Peaks project update: #16

[GeorgeMarcus]

Generally speaking, playoff record needs a lot of context to generate worthwhile discussion. There's 2 reasons I believe it's useful regarding D Rob/Hakeem:
1) Regular season D Rob would be a consensus favorite over regular season Hakeem; Hakeem would need to make up a lot of ground in the playoffs to get to a point where he's ranked 9th overall while Admiral doesn't crack the top 16 (and counting...)
2) For most of his career, D Rob played with an underwhelming supporting cast. The team won a whopping 21 games immediately before his rookie season, where they won 56 games. Fast forward to 97 when he got hurt: the Spurs won a whopping 20 games that season (immediately following a 59-win year and immediately before a 56-win year). Yes he had Duncan in his later years, but it's not so different from Hakeem having Barkley/Drexler. There isn't a significant difference between the talent they played with, yet D Rob wound up with the better playoff record despite getting knocked heavily for playoff performance.

Honestly I think it's similar to the Embiid criticisms. People focus so much on PS scoring that they overlook offensive gravity/transcendent defensive impact which play a bigger role when determining the impact of all-time great bigs.

What makes you say regular season Admiral would be a consensus favorite over regular season Hakeem? I still take Hakeem and I don't think it's that close, even as a Spurs die hard. Hakeem is just better at practically everything, even the stuff Robinson's great at; the only battle Robinson definitely wins is athleticism.

The Embiid comparison is not really making me see this differently. Embiid has been genuinely bad in the playoffs compared to the RS, way worse than David I think. All the imperfections in his decision-making and conditioning become glaringly apparent. I think we must just be prioritizing this stuff in fundamentally different ways.

Starting with the Embiid point, the Sixers were +143 with Embiid on and -123 with Embiid off in 11 playoff games this year. That’s one of, if not the craziest on/off’s I’ve ever seen in that sample size. He led the league in playoff RAPM as well. Going back further to the ugly 4-1 Celtics series last year, Embiid still wound up +17. There’s just no way these things can be true if Embiid is under performing. More likely, fans are better at gauging offensive impact than defensive impact, which causes a disproportionate emphasis on one side of the ball.

The same was true for Robinson. Appreciation for his greatness never matched his impact on winning. To answer your other question, yes I do think RS D Rob would be a consensus pick over RS Hakeem (but far from unanimous).

[E-Balla]

There really isn't though. His impact data (which includes playoffs) is so far ahead of every other player left on the board.

Draymond Green and Alonzo Mourning beg to differ. In 97 Zo was 7th in NPI RAPM. In 98 (the first year we have PI RAPM for) Zo was 2nd to Shaq in RAPM. In 99 he was first over Shaq. In those individual years Miami won 61 games, 55 games, and 33 out of 50 games. They were a +6 team at full strength each of those years outside of 99. You don't get better than first, so how Robinson has better impact data, I don't know.

Draymond on the other hand is 2nd to LeBron in RAPM since 2015 and tied for first with LeBron (over Robinson) in playoff RAPM since 98.

Robinson just doesn't have the best +/- numbers left on the board, he's one of a few left that are on the same tier, but he's the only one of them for which we don't have accurate RAPM estimates. The only year of his prime we actually have RAPM for is 98 and he was 23rd in RAPM ranking one spot above Ewing and 21 spots under Zo.

Plus you're using RAPM incorrectly. His postseason RAPM sample came in a supporting role (which is why Draymond being way over him in postseason RAPM since 98 is relevant). You can't just assume his RAPM would remain the same in other roles he isn't as well suited for.

You mention that he struggled against tougher competition, but D Rob was *30-12* against Hakeem outside of that single series people love to glorify. He ate Hakeem for breakfast, lunch and dinner on a regular basis, holding him to a woefully underwhelming 48.9 TS%. Now that's a sample size I can work with.

I'm not talking about his play in the regular season at all. That's not relevant. Why does he not have one great series against a defense that doesn't suck? Why does any defense worth a damn turn him into a 21 ppg guy on 51 TS%?

