OBPM changes of the superstars in playoffs

[Odinn21]

1. The Spurs best relative offensive regular season came in the later era.
2. The Spurs best relative offensive playoffs came in the later era ('13-14).
3. The fact that other teams were getting better at playing offense in the later era, which damps the relative edge, is based on other adopting some of the same paradigms the Spurs were adopting, and thus should not be used simply to tear down the later era accomplishment. I'm not simply comparing teams to the contemporaries, I'm comparing them to what else was possible. And more was possible back then.

Like I said, I'm not even saying they didn't improve. Just saying I don't see a that big of gap to support your strong feelings/opinions.

BTW if we go back to the thread title with those numbers;
Duncan from 2004-05 to 2006-07 had 3.5 obpm in r. season and 4.4 obpm in playoffs.
Leonard from 2014-15 to 2016-17 had 5.5 obpm in r. season and 7.5 obpm in playoffs.

Duncan led offense was pretty much on par with Leonard led offense. Then it would lead us to discussing the offensive structure of the team and offensive quality of the roster.

And this is just one team, 10 years apart with the same coach and rosters having somewhat consistency/similarities. That's why I said in OP "I'll be focusing more on changes from r. season to postseason".

Making an across teams and across era comparison is hard with this one.

[TheBonzaiEffect]

Great topic. Really fun to browse these numbers in one place

- Not surprised to see Garnett considering most of his playoff experience is getting destroyed by a superior team in the first round. It was no impossible task for a high seeded West team to target KG and limit his offense.

- I think Dame Lillard's small sample size is misleading due to his annihilation at the hands of the Pelicans in 2018 where he posts a -1.9 OBPM. Then again, when you get destroyed that badly you deserve the ugly number. Even without that number he's been dipping in the playoffs.

- Like many, I'm such a Ginobili fan, but he definitely had some uneven playoff performances. In 2013 I thought he was pretty much done as a big time playoff performer, but he bounced back the next year. I can't remember every specific series, but I have memories in my head of NBA commentators conversing in game about Ginobili's struggles. It's always funny trying to assess Ginobili's prime, because he came into the league at 25 and played until he was 39. In 2013 he was 35 and had every right to be cooked. Then he bounced back for one more really strong season and an extended plucky twilight.

- Reggie Miller has to be one of the most perfect examples of the alienation between basic numbers + mass fan perceptions and impact research + eye test. On the GB, or in many casual conversations about basketball, fans routinely call Reggie Miller one of the most overrated players of all time, even questioning why he's in the hall of fame and saying he's way worse than Ray Allen. Anybody who watched him remembers an insane competitor, and any deep dive into the numbers backs that up.

- Billups dipping is a bit surprising, considering his reputation as a clutch playoff performer. But also those Detroit years were mostly defensive slogs through the playoffs until that awkward late Detroit period where they tried to re-invent themselves as an offensive team under Flip Saunders.

The crazy part about Garnett, is even if you don’t give him extra credit for being on bad teams, even eith the drop off, his playoff offense is right in line with a bunch of other big men that people consider FAR better offensive players, and he’s much closer to guys like Kobe/Nash/Bird/Dirk/Durant than they are to Jordan/Lebron/Kareem. He’s certainly closer to those guys in terms of OBPM than they are to him defensively.

Curry’s is the most jarring because more than half the run listed is on monstrous teams that make life way easier. He doesn’t have a big chunk of his numbers having to play on huge underdogs or undermanned teams. I would bet his numbers look even worse if you extract the years Durant was there from it.

Lol, that's some serious mental gymnastics there. KG's playoff offense is nowhere near Dirk/Kobe/Bird.

Let's just look at Dirk vs. KG:

TS%: 57.7 to 52.5 - HUGE gap

ORtg: 117 to 105 - HUGE gap

OBPM (basketball ref): 5.2 to 2.8 - HUGE gap

Let's not pretend KG is even remotely near that level of offensive greatness.

[clearlynotjesse]

What's with the modern stars (Harden, KD, Steph, Lillard) dropping off in the playoffs? Better, more targeted defenses? More prone to variance (long range jump shots)? KD definitely has a midrange game so can't totally blame it on not having that. Can't imagine they're all just chokers.

[NO-KG-AI]

Great topic. Really fun to browse these numbers in one place

- Not surprised to see Garnett considering most of his playoff experience is getting destroyed by a superior team in the first round. It was no impossible task for a high seeded West team to target KG and limit his offense.

- I think Dame Lillard's small sample size is misleading due to his annihilation at the hands of the Pelicans in 2018 where he posts a -1.9 OBPM. Then again, when you get destroyed that badly you deserve the ugly number. Even without that number he's been dipping in the playoffs.

- Like many, I'm such a Ginobili fan, but he definitely had some uneven playoff performances. In 2013 I thought he was pretty much done as a big time playoff performer, but he bounced back the next year. I can't remember every specific series, but I have memories in my head of NBA commentators conversing in game about Ginobili's struggles. It's always funny trying to assess Ginobili's prime, because he came into the league at 25 and played until he was 39. In 2013 he was 35 and had every right to be cooked. Then he bounced back for one more really strong season and an extended plucky twilight.

- Reggie Miller has to be one of the most perfect examples of the alienation between basic numbers + mass fan perceptions and impact research + eye test. On the GB, or in many casual conversations about basketball, fans routinely call Reggie Miller one of the most overrated players of all time, even questioning why he's in the hall of fame and saying he's way worse than Ray Allen. Anybody who watched him remembers an insane competitor, and any deep dive into the numbers backs that up.

- Billups dipping is a bit surprising, considering his reputation as a clutch playoff performer. But also those Detroit years were mostly defensive slogs through the playoffs until that awkward late Detroit period where they tried to re-invent themselves as an offensive team under Flip Saunders.

The crazy part about Garnett, is even if you don’t give him extra credit for being on bad teams, even eith the drop off, his playoff offense is right in line with a bunch of other big men that people consider FAR better offensive players, and he’s much closer to guys like Kobe/Nash/Bird/Dirk/Durant than they are to Jordan/Lebron/Kareem. He’s certainly closer to those guys in terms of OBPM than they are to him defensively.

Curry’s is the most jarring because more than half the run listed is on monstrous teams that make life way easier. He doesn’t have a big chunk of his numbers having to play on huge underdogs or undermanned teams. I would bet his numbers look even worse if you extract the years Durant was there from it.

Lol, that's some serious mental gymnastics there. KG's playoff offense is nowhere near Dirk/Kobe/Bird.

Let's just look at Dirk vs. KG:

TS%: 57.7 to 52.5 - HUGE gap

ORtg: 117 to 105 - HUGE gap

OBPM (basketball ref): 5.2 to 2.8 - HUGE gap

Let's not pretend KG is even remotely near that level of offensive greatness.

He's not on their level, he's just closer to them than they are to GOAT's like MJ and LeBron.

Also, the gap is still smaller than the gap he has over them defensively. That "HUGE" gap you posted is because KG played most of his playoff games post prime, and Dirk's were during and before his prime. They both played at 1.8 and 1.2 OBPM after the age of 32, but Dirk played 21 games, and KG played 70 games.

OBPM to age 32: 5.7 to 4.1. Big gap, but way smaller than the gap MJ or LeBron has over Dirk, which was the original assertion that made you salty.