#21 - GOAT peaks project (2019)

[ardee]

Thank God Kobe is in, can finally vote for someone else.

I am thinking Paul, Durant, Westbrook and Barkley are in the mix coming up.

Sent from my SM-A505F using RealGM mobile app

[E-Balla]

Alonzo Mourning is very limited offensively, and as a defensive anchor he’s great but his impact has limitations a great offensive team player doesn’t have.

As limited as Zo was it's not like Malone wasn't also limited. There's a reason his postseason production wasn't all that. Outside of the Lakers series he wasn't producing at Zo's level at all in the 98 postseason.

Malone torched Duncan in 98,

What? His team won against rookie Duncan but individually Malone got crushed. Karl averaged 24.6 ppg on 46.3 TS%. They won because his team was better.

swept Shaq, and should’ve beaten the Bulls except for a no-call on an offensive foul by MJ on the last shot. Rodman couldn’t phase him.

He won, but he didn't play good enough to be this high.

Malone is often criticized as a system player - but that’s because he built his skills to fit the system. Mourning never developed the elite post game his team needed. Karl Malone was worse than Mourning in 99, but definitely not in 98

Karl is a better offensive player. No one will argue against that. Zo is miles better on defense though, and Karl's offense isn't the greatest either. He played his whole career with Stockton and couldn't be a consistent postseason performer. Imagine him without a top 10 passer ever.

Malone in his prime destroyed David Robinson head to head. The TS% of the 90s wasn’t great, and he averaged that 25/10/4 drawing Duncan and DRob out of the paint.. facilitating Stockton’s pick and roll.

Malone was the first PF who specialized in drawing defenses out of the paint and hitting cutters. His playmaking was of similar impact to his scoring.

Lastly, Duncan’s team was definitely better than Karl Malone’s. 98 David Robinson beats 98 Stockton by quite a bit. Avery Johnson and Will Purdue were not far off of old Hornacek and Byron Russell. Vinny Del Negro was better than Ostertag by quite a lot.

Rookie Duncan was arguably in his early prime already at 22 years old.

He averaged 25/10/4 chucking up a million shots because he was getting locked down. That's not impressive. And you're discussing his teammates as if Malone wasn't throughly outplayed by Duncan. If their supporting casts were even Duncan would've won. Winning the series doesn't make Malone the better player or the player who played better.

And I made no mention of him and Robinson head to head. Neither are solid championship level franchise players and neither of them are even remotely close to my top 20 so I'm not letting Malone off easy and comparing him to Robinson while tons of guys I'd put over him are still on the board.

[E-Balla]

Then your premise is that Kawhi, in the span of an offseason, became a selfish stat-padder and Popovich was too scared to reign him in. Again, you throw all these regular season numbers out as if any Spurs fan would tell you, “Yeah, Kawhi was better when he was scoring 22.5 playoff points per game on 60% true shooting than he was when scoring 28 points per game on 67% true shooting.” That is not Jordan or Kobe level suppression. That is increasing volume by twenty-five percent while increasing efficiency. And to prove it was not a total fluke, his next playoff run increased the volume even further while still maintaining efficiency above his 2016 self (against several of the league’s top defences, no less). You complain about his playmaking when he was demonstrably a better and more willing passer in both superstar playoff runs than in 2016.

A few issues here:

1. Variance still applies as does effort. Yes Kawhi played better in the 2017 playoffs offensively and I don't think anyone would deny that. No that doesn't mean he was better when he saved more energy for his offense and shot higher than usual percentages from everywhere. There's still no evidence Kawhi playing like that helps a team as much as Kawhi playing like he did in 2016.

2. Kawhi in the 2016 playoffs took 21.8 TSA per 75. In the 2017 playoffs he took 22.2 TSA per 75. His volume didn't actually increase much, he had a 28.2 USG% in the 2017 playoffs and a 28.1 USG% in the 2016 playoffs. Any argument about volume should make note of the fact that Kawhi's volume in 2016 was already high and the main gap in per game numbers came down to increased efficiency due to shifting leaguewide guidelines for officiating and a slight hot streak in the playoffs before the injury.

3. Assist per game is not a measurement of how willing a passer someone is or how effective a passer someone is. Go watch the offense of the 2016 Spurs vs the offense of the 2017 Spurs and 2019 Raptors and you'll immediately notice the ball sticking to Kawhi less. His touches aren't even way up since 2016 what is way up is his time of possession and average seconds per touch which went from 3.05 to 4.24 which is major over 52 to 57 touches a night. Overall his time of possession per game went up a full 50% since 2016.

4. His volume did increase this last year but the league has changed rules and his 61.9 TS% in 2019 isn't as impressive as a 59.7 TS% in 2016. League wide ORTG is up 4 points since 2016, that's why once you adjust for league average and minutes played Kawhi's 2016 postseason production is superior.

Again, find me a Spurs fan who thinks he was better in 2016. Or a beat reporter. Any reputable analyst.

I'm making an argument for myself, how about you actually read it and argue against it on its own merits.

This is a hot take just for the sake of hot takes (for the sake of curiosity, even a disreputable analyst offering this take would be interesting, because then we might see people respond to it). It would be one thing if you wanted to argue his defensive slip is worse than his offensive improvement; I would disagree, but that at least would be an honest case to be made.

Just because you refuse to listen to the case being made does not mean an honest case isn't being made. If anything I should be grilling you because you have yet to show even a small bit of proof Kawhi helped his offenses by taking primacy the way he has. At the end of the day the goal is to win by having the best offense and defense per possession and if Kawhi taking extra shots doesn't help you score more points per possession, it's not worth doing and it's not a good thing. Usually I'd ignore a player not being optimized, but if you're breaking from the system to do so you will get judged at that point.

