Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #11 - 2016-17 Stephen Curry

[falcolombardi]

Not as good or complementary as curry ones in 17 and 18 tho

and imo not better than curry ones in 15 and 22. Green is a better player than an average of jrue/bledsoe and klay comparable to middleton with iggy~brook

Regardless i am comparing defwnsive casts around green and giannis

All thinghs being equal i think giannis defense cast may be a equal to a bit better than draymond but green doesnt havr to worry about leading the offense

nothing can top how perfect curry's rosters have been for him (at least amongst great teams). if curry is one half of an amulet, then draymond green is the other half. both benefit hugely from each other. green drafted by the hornets would probably be someone we hardly talked about. their D wouldn't suit him and his offensive talents without curry wouldn't seem so important. and curry without an all time defender to give all his title teams the best defense in the league and to perfectly run the offense, both halfcourt and transition, wouldn't look as good. then throw in klay being the perfect offensive #2 and a guy like iggy to basically the draymond-lite. and that's not even mentioning KD being like the ideal type of PF for their system, while also being insanely talented.

giannis has had some nice teammates that allow them to arguably look great by measures like SRS in 2019 and 2020, but jrue has enough offensive limitations and the team as a whole relies on giannis for everything to a point that i wouldn't put them up their with the fit that the warriors are.

This

Bringing up how much talent and fit giannis rosters have in a comparision with curry, of all people, doesnt apply much

[f4p]

Hot take: i am seriously considering dwayne wade already

He is arguably the last player after hakeem and duncan (and barrt now that i remember him) who "carried" a modrrate talent team to a ring

if you can't win the playoffs with antoine walker playing the second most minutes on your team, then you just ain't that good.

[f4p]

Not as good or complementary as curry ones in 17 and 18 tho

and imo not better than curry ones in 15 and 22. Green is a better player than an average of jrue/bledsoe and klay comparable to middleton with iggy~brook

Regardless i am comparing defwnsive casts around green and giannis

All thinghs being equal i think giannis defense cast may be a equal to a bit better than draymond but green doesnt havr to worry about leading the offense

nothing can top how perfect curry's rosters have been for him (at least amongst great teams). if curry is one half of an amulet, then draymond green is the other half. both benefit hugely from each other. green drafted by the hornets would probably be someone we hardly talked about. their D wouldn't suit him and his offensive talents without curry wouldn't seem so important. and curry without an all time defender to give all his title teams the best defense in the league and to perfectly run the offense, both halfcourt and transition, wouldn't look as good. then throw in klay being the perfect offensive #2 and a guy like iggy to basically the draymond-lite. and that's not even mentioning KD being like the ideal type of PF for their system, while also being insanely talented.

giannis has had some nice teammates that allow them to arguably look great by measures like SRS in 2019 and 2020, but jrue has enough offensive limitations and the team as a whole relies on giannis for everything to a point that i wouldn't put them up their with the fit that the warriors are.

This

Bringing up how much talent and fit giannis rosters have in a comparision with curry, of all people, doesnt apply much

forgot to include, even this season the warriors were 33-11 when draymond started and 20-18 when he didn't. even steph was only at 45-19 and 8-10.

[Doctor MJ]

Not really sure what to say with the first set of data, glad you followed it up with the other samples.

With the RAPM & DRtg data, I see that you're focusing on the defensive RAPM of Giannis in 2019 & 2020, but leaning on 2021 & 2022 to make it look like there's a consistent trend of the Bucks having a comparably effective defense in the playoffs.

You're doing this because Giannis and the Bucks' best defensive regular season was also the year they got torched in the playoffs by the Miami Heat.

This is something in some ways really parallels the peak season debate with Curry, and so I kinda empathize here, but that also means I feel like you need to answer the questions analogous to those I've given my assessment on pertaining to Curry.

So:

What do you think happened to the Bucks against the Heat?
What do you think they changed in their approach after that (if anything)?
Do you think they've gotten better after that?
Why haven't they been able to be more than a middling (RS) defense after that?

I’d like to note the bucks were weird with playoff adjustments and REALLY refused to not run drop in the playoffs (which isn’t a giannis thing anyways). I’m not as sure with 2021 although I’d assume so, but in know 2022 they were running a lot of pick and roll coverages in the RS rather than just auto dropping, THATS not neccessarily the best thing to do in the RS but it means you’re prepared to do so in the playoffs (Miami does this too).

With giannis I think it’s more so his defensive data in 2019 is really good, in 2020 it’s historically good relative to his peers (I think it might be the best ever? Not sure though). We also see a decent sample of the team without him, although not definitive in any sense they were a bit better than league average in the 20 games he missed 2019 and 2020 (I think 16 of those games were with their guys there).

His defensive impact drops with the bucks defense the next two years, and while in 2022 they deployed him more involved as the roll man defender rather than as a helpside guy, which he wasn’t bad at at all but it’s not taking advantage of his talents, the defense boosts up in the playoffs and at least net rtg data stuff really point at him being the reason why on their main rotation

Otoh, his tracking data looks closer to 2019 than 2020, tracking data has faults though, but I do think if the assumption is giannis steps it up in the playoffs, and while I do think there are other factors at play the bucks defense clearly isn’t reflected by their regular season, then if you err on the side that he’s his 2020 self (an oversimplification) then he should be a tier 1A defender

On Green, I feel green is underrated for his playoff defense, but I generally have IQ and versatility as being more important on defense in the playoffs, and I think Green has the best defensive iq in nba history by quite a bit (russell better relatively speaking but that’s pretty much it). So as high as I am on giannis I’m not against draymond being a better defender in the situations they are in, quarterback draymond hits different.

I honestly feel like nitpicking giannis amd bucks defense over 2020 playoffs is like nitpicking curry and warriors offense over 2016 playoffs

And while i dont necesarrily disagree with green being a better playoffs defender than giannis

The bucks actually have a better defensive run in 19-22 (both regular season amd playoffs) than warriors did in 15-19 and is not like green didnt play with great defensive talent too

What you call "nitpicking" I call "trying to understand what actually happened".

I make no claims to be the best actually succeeding at this, but I really think it's important not to be satisfied ignoring key playoff series because they diverged from what you see elsewhere.

Curry & co learned a lot from the 2016 finals.
Giannis & co learned a lot from the 2019 & 2020 upsets.

