miller and Allen was about the same difference as Allen and a regular shooting guard getting 26 minutes a night. That's beyond huge.

Another thing to consider is those 20 ppg lines were more impressive when you consider Miller seemed to pick his spots in the regular season to conserve for the postseason where his volume increased with the same efficiency. Also, there's the grinding pace played at the time. Per 100 team poss over that ten year stretch, he was a 30-4.5-4.5 guy, so you need to look at his pt production the same way guys look at offensive production in baseball from mid 60s to mid 70s.

From a spacing and player impact standpoint, you need to consider the guys he was playing with. Outside of Smits, none were offensive types, yet the team performed well from an efficiency standpoint. Looking at specific players, Croshere is an excellent example. That guy "earned" a 50 million contract because he was left open on the wing for drives and jumpers thanks to Miller messing with defensive rotation when he was past his peak.

Now the knocks:
-pace to some extent is a function of trying to get him open. Somewhat fair. That still doesn't change the fact that 20 ppg at that pace is worth a lot more than the raw # would indicate. If you ramped up the pace, there would be some diminishing return, although Miller would get his in spots regardless because he bypassed a lot of touches to keep people involved. Playing faster, his production would still be closer to the pace gross up than what it actually was playing slower.

-the big knock for me potentially can be portability in terms of how you define it. If you want Miller to meld with another team in his era (or earlier in the 3 pt era), he'd be a terror no matter where you put him. He could blend seamlessly with anyone. If you put him in the current era, he would not be nearly as valuable. He was more valuable in his time because he could single-handedly be the perimeter spacing influence and those players were rare. Today, you have spacing by committee because so many more players are good at shooting from distance. In the mid 90s, I could easily see how a Reggie Miller being an elite offensive RAPM player despite being fairly one dimensional. Today, he couldn't do that because some of what he brings to the table is redundant thanks to the 3 pt line focus.

[Doctor MJ]

The gist of it is that the measures we have of Miller's career (career WS aside) don't really add up to top 40.

Focusing on this a bit here.

People have seen me bring up WS as a really quick & dirty metric while going against it at times in more depth.

I think it's important to understand why Miller looks so great by WS, and what reasons typically are the cause for WS to overrate a player.

The short answer to those questions:
1. He looks great because he's so efficient.
2. Where offensive player get overrated by WS it's because they are hyper efficient playing a role that cannot scale to volume, and thus they cannot hope to be compared using a metric like WS with volume players.

Understand what I'm saying: There's not a fundamental issue with WS uniformly overrating efficiency, the reasoning behind its weighting is sound, far more so than PER, but if you have 5 Tyson Chandler-type scorers on the floor, you don't get 5 efficient scorers, you get a bunch of guys who can't do anything out there. A Chandler is dependent on others to allow him to take on his niche, and that's why, short of regression-based analysis showing otherwise, it only makes sense to think of him as a role player.

That's not Reggie though. Reggie can scale, maybe not to hyper-volume levels, but he can go up to volume as need be. As such his efficiency represents something close to an ideal of particularly choosing only the choicest of fruit, and that is a decision we have found your normal volume scorer was choosing wrongly on.

In short: While I don't start my analyses off looking at the Win Share totals, any statement indicating that Reggie isn't anywhere near good enough to be considered now is saying that WS vastly overrates the guy...and I would challenge folks to explain what precisely the flaw in WS that causes him to be so overrated, because the standard response "you can't just accept efficiency in place of volume" simply doesn't work here.

[Doctor MJ]

I can see (even remember) Miller causing defensive miscues on potential screen switches as he's running his man ragged thru multiple screens. But ultimately this doesn't translate to anything near the "defense warping" effect that Dirk has/had.
Because ultimately Reggie is relatively one-dimensional in the way that he scores (even if he is the best of the best in that one method), almost never warrants a double-team, and doesn't create mis-match problems either.
Individually, there's no question he's near-impossible to guard; he's pretty consistently gonna get his, and generally pretty efficiently too.....but never a big volume that he's garnering so efficiently (even at his zenith it was ~15 FGA/game; the rest of the time the Pacers would have to settle for whatever efficiency the rest of the team can manage).

And given Miller's other short-comings, idk, I'm having trouble seeing the rationale for giving him top 40 credit. And this certainly isn't bias: I wore #31 in highschool (because of Reggie Miller), and Reggie Miller IS the desktop background on computer I currently have on my lap. He's on my short-list of all-time favorite players. I just don't think he was this good.

So don't take this the wrong way, but I think you should question whether you do indeed have a "bias". Not an emotional one, but based on your starting place.

When you talk about Reggie, the key word I see is "one-dimensonal", which if described to a laymen who asked why it mattered could explained as, "Well, he's only doing one thing out there, and you want a guy to be able to do more." But you don't do those types of multiple things all at once. A guy isn't shooting and passing and rebounding all at once. He's making a choice to do the right thing at the right time.

My question then would be: If Reggie were a more gifted rebounder, how would you tell him to change how he played?

Because so far as I can tell, you get why it's beneficial for Reggie to be doing what he's doing, and I doubt you'll find a realistic approach that let's him continue to do that that also involves him crashing the boards. If we can agree then that Reggie plays a valuable role as he ties the defense in knots, and that doing so requires that he isn't really in a position to get rebounds, I would submit that it's wrong to see him as doing 1 thing while other guys are doing 2 things.

Both are doing the smart thing given the role they are playing, and that is constantly valuable. The non-Reggie guy may indeed be more valuable overall, but it's not because he's having value at 3 different moments in the possession to Reggie's one, but rather because he's in general just contributing more value with the role he has. That might seem weird if you're looking at a guy as giving value just in the moment he gets the rebound, but fundamentally that player isn't a guy who happened to get that rebound, he's a guy whose going to have particular odds of getting the rebound, and the ball bouncing in whatever odd way each time is just noise.