But no, you talk about disrupting motion offences as if the Spurs were better for having willing passer Demar over him,

Their offense in 2019 was better than the 2017 Spurs and just as good as the 2019 Raptors, so they were quite literally better for having willing passer DeMar over him+Danny.

or as if the Raptors have ever shown signs of any individual/team scoring translating well to the playoffs.

Again you fail to read my posts. I said he raised their floor. DeMar is one of if not the biggest playoff choker ever, of course Kawhi is way better to have on your team in the playoffs. That's irrelevant here we're comparing Kawhi to himself, not DeMar.

It is profoundly ahistorical. Kawhi had two of the single most efficient high-volume scoring postseasons in NBA history, and you complain about him having more of a black hole effect than Moses Malone? Come off it.

Moses has been on multiple offenses better than any Kawhi has been on, how about you get off it and actually read my posts for once?

Or you waiting for frogbros to type everything I'm saying up again before you finally read it.

[liamliam1234]

1. Variance still applies as does effort. Yes Kawhi played better in the 2017 playoffs offensively and I don't think anyone would deny that. No that doesn't mean he was better when he saved more energy for his offense and shot higher than usual percentages from everywhere. There's still no evidence Kawhi playing like that helps a team as much as Kawhi playing like he did in 2016.

There is no evidence that the 2017 Spurs were worse in the playoffs because of Kawhi playing how he did.

2. Kawhi in the 2016 playoffs took 21.8 TSA per 75. In the 2017 playoffs he took 22.2 TSA per 75. His volume didn't actually increase much, he had a 28.2 USG% in the 2017 playoffs and a 28.1 USG% in the 2016 playoffs. Any argument about volume should make note of the fact that Kawhi's volume in 2016 was already high and the main gap in per game numbers came down to increased efficiency due to shifting leaguewide guidelines for officiating and a slight hot streak in the playoffs before the injury.

Fine if it looked isolated, but as we saw this year, his performance was not much of an outlier given the leap in scoring.

3. Assist per game is not a measurement of how willing a passer someone is or how effective a passer someone is. Go watch the offense of the 2016 Spurs vs the offense of the 2017 Spurs and 2019 Raptors and you'll immediately notice the ball sticking to Kawhi less. His touches aren't even way up since 2016 what is way up is his time of possession and average seconds per touch which went from 3.05 to 4.24 which is major over 52 to 57 touches a night. Overall his time of possession per game went up a full 50% since 2016.

So? Quality of passes is also not dependent on amount of time it took to make the pass; as a Westbrook supporter, you should know that.

4. His volume did increase this last year but the league has changed rules and his 61.9 TS% in 2019 isn't as impressive as a 59.7 TS% in 2016. League wide ORTG is up 4 points since 2016, that's why once you adjust for league average and minutes played Kawhi's 2016 postseason production is superior.

But minutes played is value. You cannot just project Kawhi up eight minutes per game. Was he better against Memphis averaging thirty minutes per game in 2016 than he was needing to average heavy minutes in 2017? It is an interesting question comparing the Thunder series to the six injured games he played against the Rockets and Warriors... but then that certainly speaks to his effectiveness even while injured anyway.

Again, find me a Spurs fan who thinks he was better in 2016. Or a beat reporter. Any reputable analyst.

I'm making an argument for myself, how about you actually read it and argue against it on its own merits.

If you are dying on a hill alone while people who religiously watch the player and team tell you that you have it wrong, a person with a bit of self-awareness would probably reconsider. Again, this is a blogboi take; there is more to basketball than just fiddling with numbers.

Just because you refuse to listen to the case being made does not mean an honest case isn't being made. If anything I should be grilling you because you have yet to show even a small bit of proof Kawhi helped his offenses by taking primacy the way he has. At the end of the day the goal is to win by having the best offense and defense per possession and if Kawhi taking extra shots doesn't help you score more points per possession, it's not worth doing and it's not a good thing. Usually I'd ignore a player not being optimized, but if you're breaking from the system to do so you will get judged at that point.

And the Raptors did win having the best offence and defence per possession, because they were profoundly inept every time he stepped off the floor (pre-Finals). And you dismissing that as their systemic reliance on him is the same lazy point which has been tossed at Lebron and Westbrook. Because teams need to rely on you, but oh, if they rely on you too much, you must be a poison.

But no, you talk about disrupting motion offences as if the Spurs were better for having willing passer Demar over him,

Their offense in 2019 was better than the 2017 Spurs and just as good as the 2019 Raptors, so they were quite literally better for having willing passer DeMar over him+Danny.

Hah. I will let a Spurs fan take this one.

Again you fail to read my posts. I said he raised their floor. DeMar is one of if not the biggest playoff choker ever, of course Kawhi is way better to have on your team in the playoffs. That's irrelevant here we're comparing Kawhi to himself, not DeMar.

It is apparently relevant when you keep citing his effect on their regular season offence. You have zero evidence or suggestion as to whether the Raptors could have survived any less offensive output than he gave them in the postseason.

It is profoundly ahistorical. Kawhi had two of the single most efficient high-volume scoring postseasons in NBA history, and you complain about him having more of a black hole effect than Moses Malone? Come off it.

Moses has been on multiple offenses better than any Kawhi has been on, how about you get off it and actually read my posts for once?

Or you waiting for frogbros to type everything I'm saying up again before you finally read it.

And Moses’s impact statistics are famously marginal. It is really funny to see you talk about the whole early Wilt effect when Moses is basically his 1980s equivalent.

Also, Moses leading a superteam to a good offence is hardly the pinnacle of accomplishment. He led, what, the eighth-to-tenth ranked offence a couple of times on the Rockets? And then the 76ers offence was worse in the regular season – suddenly super important – with him on it. Wow, what a portfolio.