If you don't want to try to grasp what they learned, then what is it you believe you are trying to grasp?

[falcolombardi]

I’d like to note the bucks were weird with playoff adjustments and REALLY refused to not run drop in the playoffs (which isn’t a giannis thing anyways). I’m not as sure with 2021 although I’d assume so, but in know 2022 they were running a lot of pick and roll coverages in the RS rather than just auto dropping, THATS not neccessarily the best thing to do in the RS but it means you’re prepared to do so in the playoffs (Miami does this too).

With giannis I think it’s more so his defensive data in 2019 is really good, in 2020 it’s historically good relative to his peers (I think it might be the best ever? Not sure though). We also see a decent sample of the team without him, although not definitive in any sense they were a bit better than league average in the 20 games he missed 2019 and 2020 (I think 16 of those games were with their guys there).

His defensive impact drops with the bucks defense the next two years, and while in 2022 they deployed him more involved as the roll man defender rather than as a helpside guy, which he wasn’t bad at at all but it’s not taking advantage of his talents, the defense boosts up in the playoffs and at least net rtg data stuff really point at him being the reason why on their main rotation

Otoh, his tracking data looks closer to 2019 than 2020, tracking data has faults though, but I do think if the assumption is giannis steps it up in the playoffs, and while I do think there are other factors at play the bucks defense clearly isn’t reflected by their regular season, then if you err on the side that he’s his 2020 self (an oversimplification) then he should be a tier 1A defender

On Green, I feel green is underrated for his playoff defense, but I generally have IQ and versatility as being more important on defense in the playoffs, and I think Green has the best defensive iq in nba history by quite a bit (russell better relatively speaking but that’s pretty much it). So as high as I am on giannis I’m not against draymond being a better defender in the situations they are in, quarterback draymond hits different.

I honestly feel like nitpicking giannis amd bucks defense over 2020 playoffs is like nitpicking curry and warriors offense over 2016 playoffs

And while i dont necesarrily disagree with green being a better playoffs defender than giannis

The bucks actually have a better defensive run in 19-22 (both regular season amd playoffs) than warriors did in 15-19 and is not like green didnt play with great defensive talent too

What you call "nitpicking" I call "trying to understand what actually happened".

I make no claims to be the best actually succeeding at this, but I really think it's important not to be satisfied ignoring key playoff series because they diverged from what you see elsewhere.

Curry & co learned a lot from the 2016 finals.
Giannis & co learned a lot from the 2019 & 2020 upsets.

If you don't want to try to grasp what they learned, then what is it you believe you are trying to grasp?

What i mean with nitpicking would be using one result among their whole resume as proof they are not that good

I am not saying anythingh about not analizing why they failed in 16/20 amd what to make of it

[capfan33]

Not as good or complementary as curry ones in 17 and 18 tho

and imo not better than curry ones in 15 and 22. Green is a better player than an average of jrue/bledsoe and klay comparable to middleton with iggy~brook

Regardless i am comparing defwnsive casts around green and giannis

All thinghs being equal i think giannis defense cast may be a equal to a bit better than draymond but green doesnt havr to worry about leading the offense

nothing can top how perfect curry's rosters have been for him (at least amongst great teams). if curry is one half of an amulet, then draymond green is the other half. both benefit hugely from each other. green drafted by the hornets would probably be someone we hardly talked about. their D wouldn't suit him and his offensive talents without curry wouldn't seem so important. and curry without an all time defender to give all his title teams the best defense in the league and to perfectly run the offense, both halfcourt and transition, wouldn't look as good. then throw in klay being the perfect offensive #2 and a guy like iggy to basically the draymond-lite. and that's not even mentioning KD being like the ideal type of PF for their system, while also being insanely talented.

giannis has had some nice teammates that allow them to arguably look great by measures like SRS in 2019 and 2020, but jrue has enough offensive limitations and the team as a whole relies on giannis for everything to a point that i wouldn't put them up their with the fit that the warriors are.

This

Bringing up how much talent and fit giannis rosters have in a comparision with curry, of all people, doesnt apply much

To be fair, Curry's had far more playoff success than Giannis has had as well.

[f4p]

Side note: Moses/Erving are definitely not at the top by the stats we have, but I haven't gotten a chance to compare how they look vs the lower end of the next tier yet. Hopefully soon though!

maybe Moses doesn't always look the best, but here are 6 dominant title runs I could think of off the top of my head and the separation between the #1 and #2 player on those teams:




we can see that for the 2001 lakers, 2017 warriors, and 1999 spurs, the #1 and #2 were practically identical. except for BPM, moses ends up there with MJ as being easily the best player on his team. and for what it's worth, BPM had moses as the 4th best Sixer in the regular season, so it would seem to be a stat that doesn't love him. side note, i'm starting to think michael jordan may have been good at basketball.

[Doctor MJ]

I honestly feel like nitpicking giannis amd bucks defense over 2020 playoffs is like nitpicking curry and warriors offense over 2016 playoffs

And while i dont necesarrily disagree with green being a better playoffs defender than giannis

The bucks actually have a better defensive run in 19-22 (both regular season amd playoffs) than warriors did in 15-19 and is not like green didnt play with great defensive talent too

What you call "nitpicking" I call "trying to understand what actually happened".

I make no claims to be the best actually succeeding at this, but I really think it's important not to be satisfied ignoring key playoff series because they diverged from what you see elsewhere.

Curry & co learned a lot from the 2016 finals.
Giannis & co learned a lot from the 2019 & 2020 upsets.

If you don't want to try to grasp what they learned, then what is it you believe you are trying to grasp?

What i mean with nitpicking would be using one result among their whole resume as proof they are not that good

I am not saying anythingh about not analizing why they failed in 16/20 amd what to make of it

But when I ask you for your explanation for what happened, you acknowledge you don't know, and you don't seem to be focused on correcting that so much as you are looking to draw conclusions by bypassing that process, using instead a logical algorithm based on averages.

I don't want to come off as overly harsh or haughty here. I think that when we try to learn about the game through rankings, we have to force ourselves to do the best we can at any given time knowing that when we learn more, it may lead us to very different conclusions.

Moreover, I think it's important not to flip your assessment to simply follow someone you think knows more than you. Making your assessment "whatever people who know more think" is a dead end. This to say I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "You're probably right, but based on what I can see for myself, this is the conclusion I'm reaching."