On other points:

1. Doesn't warrant a double team. Earning a double team is not a goal. While on rare occasions players get constantly double teamed, typically the double team comes because the defense thinks they can leave other men without getting burned. If you're the classic mediocre efficiency volume scorer, it happens because you easily get suckered into taking bad shots, and Reggie should be seen as far better than those guys.

Of course if the double teaming was a trap the offensive player was hoping for, and he executes the pass to burn the defense, well that is a great thing, and it's why in the end a really smart on-ball player is my ideal. Dirk's name is being talked about, well, veteran Dirk was one of those smart guys. Clearly better than Reggie.

2. Doesn't cause mismatches. We typically get mismatches because of screens...but that's not what you ideal screen result is obviously, you're hoping to get the player open. If Reggie were less adept at using screens and he insisted on dribbling in place afterward, he'd cause mismatches like crazy. Instead he's doing something even better.

3. Never big volume. You're entitled to your opinion on what Reggie could and couldn't do, and obviously being able to scale at volume is an important trait for a scorer, but I'll say it again: Volume is not a goal. Reggie wasn't trying and failing to get to volume. He was playing a role that gradually worked to get himself open, and all along the way he warped the defense and tired guys out.

The reason why he was "unstoppable" was that it's very difficult to stay with him for 24 seconds.
Does that mean you wait for him if other opportunities are open? No.
Does that mean you're more likely to pass to him if the defense succeeds in keeping other opportunities from opening? You betcha.

Of course that's just narrative. Things are more complicated than that, and even if my words are perfect, that doesn't tell us quantitatively how big Reggie's impact is. Payton's killing Reggie here, and really I don't mind. Just hard to compare these two. I just object when people describe Reggie in a manner that to me sounds like he's a glorified Danny Green. Reggie made the damn court shake out there with his constant smart actions attacking everyone around him, and that's not something to be brushed aside as if he were just standing there waiting for someone else to pull his defender away and then dish him the ball, which to me is what one-dimensionality truly looks like.

[batmana]

My runoff vote goes to Gary Payton.

He was a leader, an excellent PG who could score and involve his teammates. He was excellent defensively and could take on bigger players (SGs) at that end of the floor due to his quickness, instincts and strength. He was part of a very strong Sonics team that happened (like many other teams in the 90s) to run into Jordan's Bulls.

Reggie Miller is awesome as well but I believe Payton's overall game makes him more valuable. Reggie Miller should also be voted pretty soon but seeing how the votes are spread out among several players, he could also wait for awhile. It's interesting how Isiah Thomas for instance has been on the brink (and in several runoffs) and is not voted yet.

[ceiling raiser]

It looks like the Glove is going to win this, which is a fine pick. Going to have to cast my vote for Reggie Miller though.

As I noted above, his non-boxcore offense is tremendously effective, and the impact stats seem to reflect this. Not many things scarier for an offense than Reggie bobbing and weaving around screens all around the court, and getting open for a quick shot. I think there is some legitimate truth to him raising his game in the postseason as well. Super high portability, though I'd like for him to be a better defender.

Payton is an interesting case. Doesn't seem to be a huge standout in defensive RAPM (though he rates well in offensive RAPM), but looks like a solid impact player for the late 90s/early 00s. I have some concerns about his ability to be a dominant defensive guard without the benefit of hand-checking though, and while I think he might be a bit better defensively than RAPM is suggesting, I think the new rules would take away from his ability to be a legitimate two-way impactful player.

[Clyde Frazier]

Spoiler:

Regardless of whether you have Miller ahead of Allen or not, I think they're very clearly in the same tier. Both have great longevity, so take a look at their 12 year primes (00-11 for allen, 90-01 for miller) below.

REGULAR SEASON

Allen avg - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:per_game

Miller avg - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:per_game

Allen per 100 - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:per_poss

Miller per 100 - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:per_poss

Allen advanced - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:advanced

Miller advanced - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:advanced

PLAYOFFS

Allen avg - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_per_game

Miller avg - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_per_game

Allen per 100 - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_per_poss

Miller per 100 - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_per_poss

Allen advanced - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_advanced

Miller advanced - http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_advanced

The only real outlier is miller's per 100 scoring output in the playoffs, but that can at least partially be attributed to allen's role changing once he got to boston. Even still, it doesn't scream "different tier" to me.

I suppose it's all in how we look at tiers.

One thing though: We talk about Ray Allen as we do because he's more than just another guy with a good PER. He's an all-timer at what he does in a role few attempt to do, and which is more valuable than stats often indicate. So to then use stats to try to justify why another in that role isn't that much better than him is problematic.

The nature of this role is that the guy in question is not going to score at huge volume if things are going well, and he's not going to rack up assists or rebounds much either. So then, how do we judge him?

Efficiency is clearly the most salient thing. Ray Allen looks excellent on that front, but Reggie is considerably better. Ray's 5-10% TS more efficient than league norms, Reggie's another 5% on top of that.

Part of that of course is in the free throws. In the true off-ball roles Allen played everywhere but Seattle, he never broke 5 FTAs per game. Miller peaked at 7.6. Even in the more on-ball role (and hence typically free throw friendly) that Allen played in Seattle, he didn't break 6, and when he was at his peak in FT generation, his FTA/FGA ratio was only 27% while Miller in his FT generation peak had a ratio of 51%.

I don't want to double-count this ability, but obviously Reggie was doing tricky things that Ray just didn't have as part of his mental framework. Playing against Reggie felt like playing against a Kidd or a Magic, a guy who would find a way to mess you up that you could never predict. Ray never felt like that. Ray was more a workmanlike perfectionist than he was a "smartest guy on the court" player like Reggie was.

Circling back to finish up: The other big thing I'd want in this role is some manner of explosiveness. Not literally physically, but just - can the guy scale as needed. This is another thing where Ray's not bad, but Reggie's a legend for this. His playoff explosions were common and legendary, his clutch play too.