[E-Balla]

There is no evidence that the 2017 Spurs were worse in the playoffs because of Kawhi playing how he did.

Only if you stick to an impossible standard. We can prove they were worse in the playoffs. All we know is the Spurs swapped out Duncan (who was a net negative on offense at this point), West, and Diaw for Pau and Lee but other than that their roster remained the same and their offense played worse. We know Kawhi played at a different role. We will never be able to say for a fact why their offense got worse, but we can reasonably assume it wasn't lack of talent but utilization of their talent.

Then once we include the evidence he crippled Toronto's offense (going from +5.2 to +2.7) it makes it reasonable to believe Kawhi was also limiting San Antonio in that role.

Fine if it looked isolated, but as we saw this year, his performance was not much of an outlier given the leap in scoring.

Umm... It was definitely an outlier. Last I checked Kawhi didn't have a 67 TS% in the playoffs last year and it was instead closer to his TS% in 2016 and under his rTS% in 2016. No matter how you cut it 31 ppg on 67 TS% isn't the type of production you can consistently count on from Kawhi.

So? Quality of passes is also not dependent on amount of time it took to make the pass; as a Westbrook supporter, you should know that.

It isn't, that's why I said watch the games. And time of possession is directly correlated to apg which is why I mentioned it. No matter how you slice it you'd be hard pressed to watch tape, and come to the conclusion Kawhi improved as a passer as horrible as he is as a passer right now.

But minutes played is value. You cannot just project Kawhi up eight minutes per game. Was he better against Memphis averaging thirty minutes per game in 2016 than he was needing to average heavy minutes in 2017? It is an interesting question comparing the Thunder series to the six injured games he played against the Rockets and Warriors... but then that certainly speaks to his effectiveness even while injured anyway.

1. No one will deny that when he played the 2017 playoffs was his best.

2. He got hurt, so I don't really care about whether or not it's the best.

3. This whole argument stems from you believing Kawhi in 2016 couldn't score more because he didn't score more. It's completely relevant that per minute he had great scoring production.

4. Kawhi didn't play any games in the 2017 playoffs hurt.

5. And this is extremely important; KAWHI PLAYED 2 MORE MPG FROM 2016 TO 2017 NOT 7! Your whole premise is flawed unless you think that under 2 minutes a night extra would come with literally zero added production and even then their per game TSAs are still extremely close (18.8 vs 20.5).

If you are dying on a hill alone while people who religiously watch the player and team tell you that you have it wrong, a person with a bit of self-awareness would probably reconsider. Again, this is a blogboi take; there is more to basketball than just fiddling with numbers.

Again I started saying this all during the 2017 season and you can ask around for that. I've been saying his 2017 season was overrated before numbers existed yet because the season wasn't completed. Argue against my points, stop pretending there's no merit in what I'm saying because you personally don't agree. I don't care about common analysis, the common person doesn't watch half the games I do yearly and they definitely haven't watched half the games I've watched in the last decade.

And the Raptors did win having the best offence and defence per possession, because they were profoundly inept every time he stepped off the floor (pre-Finals). And you dismissing that as their systemic reliance on him is the same lazy point which has been tossed at Lebron and Westbrook. Because teams need to rely on you, but oh, if they rely on you too much, you must be a poison.

The gap between that criticism for LeBron (taking Blatt out of the equation because LeBron refused to listen to him) and especially Westbrook is that in their cases they weren't working with coaches that have accomplished more, and had even better offenses with other worse players. Pop has a better offense than the 2017 Spurs NOW with Kawhi being replaced by Demar. You mean to tell me DeMar is better offensively than Kawhi+Green, or is there something else up? And technically Nurse hasn't, but he led them to a better offense without Kawhi all year and Casey had their offense twice as good the year prior. A large part of why I think LeBron isn't GOAT level is that he didn't listen to Blatt which led to Cleveland needing to over rely on his play. I've long said it's why LeBron never led a #1 offense before. When we're talking about the gap between players being able to get the most out of your teammates either naturally or by listening to a coach gives you a big leg up over players that ignore the GOAT coach.

Hah. I will let a Spurs fan take this one.

I mean... It's a fact that their offense improved last year. As factual as saying the sky is blue.

It is apparently relevant when you keep citing his effect on their regular season offence. You have zero evidence or suggestion as to whether the Raptors could have survived any less offensive output than he gave them in the postseason.

The best regular season and postseason offense he's ever been on is the 2016 Spurs.

And also I've been making tons of solid arguments here. You've made zero. I'm not responding to a statement like this going forward without any facts on your side because you're saying I have no proof but I've posted plenty, meanwhile you've posted zero proof that Kawhi taking a larger role can lead an offense as good as the 2016 Spurs offense. And it's not like Kawhi isn't playing with extremely talented squads either, both of his teams in 2017 and 2019 were clearly 50+ win squads without him.

And Moses’s impact statistics are famously marginal. It is really funny to see you talk about the whole early Wilt effect when Moses is basically his 1980s equivalent.

Moses' impact statistics famously don't exist through most of his best seasons so it's strange how they are marginal, unless marginal is how you describe non existent numbers now. 83 is the only year among his top 5 years (79-83) we have on/off estimates for and his numbers weren't marginal, they were best on the team. We have numbers for years after that and he's up and down but it come and goes with effort. In 84 his numbers were also meh. In 85 he had an estimated offensive on/off higher than any offensive on/off in league history. That's the guy you're saying has a marginal impact according to numbers that don't exist.

Also, Moses leading a superteam to a good offence is hardly the pinnacle of accomplishment. He led, what, the eighth-to-tenth ranked offence a couple of times on the Rockets?

Nope he led a #1 offense with the Rockets.