But be careful when you do this. The world of basketball fans is full of people who end up stuck stridently believing things they think they know that are not so.

[falcolombardi]

What you call "nitpicking" I call "trying to understand what actually happened".

I make no claims to be the best actually succeeding at this, but I really think it's important not to be satisfied ignoring key playoff series because they diverged from what you see elsewhere.

Curry & co learned a lot from the 2016 finals.
Giannis & co learned a lot from the 2019 & 2020 upsets.

If you don't want to try to grasp what they learned, then what is it you believe you are trying to grasp?

What i mean with nitpicking would be using one result among their whole resume as proof they are not that good

I am not saying anythingh about not analizing why they failed in 16/20 amd what to make of it

But when I ask you for your explanation for what happened, you acknowledge you don't know, and you don't seem to be focused on correcting that so much as you are looking to draw conclusions by bypassing that process, using instead a logical algorithm based on averages.

I don't want to come off as overly harsh or haughty here. I think that when we try to learn about the game through rankings, we have to force ourselves to do the best we can at any given time knowing that when we learn more, it may lead us to very different conclusions.

Moreover, I think it's important not to flip your assessment to simply follow someone you think knows more than you. Making your assessment "whatever people who know more think" is a dead end. This to say I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "You're probably right, but based on what I can see for myself, this is the conclusion I'm reaching."

But be careful when you do this. The world of basketball fans is full of people who end up stuck stridently believing things they think they know that are not so.

Ehh i would differentiate admitting uncertainty with not trying to understand thinghs

I have a clear hypothesis of why the 2020 bucks and 2016 warriors failed

Shooting variance and scheme rigidity (as you often say bucks scheme is playing the odds teams wont get hot enough from 3 to make up for the closed paint) against a hot from 3 team like miami is one,

They play a schrme where the odds are in their defense favor as long as the dice falls in 2-6 but sometimes the dice just falls in "1"

For warriors. mobile rim protectors (thompson and lebron) vs a smaller team without bigger slashers and taking advantage of warriors non shooters to let them keeping curry off rythim by ignoring warriors non shooters and not letring him shoot being the other(i think i said that already in another post to you) is hard to understate how much players like lebron who can both defend curry in space and deny draymond vertically at the rim were a kryptonite to a team like the 16 warriors (lebron defense may have been as key as his offense that series)

Lets notice than in the previous series against oklahoma warriors were actually outscored too and thunder shared the distinction of mobile rim protection in durant/ibaka/roberson to slow down the warriors offense

i think both bucks and warriors schemes were exploited on their weak points

Warriors added a huge talent upgrade by replacing barnes finishing and spacing with durant so cavs defensive tactics became less viable

while bucks have started to be more varied in their defensive coverage in playoffs and may have been lucky mast 2 years with teams not getting too hot from 3 vs them

What i meanr by not knowing was that i honestly am not sure and didnr pretend to be. Not that i dont try or care about understanding why thinghs happened

[Samurai]

1. Doctor J 1976. Yes, it was in the ABA. The final year of that league before the merger in 77 and at that point, the ABA was loaded with future Hall of Famers such as David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, Bobby Jones and Dan Issel. No plumbers or milkmen in that group. And Dr J put up one of the best all-around seasons ever. Led the league in scoring at 29.3 ppg. Fifth in rebounding at 11.0 rpg. Seventh in assists at 5.0 apg. Third in steal at 2.5 spg. Seventh in blocks at 1.9 bpg. Tenth in field goal percentage at .507% and sixth in 3-point % at 33%. And led the league in PER, Win Shares, Offensive Win Shares, Defensive Win Shares, WS/48, Box Plus/Minus, VORP, and Usage %. Off the top of my head, the only other player who dominated across that many aspects of the game might be 51 Mikan but we don't have any idea what his blocks or steal numbers were and I'd guess that the competition level in the 76 ABA was higher than the 51 NBA.

2. Stephen Curry 2016. When you look at how much the 3-point shot has changed the game of basketball, an argument could be made that perhaps only Mikan has impacted the way the game is played as much as Curry. His 402 3's were 46% more than the runner-up (Klay Thompson). But what often gets lost is that Curry did a lot more than just make 3's that season. He led the league in FT%, steals, PER, WS, Box Plus/Minus, VORP, TS%, and also finished tenth in both assists/game and Defensive WS. I have never seen a player get doubled as soon as they cross midcourt until Curry. His gravity is transcendent.

3. Oscar Robertson 1964. Averaged a near triple double with 31.4/9.9/11.0 at a time when no one was specifically trying for a triple double (I never even heard of the term in that era). But for context, we have to remember it was an era with very high pace and the big stars played far more minutes than in later eras so his counting stats would be less impressive in a later era. But context works both ways and it was much more difficult for a non-big to dominate in that era than in later eras as well. And for a guard, Oscar dominated like no other then. The Big O was 2nd in scoring, 16th in rebounds/game (the only guard to finish in the top 25), 2nd in TS%, 2nd in minutes/game, 2nd in both PER and WS (only Wilt was higher), first in Offensive WS, 10th in Defensive WS, and led the league in FT% and assists. Plus that one-handed push shot he used for free throws just looked so cool that I have to give him style points for that!

[DraymondGold]

What i mean with nitpicking would be using one result among their whole resume as proof they are not that good

I am not saying anythingh about not analizing why they failed in 16/20 amd what to make of it

But when I ask you for your explanation for what happened, you acknowledge you don't know, and you don't seem to be focused on correcting that so much as you are looking to draw conclusions by bypassing that process, using instead a logical algorithm based on averages.

I don't want to come off as overly harsh or haughty here. I think that when we try to learn about the game through rankings, we have to force ourselves to do the best we can at any given time knowing that when we learn more, it may lead us to very different conclusions.

Moreover, I think it's important not to flip your assessment to simply follow someone you think knows more than you. Making your assessment "whatever people who know more think" is a dead end. This to say I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "You're probably right, but based on what I can see for myself, this is the conclusion I'm reaching."

But be careful when you do this. The world of basketball fans is full of people who end up stuck stridently believing things they think they know that are not so.