Does that make him a separate tier? All depends on how you see. What I'll say is that Ray Allen is good enough that were he voted in Top 50, I wouldn't bat an eye, and if he doesn't make it, there will be people voted in who I say "Him, over Ray? I don't know about that". But of that last group, Reggie wouldn't be in it. He's clearly better. And I think that's why I tend to call him "next tier". If I have no real debate going on between two guys, then what would it mean to put them on the same tier?

Last thing I'll note: Because I think like this, I'm probably more likely to talk about tier differences between two very similar players. Here we are debating Miller vs Payton, two very different guys. I can't claim that I see Miller over Payton as any kind of unassailable thing. They have way different roles. The only way I know to get serious player comparison closure over such different guys is with data, and we don't have enough data on these guys to make that call. But Miller vs Allen, yeah, I can figure that one out pretty confidently.

I personally don't have a specific definition for "tiers" as it relates to this project, but ranking these 2 players would fall in the same "territory" for me. I understand reggie's use of psychological warfare to get an edge (I even used it as a plus when I voted for kidd earlier in the project). I saw it first hand against my knicks year after year.

As far as drawing FTs, the up fake to draw contact is still used today, but more heavily officiated. The rip through is essentially outlawed, although durant still gets away with it from time to time. With all the discussion of portability, he may not be drawing as many fouls today with those tactics.

[As an aside, something needs to be done about how shooting fouls are called in the league today. I can't really blame them, but guys like harden and durant have mastered the angles with long strides to draw fouls. Instead of actually attempting a shot, they just initiate contact and flail their arms play after play. Really ruins the flow of the game as far as i'm concerned.]

You also seem to be pointing more to peak values than prime. Most players don't have 12 year primes, but both guys were known for their longevity, so I think looking at a larger sample size has meaning. For example, over their 12 year primes, miller has a +3.4% TS edge (61.9% vs. 58.5%) in the reg season, and in the playoffs that edge drops to 1.5% (60.6% vs. 59.1%). Reggie has the edge, but they were both in an elite class efficiency-wise over the course of their careers.

I don't think Allen fits into the "he was playing the wrong role before as a playmaker, so that's why he was more successful off the ball later in his career". Skill set wise, I'm fairly confident that Allen would've succeeded just fine had he played with more talent earlier in his career. That 01 bucks team was solid, but the lack of any interior scoring presence hurt them. Glenn Robinson's efficiency also went down in the playoffs and he seemed to be a negative impact player in that ECF run. Allen's situation didn't really improve in seattle, either.

I don't see any issue with comparing 2 similar players in playing style, ability and career length and saying, "player A has a solid case over player B". That doesn't point me in the direction of thinking they should be in different tiers. Comparing players of different roles and positions is obviously harder.

[Chicago76]

I personally don't have a specific definition for "tiers" as it relates to this project, but ranking these 2 players would fall in the same "territory" for me....

You also seem to be pointing more to peak values than prime. Most players don't have 12 year primes, but both guys were known for their longevity, so I think looking at a larger sample size has meaning. For example, over their 12 year primes, miller has a +3.4% TS edge (61.9% vs. 58.5%) in the reg season, and in the playoffs that edge drops to 1.5% (60.6% vs. 59.1%). Reggie has the edge, but they were both in an elite class efficiency-wise over the course of their careers.

Agree completely that Allen and Miller definitely fall within the same general tier, but looking at the TS edge in the postseason for a moment, to make this apples-to-apples, we'd really need to consider opponent strength, because these guys aren't playing a similar schedule the way they would in the regular season.

From his first playoff appearance (1990) through the 2000 finals, Miller appeared in 101 postseason games. Just looking at Drtg:
28 games vs. #1 drtg team
36 games vs. #2-#4 drtg teams
10 games vs. #5-#6 drtg teams
8 games vs. #9-#10 drtg teams (BOS 91 and 92 early on)
19 games vs. teams outside the top 10 in drtg.

That is, I believe, the most difficult prime stretch of any player since the merger in terms of playoff defensive opponent quality. Chamberlain running into BOS year after year might have had it worse from earlier, but that's about it.

This is simplifying things somewhat. The western club drtgs could be understated because the O was better in the west. These highly rated teams could also be more frontcourt-focused defensively. Even if that is the case, from a value standpoint, putting up that kind of efficiency on increased usage and minutes over regular season is still much more valuable because that is the only area on the floor where you can carry your O vs. a team with a strong defensive frontcourt. Even if Hubert Davis couldn't guard a traffic cone, your offense is getting crushed up front, your PG isn't a scorer, so scoring that efficiently against a team whose overall defense is that good is a really big deal. Bigger than the .606 TS% would indicate.

FWIW, I'm not taking part in this. I'm a Pacer and Miller fan, and I probably wouldn't put him quite this high. I am confident that despite Miller and Allen being in the same general status/tier, there is enough of a difference to confidently state that Miller definitely had the bigger impact and was a better player.

[trex_8063]

So don't take this the wrong way, but I think you should question whether you do indeed have a "bias". Not an emotional one, but based on your starting place.

I'll just focus on this one comment, without quoting other points which I may touch on in-line (don't want to over-clutter the thread).

Anyway, perhaps you're right. I'm pretty sure I'm reasonably immune to bias based on who I "like" or "dislike"; I've spent ample time defending Iverson and Karl Malone to critics here, and I don't "like" either of those guys. But perhaps my baseline approach to analysis (my "starting place", as you called it) is flawed (at least for some players).

There are some compelling arguments itt for Miller. I'm still more than comfortable sticking with Payton here (I simply think Payton was on another level); but you guys are definitely making me reconsider my default position of Miller.

Couple other responses to some specific things you mentioned:

*I realize drawing double-teams and/or creating mis-matches is not an ultimate goal on offense. I only mention those things as means of "warping the defense", and thus affecting the game offensively beyond his individual stat-line.