And then the 76ers offence was worse in the regular season – suddenly super important – with him on it. Wow, what a portfolio.

He led them to a +5.9 postseason offense after they had a +3.5 in both 81 and 82.

The Raptors had a +3.1 offense in the 2018 postseason and a +1.1 offense the 2019 postseason prior to the Finals where they played a crippled Warriors team (overall they had a +2.4 offense). Maybe you're overestimating the Raptors offense here, make no mistake they won their games with crippling defense and luck playing a hobbled Warriors team, not Kawhi leading them to great offensive results.

EDIT: I'm not punching all the numbers but a cursory glance at the Raptors in the playoffs from 16-18 showed me the Raptors performed at over a +1.1 level in 4 of their 7 playoff series. Kawhi increased their performance, but only because with Kawhi there there's no way Toronto was going to be -5 in a series like they were 3 times from 16 to 18. He clearly didn't raise their ceiling though.

There's no comparison here in terms of their ability to lead offenses, Moses has proven he can have a #1 offense. Kawhi has proven he can't lead anything over a +3ish offense given that level of primacy. Basically both guys can lead scrubs to a +1. Moses can lead great or even just good players to a +5 or higher. Kawhi holds great or even just good players back to a +3.

Going forward I'm not responding to anything but well made points because this whole back and forth it seems like you're deciding gish gallop is the best way to make your points here. I won't be spending another hour looking up everything you say to then tell you each individual point you made was statistically false.

[liamliam1234]

1. Completely disregarding the defensive level of the Raptors opponents is exactly the disingenuousness I am talking about, especially because in the past you have been very willing to look at that. Oh, the 2018 Raptors had an okay offensive rating against the Bucks and no-defence Cavaliers? Shocking. Totally comparable to the Magic (top three performing defence going into the playoffs), 76ers (top defensive talent), and Bucks (statistically top three all season) a year later. And you do this all over the place. We ignore Lebron leading the 2017 Cavaliers to an all-time great postseason offence, but we need to remember to discount the regular season offensive dip of the 1983 76ers because of how good they were in the postseason. To say nothing about the framing over the Raptors.

2. I was looking at 1981 or 1982 for Moses. You know, the years he was at his peak? If he led a top offence earlier than then (guessing 1979), unless you are arguing that was actually his offensive peak, what is the value.

3. No impact analysis exists, huh?

there’s limited evidence that Malone was a high-peak player. He was an impact-rebounder and viable isolationist, but his presence rarely correlated with meaningful team changes (likely caused by the aforementioned passing deficiencies and questionable defense). More detailed value-measurements are even less kind to him.

... He ultimately landed in Houston, playing 31 minutes per game in 1977 before taking giant strides in ’78. Malone missed 23 games that year, and without him the “healthy” Rockets played at a 21-win pace (-7.3 SRS), but with him only a 29-win pace (-4.1 SRS).6 Although he was just 22 and rapidly developing, that’s a less-than-desirable result for any star-level player.

... we have Harvey Pollack’s plus-minus data for Moses’ four seasons in Philadelphia to help evaluate his impact. His AuPM oscillates between strong (but not transcendent) and pedestrian in those four seasons, with ’83 and ’85 looking like typical top-20 seasons and ’84 and ’86 lacking impact. Similarly, Moses’ regressed game-level data tells us that he made a difference, but that his impact was far short of a Grade-A superstar’s.

4. Again, you playing around with numbers as you see fit is not good analysis. And as far as “watching film”, no, I am not talking about casual viewers. I am talking about every person and analyst and media member who closely follows these teams arriving at a radically different conclusion from you. Engaging in rampant speculation about what could have happened if Kawhi essentially abdicated offensive responsibility on a Raptors team without anyone capable of taking over on offence is not good analysis. Citing how they played in a small sample without him against mostly joke teams is not good analysis (darn, if only we did not have Kawhi, then I guess it would not have mattered if the Warriors had Durant ). Yeah, maybe you should ask Frogbros to come in and do the work for you, because I have faith he at least would make a thorough case rather than giving the most manipulated possible take.

Anyway...
1. 2003 Tracy McGrady
Agree with posters who have been voting for him. Excellent lift on both ends; superstar impact with more than enough ability to lead a better team to a title, especially considering the performance against an excellent Detroit defence. Best season by a ringless player. Extremely comparable to peak Kobe and Wade regular seasons, without the team to permit a deeper run.

2. 2019 Kawhi Leonard
Led a team to a title. By the end had developed enough chemistry to act as capable ballhandler and passer. Historic scoring rate against strong defences, and stepped up individual defence in spots when needed against 76ers and Bucks.

3. 2019 Giannis Antetokounmpo
Strong CORP value (and obviously superb box score metrics). Excellent offensive and defensive anchoring. Admittedly disappointed in playoffs, but against historically great playoff defence which decided to hard commit to stopping him while trusting other co-stars would fail to step up.

[70sFan]

Moses anchored elite offenses in 1979 and 1980 by all measures. He also anchored good offenses in 1981 and 1982 when his supporting cast got older and weaker.

Look what happened to Rockets in 1982 after his trade. They went from +1.4 rORtg to -7.7 rORtg. The difference in rosters aren't huge, other than change of Moses for Jones.

[liamliam1234]

My point is that no one is arguing those earlier years as his peak, so maybe there is more to this analysis than just glancing at relative offensive rating and saying, “Oh, Tim Duncan’s absence probably did not matter and is the only thing worth considering.”

Maybe the Raptors suffered on offence because they basically never had Valanciunas. Anyone can pick and choose like this.

[euroleague]

As limited as Zo was it's not like Malone wasn't also limited. There's a reason his postseason production wasn't all that. Outside of the Lakers series he wasn't producing at Zo's level at all in the 98 postseason.