Ehh i would differentiate admitting uncertainty with not trying to understand thinghs

I have a clear hypothesis of why the 2020 bucks and 2016 warriors failed

Shooting variance and scheme rigidity (as you often say bucks scheme is playing the odds teams wont get hot enough from 3 to make up for the closed paint) against a hot from 3 team like miami is one,

mobile rim protectors (thompson akd lebron) vs a smaller team without bigger slashers and taking advantage of warriors non shooters to let them keeping curry off rythim by ignoring warriors non shooters and not letring him shoot being the other(i think i said that already in another post to you) i think both bucks and warriors schemes were exploited on their weak points

Warriors added a huge talent upgrade by replacing barnes finishing and spacing with durant so cavs defensive tactics became less viable while bucks have started to be mpre varied in their defensive coverage in playoffs and may have been lucky mast 2 years with teams not getting too hot from 3 vs them

What i meanr by not knowing was that i honestly am not sure and didnr pretend to be. Not that i dont try or care about understanding why thinghs happened

Hi falcolombardi! I quite liked your hypothesis for the 2020 Bucks and the 2016 Warriors. It's quite fun to look for similar trends / themes across different players and teams

I do think it's missing one important factor: injuries!
2016 Warriors of course had Curry injured, and I don't think I've seen a single NBA Analyst argue otherwise. In film studies, his top speed was clearly lessened, and this does limit his ability to get his shot off. For the last 3 games of the finals, the Warriors were also missing a starter. Draymond Green was out for game 5. Andrew Bogut got injured in game 5, which limited his minutes there, and of course he couldn't play for game 6 and game 7. Iguodala was also slightly hobbled and Barnes had a cold streak at the worse time, greatly underperforming on open shots compared to the regular season. Of course, credit to LeBron and the Cavs for a fantastic Game 5–7. But: it's a lot easier to win 3 games in a row when your opponent is missing a starter in every game, and when multiple players who were available were hobbled.

The 2020 Bucks also unfortunately limited by injury. Giannis got injured in Game 4 of the second round against Miami (though the Bucks pulled through for this game), and Giannis missed Game 5 which they lost.

Personally, I'm willing to give a slightly bigger pass to the Warriors (I know, I'm sure you're shocked ). They lost the single closest finals series ever missing starters in 3/4 games they lost. It's hard to imagine the Cavs would have won 3 games in a row if Curry wasn't hobbled or if Draymond/Bogut didn't miss. The Warriors were actually up if we just look at games where they had all their starters! For the Bucks, they were down 0-3 before Giannis got injured, so I'd be hard pressed to say a healthy Giannis would've swung the series. But it's at least a factor in how they lost!

[falcolombardi]

But when I ask you for your explanation for what happened, you acknowledge you don't know, and you don't seem to be focused on correcting that so much as you are looking to draw conclusions by bypassing that process, using instead a logical algorithm based on averages.

I don't want to come off as overly harsh or haughty here. I think that when we try to learn about the game through rankings, we have to force ourselves to do the best we can at any given time knowing that when we learn more, it may lead us to very different conclusions.

Moreover, I think it's important not to flip your assessment to simply follow someone you think knows more than you. Making your assessment "whatever people who know more think" is a dead end. This to say I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "You're probably right, but based on what I can see for myself, this is the conclusion I'm reaching."

But be careful when you do this. The world of basketball fans is full of people who end up stuck stridently believing things they think they know that are not so.

Ehh i would differentiate admitting uncertainty with not trying to understand thinghs

I have a clear hypothesis of why the 2020 bucks and 2016 warriors failed

Shooting variance and scheme rigidity (as you often say bucks scheme is playing the odds teams wont get hot enough from 3 to make up for the closed paint) against a hot from 3 team like miami is one,

mobile rim protectors (thompson akd lebron) vs a smaller team without bigger slashers and taking advantage of warriors non shooters to let them keeping curry off rythim by ignoring warriors non shooters and not letring him shoot being the other(i think i said that already in another post to you) i think both bucks and warriors schemes were exploited on their weak points

Warriors added a huge talent upgrade by replacing barnes finishing and spacing with durant so cavs defensive tactics became less viable while bucks have started to be mpre varied in their defensive coverage in playoffs and may have been lucky mast 2 years with teams not getting too hot from 3 vs them

What i meanr by not knowing was that i honestly am not sure and didnr pretend to be. Not that i dont try or care about understanding why thinghs happened

Hi falcolombardi! I quite liked your hypothesis for the 2020 Bucks and the 2016 Warriors. It's quite fun to look for similar trends / themes across different players and teams

I do think it's missing one important factor: injuries!
2016 Warriors of course had Curry injured, and I don't think I've seen a single NBA Analyst argue otherwise. In film studies, his top speed was clearly lessened, and this does limit his ability to get his shot off. For the last 3 games of the finals, the Warriors were also missing a starter. Draymond Green was out for game 5. Andrew Bogut got injured in game 5, which limited his minutes there, and of course he couldn't play for game 6 and game 7. Iguodala was also slightly hobbled and Barnes had a cold streak at the worse time, greatly underperforming on open shots compared to the regular season. Of course, credit to LeBron and the Cavs for a fantastic Game 5–7. But: it's a lot easier to win 3 games in a row when your opponent is missing a starter in every game, and when multiple players who were available were hobbled.

The 2020 Bucks also unfortunately limited by injury. Giannis got injured in Game 4 of the second round against Miami (though the Bucks pulled through for this game), and Giannis missed Game 5 which they lost.

Personally, I'm willing to give a slightly bigger pass to the Warriors (I know, I'm sure you're shocked ). They lost the single closest finals series ever missing starters in 3/4 games they lost. It's hard to imagine the Cavs would have won 3 games in a row if Curry wasn't hobbled or if Draymond/Bogut didn't miss. The Warriors were actually up if we just look at games where they had all their starters! For the Bucks, they were down 0-3 before Giannis got injured, so I'd be hard pressed to say a healthy Giannis would've swung the series. But it's at least a factor in how they lost!