**You brought up his rebounding and implied it's a product of his offensive game (running like mad thru screens to get open on the perimeter, etc, as apposed to being in a position to crash the boards)......however, that would only affect his OFFENSIVE rebounding, no? That aspect should have no particular impact whatsoever on his defensive rebounding, which is still fairly subpar:
Career Best DRB%: 9.2
Prime ('90-'99) DRB%: 7.7
Career DRB%: 7.8

For comparison here are a couple other SG's who are NOT even among the top tier of rebounding SG's:
Ray Allen best year: 11.8 (three separate years)
Prime: 10.5
Career: 10.3

Allen Iverson (7" shorter, fwiw) best year: 10.1
Prime: 8.2
Career: 8.1

Jerry Stackhouse best year: 13.4
Prime: 8.6
Career: 8.2

Anyway, not a huge black-mark on his overall game; but it is there, and I don't see that that one can be written away based on style of play.

***The only other thing I might comment on was wrt his volume and his ability to "scale it up" as needed, and at basically the same efficiency. No doubt that he DID scale it up on occasion, but I try not to get too excited over small sample size results. If he could "at will" do these things, why wouldn't he during the rs in some of those years where the Pacers were winning 47-48 games, 52 games, etc. Presumably if they could consistently get his amazing efficiency for ~4-5 more FGA/game, that would translate into some more wins, better playoff seeding, better chance at contending, yada yada yada.


Anyway, those are the remaining questions I have floating around in my head. Some great arguments made for him, though.

[trex_8063]

One other thing that just feels at odds with Reggie this high (and NOT wanting to imply this is the starting point for player analysis and ranking, merely putting it out there): this is a guy who not only never made a 1st team, but never made the All-NBA 2nd Team. He only received MVP votes twice, NEVER among the league's top 12 players (according to MVP voting), only once even in the top 15.
Not as though the media didn't like Reggie either, fwiw.
idk, other lingering thoughts.....

[ronnymac2]

I voted for GP, but I do want to point out what is arguably the GOAT offensive series for a wing in NBA playoff history. Reggie Miller's 1994 performance against the GOAT-defense NYK was truly incredible.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/NBA_1994_ECF.html#NYK-IND

He was the only player on his team with an individual ORTG over 100. He took on a 30.1 USG% in 35 MPG and had an incredible 123 ORTG for the possessions he used. He averaged 24.7 points and less than 1.3 turnovers per game. Foul draw was great. Spacing. Clutch. Just an incredible series for Miller.

P.S. I used hyerbole in my opening sentence, but I don't think it's the craziest thing to say. Or at least, it's not the craziest thing I've ever said.

[Chicago76]

One other thing that just feels at odds with Reggie this high (and NOT wanting to imply this is the starting point for player analysis and ranking, merely putting it out there): this is a guy who not only never made a 1st team, but never made the All-NBA 2nd Team. He only received MVP votes twice, NEVER among the league's top 12 players (according to MVP voting), only once even in the top 15.
Not as though the media didn't like Reggie either, fwiw.
idk, other lingering thoughts.....

That's a function of Jordan+Drexler and also people not understanding the value (and quantifying) efficiency the way they do now. The media and GMs would probably embrace Miller more now than in his own era. That doesn't mean in retrospect he wasn't as valuable then. Just that his impact was less noticed/understood.

Regarding DRB rates: like you said, it's a pretty minor issue. 2.8 pts of prime DRB rate between Miller and Allen from a position that doesn't emphasize DRB rates isn't a big deal. But rebounding environment did change a lot over their respective primes. Offensive perimeter players started conceding DRBs to their counterparts more to improve transition defense. 1995 was the mid-point of Miller's prime stretch. Median DRB of guards with over 1500 season minutes was 8.1 or 8.2. Median for the same period in 2000 was 9.5, or about half the difference. If we excluded ultra low DRB point guards who weren't trying to rebound in either period, the difference is probably even more pronounced. It continued to trek up from there. So the real rebounding advantage was pretty miniscule.

[Owly]

On the general notion of Miller being only an occasional 3rd teamer (thrice, and 5x all-star). That is an issue. Now whether it's an issue for how things were rated back then or how they are now is a question, but it is something the Miller candidacy has to overcome. Of course he still has significant longevity and playoffs which help him and aren't factored in to those, but still you probably have to be saying "I think I've thought about it more" and/or "We think we know better", at least a bit. And that's fine.

One other thing that just feels at odds with Reggie this high (and NOT wanting to imply this is the starting point for player analysis and ranking, merely putting it out there): this is a guy who not only never made a 1st team, but never made the All-NBA 2nd Team. He only received MVP votes twice, NEVER among the league's top 12 players (according to MVP voting), only once even in the top 15.
Not as though the media didn't like Reggie either, fwiw.
idk, other lingering thoughts.....

That's a function of Jordan+Drexler and also people not understanding the value (and quantifying) efficiency the way they do now. The media and GMs would probably embrace Miller more now than in his own era. That doesn't mean in retrospect he wasn't as valuable then. Just that his impact was less noticed/understood.

Regarding DRB rates: like you said, it's a pretty minor issue. 2.8 pts of prime DRB rate between Miller and Allen from a position that doesn't emphasize DRB rates isn't a big deal. But rebounding environment did change a lot over their respective primes. Offensive perimeter players started conceding DRBs to their counterparts more to improve transition defense. 1995 was the mid-point of Miller's prime stretch. Median DRB of guards with over 1500 season minutes was 8.1 or 8.2. Median for the same period in 2000 was 9.5, or about half the difference. If we excluded ultra low DRB point guards who weren't trying to rebound in either period, the difference is probably even more pronounced. It continued to trek up from there. So the real rebounding advantage was pretty miniscule.

Drexler-Jordan? Drexler's last 2nd team or better appearance was in '92 (thereafter making a single 3rd team in '95). Jordan is fair comment but he was absent for '94 and the substantial majority of '95 (and with neither of those two there in '94, he still wasn't even 3rd team). The guys he was behind (who aren't in yet) were Payton, KJ, Dumars, Hardaway, Hardaway, Richmond and Price (and once each Sprewell and Strickland). And as before we can say people got it wrong ('94: Sprewell 1st team - PER: 15.9, WS/48: .108; Miller not even 3rd team - PER: 20.2, WS/48: .212), in some cases we might hypothesize why (e.g. fooled by minutes and pace in the above example, perhaps too the misleading effects of fg% which makes 2s and 3s look equal) but we should be aware that Miller often wasn't ranked as a top 6 guard, and when he was it was 5-6 and that it wasn't just MJ and Drexler.