What? His team won against rookie Duncan but individually Malone got crushed. Karl averaged 24.6 ppg on 46.3 TS%. They won because his team was better.


He won, but he didn't play good enough to be this high.


Karl is a better offensive player. No one will argue against that. Zo is miles better on defense though, and Karl's offense isn't the greatest either. He played his whole career with Stockton and couldn't be a consistent postseason performer. Imagine him without a top 10 passer ever.

Malone in his prime destroyed David Robinson head to head. The TS% of the 90s wasn’t great, and he averaged that 25/10/4 drawing Duncan and DRob out of the paint.. facilitating Stockton’s pick and roll.

Malone was the first PF who specialized in drawing defenses out of the paint and hitting cutters. His playmaking was of similar impact to his scoring.

Lastly, Duncan’s team was definitely better than Karl Malone’s. 98 David Robinson beats 98 Stockton by quite a bit. Avery Johnson and Will Purdue were not far off of old Hornacek and Byron Russell. Vinny Del Negro was better than Ostertag by quite a lot.

Rookie Duncan was arguably in his early prime already at 22 years old.

He averaged 25/10/4 chucking up a million shots because he was getting locked down. That's not impressive. And you're discussing his teammates as if Malone wasn't throughly outplayed by Duncan. If their supporting casts were even Duncan would've won. Winning the series doesn't make Malone the better player or the player who played better.

And I made no mention of him and Robinson head to head. Neither are solid championship level franchise players and neither of them are even remotely close to my top 20 so I'm not letting Malone off easy and comparing him to Robinson while tons of guys I'd put over him are still on the board.

Duncan didn’t come close to outplaying him, and even the suggestion is absurd when watching the series.

Duncan averaged 1.2 apg, .6 spg, 1.6 bpg
Malone averaged 3.8 apg, 1.2 spg, 1 bpg

Duncan scores slightly more efficiently, but he didn’t create nearly as much for his team. He was also guarding Ostertag I believe. Malone locked down David Robinson on the other end.

[E-Balla]

1. Completely disregarding the defensive level of the Raptors opponents is exactly the disingenuousness I am talking about, especially because in the past you have been very willing to look at that. Oh, the 2018 Raptors had an okay offensive rating against the Bucks and no-defence Cavaliers? Shocking. Totally comparable to the Magic (top three performing defence going into the playoffs),

Gish gallop. Again.

76ers (top defensive talent),

Gish gallop. Again.

You're not going to get a response to outright lies, you know that right?

and Bucks (statistically top three all season) a year later.

This series was impressive but maybe you missed my main point. I've already said Kawhi improved their postseason offense. Why are you sticking to this? I already brought up 2 other years of postseason data including series against the 2016 Pacers (-3.5 defense), and the 2016 Heat (-2.0 defense) who are both better than the 2019 76ers defensively and Indiana was better than Orlando. So again, the highs of the 2019 Raptors offense in the postseason shouldn't be surprising or unexpected. Kawhi raising their floor so they didn't have their annual series playing like a -5 offense is what helped them turn the corner along with injury luck once they made the Finals and LeBron leaving the conference.

And you do this all over the place.

Only because you attempt to remove context from what I say. There's a reason my posts are so wordy. Numbers without analysis is nothing.

We ignore Lebron leading the 2017 Cavaliers to an all-time great postseason offence,

This was never done, but go off.

but we need to remember to discount the regular season offensive dip of the 1983 76ers because of how good they were in the postseason.

Nope I've literally addressed the regular season dip of their offense and how his skillset clashed with Doc. The reason I focused on the postseason was that Moses wasn't brought in to win regular season games, he was brought in to make them turn the corner and he clearly improved their postseason production which was steady in the +4 to +6 range from 78 to 82 and jumped to +10 once Moses showed up. As far as the offense goes Moses led a +5 offense by himself, and the Sixers had a +6 offense in the postseason, so unlike with Kawhi I don't feel like saying his ceiling is defined by that regular season offense.

2. I was looking at 1981 or 1982 for Moses. You know, the years he was at his peak? If he led a top offence earlier than then (guessing 1979), unless you are arguing that was actually his offensive peak, what is the value.

Or maybe it's not his offensive peak and it's just the year he had the best offensive fit around him? You know a player can peak while they're not on their best team right? Wade 09 made the list over Wade in 06 but the 06 Heat were way better than the 09 Heat.

3. No impact analysis exists, huh?

there’s limited evidence that Malone was a high-peak player. He was an impact-rebounder and viable isolationist, but his presence rarely correlated with meaningful team changes (likely caused by the aforementioned passing deficiencies and questionable defense). More detailed value-measurements are even less kind to him.

1. Prime WOWY and WOWYR are only as relevant as the years used. Moses missed a total of 7 games from 79 to 83. It's impossible to derive anything about his team's performance in a 7 game sample over 5 years. That WOWY analysis includes mostly data from seasons where Moses was decidedly not at MVP level. And it's not like he wasn't MVP level for long (5 years) but his prime according to Elgee is 78 to 90.

2. WS/48, and BPM are all boxscore derived, and decidedly not impact analysis by any stretch of the imagination.

3. AuPM exists only for 83 and seasons from his decline. Overall that AuPM sample includes 1 year of top form Moses and 3 years of declining Moses. It also uses the boxscore so it has a bias for and against certain statistical profiles regardless of whether or not it fits (because he used 05-10 to complete this dataset and I'd be pretty sure offensive rebounding was a bigger positive for offenses in the 80s than in the late 00s).

... He ultimately landed in Houston, playing 31 minutes per game in 1977 before taking giant strides in ’78. Malone missed 23 games that year, and without him the “healthy” Rockets played at a 21-win pace (-7.3 SRS), but with him only a 29-win pace (-4.1 SRS).6 Although he was just 22 and rapidly developing, that’s a less-than-desirable result for any star-level player.