I always feel obliged to mention back love concussion and coming back with troubles during the finals

Now some would argue matchup wise love going down was a good thingh for the cavs but it still counts as cavs winning with their 3rd best player diminished for most of the series (and if we get into it, warriors benefitting from injuries even more in 2015 finals )

But leaving that aside is interesting that teams who were mediocre to merely ok defensively over the full season (15 cavs, 16 cavs, 18 rockets) gave warriors offense so many troubles which reslly shows how important matchups are

People often say that curry was criticized only cause of warriors 16 finals, but he and warriors had similar issues the year before too which shows how for all we talk about curry not needing shooters/spacing like helio players teams with lenght can stop his offense when they have a perimeter guy to ignore (barnes, 18 draymond) while 2021 shows how he also needs a passimg heavy roster to make it work

17 and 18 it was hard to evaluate if warriors and curry learned better how to deal with lenghty and athletic team defenses or it was just durant letting them out talent issues away. 19 and 22 did a lot of work to definetely prove curry and warriors inproving in that regard

These are two thinghs that i often call out with regards to curry when people say he only was ever criticized cause the 16 finals or that he fits perfectly on amy roster or doesnt need a specific team construction to thrive like helios nees

[DraymondGold]

Moses Malone Discussion!

Side note: Moses/Erving are definitely not at the top by the stats we have, but I haven't gotten a chance to compare how they look vs the lower end of the next tier yet. Hopefully soon though!

maybe Moses doesn't always look the best, but here are 6 dominant title runs I could think of off the top of my head and the separation between the #1 and #2 player on those teams:



we can see that for the 2001 lakers, 2017 warriors, and 1999 spurs, the #1 and #2 were practically identical. except for BPM, moses ends up there with MJ as being easily the best player on his team. and for what it's worth, BPM had moses as the 4th best Sixer in the regular season, so it would seem to be a stat that doesn't love him.

. Thanks for the reply f4p! Great points. You've inspired me to look closer at the two. I'd like to push back against a few things though.

1) Were the 83 76ers really as dominant as we remember? The 83 Philadelphia 76ers definitely had a great run. Personally though, I have them clearly as the least dominant team in that chart. Yes, they did win a lot of games. But their margin of victory is certainly not Top 6 Playoff Team of all Time level. Going by playoff SRS, they're 28th GOAT team. Now you might think this is underrating them (perhaps so!), but it's hard to imagine MOV is underrating them enough from them to go from 28th to Top 10 all time, at least to me. First Round, They had a Margin of Victory of +5.5, which is good but not great, and they were literally 1 shot away from losing Game 3 and Game 4 against a not-great Knicks. The Conference Finals was better, but again their margin of victory seems just a hair below the other teams in the list. Their finals were great, but the Lakers had an injured Bob McAdoo and a missing James Worthy. I'd have them better than 28th All Time, but a step down from the other dynasties you mentioned.

2) Was Moses really the best player by that much? The stat that rates Moses Malone highest relative to his peers is PER, followed by WS/48, followed by BPM (which doesn't really have him better than the competition). I've been on record arguing in terms of accuracy: True Plus Minus Stats > Box Plus Minus > WS/48 > PER. Why? Well, PER is the least successful all-in-one metric at predicting the chances of winning future games, followed by WS/48. NBA Organization Members also rank PER last (with WS/48 soon after) in terms of its ability to accurately capture current value. So: as we get to better and better stats, Moses' advantage over the next best player decreases and decreases.

-Offense: In terms of scoring, Moses was certainly the best on the team, but Andrew Toney and Julius Erving are definitely good 2nd and 3rd options on offense. In terms of passing: well... if Moses was chosen, he would be the weakest passer by a country mile. Moses ranks 6th in Assists/Game, and 12th in Assists/100 possessions.
-Defense: It's worth noting the 83 76ers got as much value from their defense as their offense. And while Moses is certainly a good defender, he's a far step below the other defenders we've chosen.
-Rebounding: It's worth mentioning his rebounding. Moses has more rebounding value than most players. His rebounding ability also gives him scalability/resilience arguments. Still, if we care about the time machine argument (no worries if you don't!), it's hard to imagine him maintaining this value in today's league. It's far harder for a single individual to dominate rebounding today (more shooting means longer rebounding, so it's harder to predict) and a great focus on fast breaks can punish offensive rebounders who are slow to get back.

side note, i'm starting to think michael jordan may have been good at basketball.

Love it!

Erving Discussion!
Question for Erving voters: Are people concerned that when Erving joined a more competitive league immediately after his 1976 peak, his performance took a massive drop?

If we compare 1977/1978/1979 Erving with peak Curry, Garnett, Robinson, Kobe, KD, West, Oscar, Jokic, Giannis, and Moses:
-he's last in Augmented Plus Minus
-He's last in Backpicks' Box Plus Minus and Backpicks' Postseason Box Plus Minus
-He's last in Basketball Reference's Box Plus Minus (with a -6 BPM drop! from 76 to 77-79)
-He's last in regular season / postseason PIPM estimates
-He's 3rd to last in WOWY (just over KD and Moses)
-He shows a massive drop in WS/48, though I haven't compared the numbers yet
Now it's true that the ABA did have some talent, as people have mentioned. But when the ABA and NBA merged, Erving's production took a clear drop. Erving almost looks better in 1982/1983 than he did in 1977-1979. Is there any context that I'm missing? I'd love to hear from Erving fans, since I'm far from a Dr. J expert!

[DraymondGold]

Ehh i would differentiate admitting uncertainty with not trying to understand thinghs

I have a clear hypothesis of why the 2020 bucks and 2016 warriors failed

Shooting variance and scheme rigidity (as you often say bucks scheme is playing the odds teams wont get hot enough from 3 to make up for the closed paint) against a hot from 3 team like miami is one,

mobile rim protectors (thompson akd lebron) vs a smaller team without bigger slashers and taking advantage of warriors non shooters to let them keeping curry off rythim by ignoring warriors non shooters and not letring him shoot being the other(i think i said that already in another post to you) i think both bucks and warriors schemes were exploited on their weak points

Warriors added a huge talent upgrade by replacing barnes finishing and spacing with durant so cavs defensive tactics became less viable while bucks have started to be mpre varied in their defensive coverage in playoffs and may have been lucky mast 2 years with teams not getting too hot from 3 vs them

What i meanr by not knowing was that i honestly am not sure and didnr pretend to be. Not that i dont try or care about understanding why thinghs happened

Hi falcolombardi! I quite liked your hypothesis for the 2020 Bucks and the 2016 Warriors. It's quite fun to look for similar trends / themes across different players and teams

I do think it's missing one important factor: injuries!
2016 Warriors of course had Curry injured, and I don't think I've seen a single NBA Analyst argue otherwise. In film studies, his top speed was clearly lessened, and this does limit his ability to get his shot off. For the last 3 games of the finals, the Warriors were also missing a starter. Draymond Green was out for game 5. Andrew Bogut got injured in game 5, which limited his minutes there, and of course he couldn't play for game 6 and game 7. Iguodala was also slightly hobbled and Barnes had a cold streak at the worse time, greatly underperforming on open shots compared to the regular season. Of course, credit to LeBron and the Cavs for a fantastic Game 5–7. But: it's a lot easier to win 3 games in a row when your opponent is missing a starter in every game, and when multiple players who were available were hobbled.