The MJ and Drexler thing does bring another issue though. How valuable is it to be the third best shooting guard (or other position) of your era? Obviously Ewing's long in as the third (fourth?, Shaq played a lot of strong years in the 90s) center of the 90s so this shouldn't just be targeted at Reggie. If we say Sharman was the best 50s SG and Sam Jones the best of the 60s (or 2nd depending on where you put West), is it arguable that fact of itself moves their potential championship probability added value. If you aren't likely to be beaten at a position in any matchup doesn't that help. Or is it just who is most productive. On the one hand I'm not normally like "being rebound champ matters so much, never mind that he only did it by .05 per game", so I'm not a mark for first place. So productivity matters, but maybe margin of superiority does too (the counter would be that that rewards those playing in a weak era). Of course after the fact, decade-positional rankings are going to be imperfect and won't tell you what did happen anyway, but they might be part of a guide to possible impact on a hypothetical level playing field at that time. Or not. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Sharman and Jones make interesting comps with Reggie as pure shooters who derived a lot of their value there (and through spacing, which then re-raises issues of do you rate them as they would be today -or indeed over all eras- with risks of arbitrariness or do you seemingly penalise guys who unfortunately didn't have rules that maximise their skill-set at their time, and just judge everyone by impact in their time) and as 2nd tier stars (though Sharman has 4 1st team All-NBAs). Anyway not advocating a "Must pick best player at each position for each position and each decade as the top 30, then 2nd as the next 30 etc" or anything like that. Just a talking point. More metathinking really but if followed from the earlier respsonse (and I guess relates somewhat to Reggie).

[Chicago76]

Drexler-Jordan? Drexler's last 2nd team or better appearance was in '92 (thereafter making a single 3rd team in '95). Jordan is fair comment but he was absent for '94 and the substantial majority of '95 (and with neither of those two there in '94, he still wasn't even 3rd team). The guys he was behind (who aren't in yet) were Payton, KJ, Dumars, Hardaway, Hardaway, Richmond and Price (and once each Sprewell and Strickland). And as before we can say people got it wrong ('94: Sprewell 1st team - PER: 15.9, WS/48: .108; Miller not even 3rd team - PER: 20.2, WS/48: .212), in some cases we might hypothesize why (e.g. fooled by minutes and pace in the above example, perhaps too the misleading effects of fg% which makes 2s and 3s look equal) but we should be aware that Miller often wasn't ranked as a top 6 guard, and when he was it was 5-6 and that it wasn't just MJ and Drexler.

The MJ and Drexler thing does bring another issue though. How valuable is it to be the third best shooting guard (or other position) of your era? Obviously Ewing's long in as the third (fourth?, Shaq played a lot of strong years in the 90s) center of the 90s so this shouldn't just be targeted at Reggie. If we say Sharman was the best 50s SG and Sam Jones the best of the 60s (or 2nd depending on where you put West), is it arguable that fact of itself moves their potential championship probability added value. If you aren't likely to be beaten at a position in any matchup doesn't that help. Or is it just who is most productive. On the one hand I'm not normally like "being rebound champ matters so much, never mind that he only did it by .05 per game", so I'm not a mark for first place. So productivity matters, but maybe margin of superiority does too (the counter would be that that rewards those playing in a weak era). Of course after the fact, decade-positional rankings are going to be imperfect and won't tell you what did happen anyway, but they might be part of a guide to possible impact on a hypothetical level playing field at that time. Or not. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Sharman and Jones make interesting comps with Reggie as pure shooters who derived a lot of their value there (and through spacing, which then re-raises issues of do you rate them as they would be today -or indeed over all eras- with risks of arbitrariness or do you seemingly penalise guys who unfortunately didn't have rules that maximise their skill-set at their time, and just judge everyone by impact in their time) and as 2nd tier stars (though Sharman has 4 1st team All-NBAs). Anyway not advocating a "Must pick best player at each position for each position and each decade as the top 30, then 2nd as the next 30 etc" or anything like that. Just a talking point. More metathinking really but if followed from the earlier respsonse (and I guess relates somewhat to Reggie).

This is fair. The one thing I'd consider regarding a lot of the players mentioned who finished above Miller in all-NBA teams of that era is that a lot of them were high peak-short career players. Perhaps more than any other era at guard, there was a lot of quality, but that quality wasn't sustained over long career stretches both: Hardaways, Price, KJ, a guy like Rod Strickland who had a ton of potential but who wasted it, etc. And a lot of those guys were posting 20-10 seasons as PGs without the context of pace, scoring efficiency, turnover rates, etc.

There is undoubtedly a small market influence there earlier in Miller's career that hurt him in terms of recognition that doesn't exist today. A mediocre small market team in the late 80s-mid90s got zero national exposure. Miller is kind of unusual in that as much as he is respected now, the guy was completely under the radar until that series in 94 vs. the Knicks...7 full seasons into his career.

That Miller was never really the best or probably second best SG in the NBA (outside of maybe Jordan's first retirement and the strike season of 98-99) certainly keeps him down, but to compare that to earlier eras where there was less competition to be that #2 SG in the league is a bit wrongheaded. The degree of difficulty in getting to that #2 or #3 slot at a position has generally become more difficult. I'm not one to think that the 60s were a soft era. There was a lot of talent and it was condensed, so the quality of play was arguably even higher than the 90s, but in absolute volume of talent, it in no way competes with Miller's era. Recognizing that the talent was more condensed, don't scale up the league to three times its size, but assume we can clone guys to make it 2.5x its size of the early to mid 60s before expansion. Do Havlicek, Sam Jones, Hal Greer, etc make 2nd teams? For the latter two, probably not. In a combined ABA/NBA that wouldn't need to be scaled up so much, Havlicek's first teams would drop to seconds and a lot of his seconds would drop to third. He might lose a lot more if you took the word "Celtics" off his jersey.