Ah so a data point from when he was a 19/15 player. Still good, but not nearly the level he was from 79 to 83 when he was an MVP and the best player in the league.

... we have Harvey Pollack’s plus-minus data for Moses’ four seasons in Philadelphia to help evaluate his impact. His AuPM oscillates between strong (but not transcendent) and pedestrian in those four seasons, with ’83 and ’85 looking like typical top-20 seasons and ’84 and ’86 lacking impact. Similarly, Moses’ regressed game-level data tells us that he made a difference, but that his impact was far short of a Grade-A superstar’s.

This has been addressed, but again, Moses' play in 84 and 86 have nothing to do with his play from 79 to 83 when he was an MVP 3 times and top 5 each season outside of 80. 85 is the only other year where he was top 5 in MVP voting, it's also the only year along with 83 that Pollack tracked where Moses' +/- looks impressive. Seems to me like there's a gap in his reputation in his MVP years and other years, and if 83 and 85 are to be believed there's a gap in his impact numbers in those MVP level seasons too.

4. Again, you playing around with numbers as you see fit is not good analysis. And as far as “watching film”, no, I am not talking about casual viewers. I am talking about every person and analyst and media member who closely follows these teams arriving at a radically different conclusion from you. Engaging in rampant speculation about what could have happened if Kawhi essentially abdicated offensive responsibility on a Raptors team without anyone capable of taking over on offence is not good analysis. Citing how they played in a small sample without him against mostly joke teams is not good analysis (darn, if only we did not have Kawhi, then I guess it would not have mattered if the Warriors had Durant ). Yeah, maybe you should ask Frogbros to come in and do the work for you, because I have faith he at least would make a thorough case rather than giving the most manipulated possible take.

Nah you just aren't reading any of my posts. You have an issue where you want to argue and not have a discussion. I'm making my, case, when have you made yours? At all? What's the case FOR 2019 Kawhi over 2016 Kawhi and don't say, "everyone says he's better." You're not dumb, stand on your own analysis and not the consensus because if the consensus mattered more than analysis we'd be doing this on the GB.

[E-Balla]

My point is that no one is arguing those earlier years as his peak, so maybe there is more to this analysis than just glancing at relative offensive rating and saying, “Oh, Tim Duncan’s absence probably did not matter and is the only thing worth considering.”

Maybe the Raptors suffered on offence because they basically never had Valanciunas. Anyone can pick and choose like this.

In 2018 the Raps had a 111.1 ORTG with Val on the floor and a 109.2 ORTG without him. Again, gish gallop. Look something up before you say it for once.

[E-Balla]

Malone in his prime destroyed David Robinson head to head. The TS% of the 90s wasn’t great, and he averaged that 25/10/4 drawing Duncan and DRob out of the paint.. facilitating Stockton’s pick and roll.

Malone was the first PF who specialized in drawing defenses out of the paint and hitting cutters. His playmaking was of similar impact to his scoring.

Lastly, Duncan’s team was definitely better than Karl Malone’s. 98 David Robinson beats 98 Stockton by quite a bit. Avery Johnson and Will Purdue were not far off of old Hornacek and Byron Russell. Vinny Del Negro was better than Ostertag by quite a lot.

Rookie Duncan was arguably in his early prime already at 22 years old.

He averaged 25/10/4 chucking up a million shots because he was getting locked down. That's not impressive. And you're discussing his teammates as if Malone wasn't throughly outplayed by Duncan. If their supporting casts were even Duncan would've won. Winning the series doesn't make Malone the better player or the player who played better.

And I made no mention of him and Robinson head to head. Neither are solid championship level franchise players and neither of them are even remotely close to my top 20 so I'm not letting Malone off easy and comparing him to Robinson while tons of guys I'd put over him are still on the board.

Duncan didn’t come close to outplaying him, and even the suggestion is absurd when watching the series.

Duncan averaged 1.2 apg, .6 spg, 1.6 bpg
Malone averaged 3.8 apg, 1.2 spg, 1 bpg

Duncan scores slightly more efficiently, but he didn’t create nearly as much for his team. He was also guarding Ostertag I believe. Malone locked down David Robinson on the other end.

Malone had a 46 TS%. I'm not getting past that, he was absolutely shut down while Duncan was scoring extremely well and playing great defense.

[euroleague]

He averaged 25/10/4 chucking up a million shots because he was getting locked down. That's not impressive. And you're discussing his teammates as if Malone wasn't throughly outplayed by Duncan. If their supporting casts were even Duncan would've won. Winning the series doesn't make Malone the better player or the player who played better.

And I made no mention of him and Robinson head to head. Neither are solid championship level franchise players and neither of them are even remotely close to my top 20 so I'm not letting Malone off easy and comparing him to Robinson while tons of guys I'd put over him are still on the board.

Duncan didn’t come close to outplaying him, and even the suggestion is absurd when watching the series.

Duncan averaged 1.2 apg, .6 spg, 1.6 bpg
Malone averaged 3.8 apg, 1.2 spg, 1 bpg

Duncan scores slightly more efficiently, but he didn’t create nearly as much for his team. He was also guarding Ostertag I believe. Malone locked down David Robinson on the other end.

Malone had a 46 TS%. I'm not getting past that, he was absolutely shut down while Duncan was scoring extremely well and playing great defense.

For the era, the TS is hardly bad - And that was skewed by one awful game and one not so good one. He carried the offense with solid scoring in most of their wins, and generated far more offense than Duncan throughout the series.