D Rob's overall playoff record was 70-53 so I just fundamentally disagree that he declined in the PS as much as you seem to think. Want to know Hakeem's? It was 76-69. Everybody loves a good narrative though, and playoff D Rob is one that wrongfully stuck.

Playoff record is literally meaningless. It says nothing about their competition, who they beat, how they beat them, or how they played in those games. Might as well use team record and sort your next picks by win percentage if we're pretending that says anything other than "Tim Duncan is a **** monster".

[E-Balla]

Generally speaking, playoff record needs a lot of context to generate worthwhile discussion. There's 2 reasons I believe it's useful regarding D Rob/Hakeem:
1) Regular season D Rob would be a consensus favorite over regular season Hakeem; Hakeem would need to make up a lot of ground in the playoffs to get to a point where he's ranked 9th overall while Admiral doesn't crack the top 16 (and counting...)
2) For most of his career, D Rob played with an underwhelming supporting cast. The team won a whopping 21 games immediately before his rookie season, where they won 56 games. Fast forward to 97 when he got hurt: the Spurs won a whopping 20 games that season (immediately following a 59-win year and immediately before a 56-win year). Yes he had Duncan in his later years, but it's not so different from Hakeem having Barkley/Drexler. There isn't a significant difference between the talent they played with, yet D Rob wound up with the better playoff record despite getting knocked heavily for playoff performance.

Honestly I think it's similar to the Embiid criticisms. People focus so much on PS scoring that they overlook offensive gravity/transcendent defensive impact which play a bigger role when determining the impact of all-time great bigs.

What makes you say regular season Admiral would be a consensus favorite over regular season Hakeem? I still take Hakeem and I don't think it's that close, even as a Spurs die hard. Hakeem is just better at practically everything, even the stuff Robinson's great at; the only battle Robinson definitely wins is athleticism.

The Embiid comparison is not really making me see this differently. Embiid has been genuinely bad in the playoffs compared to the RS, way worse than David I think. All the imperfections in his decision-making and conditioning become glaringly apparent. I think we must just be prioritizing this stuff in fundamentally different ways.

Starting with the Embiid point, the Sixers were +143 with Embiid on and -123 with Embiid off in 11 playoff games this year. That’s one of, if not the craziest on/off’s I’ve ever seen in that sample size. He led the league in playoff RAPM as well. Going back further to the ugly 4-1 Celtics series last year, Embiid still wound up +17. There’s just no way these things can be true if Embiid is under performing. More likely, fans are better at gauging offensive impact than defensive impact, which causes a disproportionate emphasis on one side of the ball.

The same was true for Robinson. Appreciation for his greatness never matched his impact on winning. To answer your other question, yes I do think RS D Rob would be a consensus pick over RS Hakeem (but far from unanimous).

So with no evidence the argument for Robinson is that he raised his defensive impact to a significant and historic degree in the playoffs a la Embiid?

[cecilthesheep]

Starting with the Embiid point, the Sixers were +143 with Embiid on and -123 with Embiid off in 11 playoff games this year. That’s one of, if not the craziest on/off’s I’ve ever seen in that sample size. He led the league in playoff RAPM as well. Going back further to the ugly 4-1 Celtics series last year, Embiid still wound up +17. There’s just no way these things can be true if Embiid is under performing. More likely, fans are better at gauging offensive impact than defensive impact, which causes a disproportionate emphasis on one side of the ball.

The same was true for Robinson. Appreciation for his greatness never matched his impact on winning. To answer your other question, yes I do think RS D Rob would be a consensus pick over RS Hakeem (but far from unanimous).

So with no evidence the argument for Robinson is that he raised his defensive impact to a significant and historic degree in the playoffs a la Embiid?

Robinson's defensive impact was always significant and historic imo, but yeah I agree, I don't see how he would raise it that significantly.

Those +/- numbers for Embiid are jaw-dropping. I guess I did overstate the case against him.