That's a different issue I've always struggled with: what does it mean to be the third best SF in basketball in 1964 compared to the third best SF in 2007 or 1984, etc? IMHO, the most balanced approach is to take an honest look at competition at a given position and also roughly figure out how the number of teams and the general talent pool dictates 2nd or 3rd best in one era to the next, because not all first-team, second-team, third-team awards are equal.

[Doctor MJ]

I personally don't have a specific definition for "tiers" as it relates to this project, but ranking these 2 players would fall in the same "territory" for me. I understand reggie's use of psychological warfare to get an edge (I even used it as a plus when I voted for kidd earlier in the project). I saw it first hand against my knicks year after year.

As far as drawing FTs, the up fake to draw contact is still used today, but more heavily officiated. The rip through is essentially outlawed, although durant still gets away with it from time to time. With all the discussion of portability, he may not be drawing as many fouls today with those tactics.

[As an aside, something needs to be done about how shooting fouls are called in the league today. I can't really blame them, but guys like harden and durant have mastered the angles with long strides to draw fouls. Instead of actually attempting a shot, they just initiate contact and flail their arms play after play. Really ruins the flow of the game as far as i'm concerned.]

You also seem to be pointing more to peak values than prime. Most players don't have 12 year primes, but both guys were known for their longevity, so I think looking at a larger sample size has meaning. For example, over their 12 year primes, miller has a +3.4% TS edge (61.9% vs. 58.5%) in the reg season, and in the playoffs that edge drops to 1.5% (60.6% vs. 59.1%). Reggie has the edge, but they were both in an elite class efficiency-wise over the course of their careers.

I don't think Allen fits into the "he was playing the wrong role before as a playmaker, so that's why he was more successful off the ball later in his career". Skill set wise, I'm fairly confident that Allen would've succeeded just fine had he played with more talent earlier in his career. That 01 bucks team was solid, but the lack of any interior scoring presence hurt them. Glenn Robinson's efficiency also went down in the playoffs and he seemed to be a negative impact player in that ECF run. Allen's situation didn't really improve in seattle, either.

I don't see any issue with comparing 2 similar players in playing style, ability and career length and saying, "player A has a solid case over player B". That doesn't point me in the direction of thinking they should be in different tiers. Comparing players of different roles and positions is obviously harder.

Well, heck the rip through isn't even Miller's calling card, kicking the leg is. And yeah, they're trying to cut down on all these things, but they are obviously finding it very difficult. I don't feel comfortable making any statement like "You can't cheat now like you could in the '90s".

Re: Allen...earlier in his career. To be clear, I'm not lionizing Allen's time in Boston, I'm talking about his time in Milwaukee. His usage became huge in Seattle, and so his volume went up, but I consider his time in Milwaukee to be his most impressive where he wasn't the first scoring option (despite scoring the most) and he was nowhere near the least assist-giver.

Re: Tiers. Yeah, for me, there's no point in talking about "tiers" unless you have a sense of what it is exactly that means. For me it's about how clear cut the ranking is. With any given player there may be 10-20 guys that I find the comparison between them truly debatable. If you're outside of that, you're not on the same tier. Miller vs Allen is clear cut, so to me that's a tier difference.

[Doctor MJ]

I'll just focus on this one comment, without quoting other points which I may touch on in-line (don't want to over-clutter the thread).

Anyway, perhaps you're right. I'm pretty sure I'm reasonably immune to bias based on who I "like" or "dislike"; I've spent ample time defending Iverson and Karl Malone to critics here, and I don't "like" either of those guys. But perhaps my baseline approach to analysis (my "starting place", as you called it) is flawed (at least for some players).

There are some compelling arguments itt for Miller. I'm still more than comfortable sticking with Payton here (I simply think Payton was on another level); but you guys are definitely making me reconsider my default position of Miller.

Couple other responses to some specific things you mentioned:

*I realize drawing double-teams and/or creating mis-matches is not an ultimate goal on offense. I only mention those things as means of "warping the defense", and thus affecting the game offensively beyond his individual stat-line.

**You brought up his rebounding and implied it's a product of his offensive game (running like mad thru screens to get open on the perimeter, etc, as apposed to being in a position to crash the boards)......however, that would only affect his OFFENSIVE rebounding, no? That aspect should have no particular impact whatsoever on his defensive rebounding, which is still fairly subpar:
Career Best DRB%: 9.2
Prime ('90-'99) DRB%: 7.7
Career DRB%: 7.8

For comparison here are a couple other SG's who are NOT even among the top tier of rebounding SG's:
Ray Allen best year: 11.8 (three separate years)
Prime: 10.5
Career: 10.3

Allen Iverson (7" shorter, fwiw) best year: 10.1
Prime: 8.2
Career: 8.1

Jerry Stackhouse best year: 13.4
Prime: 8.6
Career: 8.2

Anyway, not a huge black-mark on his overall game; but it is there, and I don't see that that one can be written away based on style of play.

***The only other thing I might comment on was wrt his volume and his ability to "scale it up" as needed, and at basically the same efficiency. No doubt that he DID scale it up on occasion, but I try not to get too excited over small sample size results. If he could "at will" do these things, why wouldn't he during the rs in some of those years where the Pacers were winning 47-48 games, 52 games, etc. Presumably if they could consistently get his amazing efficiency for ~4-5 more FGA/game, that would translate into some more wins, better playoff seeding, better chance at contending, yada yada yada.


Anyway, those are the remaining questions I have floating around in my head. Some great arguments made for him, though.

Thanks for saying that at the beginning. Really makes me feel like you're thinking about what I say, even if you end up disagreeing.