The Jazz did a gentleman’s sweep of the Duncan/DRob team that won the next year. Duncan certainly had more talent around him - DRob was still in his prime, and indisputably the GOAT 2nd option if he were considered as such

[cecilthesheep]

this thread is entering the twilight zone on multiple levels

[E-Balla]

For the era, the TS is hardly bad -

League average was 52.4 TS%. The Spurs allowed a 48.2 TS%. Malone had a 46.3 TS%. Bad by all standards.
League average ORTG was a 105. The Spurs had a 99 DRTG. Malone had a 94 ORTG. Bad by all standards.

I'm not saying he was bad overall, but worse than Duncan?

And that was skewed by one awful game and one not so good one. He carried the offense with solid scoring in most of their wins, and generated far more offense than Duncan throughout the series.

He shot under 40% in 3 of the 5 games. He had under a 50 TS% in 4 of the 5 games. His average TS% was 46.3 and he was under that 3 times and over it twice in that series. I haven't rewatched the series but Malone was only +3 overall in the series despite winning it 4-1.

The Jazz did a gentleman’s sweep of the Duncan/DRob team that won the next year. Duncan certainly had more talent around him - DRob was still in his prime, and indisputably the GOAT 2nd option if he were considered as such

How do you even have a "gentleman's sweep" in a regular season series during a 50 game season? This was a very flowery way of saying they went 2-1 against the Spurs in the 1999 regular season. Plus it's wrong, the Jazz won the first game in 99 and San Antonio won the next 2 so they actually went 1-2.

[liamliam1234]

Gish gallop. Again.

You're not going to get a response to outright lies, you know that right?

I really love when people lock onto terms they repeatedly misuse. You cry “gish gallop“, FTD cries fallacy at every opportunity... Really strong stuff.

This series was impressive but maybe you missed my main point. I've already said Kawhi improved their postseason offense. Why are you sticking to this? I already brought up 2 other years of postseason data including series against the 2016 Pacers (-3.5 defense), and the 2016 Heat (-2.0 defense) who are both better than the 2019 76ers defensively and Indiana was better than Orlando. So again, the highs of the 2019 Raptors offense in the postseason shouldn't be surprising or unexpected. Kawhi raising their floor so they didn't have their annual series playing like a -5 offense is what helped them turn the corner along with injury luck once they made the Finals and LeBron leaving the conference.

Because you are saying they would have been even better with 2016 Kawhi, when there is no evidence he could provide that level of floor-raising in 2016. I also think dismissing 30 ppg on 62.5% true shooting as mere “floor-raising” is hardly an honest frame, but whatever. The issue is you acting as if anyone who watched those series thinks the regular season numbers accurately reflected the defensive level of the 76ers. Again, it is no coincidence that basically every Raptors fan and analyst invariably says the 76ers were the toughest defensive competition they faced, and the numbers back that up. The Raptors did not handle their size well; Siakam was neutralised, and Van Vleet could not get on the floor, and you sit here quoting their regular season metrics at me like it at all reflects how much of a one-man show Kawhi was forced to be on offence. Who was scoring, Marc? Lowry? Danny? It was Kawhi alone, but somehow we should trust 2016 Kawhi magically could have achieved the same elevation.

And you do this all over the place.

Only because you attempt to remove context from what I say. There's a reason my posts are so wordy. Numbers without analysis is nothing.

The irony.

We ignore Lebron leading the 2017 Cavaliers to an all-time great postseason offence,

This was never done, but go off.

What do you call whining about how he never led a top regular season offence.

Nope I've literally addressed the regular season dip of their offense and how his skillset clashed with Doc. The reason I focused on the postseason was that Moses wasn't brought in to win regular season games, he was brought in to make them turn the corner and he clearly improved their postseason production which was steady in the +4 to +6 range from 78 to 82 and jumped to +10 once Moses showed up. As far as the offense goes Moses led a +5 offense by himself, and the Sixers had a +6 offense in the postseason, so unlike with Kawhi I don't feel like saying his ceiling is defined by that regular season offense.

Are you serious. Did you pay the slightest attention to Kawhi or the Raptors during the entire regular season.

Or maybe it's not his offensive peak and it's just the year he had the best offensive fit around him? You know a player can peak while they're not on their best team right? Wade 09 made the list over Wade in 06 but the 06 Heat were way better than the 09 Heat.

No, I never considered how team context might affect offensive fit. That is a foreign concept to me. It never crossed my mind that team construction might have a lot more to do with offensive performance than individual ability. That was not on my radar at all.

Cecil is right: twilight zone indeed.

You have to be a little self-aware. If this were a different forum I would assume this to be a troll attempt; instead, it just comes across as totally oblivious.

In 2018 the Raps had a 111.1 ORTG with Val on the floor and a 109.2 ORTG without him. Again, gish gallop. Look something up before you say it for once.

I would say losing a +2 player who handled twenty-eight or so minutes or game matters a fair bit over a season, and I could do something similar for basically every previous player except Siakam. To say nothing of the known effect of chemistry adjustment (relevant for Moses, not for Kawhi, apparently).

Nah you just aren't reading any of my posts. You have an issue where you want to argue and not have a discussion. I'm making my, case, when have you made yours? At all? What's the case FOR 2019 Kawhi over 2016 Kawhi and don't say, "everyone says he's better." You're not dumb, stand on your own analysis and not the consensus because if the consensus mattered more than analysis we'd be doing this on the GB.

Always the complaint. “Oh, people just need to read me better.” How about you make more honest arguments.