The 2020 Bucks also unfortunately limited by injury. Giannis got injured in Game 4 of the second round against Miami (though the Bucks pulled through for this game), and Giannis missed Game 5 which they lost.

Personally, I'm willing to give a slightly bigger pass to the Warriors (I know, I'm sure you're shocked ). They lost the single closest finals series ever missing starters in 3/4 games they lost. It's hard to imagine the Cavs would have won 3 games in a row if Curry wasn't hobbled or if Draymond/Bogut didn't miss. The Warriors were actually up if we just look at games where they had all their starters! For the Bucks, they were down 0-3 before Giannis got injured, so I'd be hard pressed to say a healthy Giannis would've swung the series. But it's at least a factor in how they lost!

I always feel obliged to mention back love concussion and coming back with troubles during the finals

Now some would argue matchup wise love going down was a good thingh for the cavs but it still counts as cavs winning with their 3rd best player diminished for most of the series (and if we get into it, warriors benefitting from injuries even more in 2015 finals )

But leaving that aside is interesting that teams who were mediocre to merely ok defensively over the full season (15 cavs, 16 cavs, 18 rockets) gave warriors offense so many troubles which reslly shows how important matchups are

People often say that curry was criticized only cause of warriors 16 finals, but he and warriors had similar issues the year before too which shows how for all we talk about curry not needing shooters/spacing like helio players teams with lenght can stop his offense when they have a perimeter guy to ignore (barnes, 18 draymond) while 2021 shows how he also needs a passimg heavy roster to make it work

These are two thinghs that i often call out with regards to curry when people say he only was ever criticized cause the 16 finals or that he fits perfectly on amy roster or doesnt need a specific team construction to thrive like helios nees

Great points!

But speaking of larger trends, there's a trend of plenty of all-time players not performing as well in their youngest deep playoff run.
-Jordan struggled in 88 and 89 and ~90 against the Jordan rules. People don't think his later playoff success is fake just because of his younger struggles.
-LeBron struggled in 10 and 11. People don't think his later playoff success is fake just because of his younger struggles.
-Dirk struggled when he was younger in the playoffs too, and again people don't think his resilience in 11 is fake.
The same pattern's true for Curry. In 2015, he had some resilience issues, because it was his first deep playoff run. Now what happens after his 15 run?
In 16, Curry starts to show improved resilience against top defenses in the regular season, but got injured in the playoffs.

After that, Curry (both statistically and by film showed) continued to show greater resilience in every other healthy playoff run.
-He improved drastically in 17
-he improved more in the playoffs in 18 despite the injury
-he improved more in 19
-he improved more in 21 in the play-ins/against top 10 defenses
-and he improved more in 22.
This seems like a pretty clear trend, at least to me. Do you disagree?

Notably, like 91 Jordan and 13 LeBron, the year most people pick for Curry’s peak (17) is the year he got close to his regular season value (though not as good as 16 regular season, just like 91 wasn’t as good as the 89 regular season and 13 wasn’t as good as the 09 regular season) with the year he finally maximized his resilience in the playoffs. Though of course some people still value the regular season enough to take the younger version (some prefer 09 LeBron or 16 Curry) and some value playoff resilience enough to take the older version (eg 16 LeBron or 21/22 Curry).

[Proxy]

-The data also suggests KD >= Kobe, but it's pretty close. KD has the scalability advantage, while Kobe is more resilient and I'd argue KD benefited from a better fitting team. Another tough choice.

I am typing up a response to your other questions but I wanted to ask about this real quick. From the data i've looked at, Kobe has a very consistent edge in APM data looking at multi year stretches(Kobe looking like a >+5/g player for the entire 06-10 stretch and KD never hitting a +5 aside from in 2016 where he hit a +6.3 - higher than any Kobe mark), while KD has a consistent, large edge when looking at box metrics and box +/- hybrid metrics in the regular season. Though in the playoffs Kobe then gains a small lead in hybrid metrics over his prime.

Is this accurate based on your findings? How did you decide to balance them? I found it surprising you concluded they suggest KD=>Kobe rather than Kobe=>KD when i'm assuming you believe the former should have more value in larger samples at least but maybe i'm doing some weird nitpicking lol

[falcolombardi]

Hi falcolombardi! I quite liked your hypothesis for the 2020 Bucks and the 2016 Warriors. It's quite fun to look for similar trends / themes across different players and teams

I do think it's missing one important factor: injuries!
2016 Warriors of course had Curry injured, and I don't think I've seen a single NBA Analyst argue otherwise. In film studies, his top speed was clearly lessened, and this does limit his ability to get his shot off. For the last 3 games of the finals, the Warriors were also missing a starter. Draymond Green was out for game 5. Andrew Bogut got injured in game 5, which limited his minutes there, and of course he couldn't play for game 6 and game 7. Iguodala was also slightly hobbled and Barnes had a cold streak at the worse time, greatly underperforming on open shots compared to the regular season. Of course, credit to LeBron and the Cavs for a fantastic Game 5–7. But: it's a lot easier to win 3 games in a row when your opponent is missing a starter in every game, and when multiple players who were available were hobbled.

The 2020 Bucks also unfortunately limited by injury. Giannis got injured in Game 4 of the second round against Miami (though the Bucks pulled through for this game), and Giannis missed Game 5 which they lost.