Re: double teaming to warp the defense. Sure, and it's interesting to note the dimensions here. Because we talk about a player's "gravity" like more is inherently better, but this isn't necessarily the case. A great passer for example isn't going to have as much straight forward warping because teams are terrified of his passing ability, and hence I'm more likely to say something like "manipulates the defense" to try to convey the machinations at work.

Re: but what about defensive rebounding. Okay sure, not saying it's to be totally ignored, but it's not like the Pacers struggled at defensive rebounding, and that was despite the fact they had a giant center who wasn't too keen on crashing the boards.

Re: if he could scale, he would have, how could you not if you were that good at it?

Let's see here, Reggie Miller played 144 playoff games. In 25.4% of those games he scored 30 or more points.

Let's compare other guys who typically aren't doubted the same way:

Paul Pierce played in 148 playoff games, did that 10.8% of the time.
Clyde Drexler played in 145 playoff games,did that 12.4% of the time.
Ray Allen played in 171 playoff games, did that 6.4% of the time.
Gary Payton played in 154 playoff games, did that 3.2% of the time.

Forget for a second about the hows and the whys, about the notion of "scaling up". If you just look at the playoff data. Even after you adjust for player career arcs, different roles, etc, there's no way anyone could possibly look at all that and say "Yeah but when you really needed them to score, Reggie just wasn't on the same level of those other guys." Obviously, it looks at least at first glance like he's on a completely different level above them.

Reggie's 45h in total playoff games, but 16th in total 30+ point playoff games because he scored disproportionately compared to that list of guys dominated by all-timers. (For the record, the only guy above Miller on the list who wasn't already voted in is Allen Iverson.)

Now, let me put a limitation in front of Miller though: Miller's playoff peak is 41 points.

In all the times with Miller doing is clutch thing, he never had a game with truly extreme scoring levels.
Freaking Bonzi Wells has a higher scoring playoff game than Reggie ever did.

So how I see it is this: It's not that Miller had no limitations. He couldn't in his role go off for epically huge games. What he could do though is get you 30+ more reliably than a lot of players who are true volume-as-a-role scorers, and he could do it with great efficiency.

So then getting back to your concern:

Why the hell didn't he give that more in the regular season during which he scored 30+ only 8.2% of the time? (More than tripled his chance of scoring 30+ in the playoffs, despite playing some of the fiercest defenses known to man. Insane.)

I don't have the absolute answer here, but I will point this out:

Number of times played on team's with ORtg +3 or more better than league average among guys known to be scorers...who played basically just on 1 team (btw, I did that just for ease of search).

Kobe Bryant 9
Dirk Nowitzki 9
Reggie Miller 8
Michael Jordan 6
Paul Pierce 0

I'm not crediting Miller with creating all those offenses by himself, but you have to understand that by and large, things were working. It's not like he was on ineffective offenses desperately trying to find a way to work. Things worked in the organic way they came about, so there weren't really obvious, glaring flaws to change about it.

And of course in the playoffs, when you'd wonder if such issues would emerge, the Pacer offense shone even brighter.

[Clyde Frazier]

I personally don't have a specific definition for "tiers" as it relates to this project, but ranking these 2 players would fall in the same "territory" for me. I understand reggie's use of psychological warfare to get an edge (I even used it as a plus when I voted for kidd earlier in the project). I saw it first hand against my knicks year after year.

As far as drawing FTs, the up fake to draw contact is still used today, but more heavily officiated. The rip through is essentially outlawed, although durant still gets away with it from time to time. With all the discussion of portability, he may not be drawing as many fouls today with those tactics.

[As an aside, something needs to be done about how shooting fouls are called in the league today. I can't really blame them, but guys like harden and durant have mastered the angles with long strides to draw fouls. Instead of actually attempting a shot, they just initiate contact and flail their arms play after play. Really ruins the flow of the game as far as i'm concerned.]

You also seem to be pointing more to peak values than prime. Most players don't have 12 year primes, but both guys were known for their longevity, so I think looking at a larger sample size has meaning. For example, over their 12 year primes, miller has a +3.4% TS edge (61.9% vs. 58.5%) in the reg season, and in the playoffs that edge drops to 1.5% (60.6% vs. 59.1%). Reggie has the edge, but they were both in an elite class efficiency-wise over the course of their careers.

I don't think Allen fits into the "he was playing the wrong role before as a playmaker, so that's why he was more successful off the ball later in his career". Skill set wise, I'm fairly confident that Allen would've succeeded just fine had he played with more talent earlier in his career. That 01 bucks team was solid, but the lack of any interior scoring presence hurt them. Glenn Robinson's efficiency also went down in the playoffs and he seemed to be a negative impact player in that ECF run. Allen's situation didn't really improve in seattle, either.

I don't see any issue with comparing 2 similar players in playing style, ability and career length and saying, "player A has a solid case over player B". That doesn't point me in the direction of thinking they should be in different tiers. Comparing players of different roles and positions is obviously harder.

Well, heck the rip through isn't even Miller's calling card, kicking the leg is. And yeah, they're trying to cut down on all these things, but they are obviously finding it very difficult. I don't feel comfortable making any statement like "You can't cheat now like you could in the '90s".

Re: Allen...earlier in his career. To be clear, I'm not lionizing Allen's time in Boston, I'm talking about his time in Milwaukee. His usage became huge in Seattle, and so his volume went up, but I consider his time in Milwaukee to be his most impressive where he wasn't the first scoring option (despite scoring the most) and he was nowhere near the least assist-giver.

Re: Tiers. Yeah, for me, there's no point in talking about "tiers" unless you have a sense of what it is exactly that means. For me it's about how clear cut the ranking is. With any given player there may be 10-20 guys that I find the comparison between them truly debatable. If you're outside of that, you're not on the same tier. Miller vs Allen is clear cut, so to me that's a tier difference.

Well, I never said, "you can't cheat like you did in the 90s", but I think it's fair to say that he'd have less success with all 3 FT drawing tactics in today's game. I don't think it's out of the question to speculate that he'd lose 2 FTAs per game during his best years if translated to recent years.