You want definitive numbers for how 2019 Kawhi hypothetically elevated the Raptors in the postseason in a way his 2016 version could not have done. And you want to accuse me of a gish gallop? I watched them. Kawhi was my favourite star player before he joined the Raptors (it is a lot more complicated since). I have been watching the Raptors and him carefully for years. I, like most people, can look and see him as a demonstrably more capable scorer going from 2016 to 2017/19. I do not think there is any indication his passing has some become worse, and I think in the final few postseason games he was actually passing reasonably well (had he stayed, I think his chemistry could have helped him better evolve into a bit of a point forward). I, like most people, can see how hapless the Raptors were individually against the 76ers and how the slightest reduction in his output would have sunk them. Maybe 2016 Kawhi is a bit underrated on offence, and maybe even that offensive portfolio fit better in certain contexts (most notably the regular season). But at no point in that season did he ever suggest he could take over the way he did in the following two playoff runs, and that was the only way the Raptors were winning.

[cecilthesheep]

My point is that no one is arguing those earlier years as his peak, so maybe there is more to this analysis than just glancing at relative offensive rating and saying, “Oh, Tim Duncan’s absence probably did not matter and is the only thing worth considering.”

Maybe the Raptors suffered on offence because they basically never had Valanciunas. Anyone can pick and choose like this.

In 2018 the Raps had a 111.1 ORTG with Val on the floor and a 109.2 ORTG without him. Again, gish gallop. Look something up before you say it for once.

Wait, hold up. Surely -1.9 without JV on the floor means their offense fell off a cliff when he sat, right? [ducks]

[cecilthesheep]

So based on this thread:

* LaMarcus Aldridge was the single biggest force dragging Kawhi backwards before he left for an infinitely better supporting cast on the Raptors, and it's an embarrassing indictment of LaMarcus that all his team did in the playoffs this year was take the second seed to a game 7
* Kawhi metamorphosed into an offense-killing ball hog over the 2016 offseason, torpedoed the '17 Spurs' offensive attack, and then went to Toronto and crashed that offense off a cliff. This was mostly because he quit passing for some reason, therefore Moses Malone is the better choice
* My favorite: Karl Malone was just fine in the playoffs, everyone was that inefficient back then

These are obviously caricatures of y'all's arguments, so sorry if you feel like i'm misrepresenting it, but I don't think it's *too* exaggerated. The thing that makes it so weird is that I agree with large chunks of what basically everyone's saying. I'm reading along and i'm like, yes, accurate, good take, and then all of a sudden it turns into "the only thing KD did better than Kawhi in 2016 was shoot free throws"

[E-Balla]

I really love when people lock onto terms they repeatedly misuse. You cry “gish gallop“, FTD cries fallacy at every opportunity... Really strong stuff.

Misuse? You're constantly stating false things which I'm spending a ton of time to go look up. What else would you call that? This halfway counts too if I'm being serious, I didn't have to look it up though.

Because you are saying they would have been even better with 2016 Kawhi, when there is no evidence he could provide that level of floor-raising in 2016.

But there's also no evidence Kawhi isn't handicapping them from being the +5 offense they were with Demar. Your standard for what constitutes evidence is strange. If Kawhi played on a +10 team, I couldn't show he could raise a floor that year particularly, just like I couldn't for any player ever that wasn't asked to raise the floor of an offense.

I also think dismissing 30 ppg on 62.5% true shooting as mere “floor-raising” is hardly an honest frame, but whatever.

Well maybe you don't understand the concept of floor raising then? If Kawhi can't raise the ceiling of the Raptors to make them clearly better than when they had Demar how much does his production really matter? I've already said here I don't find much importance in scoring itself so citing point totals and efficiency doesn't do all too much to convince me he improved when his offenses seem to be underachieving massively.

The issue is you acting as if anyone who watched those series thinks the regular season numbers accurately reflected the defensive level of the 76ers. Again, it is no coincidence that basically every Raptors fan and analyst invariably says the 76ers were the toughest defensive competition they faced, and the numbers back that up. The Raptors did not handle their size well; Siakam was neutralised, and Van Vleet could not get on the floor, and you sit here quoting their regular season metrics at me like it at all reflects how much of a one-man show Kawhi was forced to be on offence. Who was scoring, Marc? Lowry? Danny? It was Kawhi alone, but somehow we should trust 2016 Kawhi magically could have achieved the same elevation.

Umm... Again, read my posts. My whole point is that Kawhi was throwing off the team offense. Why mention his teammates not producing when my whole point is that Kawhi was the reason his team couldn't produce?

Siakam averaged 19 ppg on 53 TS% while being asked to create his own shots. Marc Gasol has been a good scorer for years now.

Plus the Raptors not being able to overcome a mediocre defense doesn't make them not a mediocre defense. Brooklyn had the 19th ranked offense in the league and their ORTG against Philly was practically the same as Toronto's (107.6 vs 108). I'm done here, it's obvious you're 10 times more concerned with proving me wrong and don't actually have a point to make. Argue why 2019 Kawhi is better than 2016 Kawhi, not why E-Balla is wrong and the quality of your posts and ability to stay on topic would improve a ton because this has nothing to do with anything I've said at this point. You're just looking for **** to say I'm wrong and move on, whether or not once context is applied it makes sense or not.

And when I say make an argument I don't mean state your opinion. I mean support it. Saying random things, most of them false because you didn't take the time to look it up (example: the Magic had a top 3 defense last year), back to back to back makes it nearly impossible to respond without spending 2 hours on nba.com and basketball-reference and when we start going in circles because you refuse to acknowledge facts it's not contributing to the thread any more.

[E-Balla]

* Kawhi metamorphosed into an offense-killing ball hog over the 2016 offseason, torpedoed the '17 Spurs' offensive attack, and then went to Toronto and crashed that offense off a cliff. This was mostly because he quit passing for some reason, therefore Moses Malone is the better choice

Yes no player ever became a bigger star and started taking more shots and playing outside of the offense before... That being said, who the **** is Kristaps Porzingis?