Personally, I'm willing to give a slightly bigger pass to the Warriors (I know, I'm sure you're shocked ). They lost the single closest finals series ever missing starters in 3/4 games they lost. It's hard to imagine the Cavs would have won 3 games in a row if Curry wasn't hobbled or if Draymond/Bogut didn't miss. The Warriors were actually up if we just look at games where they had all their starters! For the Bucks, they were down 0-3 before Giannis got injured, so I'd be hard pressed to say a healthy Giannis would've swung the series. But it's at least a factor in how they lost!

I always feel obliged to mention back love concussion and coming back with troubles during the finals

Now some would argue matchup wise love going down was a good thingh for the cavs but it still counts as cavs winning with their 3rd best player diminished for most of the series (and if we get into it, warriors benefitting from injuries even more in 2015 finals )

But leaving that aside is interesting that teams who were mediocre to merely ok defensively over the full season (15 cavs, 16 cavs, 18 rockets) gave warriors offense so many troubles which reslly shows how important matchups are

People often say that curry was criticized only cause of warriors 16 finals, but he and warriors had similar issues the year before too which shows how for all we talk about curry not needing shooters/spacing like helio players teams with lenght can stop his offense when they have a perimeter guy to ignore (barnes, 18 draymond) while 2021 shows how he also needs a passimg heavy roster to make it work

These are two thinghs that i often call out with regards to curry when people say he only was ever criticized cause the 16 finals or that he fits perfectly on amy roster or doesnt need a specific team construction to thrive like helios nees

Great points!

But speaking of larger trends, there's a trend of plenty of all-time players not performing as well in their youngest deep playoff run.
-Jordan struggled in 88 and 89 and ~90 against the Jordan rules. People don't think his later playoff success is fake just because of his younger struggles.
-LeBron struggled in 10 and 11. People don't think his later playoff success is fake just because of his younger struggles.
-Dirk struggled when he was younger in the playoffs too, and again people don't think his resilience in 11 is fake.
The same pattern's true for Curry. In 2015, he had some resilience issues, because it was his first deep playoff run. Now what happens after his 15 run?
In 16, Curry starts to show improved resilience against top defenses in the regular season, but got injured in the playoffs.

After that, Curry (both statistically and by film showed) continued to show greater resilience in every other healthy playoff run.
-He improved drastically in 17
-he improved more in the playoffs in 18 despite the injury
-he improved more in 19
-he improved more in 21 in the play-ins/against top 10 defenses
-and he improved more in 22.
This seems like a pretty clear trend, at least to me. Do you disagree?

Notably, like 91 Jordan and 13 LeBron, the year most people pick for Curry’s peak (17) is the year he got close to his regular season value (though not as good as 16 regular season, just like 91 wasn’t as good as the 89 regular season and 13 wasn’t as good as the 09 regular season) with the year he finally maximized his resilience in the playoffs. Though of course some people still value the regular season enough to take the younger version (some prefer 09 LeBron or 16 Curry) and some value playoff resilience enough to take the older version (eg 16 LeBron or 21/22 Curry).

Of course i dont disagree with your point here, i already mentioned curry 2022 and to a lesser degree 2019 proved wromg the doubts on his durant-less resiliency

Was pointint out two common pro curry points i heavily disagree with

That he doesnt need/benefit from spacing and team construction built around his strenghts and weaknesses like all the other more on ball stars

And that the only series that gave people doubts about curry was 16 finals when 15 finals had the same problems (and 16 conference finals to a smaller degree)

[capfan33]

-The data also suggests KD >= Kobe, but it's pretty close. KD has the scalability advantage, while Kobe is more resilient and I'd argue KD benefited from a better fitting team. Another tough choice.

I am typing up a response to your other questions but I wanted to ask about this real quick. From the data i've looked at, Kobe has a very consistent edge in APM data looking at multi year stretches(Kobe looking like a >+5/g player for the entire 06-10 stretch and KD never hitting a +5 aside from in 2016 where he hit a +6.3 - higher than any Kobe mark), while KD has a consistent, large edge when looking at box metrics and box +/- hybrid metrics in the regular season. Though in the playoffs Kobe then gains a small lead in hybrid metrics over his prime.

Is this accurate based on your findings? How did you decide to balance them? I found it surprising you concluded they suggest KD=>Kobe rather than Kobe=>KD when i'm assuming you believe the former should have more value in larger samples at least but maybe i'm doing some weird nitpicking lol

I suspect if you take out the Golden State years Kobe would have a clear cut advantage in the playoffs even though that may be my personal bias shining through. I generally would feel more comfortable with Kobe in the playoffs than KD even if Kobe may not have quite the ceiling KD has.

[f4p]

1) Were the 83 76ers really as dominant as we remember? The 83 Philadelphia 76ers definitely had a great run. Personally though, I have them clearly as the least dominant team in that chart. Yes, they did win a lot of games. But their margin of victory is certainly not Top 6 Playoff Team of all Time level. Going by playoff SRS, they're 28th GOAT team. Now you might think this is underrating them (perhaps so!), but it's hard to imagine MOV is underrating them enough from them to go from 28th to Top 10 all time, at least to me.

yes, they won a lot of close games. but they won 65 regular season games and felt confident enough to predict "Fo Fo Fo" before the playoffs started and then almost did it. some teams seem to be able to live that low margin of victory life and don't just pack on points in easy games or in games they have won. some teams are the kind where they mess around but ultimately win when they get serious. maybe they could have cheap-shotted marques johnson or kicked junior bridgeman in the balls if they really wanted to win game 4 against milwaukee to keep their perfect record, but 12-1 will have to suffice. beating the lakers by +10 ppg makes it seem like they saw the finish line and put the hammer down.

2) Was Moses really the best player by that much? The stat that rates Moses Malone highest relative to his peers is PER, followed by WS/48, followed by BPM (which doesn't really have him better than the competition). I've been on record arguing in terms of accuracy: True Plus Minus Stats > Box Plus Minus > WS/48 > PER. Why? Well, PER is the least successful all-in-one metric at predicting the chances of winning future games.

one of the great things about the past is we don't have to predict anything. we can just check and see that the 76ers went 12-1 and had everybody thinking nobody else had a chance. unless the other 76ers have good reasons why they apparently could not put up stats to keep up with moses, then moses' performance stands out. from the regular season, his leads were only +2.0 PER and +0.031 WS48 and -2.8 BPM, behind 3 other guys. in other words, the playoffs started and he went to a whole other level and his teammates did not and it was good enough to dominate.