For the sake of argument, this is what I mean by tiers:

- Top 5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- 21-30
- 31-40
- 41-60
- 61-75
- The rest

I think we're delving into semantics here as we seem to be talking about 2 different things. I'll stick with the word "territory", then. Even if the general consensus is miller > allen, I don't see him separating himself enough from allen to put them in different territories. All things equal, I think the 2 players would yield relatively similar team success over the course of their careers.

[penbeast0]

Gary Payton (7) - penbeast0, trex_8063, tsherkin, SactoKingsFan, Quotatious, Clyde Frazier, batmana
Reggie Miller (4) - john248, RayBan-Sematra, Doctor MJ. fpliii

Calling it for the Glove

[trex_8063]

Re: if he could scale, he would have, how could you not if you were that good at it?

Let's see here, Reggie Miller played 144 playoff games. In 25.4% of those games he scored 30 or more points.

Let's compare other guys who typically aren't doubted the same way:

Paul Pierce played in 148 playoff games, did that 10.8% of the time.
Clyde Drexler played in 145 playoff games,did that 12.4% of the time.
Ray Allen played in 171 playoff games, did that 6.4% of the time.
Gary Payton played in 154 playoff games, did that 3.2% of the time.

Yup, there it is. It is indeed a nice piece of Miller's argument.

I was referring to the larger sample size of his career whole, though. I didn't want to look thru ALL rs games, though, so I filtered only for rs losses (I don't know if there's a way to select only for losses like 10 pts or less, to eliminate the blow-outs, but I couldn't see how; so this is ALL rs losses).......the thought being that if a scorer can scale up at will, he'll often choose to do so when his team is down. And again, the relevance being---aside from my just assuming the losing would rub against the grain to competitive instinct, that if a star can ramp it up to turn some of those "L"'s into "W"'s, he'll try to do so because there's relevance to doing so (particularly in those seasons where they win 47-52 games): added wins can translate to better playoff seeding, better chance to contend, etc etc.

Reggie played in 622 rs losses in his career; he scored 30+ in 39 of them (6.3%)

Paul Pierce played in 519 rs losses; he did that in 67 of them (12.9%).
Clyde Drexler played in 421 rs losses; he did that in 43 of them (10.2%).
Ray Allen played in 545 rs losses; he did that in 51 of them (9.4%).
Gary Payton is still lower, scoring 30+ in just 3.7% of his rs losses.


Anyway, just putting that out there for consideration.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: if he could scale, he would have, how could you not if you were that good at it?

Let's see here, Reggie Miller played 144 playoff games. In 25.4% of those games he scored 30 or more points.

Let's compare other guys who typically aren't doubted the same way:

Paul Pierce played in 148 playoff games, did that 10.8% of the time.
Clyde Drexler played in 145 playoff games,did that 12.4% of the time.
Ray Allen played in 171 playoff games, did that 6.4% of the time.
Gary Payton played in 154 playoff games, did that 3.2% of the time.

Yup, there it is. It is indeed a nice piece of Miller's argument.

I was referring to the larger sample size of his career whole, though. I didn't want to look thru ALL rs games, though, so I filtered only for rs losses (I don't know if there's a way to select only for losses like 10 pts or less, to eliminate the blow-outs, but I couldn't see how; so this is ALL rs losses).......the thought being that if a scorer can scale up at will, he'll often choose to do so when his team is down. And again, the relevance being---aside from my just assuming the losing would rub against the grain to competitive instinct, that if a star can ramp it up to turn some of those "L"'s into "W"'s, he'll try to do so because there's relevance to doing so (particularly in those seasons where they win 47-52 games): added wins can translate to better playoff seeding, better chance to contend, etc etc.

Reggie played in 622 rs losses in his career; he scored 30+ in 39 of them (6.3%)

Paul Pierce played in 519 rs losses; he did that in 67 of them (12.9%).
Clyde Drexler played in 421 rs losses; he did that in 43 of them (10.2%).
Ray Allen played in 545 rs losses; he did that in 51 of them (9.4%).
Gary Payton is still lower, scoring 30+ in just 3.7% of his rs losses.


Anyway, just putting that out there for consideration.

The obvious answer would seem to be that Miller worked harder in the playoffs. Since that's basically a given, not just for him but everyone, what else is there?

Well consider literally what it means that the Pacer offense was good. While the Pacer playoff offense was good once you factor in degree of difficulty, it wasn't literally more effective than it was in the regular season.

Now, when I evaluate schemes in the playoffs, I do so with the adjustments of course. That's how it should be done when judging whether a team is truly thriving in that harsh environment. But performing better than expected in a harsh environment with a technique does not mean you should keep that technique in smoother environments.

To use a football analogy: It may make sense to abandon the long passing game in a hard rain, but that doesn't say anything about what you should do when it's 75 and sunny.

It's very possible then that Indiana's offense was best served by having Reggie shoot less in the regular season, but best served by him shooting more in the playoffs. And frankly I'd go a step further because I feel like this shift happened pretty organically: The Pacers didn't simply decide on 2 different strategies here, different methods of attack saw openings in different contexts, and the team simply responded to those opening.

As I say all this, of course there were regular season games that the Pacer offense wasn't working, and I don't have the data on what Reggie did there. Perhaps if we saw more data we'd see Reggie shooting more in losses where the rest of the team offense struggled relative to what he did in other situations. I don't know. I do think though that viewing Reggie through a lens of heroball turning losses into wins isn't really how I'd want to describe it if I were being careful, even though I acknowledge that me using phrases like "scale up" implies such.

But again, to a point I made in my last post: Whether or not my explanation is right, it doesn't change the facts. The facts are that short of dismissing sample size as noise, Reggie did amazing things consistently against the best defenses in the world on their A-game, and basically no scorer he's commonly compared with can match that. Figuring out why is interesting, but the facts don't cease to exist if we're not sure about that part.

And if you are willing to basically dismiss the playoffs as noise, well, then you're really a rare basketball analyst indeed.