-Offense: In terms of scoring, Moses was certainly the best on the team, but Andrew Toney and Julius Erving are definitely good 2nd and 3rd options on offense.

maybe normally, but they had a 49.6 TS% and 52.5 TS%, respectively in the playoffs. Dr. J fell off hard in these playoffs.

Erving Discussion!
Question for Erving voters: Are people concerned that when Erving joined a more competitive league immediately after his 1976 peak, his performance took a massive drop?

If we compare 1977/1978/1979 Erving with peak Curry, Garnett, Robinson, Kobe, KD, West, Oscar, Jokic, Giannis, and Moses:
-he's last in Augmented Plus Minus
-He's last in Backpicks' Box Plus Minus and Backpicks' Postseason Box Plus Minus
-He's last in Basketball Reference's Box Plus Minus (with a -6 BPM drop! from 76 to 77-79)
-He's last in regular season / postseason PIPM estimates
-He's 3rd to last in WOWY (just over KD and Moses)
-He shows a massive drop in WS/48, though I haven't compared the numbers yet
Now it's true that the ABA did have some talent, as people have mentioned. But when the ABA and NBA merged, Erving's production took a clear drop. Erving almost looks better in 1982/1983 than he did in 1977-1979. Is there any context that I'm missing? I'd love to hear from Erving fans, since I'm far from a Dr. J expert!

i looked at his numbers a few days ago also. it's really hard to figure out. his numbers fall off so much it seems like he couldn't hang with the nba. then 3 years later, his numbers shoot up to almost tops in the nba. his last 3 years in the ABA, he led in PER, WS48, and BPM. in years 4-6 in the nba, he led in PER one year, WS48 2 years, and BPM all 3 years. at ages 30-32! has to be one of the weirdest extended statistical dips and recoveries i've ever seen in sports. if you don't look at the 1976 peak, his playoff numbers from 77-79 in the nba don't look much different than his numbers in 73-75 in the aba, but the regular season drop is strange.

[Proxy]

Now it's true that the ABA did have some talent, as people have mentioned. But when the ABA and NBA merged, Erving's production took a clear drop. Erving almost looks better in 1982/1983 than he did in 1977-1979. Is there any context that I'm missing? I'd love to hear from Erving fans, since I'm far from a Dr. J expert!

I will say that in the playoffs from '77-'79(really on the higher end of star PS production rises), Erving's production rose but it was still nowhere rly near as good as 1976- they also weren't as dependent on him as the 76 Nets were i'd say. In 1977 he basically led them to the finals as McGinnis was pretty much dead weight that run but the team wasn't especially dominant.

I think part of the bad adjustment was the lack of three point line spacing in the NBA, and part of it were strange fits around Julius. Those teams would sometimes run double centers like Caldwell Jones and Darryl Dawkins together, George McGinnis was an awful fit alonfside Julius as they wanted to do many similar things, and World B. Free's ball dominance did not help either, they all crticized for some of these decisions. Some of those decisions helped the defense but the offense was just not optimizing him(could possibly be an argument against his portability cuz it wasn't like they were terrible offensive casts.
https://vault.si.com/vault/1977/03/21/good-but-why-not-the-best

Another problem was Julius having shaky knees throughout his career and he looked pretty reguvenated because of that, and the addition of a 3 point line by 1980:
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/21/archives/ervings-kness-pass-first-court-test-dr-j-back-knees-pass-court-test.html

There are only like 4 ABA(from 74 to 76) Julius games available on YouTube but he really did not look all THAT different than he did in the NBA playoff games immediately after to me as if he went from randomly dropping from an all-time peak to an all-nba ish level player in one year, part of me feels im either overrating ABA Julius or underrating what NBA Julius would be in a vacuum due to the bad fit and inconsistent role year to year(some years being very dependent on his scoring and other years utilizing him more like an all-around specialist), because by 1976 the ABA wasn't too far off the NBA in player quality.

The WOWY indicators are what give me the most concerns, he looks far more inconsistent year to year than other all-timers in on/off data for the NBA. Some years looking strong and other years having a...negative on/off?

Julius Erving On Court + On/Off by year

77: (+5.2/+6)
78: (+4.9/+0.6)
79: (+1.7/-0.1)
80: (+4.9/+3)
81: (+5.7/-6.7)
82: (+8.6/+10)
83: (+11.4/+10.3)
84:(3.6/+4.4)
85: (+2.9/-3.2)
86:(+4.1/+4.6)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit?usp=drivesdk

Now these are heavily influenced by fit and utilization, and he also rose in production in the playoffs. We also do not have this data for the ABA when many people have him on their ballots for exclusively what he did relative to ABA competition.

We also don't have more lineup/rotation data to really see why this is happening(one thing I see is how Bobby looks very strong as a replacement in these coming off the bench so I wonder if that factored in to it a bit because of the lineups they faced), it still looks kinda unimpressive to me even factoring these in but idk how much value should be placed into these for a ranking with all that information missing. I hope someone else defending Julius right now could answer those for me.

[falcolombardi]

-The data also suggests KD >= Kobe, but it's pretty close. KD has the scalability advantage, while Kobe is more resilient and I'd argue KD benefited from a better fitting team. Another tough choice.

I am typing up a response to your other questions but I wanted to ask about this real quick. From the data i've looked at, Kobe has a very consistent edge in APM data looking at multi year stretches(Kobe looking like a >+5/g player for the entire 06-10 stretch and KD never hitting a +5 aside from in 2016 where he hit a +6.3 - higher than any Kobe mark), while KD has a consistent, large edge when looking at box metrics and box +/- hybrid metrics in the regular season. Though in the playoffs Kobe then gains a small lead in hybrid metrics over his prime.

Is this accurate based on your findings? How did you decide to balance them? I found it surprising you concluded they suggest KD=>Kobe rather than Kobe=>KD when i'm assuming you believe the former should have more value in larger samples at least but maybe i'm doing some weird nitpicking lol

I suspect if you take out the Golden State years Kobe would have a clear cut advantage in the playoffs even though that may be my personal bias shining through. I generally would feel more comfortable with Kobe in the playoffs than KD even if Kobe may not have quite the ceiling KD has.

More than scoring efficiency where at absolute worst durant may be similar in the playoffs to kobe in comparable circunstances

I think is passing that gives kobe an advantage here